Challenging Cheney
No explanation was offered?
No. It was strike this, strike that. Anyplace you saw the words, "the director of ISOO" or "ISOO" it was struck.
What was your reaction?
I was disappointed that rather than engage on the substance of an issue, some people would resort to that…
What rules were they saying didn't apply to them?
The ones that tell you how you mark [classified documents], how you declassify, how you safeguard them, how you store…
Ultimately, the White House said the president never intended that the vice president would have to comply. This had to have been frustrating -to have been publicly thwarted for doing what you saw as your job?
Well, you know, that I've had 34 years of frustration. That's life in the big city. I also accept that I'm not always right….But this was a big thing as far as I was concerned.
A number of people have noted that the vice president's office stopped reporting to you and complying with ISOO in the fall of 2003 when the whole Valerie Plame case blew up. Do you think there was a connection?
I don't have any insight. I was held at arms length [from that.] But some of the things based on what I've read [have] given me cause for concern. A number of prosecution exhibits [in the Plame-related perjury trial of I. Scooter Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff] were annotated, 'handle as SCI.' SCI is Sensitive Compartmentalized Information, the most sensitive classified information there is. As I recall, [one of them] was [the vice president and his staff] were coming back from Norfolk where they had attended a ship commissioning and they were conferring on the plane about coming up with a [media] response plan [to the allegations of Plame's husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.] That was one of the exhibits marked, 'handle as SCI.'
These were internal communications about what to say to the press?
Let me give you some the irony of that. Part of the National Archives is the presidential libraries….So we're going to have documents [at the libraries] with the most sensitive markings on it that isn't even classified. If I were going to do a review [of OVP], that would be one of the questions I would want to ask: What is this practice? And how widespread is it? And what is the rationale? How do we assure that people don't get this mixed up with real secrets?
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Member Comments
Posted By: Duck Soup @ 12/30/2007 11:00:52 PM
Comment: How are Democrats supposed to argue for transparency when their leading candidate, Hillary Clinton, still won't release her records as First Lady or those associated with her and Bill's mega-"charity"? That's right, Hillary says her "experience" that places her above Obama is her time in the White House, yet she won't release her records until after the Primary. And her and Bill's charity has raised over $500 MILLION dollars from the same people who are their major donors and lend them their jets to hop around in. The "charity" also employed their leading campaign staff. This is a lot of money sloshing around and they won't let us see the details.
How can we demand that Cheney release his records when Hillary and Bill won't release theirs. We need a change already. We need Obama. We need someone honest. Obama has the guts to take the right position even when it's unpopular, like in opposing the Iraq war from the start. He is for transparency. He has not used government to amass a personal wealth of tens of millions of dollars (over $30 mil for Hillary, over $40 mil for Bill, over $50 mil for Cheney, over $50 mil for Edwards) etc. - Obama's net worth is just over $1 million. Obama is one of us. It's time to take back our goverment. We can't afford to take the chance of letting the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton cycle continue.
Posted By: Markwri @ 12/30/2007 4:53:12 PM
Comment: Always been amazed that Cheney, who could go out around the World and actually DO some things simply stays in dc and runs clusterfrick maneauvers which do nothing but act as a flanking draws supposedly to guise the things that are really happening.
GW, Cheney and a few of their annointed Club....truly a 3 Stooges network.
Maybe that's why we keep tuning in.
Posted By: roncraw @ 12/28/2007 9:35:30 PM
Comment: Short and sweet impeach Cheney