White House refuses to deny Bush authorised leaks

THE White House has refused to challenge claims that President George W Bush authorised the leaks of intelligence information to counter US administration critics on Iraq.

But Mr Bush’s spokesman, Scott McClellan, appeared to draw a distinction about Mr Bush’s often-stated opposition to leaks.

“There is a difference between providing declassified information to the public when it’s in the public interest and leaking classified information that involved sensitive national intelligence regarding our security,” he said.

Court papers filed by the prosecutor in the CIA leak case against Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby said Mr Bush authorised Mr Libby to disclose information from a classified pre-war intelligence report.

The affair has damaged the president, who has seen his approval rating slump.

The court papers say Libby’s boss, Vice-President Dick Cheney, advised him that the president had authorised Mr Libby to leak the information to the press in striking back at administration critic Joseph Wilson.

Yesterday, a leading Republican senator said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney should explain exactly what had happened.

“We ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated, again, by the American people,” said Senator Arlen Specter.

Mr Libby faces trial on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the grand jury and investigators about what he told reporters about CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald did not say in the filing that Mr Cheney authorised Mr Libby to leak Ms Plame’s identity, and Mr Bush is not accused of doing anything illegal.

John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who ran against Mr Bush for president in 2004, said it was wrong to declassify information selectively “in order to buttress phoney arguments to go to war” and to attack people politically.