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| Ex-CIA lawyer: Gitmo IDs Graver Than Plame Leak |
| 2010-05-06 |
| Covertly taken photos of CIA interrogators that were shown by defense attorneys to al Qaeda inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison represent a more serious security breach than the 2003 outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, the agency's former general counsel said Wednesday. John Rizzo, who was the agency's top attorney until December, said in an interview that he initially requested the Justice Department and CIA investigation into the compromise of CIA interrogators' identities after photographs of the officers were found in the cell of one al Qaeda terrorist in Cuba. "Well I think this is far more serious than Valerie Plame," Mr. Rizzo said after a breakfast speech. "That was clearly illegal, outing a covert officer. I am not downplaying that. But this is far more serious." "This was not leaked to a columnist," he added. "These were pictures of undercover people who were involved in the interrogations program given for identification purposes to the 9/11 [terrorists]." Mr. Rizzo's remarks are the first public comments by someone who was involved in the probe on the still-secret investigation. On Capitol Hill, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, a California Republican who was briefed recently on the investigation, agreed with Mr. Rizzo that the ongoing probe of the John Adams Project is very serious. Mr. McKeon, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has been pushing the Obama administration to brief the full committee on the investigation, which will now take place next week. "The published reports indicate that there have been things that have happened, information passed back and forth to the detainees possibly through their attorneys," he said. "My greatest concern is that [the information supplied to the detainees] put our people at risk," Mr. McKeon said in an interview with The Washington Times. An indication of the seriousness was the fact that the investigation has been going for a year and the Justice Department recent appointment of U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald as "special prosecutor," Mr. McKeon said. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #1 Anything would be "graver" than the Plame "leak". Column by Joe Wilson in 3..2..1.. |
| Posted by: KBK 2010-05-06 20:01 |