Hidden Scandal: DoD granted security
clearance to Miller
'Hidden Scandal' in Miller Story, Charges Former CBS
Newsman
by E&P and Bill Lynch
October 16,2005
NEW YORK Since the posting of The New York Times lengthy article on Judith
Miller's involvement in the Plame scandal Saturday, much of the Web has been
abuzz with the revelation that she had some sort of special classified status
while embedded with troops in Iraq at one point.
The issue came to the fore after Miller, in recounting her grand jury
testimony, wrote about how her former classified status figured in her
discussions with I. Lewis Libby. She was even pressed by the prosecutor on this
matter.
E&P columnist William E. Jackson Jr., had first raised this issue last
year. On Sunday, former CBS national security correspondent Bill Lynch posted
his views in a long letter about it at the Romenesko site at poynter.org. Here
is the letter:
There is one enormous journalism scandal hidden in Judith Miller's Oct. 16th
first person article about the (perhaps lesser) CIA leak scandal. And that is
Ms. Miller's revelation that she was granted a DoD security clearance while
embedded with the WMD search team in Iraq in 2003.
This is as close as one can get to government licensing of journalists and
the New York Times (if it knew) should never have allowed her to become so
compromised. It is all the more puzzling that a reporter who as a matter of
principle would sacrifice 85 days of her freedom to protect a source would so
willingly agree to be officially muzzled and thereby deny potentially valuable
information to the readers whose right to be informed she claims to value so
highly.
One must assume that Ms. Miller was required to sign a standard and legally
binding agreement that she would never divulge classified information to which
she became privy, without risk of criminal prosecution. And she apparently
plans to adhere to the letter of that self-censorship deal; witness her dilemma
at being unable to share classified information with her editors.
In an era where the Bush Administration seeks to conceal mountains of
government activity under various levels of security classification, why would
any self-respecting news organization or individual journalist agree to become
part of such a system? Readers would be right to question whether a reporter is
operating under a security clearance and, by definition, withholding critical
information. Does a newspaper not have the obligation to disclose to its
readers when a reporter is not only embedded with a military unit but also
officially proscribed in what she may report without running afoul of espionage
laws? Was that ever done in Ms. Miller's articles from Iraq?
It is not hard to imagine a defense lawyer being granted a security
clearance to defend, say, an "enemy combatant." When the lawyer gets access to
classified information in the case, he discovers it is full of false or
exculpatory information. But, because he's signed the secrecy oath, there's not
a damn thing he can do except whine on the courthouse steps that his client is
innocent but he can't say why. A journalist should never be put in an
equivalent position, but this is precisely what Ms. Miller has opened herself
to.
There are other questions. Does she still have a clearance? Did she have it
when talking to Scooter Libby? Is that why she never wrote the Wilson/Plame
story?
I am a former White House and national security correspondent and have had
plenty of access to classified information. When I divulged it, it was always
with a common sense appraisal of the balance between any potential harm done
and the public's right to know. If I had doubts, I would run it by officers
whose judgement I trusted. In my experience, defense and intelligence officials
routinely share secrets with reporters in the full expectation they will be
reported. But if any official had ever offered me a security clearance, my
instincts would have sent me running. I am gravely disappointed Ms. Miller did
not do likewise.
It strikes me that Ms. Miller's situation is the flip side of the NYT's
Jayson Blair coin. He and the Times were rightly disgraced for fabricating. In
my opinion, Miller also violated her duty to report the truth by accepting a
binding obligation to withhold key facts the government deems secret, even when
that information might contradict the reportable "facts."
If Ms. Miller agreed to operate under a security clearance without the
knowledge or approval of Times managers, she should be disciplined or even
dismissed. If she had their approval, all involved should be ashamed.
E&P Staff (jdefoore@editorandpublisher.com)
|