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Leaky Leahy
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT.) is known as Leaky Leahy for leaking top secret
documents that caused American intelligence officers to be killed, according
to news reports.
In fact, after Leahy was forced to resign from the Senate Intelligence
Committee for his breaches of security, the Senate Intelligence Committee
decided to restrict access to committee documents to a security-enhanced
meeting room.
In 1987 Leahy had to resign his post as vice-chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee after repeatedly leaking information to the press
that compromised U.S. counterterrorism operations and may have killed a key
U.S. intelligence asset.
According to a 1987 editorial in the San Diego Union Tribune, however, Leahy
"disclosed a top secret communications intercept during a [1985] television
interview."
The disclosure evidently was of an intercept of Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak's telephone conversations that made possible the capture of the Arab
terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Terrorists
murdered an American citizen in that hijacking. The disclosure by Leahy cost
the life of at least one Egyptian operative involved in the disclosure of
the terrorist.
In July 1987, the Washington Times reported that Leahy leaked secret
information about a 1986 covert operation planned by the Reagan
administration to topple Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. The excuse for
protecting one of the worst dictators and supporter of terrorists in the
world was that he was such an expert and realized that the plan wouldn’t
work.
"I thought [the operation] was probably the most ridiculous thing I had
seen, and also the most irresponsible," the then-leading Intelligence
Committee Democrat allegedly said of the secret plan.
Unidentified U.S. intelligence officials told the Times that Leahy, along
with Republican panel chairman Sen. Dave Durenberger, communicated a written
threat to expose the operation directly to then-CIA Director William Casey.
The secret plan did turn up in the Washington Post, causing it to be
aborted.
Leahy vehemently denied he talked to the press about any of the Reagan
administration's covert operations, saying, "I never have, and I'm not going
to start now."
But just a year later, as the Senate was preparing to hold hearings on the
Iran-Contra scandal, the Vermont senator had to resign his Intelligence
Committee post after he was caught leaking secret information to a reporter.
Leahy the ranking Intelligence Committee Democrat decided to let an NBC
reporter comb through the committee's confidential draft report on its
investigation. The network aired a report based on the inside information on
Jan. 11, 1987.
After a six-month internal investigation, Leahy "voluntarily" stepped down
from his committee post.
The Vermont Democrat's Iran-Contra leak was considered to be one of the most
serious breaches of secrecy in the committee's 28-year history.
It makes you wonder why he hasn’t been tried for treason...
Bush limited
The
LA Times reports that the Bush administration will have a limited more
realistic 2006 agenda. The story is not worth reading. However, the link is
available for all who want to give it a peak during this Holiday scarcity of
politics.
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