Thursday, January 25, 2007

Bush White House official says she was uncomfortable with Bush's release of classified information in 2003 to rebut Iraq critics


An honest official in the Bush White House. Should we start a pool as to when she enters civilian life? From Reuters:

President George W. Bush's 2003 decision to declassify an intelligence report to rebut an Iraq war critic stirred unease even in the White House, an administration official said on Thursday in the perjury trial of a vice presidential aide.

White House official Cathie Martin said she was "not comfortable" in July of that year when her boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, told her to use the information to counter charges that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for invading Iraq.

"I wasn't sure if I could use that point because it was related to the NIE," Martin said, referring to a classified National Intelligence Estimate report that said Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium from Niger....

With her husband FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin watching from the front row of the courtroom, Martin said she was "still not comfortable about the NIE" even as Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, began sharing the information with reporters.

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