The news of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's testimony created a firestorm in Washington where US President Bush was widely criticised by Democrats on Capitol Hill, writes Sharif Abdel-Kouddous from New York Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- the United States vice-president's former chief of staff -- has testified that President George W Bush authorised him to leak details of a highly classified intelligence assessment on Iraq to the media in an effort to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war. This marks the first time Bush has been linked to the leaking of classified information and raises new questions if the president was directly tied to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. "If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking," said Jane Harman, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "The president is revealed as the leaker-in-chief." Libby's grand jury testimony was cited in court papers filed by prosecutors last week. Libby was indicted in October 2005 on charges that he lied to investigators about his role in the outing of former undercover CIA operative Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. In July 2003, Wilson penned a widely- quoted opinion piece in The New York Times questioning the accuracy of Bush's claim that Iraq had sought nuclear materials from Niger and accusing the administration of deliberately distorting intelligence to make the case for war. According to Libby's testimony, Vice- President Dick Cheney told him to divulge to the media portions of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding Saddam Hussein's alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons in an effort to discredit Wilson's claims. Libby says that he initially refused to do so because the NIE was classified. A little later on, Cheney told Libby that he had gone to Bush, and that Bush had specifically authorised leaking the information in the NIE. According to the court papers, Libby testified that such presidential authorisation to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection." Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that by authorising the disclosure, Bush had in effect declassified the information. In fact, it was Bush himself who issued an executive order in March 2003 to give the president and vice-president this very authority to declassify documents. With Bush's permission to leak the information, Libby met then- New York Times reporter Judith Miller on 8 July, 2003 in a Washington hotel. The court papers said that Libby understood he was to tell Miller that a key judgement of the intelligence estimate was that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium in an effort to undermine Wilson's article published just two days earlier. According to The Washington Post, even the CIA did not believe this NIE finding, which came from the Defense Intelligence Agency and remains unproved to this day. Prosecutors have alleged in the case against Libby that at that same meeting he also gave information to Miller about the identity of Plame. But the court filing makes no allegation that Bush or Cheney authorised the disclosure of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative, which is a felony crime. However, the papers do place the president, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to Plame's outing. "If the president of the United States is authorising leaks of classified material in order to destroy people who oppose his point of view, or go after them, then something is really unbelievably wrong with their standards, as well as the lack of accountability in this administration," said Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. The fact that Bush gave the green light to disclose classified information to the media directly contradicts his posture throughout his term, where he has often denounced leaks from his administration and vowed to punish the leakers. In September 2003, Bush said at a news conference, "I've constantly expressed my displeasure with leaks, particularly leaks of classified information. If there's a leak out of the administration, I want to know who it is. And if a person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." Most legal experts agree that Bush did not technically break the law since -- according to his own decree -- by authorising disclosure he thereby made it legal to do so. But as the Plame investigation continues to reach into the upper echelons of the White House, the "leaker-in-chief" should heed his own warning.
