There's been some discussion here and elsewhere about Judy Miller's comments about the 'clearance' given her. How she may have abused her Top Secret clearance. Or the
NYT should fire her. Or she was collecting 2 paychecks. Christian Dem in NC posted a
diary about an
article by Bill Lynch, where he suggests that she put herself in a corner by agreeing to be mum in return for access to classified information. Indeed, that would be stupid, as a journalist then would have no way to get out her scoop. Another problem might be the
NYT employing a secret agent. But Judy wasn't anything of the sort (though it's not without
precedent).
But Lynch also suggests that she may remain under a blanket secrecy oath, and thus be unable to fess up to Fitzgerald, else she be whisked off for rendition. But it isn't the case.
Let's look at the relevant passages again:
My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room
He asked, for example, whether I had discussed my security status with Mr. Libby. During the Iraq war, the Pentagon had given me clearance to see secret information as part of my assignment "embedded" with a special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons.
Fitzgerald is simply getting on the record the fact that, to Judy Miller's knowlege, Libby did not ensure that she had the right to know how Valerie Wilson was employed. The second part, her 'clearance' is another thing entirely and involves a special note Rummy signed for her so she could tag along with MET Alpha. That was negotiated with the help of "an editor" at NYT and was not much more than what a lot of other journalists had. The reason it was so special is that what they were looking to dig up (namely, some credibility for the administration) was so "special" and she would have had to agree not to divulge certain information they came across until it was vetted.
The Source of the Trouble
According to Pomeroy, as well as an editor at the Times, Miller had helped negotiate her own embedding agreement with the Pentagon--an agreement so sensitive that, according to one Times editor, Rumsfeld himself signed off on it. Although she never fully acknowledged the specific terms of that arrangement in her articles, they were as stringent as any conditions imposed on any reporter in Iraq. "Any articles going out had to be, well, censored," Pomeroy told me. "The mission contained some highly classified elements and people, what we dubbed the `Secret Squirrels,' and their `sources and methods' had to be protected and a war was about to start." Before she filed her copy, it would be censored by a colonel who often read the article in his sleeping bag, clutching a small flashlight between his teeth. (When reporters attended tactical meetings with battlefield commanders, they faced similar restrictions.)
And they hated having her along, apparently: "She's lucky we didn't shoot her." (props to madhaus for the link) Obviously no double-oh operative, our Jude. No, just another flack being a PITA out in the desert. Anyway, it was no Top Secret clearance. She was carrying water for the Neo Cons so they told the grunts to take her along.
But back to her article:
I told Mr. Fitzgerald that Mr. Libby might have thought I still had security clearance, given my special embedded status in Iraq.
So Fitzgerald knows about it. Maybe he'll even have a look at the agreement. Perhaps call in Rummy to discuss it. But it's obvious it's absolutely nothing like the sort of clearance she would require to get anywhere remotely close to knowing how Valerie Wilson was employed by the government. No, the 'clearance' Judy had was nothing more than a "double super secret" press pass.