| Monday, April 10, 2006 |
| Confessions of a leaky bucket |
So George W. Bush admits it was he who ordered the "declassification" of that October, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that Scooter Libby leaked in part to Judy Miller some ten days before Bush ... um ... declassified it. Of course, he did it to help the American people "know the truth," not to discredit Joe Wilson... riiiight....
OK. Sounds like the Bushies have decided that the best way not to go down with Scooter is to be down with Scooter -- whatever Libby says, they say too. (And in their latest P.R. gambit, they have the support of the Washington Post editorial board, if not the polling department...)
2. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling (ITEM)? 4/9/06 - Summary Table*
Approve/ Disapprove /No op.
a. The situation in Iraq 37 /62 / 1
b. The US campaign against terrorism 50 / 49 / 1
c. The economy 40 /59 / 1
d. Prescription drug benefits for the elderly 37 / 53 / 10
e. Immigration issues 33 /61 /5
f. Health care 33 /62 / 4
g. The situation with gas prices 23 / 74 /3
However...
If Bush did declassify that NIE:
-- Why was it leaked only to Ms. Miller, rather than handed out to any reporter who cared to review it?
-- Why did Libby feel the need to request anonymity from Ms. Miller? Never heard of an official needing to have his or her identity disguised in order to give "declassified" information destined for the public sphere to a reporter...
-- Why has, according to Reuters, "a senior administration official said Bush did not designate Libby or anyone else to release the information, trying to distance Bush from any tactical decisions made on how to release the information."? Does that make any sense?
-- How involved was the president in the leaking ... er ... declassifying gambit? CHB suggests Bush was only tangentially involved, and that the details -- including directly Libby to spill the "declassified" beans to Judy Miller -- to the vice president...
-- And did Bush ever handle, and "declassify" -- information directly related to Joseph Wilson? I came across this very interesting February 2 post on Murray Waas' sometimes-updated Blogger blog (I don't blame you for avoiding the Blogger, Murray. It goes down more often than Sean Hannity on the president ... ahem...) The post:
Did President Bush personally receive information during his morning intelligence briefings about Joe Wilson's mission to Niger? Court filings in the CIA leak case appear to indicate that that may well might have been the case.
Information to be reviewed during the President's morning briefings are written up in what is known as Presidential Daily Briefs, or PDBs. Attorneys for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, are demanding copies of any PDBs that CIA leak special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald might have obtained during the course of his investigation. In a January 9, 2006 response to the discovery demand, Fitzgerald wrote back: “As you no doubt well aware, the documents referred to as Presidential Daily Briefs (“PDBs”) are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified. We have never requested copies of any PDBs. However, we did ask for relevant documents relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife; Valerie Plame Wilson... and the trip undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002 (even if the items/documents themselves did not refer to Wilson by name) from the Executive Branch of the President and the Office of the Vice President.
“We also sought from the Central Intelligence Agency documents relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was no requested to produce documents relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was not requested to produce documents in its files regarding Valerie Plame Wilson that were not related directly or indirectly to Ambassador Wilson’s travel to Niger in February 2002.
“In response to our requests, we have received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession reflecting discussions of Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson and/or Wilson’s trip to Niger contained in (or written on) copies of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in the redacted form in which we received them.”
One can click here to read a full set of the correspondence, which has been posted online, courstesy of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy.
Hm ... For the answer to these and many other interesting questions, let's go to the right's favorite newspaper blogger, Dan Froomkin. Dan?
The latest twist in the leak investigation -- the news that Libby told a grand jury that he had Bush's permission, via Cheney, to divulge sensitive information to journalists -- raises a slew of questions too important for the White House to duck:
Is the president telling the truth? Is he a hypocrite? Under what circumstances did he take the country to war, and how far was he willing to go to cover them up? Can the president be trusted to distinguish what's truly in the national interest, as compared to what's simply in his political interest?
What's clearly needed now is full disclosure, on the record, starting at the very top. Now back to your scheduled programming,already in progress...
BTW, where are the elected Republicans willing to defend the president on this bout of leaking ... um ... declassification?
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Tags: Plamegate, Karl Rove, Valerie Plame, Politics, Libby, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Stephen Hadley, Patrick Fitzgerald, Fitzmas, Scooter Libby |
posted by JReid @ 9:08 PM   |
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