soupy says

Cheney’s Aide Says President Approved Leak

Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff testified that he was authorized by President Bush, through Mr. Cheney, in July 2003 to disclose key parts of what until then was a classified prewar intelligence estimate on Iraq, according to a new court filing.

The testimony by the former official, I. Lewis Libby Jr., cited in a court filing by the government made late Wednesday, provides an indication that Mr. Bush, who has long criticized leaks of secret information as a threat to national security, may have played a direct role in authorizing disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq.

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By Mr. Libby’s account to the grand jury, the presidential authorization to disclose selective parts of the intelligence estimate was made in advance of a meeting on July 8 between Mr. Libby and Ms. Miller. Mr. Libby brought a brief abstract of the N.I.E.’s key judgments to the meeting.

Mr. Libby testified, the prosecutors said, that he was “specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified N.I.E. to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the N.I.E. was ‘pretty definitive’ against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was ‘very important’ for the key judgments of the N.I.E. to come out.”