Washington – A senior administration official confirmed for the first time Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
But the official said Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, or anyone else to release the information to reporters.
The statement by the official came after the White House had declined to confirm, for three days, Libby’s grand-jury testimony that he had been told by Cheney that Bush had authorized the disclosure. The official declined to be named because of an administration policy of not commenting on issues now in court.
The disclosure appears designed to bolster the White House argument that Bush was acting well within his legal authority when he ordered that key conclusions of the classified National Intelligence Estimate, which was completed in the fall of 2002, should be revealed to make clear that intelligence agencies believed Hussein was seeking uranium.
Moreover, the disclosure seemed intended to suggest that Bush may have played only a peripheral role in the release of the classified material and was uninformed about the specifics – such as the effort to dispatch Libby to discuss the estimate with reporters.
Before the invasion of Iraq, the information from the intelligence report was used by Bush and Cheney to bolster their argument that Hussein posed a threat and was reconstituting a nuclear program that was dismantled after the 1991 Gulf War.
The explanation offered Sunday leaves open several questions, including when Bush acted and whether he did so on the advice or at the request of Cheney.
Still unclear is the nature of the communication between Bush and Cheney.
There are indications that Bush issued the declassification order in late June 2003, more than a week before The New York Times ran an op-ed article by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson on July 6, 2003, saying that nothing he had seen on a mission to Niger for the CIA confirmed that Hussein was seeking uranium.
If Bush acted that early, it would suggest that the administration was growing increasingly concerned as evidence emerged that the intelligence was deeply flawed.
Confirmation that Bush ordered the declassification was published late Saturday by The Associated Press, which quoted “an attorney knowledgeable about the case.” Once it appeared, the White House official was willing to confirm its details.