The Washington Post reported that the information was akin to "code-word information," but national security adviser H.R. McMaster later claimed the information was nothing people couldn't know from "open-source reporting".
Meanwhile, Jim Nicholson, secretary of veterans affairs, said he had named a former Arizona prosecutor, Richard Romley, as a special adviser for information security, a new three-month post that will pinpoint security problems.
Mr. Nicholson, who has been secretary since January 2005, has responded to the episode by forcing out some subordinates and hiring a former Arizona prosecutor, Richard Romley, as a special adviser for information security.
"Where was the N.S.C?" Dr. Kay asked, suggesting that the president had come to depend too heavily on information supplied by Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, and that the president needed to reach out to others for national security information.
Editor's note: Paul Rosenzweig is a senior adviser to The Chertoff Group, a global security advisory firm that advises clients on information security, including cloud computing, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. .
Editor's note: Paul Rosenzweig is a senior adviser to The Chertoff Group, a global security advisory firm that advises clients on information security, including cloud computing, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
According to government officials who have seen copies of the briefing documents, the information was presented to Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, and included slides that were strongly disparaging of C.I.A. analyses.
In this sense the case is different from those of retired general David Petraeus, former director of the CIA, and Sandy Berger, ex-national security adviser, both of whom handled information they knew was classified and were wilfully deceitful.
It's important to understand that the national security adviser can only request this information, not order it.
Boehner's announcement came soon after the release, to a freedom of information request, of the email from Ben Rhodes, then deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.
