A Washington Post editorial concludes that Bush’s leak of selective portions of a classified NIE to reporters was a “good leak.” Several bloggers have done an excellent job in setting the record straight as to the mangled facts presented in the editorial as well as its brazen lies and unmitigated Bush propaganda.  One fact not addressed is how Bush’s good leak defense – adopted hook, line and sinker by the Washington Post –  is full of holes. How can the public accept as fact that the Bush administration recognizes the distinction between leaks in the public interest v. leaks harming national security when Bush now has a pattern of politically motivated leaks that have dried up key intelligence sources and destroyed intelligence operations to capture and arrest al Qaeda terrorists?

The White House defense to Bush authorizing Libby via Cheney to leak selected NIE information to a few reporters is that Bush understands the difference between a good leak and a bad leak.  At a press briefing, White House press secretary McClellan stated that Bush “would never authorize disclosure of information that could compromise our nation’s security,” which is the bad leak. A good leak is when Bush declassifies “information that is in the public interest.”

The Washington Post concludes that “there was nothing illegal” about Bush’s leak, which did not “compromise national security,” and therefore was a “good leak.” The sheer stupidity of reaching a conclusion before relevant facts are publicly disclosed shows editorial irresponsibility tantamount to journalistic malpractice. Even if it is assumed that Bush’s declassification of material for reporters was in technical legal compliance with declassification procedural rules, that does not mean that the declassification complied with substantive rules governing when a declassification is proper. For example, the very fact that Bush leaked to a few reporters (rather than a general release to the public as was done 10 days later) may constitute a “misuse of the president’s national security powers.”  Moreover, if Bush’s leak was part of the White House anti-Wilson campaign, or if Bush did not tell the truth to Fitzgerald about these events, there may be violations of obstruction of justice laws even if Bush’s leak was technically legal. Until more facts are known, only speculation could even determine the universe of laws that may have been violated.

It is also unknown whether Bush authorized the leaking of Plame’s identity as a covert CIA officer, or, if this leak occurred as a reasonably foreseeable snowballing effect of an angry and passionate anti-Wilson campaign by White House officials. We do know that Bush and Cheney discussed Plame prior to the leak and that Bush was provided updates of the anti-Wilson campaign.  And, if a leak of Plame’s identity had been authorized by Bush, the national security interests are clear as it “caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad.” Until we have more facts, it is premature to conclude that Bush’s conduct was legal or illegal.

However, we can reasonably conclude, based upon 2 prior leaks, that any distinction between good leaks v. bad leaks is not a standard followed by the Bush administration. Last year, a commission Bush appointed to review the failure to find WMDs in Iraq warned against the damage caused to national security interests when administration officials leak for political purposes:

”Policymakers who leak intelligence to the press in order to gain political advantage… may do so without fully appreciating the potential harm that can result to sources and methods,” the commission said.  It said the intelligence community should consider implementing ”a widespread, modern-day equivalent of the ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ campaign to educate individuals about their legal obligations and possible penalties to safeguard intelligence information.”

Indeed, the loose lips of the Bush team may have caused the sinking of 2 salient anti-terror operations by Israel and Pakistan. Bush has authorized or participated in leaks in 2004 and 2005 to advance his political purposes at the expense of harming foreign and US national security interests in the global “war on terror.”  

In October 2005, the Bush administration leaked Israeli intelligence to the public. Israel had provided the US with the contents of a secret letter written by al-Qaeda’s 2nd in command Zawahiri outlining Middle Eastern strategy to Zarqawi. The US National Intelligence Office posted the letter at its web site and Bush discussed the letter in his weekly address.

The impact, according to Israeli military intelligence, was that the leak undermined Israeli military intelligence attempts to infiltrate al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq and officials who were working in Iraq on the operation had to take “emergency steps to protect their sources.”  It was not clear whether they were able to avert “damage to their intelligence network,” but Bush’s “indiscretion had undone months of painstaking effort.” Yet, the Bush administration proclaimed at its website posting that the contents of the letter “were released only after assurances that no ongoing intelligence or military operations would be affected by making this document public.”

Politics motivated Bush’s leak. Not only did the letter promote the Zarqawi myth, but it also constituted talking points about the Iraq war that could have been written by the Bush administration.  At the time, an issue was raised as to whether the letter was a fake. According to the US government’s interpretation of this letter, the insurgents admitted that the Iraq war was a central front in the global “war on terror,” the war does not end when US troops withdraw, democracy appealed to the Iraqis, and “half the struggle” was occurring “in the battlefield of the media.”

In addition, in July 2004, the Bush administration leaked Pakistani intelligence of anti-terror operations.  The London bombers may have been home-grown, but officials stated that they were “connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago” in Pakistan.  During the Pakistan operation, a captured al-Qaeda leader’s (Khan) computer contained plans for “a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington.” Bush responded to this intelligence by raising the terror alert during the week of the Democratic Convention.  Then, to justify raising the terror alert, US officials leaked the arrest of Khan to reporters and the fact that most of the US surveillance on his computer was 3-4 years old. The problem is that Khan was assisting Pakistan in a sting operation to track down al-Qaeda operatives around the world.

The deleterious impacts were similar to those experienced by Israeli intelligence. The leak shut down an important Pakistan intelligence source and operation that had already led to a “series of al Qaeda arrests.” Moreover, the US was using information from Khan’s computer, such as phone numbers and e-mail addresses to track down al-Qaeda operatives in the US. After the US leaked Khan’s name and his arrest, “government sources told CNN that counterterrorism officials had seen a drop in intercepted communications among suspected terrorists.” And, the leak may have prevented Britain from following leads to prevent the London bombing.

There is much that we don’t know due to the secrecy of this administration. However, when foreign operations are obtaining intelligence about al-Qaeda and infiltrating the organization which Bush proclaims our enemy, and then this administration reveals that intelligence, it seems that the White House needs a refresher course on what constitutes a national security interest before it continues relying upon its “good leak” defense.

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