Questions raised on president's role
WASHINGTON -- The news that President Bush allegedly authorized the leak of a classified report on Iraqi weapons in 2003 underscores the administration's eagerness to build a case against Saddam Hussein, and buttresses the contention that many media leaks come from official sources, not whistle-blowers.
The release of a sensitive CIA report called the National Intelligence Estimate could have been justified as a way of informing the public of the stakes in a possible confrontation with Iraq. And Bush's position as president gives him the legal power to declassify documents.
But the possibility that Bush authorized a selective leak to a single correspondent suggests a desire to shape the news to the administration's ends -- a possible misuse of the president's national security powers.
Court documents released this week indicate that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, said Cheney assured him that Bush had authorized the disclosure of the secret CIA report. Libby then leaked it to former New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
Such tactics are hardly unusual in politics, but would seem to damage the credibility of a president who has built a reputation for forthrightness, and who has gone further than previous presidents both in keeping information secret and in launching Justice Department investigations of alleged leakers.
''There's a certain amount of gamesmanship going on here," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the nonpartisan Federation of American Scientists. ''At a minimum it is hypocritical coming from an administration that has claimed that leaks are anathema."
Both Aftergood and Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that sued the administration to force the disclosure of records from Cheney's energy task force, questioned whether Bush had followed established procedures for declassifying documents.
''Presidents have the inherent power" to declassify documents, Fitton said. ''The question is whether he's doing it in a regular and prudent way."
The White House declined to answer reporters' questions about the alleged leak. But the news prompted a furious reaction from administration critics who had long contended that Bush had hyped the dangers of Hussein's weapons programs to justify going to war in 2003. It also reinforced complaints that the administration has been using secrecy as a weapon.
There is no precise accounting of the number of documents hidden by the administration in the years following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But security specialists say the number of classifications has risen sharply, with officials as low as clerks being empowered to shield documents.
Meanwhile, the administration has fought to keep its internal workings secret, even meetings with no direct link to national security.
Cheney battled all the way to the Supreme Court to win the right to protect the records of his task force on energy policy. The vice president argued that the administration would not receive frank advice if people feared that their comments would eventually be made public.
In recent months, the administration has taken strong steps to crack down on leakers, launching FBI investigations into which government employees were responsible for news stories about Bush's domestic spying program and the CIA's alleged secret prisons for terrorism suspects.
In response, many free speech advocates have argued for shield laws to protect reporters from being forced to testify about their sources, and for enhanced whistle-blower protections for government employees who reveal alleged wrongdoing.
Supporters of such laws have long contended that by cracking down on whistle-blowers the government gives itself a monopoly on information, since most leaks come from government officials seeking to advance the president's agenda.
Now, with the report that Bush himself authorized a leak, free speech advocates have gained an important argument both for openness in government and for the protection of leakers who don't happen to be president.
''The decision to keep information classified is often a political decision," said Fitton. ''So when the administration talks about the privilege of the executive and the importance of confidentiality. . . . it depends on where the politics are going whether they adhere to those principles." 