Bush, Congress Call Truce Over Leaks
W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 10 -- A day after angrily scolding Congress for leaking classified information to the press, President Bush today called a truce with congressional leaders, withdrawing a threat to clamp down on intelligence briefings to lawmakers.
"The president's made his point — we need to be very careful about what we reveal," Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., told reporters after emerging from a private breakfast with the president and other Capitol Hill leaders.
"The president has reiterated … his deep concern that we all share about how critical it is that sensitive information be treated as such and that we use more discipline and greater discretion in the release of that information," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Bush to Congress: Loose Lips Sink Ships
A day earlier, the commander in chief took members of Congress to task for disclosing information revealed by administration officials in classified intelligence briefings on ongoing anti-terrorism efforts.
"I want Congress to hear loud and clear: It is unacceptable behavior to leak classified information when we have troops at risk," Bush told reporters Tuesday afternoon during a Rose Garden photo-op with visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
That public reprimand came after the president had ordered key Cabinet members to disclose "classified and sensitive" information only to eight high-ranking House and Senate members: the top leaders from each party and the chairmen and vice chairmen of each chamber's intelligence committee.
Last Friday, after an intelligence official was quoted in The Washington Post as telling lawmakers there was a "100 percent" likelihood of another terrorist attack if the United States took overt military action in retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Bush fired off a tersely worded memo to the attorney general, the secretaries of defense, state and treasury, and the directors of the CIA and FBI outlining the new restrictions.
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