Treasury Seeks Probe Into Papers Taken by O'Neill

[Guest Cerebus]

Treasury Seeks Probe Into Papers Taken by O'Neill 

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury has asked the U.S. inspector general's office to investigate how a possibly classified document appeared on Sunday in a televised interview of ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, a department spokesman said on Monday.

 

"It's based on the (CBS program) '60 Minutes' segment, and I'll be even more clear -- the document as shown on '60 Minutes' that said 'secret,"' Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols told reporters at a weekly briefing.

 

In a new book about his term as Treasury chief, O'Neill, who left the job in December 2002 in a shake-up of President Bush (news - web sites)'s economic team, criticized White House policies and provided author Ron Suskind with thousands of administration documents.

 

While Nichols said it is customary for departing officials to take documents when they leave, this probe will focus on how possibly classified information appeared on a television interview as one of O'Neill's papers.

 

For referance here is the transcript of the whole interview (which is an interesting read in its own right) but this is the part that we're talking about:

 

He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. “There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, ‘Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,’" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001.

 

Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth.

 

If you watch the entire interview you 'll see the actual document in question.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

This guy is so going to mysteriously die of a heart attack with no additional details in a few months.

[NoCalMike 0]

just go read PNAC. It will explain a lot.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Wow, an ex-Bush employee saying bad things about his former employer right before launching a book.

 

Next thing you know you'll tell me John Kerry served...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heinz ketchup and not Hunts at his recent BBQ fund-raiser...

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Next thing you know you'll tell me John Kerry served...

 

 

Heinz ketchup and not Hunts at his recent BBQ fund-raiser...

I heard that when John Kerry is President, soldiers will have better guns because they'll have to mortgage their houses and buy them.

[Vern Gagne 0]

O'Neill takes the cake for biggest simp in polticial history. I didn't know politics went on in the White House.

 

He thought the President was a bully, calling him Big O.