Libby, Cheney, Bush: The Wilson-Plame Saga Drags On

The revelation -- or accusation -- that President Bush authorized leaks of a classified document in defense of his rational for the Iraqi invasion has cemented opinions of Administration skeptics (here, here, here) and resulted in a shrug/it's-another-Democratic-plot defense from the right (here, here, here).

The big questions: What will be the impact on the average voter re presidential approval? And is the timing of this admission an attempt to have it all "blow over" before November elections?

Wilson-Plame Affair
The Valerie Plame affair has become a complex and lingering issue for the Bush White House. Just when a lull suggests the big news has come and gone ... Wham! There's a new discovery. This is the opposite of most PR advice -- which follows the track of "own up to your mistakes, all of them" and get the news hit once.

The revelation that Bush was involved in the damage control resulting from Joseph Wilson's attack on White House rhetoric is almost secondary here. Instead, Scooter Libby's assertion that Vice President Cheney told him that President Bush authorized selective leaks of the CIA-authored National Intelligence Estimate should call into question the entire process of document classification and declassification.

Declassifying Information
Why should a select group of reporters be given a "advance peak" of selected material from a classified document? Were those "peeks" the same portions of the document released to the full media two weeks later? How can anyone argue with a straight face that advance release of classified information to friendly reporters is not a political strategy? (Note: the White House is asserting "public interest.")

Not Illegal?
The lawyers appear nearly unanimous (Nixon-era Republican John Dean is a major exception) in their opinion that the leak, while out of the ordinary, was not illegal. This is because the President has sole authority for determining what documents should be classified or declassified, although the authority can be delegated. Approximately 4,000 people have the authority to classify information, according to the Washington Post.

However, Dean writes:

What is apparent, however, based on Fitzgerald's filing, is that no one other than Bush, Cheney, Libby and apparently Addington was aware of this unilateral and selective declassification - if, indeed, the NIE was declassified. The secrecy surely suggests cover-up. For example, Fitzgerald notes that Libby "consciously decided not to make [then Deputy National Security Adviser] Hadley aware of the fact that defendant [Libby] himself had already been disseminating the NIE by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified." (Also, CIA Director George Tenet apparently was not aware of the partial declassification by Bush.)

Whatever authority Bush may or may not have had, however, it is crystal clear that Vice President Cheney did not have any authority to unilaterally and selectively declassify the NIE.

The Salt Lake Tribune also disagrees with conventional wisdom: "If it is legal for a president to treat classified information in such a politically motivated manner, an idea that even made Libby uncomfortable, it shouldn't be."

Increasingly Secret
This discussion of declassification is ironic given this Administration's penchant for secrecy. The number of documents classified as secret almost doubled between 2000 and 2004.

In February, according to the Star-Tribune, the NY Times reported: "In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians."

Read that again. Federal intelligence agencies are reclassifying documents that by law were made available for public review after 25 years, documents such as "a 1962 telegram from George F. Kennan, then ambassador to Yugoslavia, containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program," the Times reported on March 3.

Add to this the growing backlog of FOI (Freedom of Information) requests ("the total number of requests pending at the 15 executive departments at the end of Fiscal Year 2004 was 147,810, a 24 percent increase over the previous year") and you begin to see a picture of a hide-and-duck Administration.

A strong dose of sunlight is long overdue.

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