Rawstory/Cheney leaked classified information

[cal04]

Cheney leaked classified information, too, group says


The following was released by the progressive Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Tuesday morning. The group drafted the complaint against Tom DeLay, filed by former Congressman Chris Bell, for which DeLay was admonished last year.Washington, DC, — Long before the Karl Rove scandal grew into today’s political maelstrom, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to President Bush on January 28, 2004 asking that he call upon the White House Counsel to investigate Vice President Cheney's confirmation of leaked classified information in an interview with the Rocky Mountain News on January 9, 2004. As of today, no such investigation has taken place.

Federal law prohibits leaking classified information. In addition, every government employee must also sign a nondisclosure form which prohibits confirming information that has already been leaked. A briefing booklet explaining the form warns that “further dissemination of the information or confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.”In a Jan. 9, 2004 interview, Mr. Cheney referred to a story that appeared in The Weekly Standard's November 24, 2003 issue that discussed a Defense Department memo which included a list of CIA, NSA and Defense Intelligence Agency raw reports regarding possible links between Al Queda and Iraq.

Mr. Cheney, responding to a question regarding the relationship between Iraq and Al Queda, called the Standard's story "the best information out there." Mr. Cheney’s comments conflicted with the Pentagon's November 15, 2003 press release stating that news reports that characterized the contents of the memo were "inaccurate" and excoriated the leak as "deplorable and maybe illegal." The Pentagon also stated that leaking such information does "serious harm to national security."

"Mr. Cheney's reference to classified information and Mr. Rove’s confirmation of Ms. Plame’s identity, accompanied by the ensuing silence from the White House, shows a distinct pattern: leaking classified information that the administration deems beneficial, without any consequences for those who disclose, is standard operating procedure," Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of CREW said today. “White House officials are simply not abiding by federal law.”

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Release__Cheney_leaked_classified_information_too_gr_0719.html

[LeftNYC]

1. The MSM won't pursue this...

they will only go so far and so high to avoid the "liberal media bias" tag and also because they like scandals but they don't like revolution.

[rodeodance]

3. they have the WH philisophy-move on-its old stuff

[Canuckistanian]

2. Just a hunch here but...

Is anyone else imagining a Cheney-Judith Miller connection here?

[LeftNYC]

4. I've been thinking about it too. I mentioned it to my gf last night

who is not political. She said I sounded like a conspiracy theorist. A term that always scares me, but the more and more I talk the more reason to believe that these may not be theories with Dubya.

[Talismom]

13. I also used to be intimidated by those calling me a conspiracy theorist.

After a while I just said that if they really believed that the 2% of the population with >80% of the worlds $ and power wouldn't conspire to hold on to and increase it, then I had a bridge in Brooklyn to sell 'em.

Now I just tell them that they are coincidence theorists. With the is administration, yer one or the other!

:shrug:

[DearAbby]

5. I had that thought a couple weeks ago...I think that is why P. Fitz is so

dogged on this one. Exactly why Miller is sitting in a cell today.

[Just Me]

6. Gee, I wonder who leaked the memo to the "Weekly Standard"

The Standard describes the memo as, "top secret", dated 10/27/03 and provided by Feith to Roberts and Rockefellar (members of the intelligence committee).

On November 15, 2003, the Pentagon admonished the leak as possibly illegal.

On November 24, 2003, the "Weekly Standard" discusses the contents of the memo.

On January 1, 2004, Cheney confirms the accuracy of the Standard's coverage of the memo.

Whoopsie!!! It's illegal to convert a government for non-governmental purposes.

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. Also relevant - the question of who forged the Niger documents and

how the fact that they were brazen, lousy forgeries that wouldn't fool a college French student was suppressed.

See the Iglesias article in the OP and the two older Hersh articles in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1939214
Thread title: Yglesias: WHO FORGED THE NIGER DOCUMENTS? At the heart of the WMD lies

Perle, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Feith -- they were all involved in this. Would Cheney have been left out of the cabal? Whoever forged the documents, the suppression of their fraudulence was deliberate. They were kept from outside experts for many months, and when finally seen, were decried as bad forgeries within a few hours.

[Old and In the Way]

8. You know, deep, deep down in all of this......the center of the onion

contains Cheney's treasonous actions of trading with the enemy (Iraq), trading with Iran, and supply dual use components to make WMD while CEO of Halliburton. There lies the root of the evil.

[maddezmom]

10. AP; Cheney once pressed for Halliburton-Iran trade

Cheney once pressed for Halliburton-Iran trade
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney, who has called Iran "the world's leading exporter of terror," pushed to lift U.S. trade sanctions against Tehran while chairman of Halliburton Co. in the 1990s. And his company's offshore subsidiaries also expanded business in Iran.

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards criticized Cheney in Tuesday night's debate for his position on Iran during the 1990s, and Edwards said he supports expanding the sanctions against Iran.

Cheney countered that he now supports sanctions against Iran but sidestepped the issue of Halliburton's involvement, saying it was being raised by Democrats "to try to confuse the voters."


Halliburton's foreign subsidiaries did about $65 million in business with Iran last year, company documents say. A federal grand jury is investigating whether Halliburton or its executives deliberately violated the U.S. ban on trade with Iran.

more:http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/10/09/build/nation/65-cheney.inc

[maddezmom]

11. Grand jury probes Cheney's Iran dealings

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040722-082257-9466r.htm

[Talismom]

14. Yup! We're back to the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower

warned about.

[Pallas180]

18. Old & INTW - you left out trading with Libya.

[central scrutinizer]

9. classified documents were openly handed to Bob Woodward

so he could write his sycophantic "Bush at War" hagiography. Classified documents are just another political tool to this gang - divulge anything that will help you or smear your enemies but deep-six those that criticize you or validate your enemies.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. With all due respect to Raw Story, their story is hype and spin

Someone leaked the information; as well as Feith or other people in the Bush administation with access to the document, any of the committee members (some of whom are Republicans) could have leaked it.

What Cheney said was "it's the best information out there". Sorry, that's not leaking it. The DoD had already accepted the leak was of a genuine document. Cheney saying "it's the best information" is actually a lie, since it's crap information, full of discredited links between al Qaeda and Iraq.

[Boo Boo]

16. I think the claim here is that Cheney violated non-disclosure by

"confirming" the information as "the best out there." If the information was covered by non-disclosure rules, and one accepts that what Cheney did was to confirm the information, then perhaps he did violate non-disclosure. Not really clear to me that what he said was a violation, but it was in spirit. He was, for all intents, confirming classified information as "legit"---I agree with you that it was actually crap.

[lonestarnot]

15. It's called "fixing the facts" no matter how you can do it!

[tiedye]

17. Important and relevant Question for Cal04:

Do you have a link to the weekly standard article that put forth the original claim of an Iraq/Al Queda connection? Was it the claim about the Pakistani cabbie (or the cabbie that looked like an Al Queda guy) meeting in Iraq with Hussein that turned out to be false?