Cheney: confirmed leaked, classified documents?
Isn't the confirmation illegal in itself? Doesn't our VP know better?
sacbee.com
"WASHINGTON (SH) - Former Gen. Wesley Clark on Sunday accused Vice President Dick Cheney of "playing politics with national security" for his recent comments on a leaked, classified intelligence report.
Clark, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a White House investigation into statements Cheney made to Denver's Rocky Mountain News in which he called a magazine article based on leaked intelligence reports the "best source of information" on an alleged link between the former Iraqi regime and al-Qaida....
Cheney cited in an article in the Weekly Standard that was based on classified documents forwarded to Congress, and said, "That's your best source of information."
That angers critics because nearly two months earlier the Defense Department responded to publication of the article with a terse press release. It said certain still-classified, raw intelligence reports had been forwarded to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but that it was "inaccurate" to report that officials had confirmed new information about ties between Iraq and al-Qaida.
The Defense Department's statement concluded, "Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security: Such activity is deplorable and may be illegal."
Clark, former supreme allied commander of NATO, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," that by endorsing the Weekly Standard article, Cheney was essentially confirming the contents of leaked classified documents.
"Now, the standard rule on anything like this is, never to confirm it because if you confirm something like this, you're giving away maybe sources and methods," Clark said.
"The vice president said that that was the best explanation for the connection between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. So he's essentially using a leaked memo to confirm his predisposition to believe that Saddam had something to do with 9-11. That's playing politics with national security. It risks our intelligence community, our sources and methods; it's wrong."... |
