Jon Alter: "For Crass Political Reasons" Bush Detailed LA Terror Plot...
Newsweek Jonathan Alter February 12, 2006 at 08:56 AM
READ MORE: George W. Bush, New York Times, CIA
Poor Porter Goss. First, the longtime Florida congressman leaves his safe seat to become director of the CIA, only to find that he's been neutered by a new bureaucratic setup where he reports to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Then he writes an op-ed piece decrying intelligence leaks in The New York Times on Friday, the exact same day as a story appears identifying today's biggest leaker of antiterrorism secrets in Washington--President George W. Bush.
For crass political reasons--namely to advance his position on the National Security Agency spying story--the president chose to use a speech to the National Guard Association to disclose details of a 2002 "shoe bomb" plot to blow up the U.S. Bank Tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles. While the plot had been revealed in general terms in the past, the White House this week arranged for Bush's counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, to explain to reporters in a conference call exactly the kind of details that Goss claimed on the op-ed page helped the enemy. "We are at risk of losing a key battle," Goss wrote. "The battle to protect our classification system."
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READ MORE: George W. Bush, New York Times, CIA
Poor Porter Goss. First, the longtime Florida congressman leaves his safe seat to become director of the CIA, only to find that he's been neutered by a new bureaucratic setup where he reports to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Then he writes an op-ed piece decrying intelligence leaks in The New York Times on Friday, the exact same day as a story appears identifying today's biggest leaker of antiterrorism secrets in Washington--President George W. Bush.
For crass political reasons--namely to advance his position on the National Security Agency spying story--the president chose to use a speech to the National Guard Association to disclose details of a 2002 "shoe bomb" plot to blow up the U.S. Bank Tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles. While the plot had been revealed in general terms in the past, the White House this week arranged for Bush's counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, to explain to reporters in a conference call exactly the kind of details that Goss claimed on the op-ed page helped the enemy. "We are at risk of losing a key battle," Goss wrote. "The battle to protect our classification system."
READ WHOLE STORY
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 1:40 PM
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