Judith Miller Clarifies So-Called 'Secret Information' Clearance

By: Jennifer Saba In a story in Thursday's New York Times, reporter Katharine Q. Seelye attempts to clarify fellow Times reporter Judith Miller's earlier remarks regarding special clearance status she received while embedded in Iraq.

In Miller's original account of her four hour testimony in front of a federal grand jury that ran in Sunday's paper, she reports that the Pentagon had given her "clearance to see secret information" when she was "embedded with a special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons."

That statement had been the subject of speculation for the last several days, including among other military reporters who had access to sensitive information.

After a telephone interview with Miller Wednesday, Seelye wrote that what the reporter "had meant to say in her published account was that she had had temporary access to classified information under rules set by her unit," conditions similar to what other embedded reporters faced.

"Ms. Miller said that under the conditions set by the commander of the unit, Col. Richard R. McPhee, she had been allowed to discuss her most secret reporting with only the senior-most editors of The Times, who at the time were Howell Raines, the executive editor, and Gerald M. Boyd, the managing editor.

"When asked if she had ever left the impression with sources, including [Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis] Libby, that she had access to classified information after leaving her assignment in Iraq, Ms. Miller said she could not recall. 'I don't remember if I ever told him I was disembedded,' she said. 'I might not have.' But she added, 'I never misled anybody.'"

Reached earlier this week, several military reporters said they were baffled by what Miller described as her "clearance to see secret information."

Reporters covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are normally bound by ground rules that prevent them from revealing details such as troop movements, for example. Joe Galloway, a senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder newspapers, said it's "unheard of" for a reporter to gain security clearance for secret or top secret information.

Full security clearances, explained Galloway, require months of background checks. "When you hold a security clearance there are all kinds of briefings you have to attend on how to handle classified documents and how they are transported," he said.

As far as Galloway's aware, government workers are the only ones who would receive a special clearance. He was granted top security clearance when, for a brief period, he served as a special consultant to former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Still, some reporters covering wars are granted access to areas that otherwise would be considered off-limits. However, usually in those situations, an agreement is hammered out typically beyond the basic embed ground rules. Though they may receive special passes, these passes are not considered full security clearance.

David Wood, who has covered national security for Newhouse News Service since 1984, received special access to the main command center when he was covering the war in Afghanistan. Wood, the public affairs officer, and the commanding general came up with an agreement that limited where Wood could go -- he had no access to the intelligence office within the center. He was also required to run his copy by the military.

"It specified what they could object to and what they couldn't," he said. "It was obvious stuff.

"The agreement worked extremely well," Wood said, adding that a disclaimer explaining that his copy had been passed through military censors ran under his byline.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, the Army public affairs officer that worked with Wood, said the kind of access Wood had was not considered "special clearance." "We wanted him to come in so we cleared it with the [the army] and the Department of Defense, just so we knew he wasn't a commie," he said, adding that he has never hear of a reporter having special clearance.

Like Wood, Peter Baker, who was an embed in Iraq for The Washington Post and now covers the White House, was granted access to an operations center during the Iraq war. "It was where they were really running the war with real-time satellite imagery and computers showing every unit -- it was a lot of sensitive stuff."

Baker (and the three other reporters embedded with him) struck a deal that gave them access virtually 24 hours a day; he too had to run his copy by military censors. "I was very leery of this," he said. "The Marine officers lived up to the spirit of the agreement. They never objected to anything we sent out except for small occasions like 'please don't include this code name for this unit.'"

Baker said his pass was not a security clearance but rather a situational deal.