Bush spokesman defends leak

WASHINGTON, April 8 (UPI) -- A White House spokesman said President Bush approved a leak of classified information because it served a "public interest" and didn't compromise security.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan was responding to a filing by a special prosecutor that 10 days before Bush released a declassified version of a CIA report he authorized a leak of the information.

The Los Angeles Times reports the information was meant to counter claims that the administration cherry-picked intelligence data to push the case that Saddam Hussein was trying to get weapons of mass destruction.

Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has charged I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff -- with lying to a grand jury and investigators looking into the retaliatory leak of a covert CIA official's name.

That official -- Valerie Plame -- is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was sent to Niger to find any link between that country and Hussein.

He went public denouncing Bush's Iraq claims that Hussein had sought nuclear weapons materials from Niger.

Fitzgerald alleges the release of covert agent Plame's name to the media was a retaliation against Wilson.