From: "Robert G Lewis" 


"George J. Sherwood"  wrote in
message news:4435d40d{at}w3....
> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>
>>
>> http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1813491&page=2
>> Sept. 30, 2003: Bush : "There are too many leaks of classified
>> information
>> in Washington. . And if there's a leak out of the administration, I want
>> to know who it is. And if a person violated the law, the person will be
>> taken care of."
>>
>>
>>
>> So, the White House is now bracing itself for charges of hypocrisy.
>
> Reread the last sentence.  So when is a leak not a leak?  When it is
> properly declassified.  I don't see the story here.  I don't see any part
> where it connects the President to the Plame leak.  As an answer to the
> charges being leveled by Joe Wilson the President authorized the release
> of
> some classified information from the NIE.  Many Presidents have authorized
> the release to classified information to support a position some even from
> the NIE, this just doesn't seem to be a new story to me.  Of course I am
> sure the charge back will be that this was "political", but
I am not sure
> what isn't that comes from politicians.  What Joe Wilson was putting out
> was also politics.
>
> George

The questions in my mind is what are the procedures for the president to
declassify information ? What laws are in place to protect the identify of
covert agents ? Was the CIA ever notified that her identify was
declassified or was it just leaked leaving her ( and others) exposed ?

it's one thing for the President to authorize the release of information on
an enemy state , its another to leak information that puts our intel assets
at risk. I don't how outing her identify did anything to correct any
perceived falsehoods that Wilson may have been putting out. Fight
falsehoods with truth not outing someone's spouse.

Do you know of any covert agents leaked by the Presidents office in the past
?

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