Fwd: Waxman Has Questions For Bush on CIA Leak Case

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Waxman Has Questions For Bush on CIA Leak Case

By Henry Waxman

t r u t h o u t | Letter

 

Thursday 06 April 2006

 

Washington, D.C. - Yesterday in a letter to President Bush, Rep. Waxman

asks for a full accounting of the President's and Vice President's actions

in authorizing leaks of classified intelligence about Iraq, while at the

same time concealing the President's knowledge of serious doubts about

Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The text of the letter follows:

 

Thursday 06 April 2006

 

The President

The White House

Washington, DC 20500

 

Dear Mr. President:

 

Two recent revelations raise grave new questions about whether you, the

Vice President, and your top advisors have engaged in a systematic abuse of

the national security classification process for political purposes. News

accounts suggest that the White House both (1) leaked classified

intelligence information to further its faulty case for war and (2)

improperly concealed information regarding your personal knowledge of

serious doubts about this intelligence. These actions appear to violate your

own executive order on handling classified information and - according to a

new memorandum by the Congressional Research Service - represent an

unprecedented expansion of the Vice President's role in this process. I

request a full accounting of White House actions and full declassification

and disclosure of all documents bearing on these critical questions.

 

Selective Declassification of NIE and Other Iraq Intelligence

 

According to an article published today in the National Journal, the

Vice President's former chief of staff, I. Lewis " Scooter " Libby, claims

that you - through Vice President Cheney - authorized him to leak to the

press classified information from an October 2002 National Intelligence

Estimate in order to blunt criticism from former Ambassador Joe Wilson about

your improper use of intelligence in the run-up to war.[1] In testimony

before the grand jury investigating the White House's leak of Valerie Plame

Wilson's status as a covert CIA operative, Mr. Libby reportedly testified

that " the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had

authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE. " [2] Mr. Libby

also reportedly testified that Vice President Cheney himself " authorized him

to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up

to war with Iraq. " [3] Both claims raise serious questions.

 

First, Mr. Libby's explanation that you authorized the leaks seems to

contradict other facts. Mr. Libby claimed that he consulted David Addington,

then counsel to the Vice President and now his chief of staff, who advised

that your leak authorization " amounted to a declassification of the

document. " [4] Yet according to the National Journal, " only three people -

the President, the Vice President and [Libby] - knew that the key judgments

of the NIE had been declassified. " It is unclear why your leak authorization

would have been concealed in this way if it was truly a declassification. In

addition, on July 18, 2003, some time after Mr. Libby leaked this classified

information to reporters, your Administration formally declassified portions

of the NIE for public release, suggesting that the information had not been

declassified until that time.

 

The claim that the Vice President himself declassified certain materials

also raises concerns. According to a new memorandum by the Congressional

Research Service, although the Vice President " appears to have some limited

declassification authority, " such as for information that he had classified

originally, " it appears that the Vice President is not otherwise authorized

to disclose or to direct or to approve the disclosure of security classified

information to persons not authorized to receive it. " [5] The CRS memo

further indicates that there is no precedent for Vice President Cheney's

alleged actions in authorizing the selective disclosure of classified

information to journalists:

 

n reviewing the public record of published sources, no instance was

found when, in the past, prior to the current administration, a Vice

President authorized the disclosure of security classified information to

journalists on a selective basis.[6]

If Mr. Libby's testimony is accurate, there are serious unanswered

questions about what authority Vice President Cheney was operating under

when he directed his staff to leak this classified information.

Improper Concealment of President's Knowledge of Intelligence Doubts

At the same time White House officials were leaking classified

information about the NIE and Ms. Plame's covert identity, they were

apparently also abusing the classification process in an entirely different

way - by keeping the public in the dark before the 2004 election regarding

warnings you personally received about the veracity of claims that Saddam

Hussein was developing nuclear weapons.

Two additional articles in the National Journal allege that in October

2002, you received a classified " President's Summary " of the National

Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.[7] According to

these articles, this document warned you explicitly that experts at the

Departments of Energy and State rejected the claim that aluminum tubes

intercepted on their way to Iraq were part of Saddam Hussein's nuclear

program. As the National Journal states:

The disclosure that Bush was informed of the DOE and State dissents is

the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate

within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he,

Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear

evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program.[8]

These warnings were particularly critical because the aluminum tubes

were one of two key pieces of supposed evidence put forth to support your

claim that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program (the

other being the now-discredited claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger).

These warnings were also significant because they came directly from Energy

Department officials who were subject matter experts on aluminum tubes.

The allegations set forth in the National Journal articles contradict

claims by your top advisors that you were not informed of these warnings.

Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, for example, was asked

whether you knew that Energy and State Department officials had rejected the

claim that the aluminum tubes were part of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program.

