Intelligence leak timeline under scrutiny

[maddezmom]

Date data released in question
By PETE YOST
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The White House faced a barrage of questions Friday over the timing of President Bush's decision to declassify intelligence that was then leaked to the press by Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

In a tense briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked repeatedly to explain his statement from three years ago that portions of a prewar intelligence document on Iraq were declassified on July 18, 2003.

Ten days earlier, Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis Libby, had leaked snippets of intelligence from the document to New York Times reporter Judith Miller to rebut allegations by Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, Libby told prosecutors, according to documents revealed this week.

Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, said he had passed the information to Miller after being told to do so by Cheney, who advised Libby that Bush had authorized it, said a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

more:http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/nation/14295881.htm?source=rss&channel=montereyherald_nation

[alarcojon]

1. I can't comment on an ongoing investigation

I can't comment on an ongoing investigation I can't comment on an ongoing investigation I can't comment on an ongoing investigation I can't comment on an ongoing investigation I can't comment on an ongoing investigation I can't comment on an ongoing investigation I can't comment on an ongoing investigation I can't comment on an ongoing investigation

[ClintonTyree]

2. Unless it's to our advantage....

you forgot that. If it's to the Bush Administration's advantage they'll be crowing from the highest steeple and every Sunday morning talk show they can get on. Other than that, "I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation". ;)

[alarcojon]

4. That goes without saying

for this lawless, hypocritical administration.

[rooboy]

3. Ummm. if the info was declassified, then why woud the CIA complain?

By definition, no crime had been committed. Are you telling me the POTUS has let a federal investigation drag on for years when no crime was ever committed? BULL. SHIT.

[C_U_L8R]

7. Exactly.

BULL SHIT.

The CIA should know,,, and they are the ones who asked for a criminal investigation.
If what Bush says is true.. then why has he waited several years to say anything...
wasting huge resources while LYING to our faces. I think we are close to a check mate.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Two related but distinct issues here.

They are deliberatetly confusing things to cause the usual befuddlement.

1) it is a crime, period, to out a covert CIA agent.

2) portions of a top secret national intelligence estimate were leaked by bush/cheney, the portions leaked served political purposes, which purposes included derailing efforts by Ambassador Wilson to alert the public about the phony 'yellow cake' Niger connection and the bogus 'aluminum tubes'. The NIE in its entirety supports Wilson, the portions leaked, taken out of context, did not.

3) the same NIE has now been claimed to have been declassified, although the question is when exactly was it officially declassified as it seems that was done AFTER selective contents were leaked for political purposes.

4) the leaked documents do not directly name Valerie Plame. Instead, what has been revealed is that there was a conspiracy involving both Bush and Cheney directly to discredit Ambassador Wilson, that the actions included the selective release of classified information to discredit Wilson, and at the same time Wilson's wife's covert status was revealed by 'somebody in the White House'.


"On June 27, 2003, two weeks before Libby's meeting with Miller and disclosing to her portions of the NIE, Libby met with Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, and leaked the portion of the NIE that dealt with Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Niger, which was first reported by this reporter in March.

A week or so earlier, Woodward met with two other government officials, one of whom told him in a "casual" and off-handed manner that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

Woodward said the meeting with Libby and the other government officials had been set up simply as "confidential background interviews for my 2004 book 'Plan of Attack' about the lead-up to the Iraq war, ongoing reporting for the Washington Post and research for a book on Bush's second term to be published in 2006.""
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040606Y.shtml

"Mr. Libby told a grand jury he discussed the intelligence estimate with Judith Miller, then with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003. Ten days later, the intelligence estimate was formally declassified."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040806Z.shtml

Note that declassification occurred on 7-18-2003 while the woodward leak was on 2-27-2003, and woodward was given the Plame-Wilson connection before that.

[skooooo]

10. This one just doesn't pass the smell test, though...

I don't think their lying and trying to confuse things will help very much . They just look more and more desperate.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. They will present a barrage of consistent lies, our side will go off

in 50 directions and will evaluate and consider each of their lies (they will have multiple cascading lie frameworks inplace) as if they had merit. We have seen this all before. We will see it again. We will see it right here on DU where our own set of naifs trolls and idiots will mindlessly or deliberately regurgitate the various lie-memes.

