WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading Republican urged President George W. Bush on Sunday to "tell the American people exactly what happened" in a leak of information aimed at countering criticism of his reasons for taking America to war in Iraq.
The president, whose popularity is slumping, is on the defensive because of a prosecutor's disclosure that Bush authorized a former top official, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to share intelligence data on Iraq in 2003 with a reporter to defend his decision to invade Iraq.
Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Fox News Sunday that "there's been enough of a showing here with what's been filed of record in court that the president of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people.
"The president has the authority to declassify information. So in a technical sense, if he looked at it, he could say this is declassified, and make a disclosure of it," said Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, speaking from Cartagena, Colombia.
Full Article by Diane Bartz
# posted by madthumbs @ 9:01 PM
