White House says it's also exempt from security rules

WASHINGTON — The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is exempt from a presidential order requiring government agencies that handle classified national-security information to submit to oversight by an independent federal watchdog.

The executive order Bush issued in March 2003 covers all government agencies that are part of the executive branch and, although it doesn't specifically say so, was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said.

The issue flared up Thursday when Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., criticized Cheney for refusing to file annual reports with the National Archives and Records Administration, spelling out how his office handles classified documents, or to submit to an inspection by the archives' Information Security Oversight Office.

The archives, a federal agency, has been pressing the vice president's office to cooperate for several years, contending that by not doing so, Cheney and his staff have created a potential national-security risk.

Bush issued the directive in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a way of ensuring that the nation's secrets would not be mishandled, made public or improperly declassified.

In the order, Bush stressed the importance of the public's right to know what its government was doing, particularly in the global campaign against terrorism. "Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government," the executive order said.

But from the start, Bush considered his office and Cheney's exempt from the reporting requirements, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Friday.

Waxman and J. William Leonard, director of the archives' oversight office, said the order clearly applies to all executive-branch agencies, including the offices of the vice president and the president.

Fratto said the White House disagrees: "Let's be very clear; this executive order was issued by the president, and he knows what his intentions were."

Cheney's office drew criticism Thursday for claiming it was exempt from the reporting requirements because the office is not fully within the executive branch, citing his role as president of the Senate when needed to break a tie there.