The Osterley Times: Bush 'ordered intelligence leak'

Friday, April 07, 2006

Bush 'ordered intelligence leak'

So, we were told by Scott MaClellan, and by Bush himself, that the President strongly disapproves of leaks - and were given heavy hints that anyone who had leaked would no longer be a part of this administration.

The President then orders an enquiry, eventually led by Fitzgerald, into the heinous crime of identifying Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent; undoing years of clandestine work and endangering all of her contacts and associates.

And now we are told that President Bush himself, the man who effected outrage and ordered an enquiry, was the man who authorised the very leak that he publicly abhorred.

This is beyond shocking.

This has the President approving the crime of outing a clandestine undercover CIA agent, pretending he knew nothing about it, and then wasting public money by ordering an enquiry into the very crime that he authorised as a smoke screen to buy him time.

This is a high crime and misdemeanour. In short, this is impeachable.

All of this is coming to light in court papers prepared for the defence of "Scooter" Libby, a former second-in-command to Vice President Dick Cheney, who is facing charges of perjury in relation to Fitzgerald's enquiry.

Mr Libby reportedly says in court papers filed on Wednesday that soon after (Joe Wilson claimed the story of Saddam attempting to buy yellowcake from Niger was bogus), Mr Cheney told him to pass information from the classified National Intelligence Estimate to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter.

Disclosing classified information in that way was "unique in his recollection", his testimony reportedly says.
Mr Bush approved Mr Cheney's instruction, the vice-president told Mr Libby, according to the court papers.

The question the press need to hammer home is this, why did Bush order an enquiry into a leak that it now transpires he had actually approved?

The irony is that none of these disclosures will actually aid the defence of Libby, who is charged with perjury, not with the leaking of classified information. But the damage to Bush is immeasurable. The President is now exposed as a liar.

All the misinformation of intelligence surrounding the Iraq war was explained away as an honest mistake, as a fault of the intelligence community. This, is much more stark. This reveals the President, blatantly, up to his neck, in an outright lie.

Ordering all of his staff to co-operate with an enquiry that he sought to mislead. After all, he stated:

And I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official (who leaked the info). Now, this is a large administration, and there's a lot of senior officials. I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth. That's why I've instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators -- full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers. But we'll find out.