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Politics : FREE AMERICA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (2812)	4/10/2006 8:33:35 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14758

Wartime president declassifies sensitive material to promote a political agenda Pipes are bursting in the Oval Office e-mail print Monday, April 10, 2006 By ALFRED P. DOBLIN It goes back to those "known knowns" that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to talk about. Who was the leak behind the outing of a CIA operative? The question has led federal prosecutors to the highest levels of the White House staff. Last fall, I. Lewis Libby Jr., aka Vice President Dick Cheney's brain, was indicted on obstruction of justice charges. Libby was Cheney's right arm, at least when the vice president didn't have a pellet gun. But Libby apparently did some heavy lifting for President Bush. In court documents filed last week, Libby testified he leaked information from the National Intelligence Estimate, a classified document, on a directive from Cheney who said it was on the president's authority. Libby says he checked with legal counsel before revealing key elements of the classified document. According to his counsel, the president had the authority to declassify sensitive material at will. I guess it's like the Queen of England walking around Hyde Park waving a sword making people knights of the realm. Whether the president can be so cavalier with classified information is a matter for congressional review. Whether the president could be so determined to bolster support for an ill-conceived war that he would feed bogus intelligence to the public is a matter of universal outrage. Bush repeatedly has said he would not tolerate anyone who leaked information. That means Bush can no longer tolerate himself. Libby does not claim the president's orders included leaking the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the media. Plame's husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, had visited Niger to determine whether Saddam Hussein was trying to purchase uranium for a bomb. Wilson concluded Saddam was not. Bush and Cheney came to a different conclusion. Wilson told his story in an op-ed piece in The New York Times and that, according to numerous accounts, incensed the White House, particularly Cheney, who continued to promote the Saddam-is-building-a-bomb theory. Libby claims he leaked information supporting the uranium theory to Judith Miller, who then worked for the Times. The courts will sort some of this out. But to what lengths did the president go to drum up support for the Iraq war? With more than 2,000 U.S. troops dead, billions of dollars wasted and no end in sight, the American public is entitled to answers. The uranium theory appeared in the president's 2003 State of the Union address. Eventually, the White House admitted it should not have been in the State of the Union. Yet, the White House still pitched its manure at Judith Miller. The Bush administration has promoted policies that restrict U.S. citizens' civil liberties: Detaining citizens without charging them with a crime, denying them access to lawyers and authorizing the wiretapping of domestic electronic communications without a warrant. The administration's position: In a time of war, the president has supreme powers. While it would be reassuring to have Clark Kent in the West Wing, George W. Bush is not Superman. He is an elected official and is accountable for his actions. If Libby's claims are true, a wartime president declassified sensitive information to promote a political agenda. That should be raising flags on Capitol Hill. Sadly, it comes after thousands of American flags have been lowered to half-staff in respect for fallen U.S. troops. bergen.com