The Mystery of Judy Miller's 'Security Clearance' Deepens

By: William E. Jackson, Jr. In Byron Calame's October 23 column ?The Miller Mess: Lingering Issues Among the Answers,? there was one problem that caused The New York Times' public editor to wade into water over his head. Referring to it as a troubling ethical issue that ?I haven?t yet been able to nail down,? he noted Judy Miller?s claim to have held a government security clearance??something that could restrict her ability to share with editors the information she gathers.?

Miller had writtten in her October 16 lawyer-vetted account in The Times of her grand jury testimony involving her three conversations with Cheney aide Scooter Libby. According to her story, she had received a security clearance from the Pentagon to allow her to see classified information as part of her assignment with a military task force that was hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the spring of 2003: ?I told [special prosecutor]
Fitzgerald that Mr. Libby might have thought I still had security clearance, given my special embedded status in Iraq."

Calame could have asked Howell Raines or Gerald Boyd if Miller had discussed what she has termed her ?most secret reporting? only with the top command at the paper--the clear implication being that such reports did not make it into The Times. And, he might have picked up the phone and called the paper?s Pentagon reporter, Eric Schmitt, who actually interviewed Miller on this matter for a Katherine Seelye-bylined story of October 20.

Did Miller?s clearance arrangements actually amount to anything more than what many journalists covering the Iraq war had: a written agreement to see and hear classified information but treat it as off the record unless an ad hoc arrangement was reached with military hosts, who censored copy? The evidence suggests not. (And the WMD intelligence was pretty bad.) Regardless, on occasion, while in the desert, she had bandied about that she
had received a SECRET clearance from the Pentagon--as I reported in E&P on September 23, 2003, based on eyewitness accounts.

In Schmitt?s telephone interview with Miller, she said the so-called ?nondisclosure form? was precisely what she had signed, with some modifications, adding that what she had meant to say in her October 16 published account was that she had had temporary access to classified information under rules set by her unit. Moreover, she 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 Raines and Boyd.

When asked if she had ever left the impression with sources, including Libby, that she had access to classified information after leaving her assignment in Iraq, Miller told Schmitt 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."

But late Sunday night, after Calame's column appeared, Miller made a great leap forward in describing her unique access to secret information while in Iraq, via an e-mail to the public editor.

After asserting that the ?ethical issue? had been ?fully clarified,? she wrote: ?No one doubts that I had access to very sensitive information or that I did work out informal arrangements to limit discussion of sensitive intelligence sources and methods to the most senior Times editors. Though there was occasionally enormous tension over whether and when I could publish sensitive information, the arrangement ultimately satisfied the senior officers in the brigade hunting for unconventional weapons, the Times editors at the time, and me. It also led to the publication of my exclusive story that debunked some of my own earlier exclusives on the Pentagon?s claim that it had found mobile germ production units in Iraq.?

She was touting her alleged permission to have had access to ?intelligence sources and methods,? a phrase that the intelligence community uses to refer to the most sensitive of intelligence secrets such as electronic intercepts, satellite photographs, and human spies. In knowingly using that code phrase ?intelligence sources and methods,? she stated, moreover, that she shared such sensitive information with ?the most senior Times editors.? How
interesting this may prove to be to special prosecutor Fitzgerald.

Did she and Scooter Libby discuss ?sources and methods? in their three meetings in June-July 2003? I suspect that she is upping the legal ante here.

But this ploy may get her into big trouble with the Army officer pictured beside her on HuffingtonPost?s website, Col. Richard McPhee, the commander of the 75th Exploitation Force in charge of searching for WMDs in the spring of 2003.The Army will certainly disavow sharing ?intelligence sources and methods? with an ?embed.? And, the CIA, or the DIA, may want to launch an investigation of her claim independent from that of the special prosecutor in the Plame case.

Incidentally, Col. McPhee would not see her when she tried to return to Baghdad in early June 2003, seeking a re-negotiated, less restrictive, non-disclosure agreement, and she had to leave the country. Shortly after that, her first known meeting with Libby related to Plame occurred on June 23.

Judy Miller?s varying claims to have special access to classified intelligence are also getting her into trouble on Capitol Hill. On October 25, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), following a discussion with the primary in-the-field source for my September 2003 scoop on Miller?s in-the-desert reporting methods, made an angry speech on the floor of the Senate. He stated his intention to ask the Pentagon inspector general to investigate why journalists are allowed to have access to classified information while
assigned to military units.

It was reported that his request was prompted by an assertion by Miller that she had security clearances during her assignment with a military unit in Iraq. Dorgan: ?What kind of clearance would that reporter have to see classified or secret information?"

Miller?s explanations do not sit well with the senator: "The classification of material that is secret or top-secret dealing with intelligence or military operations is not a classification that is done lightly, and it's
not a classification that can be overcome by someone in the Pentagon that says, 'O.K., you put on a military shirt or a pair of military trousers, go embed yourself with that unit, and by the way, you sign a little form that
says nondisclosure.'"

This was the security clearance that never was--a canard.