Declassification unnerved White House aide By Andy Sullivan
2 hours, 39 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's 2003 decision to declassify an intelligence report to rebut an Iraq war critic stirred unease even in the White House, an administration official said on Thursday in the perjury trial of a vice presidential aide.
ADVERTISEMENT
White House official Cathie Martin said she was "not comfortable" in July of that year when her boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, told her to use the information to counter charges that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for invading Iraq.
"I wasn't sure if I could use that point because it was related to the NIE," Martin said, referring to a classified National Intelligence Estimate report that said Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium from Niger.
Bush drew criticism last spring when he admitted he declassified the report and authorized White House officials to leak it to reporters in order to counter criticism from former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who said the administration ignored his findings that no uranium sale had taken place.
With her husband FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin watching from the front row of the courtroom, Martin said she was "still not comfortable about the NIE" even as Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, began sharing the information with reporters.
Libby resigned from Cheney's office when he was charged with lying to investigators as they sought to determine who blew the cover of Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, after Wilson went public with his charges.
Libby's lawyers say he did not lie deliberately to the FBI and a grand jury, but did not remember correctly what were trivial conversations when he was preoccupied with national security matters. Cheney is expected to testify on Libby's behalf.
Prosecutors hope to show that Libby's top priority at the time was to rebut Wilson's charges.
Martin is the third government official to testify that they told Libby of Plame's identity before he says he learned of her from a reporter.
Martin said Cheney dictated a list of talking points to rebut Wilson two days after Wilson went public with his charges in July 2003, including one item that was drawn from a classified report.
Martin was not aware that Bush had already declassified the report by that time.
Martin currently works as deputy director of communications for policy and planning in the White House. |
