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Bush turns the hounds loose on O'Neill...
Gov't Seeks Probe Amid O'Neill Interview
Mon Jan 12, 8:10 PM
By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department is seeking an investigation into whether a classified document might have been shown during a TV show in which former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill spoke out against the Bush administration.
Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said Monday that the department has asked the Office of Inspector General to look into the matter. The request comes one day after a CBS "60 Minutes" segment featured the blunt-talking O'Neill and the new book he is promoting, "The Price of Loyalty."
"They showed a document that had a classification term on it, so we referred this today to the Office of Inspector General," Nichols said. "I'll be even more clear _ the document as shown on `60 Minutes' that said `secret.'"
O'Neill is described as a principal source for the new book, written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind. Along with interviews with O'Neill, Suskind drew on 19,000 documents O'Neill provided. Suskind also interviewed other Bush insiders for the book.
On "60 Minutes," CBS journalist Lesley Stahl said O'Neill had gotten briefing materials involving Iraq. Suskind said: "There are memos. One of them, marked secret, says `Plan for post-Saddam Iraq.'" A spokesman for "60 Minutes" said a cover sheet of the briefing materials was shown.
"We don't have a secret document. We didn't show a secret document. We merely showed a cover sheet that alluded to such a document," said CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco.
David Rosenthal, executive vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster, the book's publisher, said: "We stand behind the book. Ron Suskind has acted responsibly and properly in the writing of this book."
Nichols declined to comment on whether the cover sheet of the document shown on "60 Minutes" was part of the 19,000 documents Treasury supplied to O'Neill.
Nevertheless, Nichols said he believed the documents included such things as press releases, testimony and correspondence in and out of the secretary's office. "The nature of the request did not include classified information," Nichols said.
O'Neill contends the United States began laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq just days after the president took office in January 2001 _ more than two years before the start of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Asked about that claim, Bush responded Monday: "Like the previous administration, we were for regime change. And in the initial stage of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with Desert Badger or flyovers and fly-betweens and looks. And so we were fashioning policy along those lines. And then, all of a sudden, September the 11th hit."
At the State Department, deputy spokesman Adam Ereli defended the Bush administration's record. He said Bush did not began his White House tenure determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein, but "gave Saddam Hussein an honest opportunity to turn things around and he just didn't do it."
"President Bush, Secretary Powell and our coalition partners took every step possible before resorting to force to achieve a peaceful resolution to this issue," Ereli said.
O'Neill is quoted in the book as saying that President Bush was so disengaged during Cabinet meetings that he was like a "blind man in a roomful of deaf people."
O'Neill was fired in December 2002 when Bush decided he needed a more effective salesman for his economic agenda. O'Neill had questioned the need for a fresh round of tax cuts. During his two years on the job, some of his comments roiled financial markets, irked Wall Street, damaged relations on Capitol Hill and made the White House uneasy.
Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration and later wrote a controversial book about the experience, said he believed any former member of an administration was serving the public good by disclosing how decisions were made.
"Cabinet members should be loyal to a president, but they have a larger loyalty to the public," said Reich. "If Paul O'Neill has come across something that is deeply disturbing or is likely to be deeply disturbing, then he has every right and indeed a responsibility to reveal that."
Treasury spokesman Nichols said the department's request for a probe shouldn't be viewed as a way to strike back at O'Neill. "This is standard operating procedure," he said.
Gov't Seeks Probe Amid O'Neill Interview
Mon Jan 12, 8:10 PM
By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department is seeking an investigation into whether a classified document might have been shown during a TV show in which former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill spoke out against the Bush administration.
Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said Monday that the department has asked the Office of Inspector General to look into the matter. The request comes one day after a CBS "60 Minutes" segment featured the blunt-talking O'Neill and the new book he is promoting, "The Price of Loyalty."
"They showed a document that had a classification term on it, so we referred this today to the Office of Inspector General," Nichols said. "I'll be even more clear _ the document as shown on `60 Minutes' that said `secret.'"
O'Neill is described as a principal source for the new book, written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind. Along with interviews with O'Neill, Suskind drew on 19,000 documents O'Neill provided. Suskind also interviewed other Bush insiders for the book.
On "60 Minutes," CBS journalist Lesley Stahl said O'Neill had gotten briefing materials involving Iraq. Suskind said: "There are memos. One of them, marked secret, says `Plan for post-Saddam Iraq.'" A spokesman for "60 Minutes" said a cover sheet of the briefing materials was shown.
"We don't have a secret document. We didn't show a secret document. We merely showed a cover sheet that alluded to such a document," said CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco.
David Rosenthal, executive vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster, the book's publisher, said: "We stand behind the book. Ron Suskind has acted responsibly and properly in the writing of this book."
Nichols declined to comment on whether the cover sheet of the document shown on "60 Minutes" was part of the 19,000 documents Treasury supplied to O'Neill.
Nevertheless, Nichols said he believed the documents included such things as press releases, testimony and correspondence in and out of the secretary's office. "The nature of the request did not include classified information," Nichols said.
O'Neill contends the United States began laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq just days after the president took office in January 2001 _ more than two years before the start of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Asked about that claim, Bush responded Monday: "Like the previous administration, we were for regime change. And in the initial stage of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with Desert Badger or flyovers and fly-betweens and looks. And so we were fashioning policy along those lines. And then, all of a sudden, September the 11th hit."
At the State Department, deputy spokesman Adam Ereli defended the Bush administration's record. He said Bush did not began his White House tenure determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein, but "gave Saddam Hussein an honest opportunity to turn things around and he just didn't do it."
"President Bush, Secretary Powell and our coalition partners took every step possible before resorting to force to achieve a peaceful resolution to this issue," Ereli said.
O'Neill is quoted in the book as saying that President Bush was so disengaged during Cabinet meetings that he was like a "blind man in a roomful of deaf people."
O'Neill was fired in December 2002 when Bush decided he needed a more effective salesman for his economic agenda. O'Neill had questioned the need for a fresh round of tax cuts. During his two years on the job, some of his comments roiled financial markets, irked Wall Street, damaged relations on Capitol Hill and made the White House uneasy.
Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration and later wrote a controversial book about the experience, said he believed any former member of an administration was serving the public good by disclosing how decisions were made.
"Cabinet members should be loyal to a president, but they have a larger loyalty to the public," said Reich. "If Paul O'Neill has come across something that is deeply disturbing or is likely to be deeply disturbing, then he has every right and indeed a responsibility to reveal that."
Treasury spokesman Nichols said the department's request for a probe shouldn't be viewed as a way to strike back at O'Neill. "This is standard operating procedure," he said.
