documents show Bush authorized Iraq leak
Former top aide to Vice President Cheney, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, told a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent’s identity that President Bush authorized him to disclose classified intelligence information about Iraq as a way of rebutting criticism from the agent’s husband, according to court papers filed by prosecutors.
Libby testified that although he gave a reporter sensitive information from a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in a July 2003 conversation with the president’s approval, he did not disclose the CIA employment of Valerie Plame.
According to a document filed Wednesday by federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Libby said he spoke to a New York Times reporter in July 2003 after learning from Vice President
Dick Cheney that Bush had authorized intelligence leaks.
“Defendant’s participation in a critical conversation with Judith Miller … occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the NIE” (National Intelligence Estimate),” the document said.
The court document does not indicate that Bush or Cheney told Libby to unveil Plame amid the ongoing intrigue over the US drive to war with Iraq in 2003.
The White House had no comment Wednesday on the new revelation, but opposition politicians pounced on it.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid cited Bush’s repeated denials of any knowledge of secret information leaks.
“I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action,” the president had said in September 2003.
“In light of today’s shocking revelation,
President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information,” Reid said. “The American people must know the truth.”
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