We've seen it already in the regurgitation of the lie-meme "the NIE was declassified".

[UpInArms]

5. looks like this may not just "go away"

Knight Ridder had a nice article in the San Jose paper:

Libby testimony shows a White House pattern of intelligence leaks

WASHINGTON - The revelation that President Bush authorized former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to divulge classified information about Iraq fits a pattern of selective leaks of secret intelligence to further the administration's political agenda.

<snip>

But secret information that supports their policies, particularly about the Iraq war, has surfaced everywhere from the U.N. Security Council to major newspapers and magazines. Much of the information that the administration leaked or declassified, however, has proved to be incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated.

<snip>

In September 2002, unnamed Bush administration officials told The New York Times that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire specially designed aluminum tubes for use in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Experts in the Energy Department and elsewhere, however, didn't think that the tubes were designed for nuclear weapons, and it's now known that they weren't.

Nevertheless, Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Powell took to the Sunday television talk shows on the morning that the report was published to warn of a growing threat from Saddam. Rice used some of the same language that appeared in the newspaper story, warning that, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

As the war approached, the White House released other documents and statements containing allegations about Saddam's weapons and ties to terrorism, many of which included information from Iraqi defectors and other sources that already had been discredited.

...more...

What was it that Skilling and Lay said... hmmmm... I think it was something like "it looks like their on to us"

:popcorn:

[alarcojon]

6. Hard hitting article

Thanks for posting.

McClellan didn't address why administration officials often declassified information that supported their allegations about Iraq but not intelligence that undercut their claims.

A pretty clear-cut charge of hypocrisy, mendacity, and political expediency.

I hope this gets picked up more widely.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. They have been caught red-handed lying to take us to war.

What more is required? How much smoke has to be coming out of the gun?

[BR_Parkway]

16. has proved to be incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated.

So, they are finally willing to wake up and call out the Liar-in-Cheif. It's only taken the media how many years to catch up with the blogs?

[Rex]

11. What do you expect from a fundmentally illegitimate executive

branch? Honesty? Sorry, that's not how they 'won' the White House. Integrity? If that was the case then Rumsballs would have resigned years ago. I hope this is what brings down the corrupt administration currently infesting our WH.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. AP Link

White House Faces Barrage of Leak Queries

By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House faced a barrage of questions Friday over the timing of President Bush's decision to declassify intelligence that was then leaked to the press by Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

In a tense briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked repeatedly to explain his statement from three years ago that portions of a prewar intelligence document on Iraq were declassified on July 18, 2003.

...

Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, said he had passed the information to Miller after being told to do so by Cheney, who advised Libby that Bush had authorized it, said a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

McClellan told reporters July 18, 2003, that the material being released on Iraq "was officially declassified today." On Friday, McClellan interpreted his own words to mean that's when the material was "officially released."

Asked when it was declassified, McClellan refused to answer, saying the matter was part of Fitzgerald's ongoing CIA leak probe that has resulted in Libby's indictment.




EDIT: COPYRIGHT...PLEASE POST ONLY FOUR
PARAGRAPHS FROM THE NEWS SOURCE PER DU RULES.

[skids]

14. Why timing matters...

It seems inevitable that the Repugs will spin the timing as a mere technicality, that they were going to declassify the information anyway, so "it's a wash."

The procedures for declassification, however are not mere technicalities. When you declassify something there are important people doing important intelligence jobs that need to know beforehand that information is going to be declassified and released to the public. Being taken by surprise by leaked information with no warning can be dangerous and harmful to the interests of the nation.

Which is why procedures exist.

FWIW.

[BattyDem]

15. These idiots can't even do a coverup correctly!

:eyes:

Is there anything they've gotten right during the last 5 years? :shrug:

[BR_Parkway]

17. Only their stock portfolios - but they actually hire competent, trained

people to look after those. Not to mention little tidbits over cocktails and BBQ's "hey ya'll - go long on oil, I'm gonna say Nuklerize Iran next week, that'll be good for another bump in the barrel price, he he he"