Posted on 06/21/2002 11:51:59 AM PDT by It'salmosttolate
Hunting Terrorists And Leaks
(AP) The joint congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks ended a third week of closed-door hearings with a request for the Justice Department to hunt down the sources of a leaked news story.
At President Bush's direction, Vice President Dick Cheney called the chairmen of the panel to complain that news organizations were reporting the contents of two Sept. 10 messages intercepted by the National Security Agency. The messages, which warned of an impending major event the next day, weren't translated by the NSA until the day after the attacks.
“We will cooperate with the FBI in any way possible” to find out how the information became public, said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
In addition to dealing with the leak issues, the committees revamped their schedule Thursday.
Hearings, which were to have been opened to the public starting next week, will now be postponed until after July Fourth. It is uncertain that they will be public even then.
Cheney called Goss and Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla., “to express the president's concerns about this inappropriate disclosure,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Fleischer called the disclosure of the language of the NSA intercepts “alarmingly specific.”
Goss said the Justice Department investigation was necessary because committee members are entrusted to keep classified information secret, and undercover operatives or U.S. officials could be endangered by such leaks.
“We've got people out in harm's way who are conducting a lot of serious business,” Goss said.
Concern about possible leaks has been a key reason the White House has opposed setting up an independent commission to investigate the attacks. The commission has been sought by some lawmakers and relatives of the victims.
Bush has said the intelligence panels were better positioned to avoid leaks. They “understand the obligations of upholding our secrets and our sources and methods of collecting intelligence,” he said last month.
But Bush has clashed with Congress before over leaks. On Oct. 5, he issued a memo limiting sensitive congressional briefings to the top leaders of the House and Senate and their intelligence committees. He dropped the restrictions a week later after getting assurances from Graham and Goss that they would rein in their members.
The messages intercepted by the NSA were recorded in two separate conversations and contained the phrases, “Tomorrow is zero hour,” and “The match is about to begin,” an intelligence source said.
The messages were believed to be recorded from telephone conversations.
The committees said the staff is inundated with information from intelligence agencies, requiring extensive work before there are further hearings.
In addition, the committees are having discussions with the Justice Department regarding possibly declassifying information about Zacarias Moussaoui, who faces trial as an alleged conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks.
The committees want some information about Moussaoui to be available for future hearings. The Justice Department is weighing whether declassifying the information will jeopardize its criminal case. The committees also are having discussions with various intelligence agencies about declassifying information.
There's your leak.
And thats your leaker!
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