In response, she said: " Now, if there were any doubts about the underlying

intelligence to that NIE, those doubts were not communicated to the

president, to the vice president, or to me. " [9] As the National Journal

story states, " contrary to Rice's statement, the president was indeed

informed of such doubts when he received the October 2002 President's

Summary of the NIE. " [10]

Similarly, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett suggested

that you did not know of the dispute because you did not review the full NIE

and " did not read footnotes in a 90-page document. " [11] As the National

Journal story explains, " ecause the Bush administration was able to

control what information would remain classified, however, reporters did not

know that Bush had received the President's Summary. " [12]

The articles further report that the White House improperly concealed

this President's Summary as part of a concerted effort to avoid damaging

publicity prior to the 2004 election. According to the National Journal,

" Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political advisor, cautioned other White

House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects

would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been

personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged

within the administration. " [13]

Mr. Rove's concern reportedly arose after a review of classified

documents by Stephen Hadley, who was then Deputy National Security Advisor

and has since been promoted to National Security Advisor. According to the

articles, " Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of

a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate,

specifically written for Bush in October 2002. " [14] His review concluded

that President Bush " had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep

rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the

high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for

conventional weapons. " [15]

The articles make clear that national security concerns had little to do

with the decision not to declassify the President's Summary. As the National

Journal reported: " after reviewing the summary and realizing it would have

disclosed presidential knowledge that INR and DOE had doubts about the

tubes, senior Bush officials became preoccupied with ensuring that the text

of the document remained classified. " [16] The result was that " the White

House's damage control was largely successful, because the public did not

learn until after the 2004 elections the full extent of the president's

knowledge. ... The most crucial information was kept under wraps until long

after Bush's re-election. " [17]

If the allegations made in the National Journal articles are true, Mr.

Rove, Mr. Hadley, and other White House officials may have violated

Executive Order 12958 by keeping the President's Summary classified and

withholding it from the public. The executive order provides that

information may be classified only if its unauthorized disclosure

" reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security. " [18]

It further requires that information " shall be declassified as soon as it no

longer meets the standards for classification. " [19]

In the case of the aluminum tubes, the White House already declassified

the fact that experts at the Departments of Energy and State rejected the

claim that the tubes were part of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. This

fact was declassified as part of the larger declassification effort relating

to the October 2002 NIE. The only apparent difference between the NIE and

the President's Summary is that the summary allegedly demonstrates that you

were personally warned of this fact, contrary to the public proclamations by

your staff.

Any attempt to keep information classified for purely political purposes

is not only against the law, but contrary to our democratic tradition of

open government. The executive order is explicit on this point, stating

categorically that " n no case shall information be classified in order to

.... conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administration error; [or]

prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency. " [20] Yet if the

allegations outlined above are true, this is exactly what your advisors have

done.

Conclusion

I have written to you and your advisors on several previous occasions

regarding the failure of White House officials to comply with the executive

order on safeguarding classified information.[21] In particular, I have

asked repeatedly why you continue to allow your chief political advisor,

Karl Rove, to retain a security clearance after he discussed Valerie Plame

Wilson's identity as an undercover CIA operative with columnist Robert

Novak,[22] TIME reporter Matthew Cooper,[23] and others not authorized to

receive this classified information. To date, I have received no response.

The thrust of these new revelations is that you and your advisors at the

White House have been engaged in a much wider and systemic effort to

undermine and flout the classification provisions of your own executive

order. On one hand, you and your advisors appear to have selectively

released classified information in an attempt to support your case for war

and blunt the criticisms of Ambassador Wilson. On the other hand, you and

your advisors seem to have improperly concealed information indicating that

you were warned that intelligence on Iraq's nuclear program was challenged

by experts in your own Administration.

To address the new reports, I urge that you immediately provide a full

accounting of your actions, as well as the actions of Vice President Cheney

and other top White House advisors, relating to these claims. I also request

that you declassify the President's Summary of the October 2002 NIE and all

other documents bearing on these issues. Only in this way will Congress and

the American people understand whether you mishandled classified information

for political purposes both before and after taking the nation to war.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman

Ranking Minority Member

--------

[1] Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks, National Journal (Apr. 6, 2006).

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Disclosure of Security Classified Information, Congressional

Research Service (Mar. 10, 2006).

[6] Id.

[7] What Bush Was Told About Iraq, National Journal (Mar. 2, 2006);

Insulating Bush, National Journal (Mar. 30, 2006).

[8] What Bush Was Told About Iraq, National Journal (Mar. 2, 2006).

[9] Insulating Bush, National Journal (Mar. 30, 2006).

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[12] Id.

[14] Id.

[15] Id.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Executive Order 12958, as amended by Executive Order 13292, sec.

1.2(a) (Mar. 25, 2003).

[19] Id. at sec. 3.1(a)

[20] Id. at sec. 1.7(a)

[21] See, e.g., Letter from Rep. Henry A. Waxman to National Security

Advisor Condoleezza Rice (Jan. 14, 2004); Letter from Rep. Henry A. Waxman

and Rep. John Conyers to President George W. Bush (Feb. 10, 2004); Letter

from Rep. Henry A. Waxman to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card (July

14, 2005); Letter from Rep. Henry A. Waxman to President George W. Bush

(July 18, 2005); Letter from Rep. Henry A. Waxman to White House Counsel

Harriet Miers (Nov. 9, 2005).

[22] Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on CIA Officer, New York Times

(July 15, 2005); Rove Confirmed Plame Indirectly, Lawyer Says, Washington

Post (July 15, 2005).

[23] Matthew Cooper, What I Told the Grand Jury, TIME Magazine (July 25,

2005).

John Kerry on News that President Authorized Leak of Classified

Intelligence to Justify Case for War

" The buck doesn't stop anywhere with this White House. Now we know why

the president hasn't been straight with Americans. Two and a half years ago,

President Bush said, 'If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to

know who it is.' He said he'd fire whoever leaked classified information,

and now we know the President himself authorized it. Now we know that the

president's search for the leaker needs to go no further than a mirror. It's

time for the White House to stop hiding behind legalese and start telling

the truth. "