In an often testy exchange with the White House media, spokesman Scott McClellan refused to explain the administration’s role in the 2003 disclosure — described in a federal prosecutor’s legal document — of highly sensitive intelligence information about Iraq. The spokesman said it has long been the administration’s policy not to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

McClellan’s heated exchange with the press came a day after Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a court filing that White House official I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby had told a grand jury that President Bush, acting through Vice President Cheney, directed him to leak information from a classified October 2002 intelligence report to the news media.
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Asked whether Bush was against the practice of leaking, as he has indicated in the past, McClellan said the president opposes the leaking of classified material.

Pressed repeatedly on whether the material was classified at the time it was leaked, McClellan refused to discuss details of the case, saying it was an ongoing legal proceeding.
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He called on the president to “tell the American people whether the Bush Oval Office is the place where the buck stops, or the leaks start.” He added that Bush must address the matter personally. “Not a spokesman. Not a statement. Only him.”

For the time being, however, McClellan was the only White House official talking about it for the record.
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He declined to say precisely when the information in the National Intelligence Estimate was declassified.

“Is the information declassified when the president says it is or when the process is done?” he was asked.

“He can authorize the declassifying of information,” McClellan said. He added that the president “has the authority” to summarily declassify something with immediate effect.

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