US officials are investigating if potentially classified information about the killing of Osama Bin Laden was given to Oscar winning film-maker, Katheryn Bigelow, reports BBC.
Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, said he was “pleased” that the Pentagon and the CIA had responded to a request he made in August.
Bigelow was said to have already been working on a project about Bin Laden’s capture or killing before Navy Seal commandos gunned bin Laden down at his Pakistani hideout on May 2. It was reported that the film-maker met Michael Vickers, undersecretary of defence for intelligence, who gave her an overview of the Bin Laden operation and the decision-making process surrounding the raid.
The lawmaker had accused the Obama administration in August of jeopardising national security by cooperating with Bigelow, who was planning a film on the raid that killed Bin Laden, and had demanded an inquiry after learning of the Pentagon’s collaboration with the director.
Cooperating with a film “about the raid is bound to increase such leaks, and undermine these organisations’ hard-won reputations as ‘quiet professionals’,” he wrote.
In his August letter to the inspectors general of the CIA and the Department of Defense, King cited a column in the New York Times where contributor Maureen Dowd wrote that administration officials gave Bigelow “high-level access” to the mission. The White House had called that report — and King’s claims — “ridiculous”, saying it was routine for officials to speak with film-makers or authors to ensure accuracy but that no secret information was divulged. “We do not discuss classified information. And I would hope that as we face the continued threat from terrorism, the House Committee on Homeland Security would have more important topics to discuss than a movie,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
(WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM AFP)
Published in The Express Tribune, January 9th, 2012.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