Documentary says Obama is leaking info

WAVY TV

Updated: Aug 23, 2012 10:37 AM

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — A political fact checker is saying that a documentary's claims of President Barack Obama linking a Pakistani doctor to the CIA is false.

A special showing of the documentary in Virginia Beach was held Wednesday and questions President Barack Obama's national security credentials.

Political fact checkers as well as the president's supporters say "Dishonorable Disclosures"  is grossly unfair, perhaps unpatriotic and disrespectful of the President and his office of Commander in Chief.

Watch the documentary online here.

“It is my personal civic duty to tell the president to stop leaking information to the enemy," says former Navy SEAL Ben Smith in the documentary.

Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey says the documentary is an unfair attack on the president, who is cast in a negative light throughout the production.

“If someone uses the uniform, whatever the uniform, for partisan politics, I am disappointed because I think it does erode the bond of trust we have with the American people," Dempsey said.

Dempsey says he is disappointed with Special OPS OPSEC, the group behind the documentary.

“This is my uniform today," president and founder of the group and former Navy SEAL Scott Taylor said. " We believe the bond of trust we have is to speak out with our freedom of speech right on these leaks and how they endanger lives.”

Taylor told WAVY.com an example of high-level administration leaks was the disclosure that SEAL Team 6 got Osama Bin Laden. WAVY.com spoke with Vice President Joe Biden in April 2012 and asked him why the group was identified.

“Well, I don't recall personally identifying SEAL Team 6, but my point is the less we talk about any of the SEAL teams the better," Biden said.

Taylor's reaction to what Biden said was that Biden obviously identified SEAL Team 6 on camera.

“You interviewed Joe Biden who said, 'I don't know if I said that,' which he obviously did because it's on camera, and then he said he's serious about cracking down on leaks," Taylor said. "Well, that's talking out of both sides of your mouth, isn't it?”

The documentary also claims the president took too much credit for the operation which is greatly disputed by Dempsey. Taylor gives a little on that point.

Taylor agrees President Obama deserves some credit for giving a 'go' on the operation.

"This issue supersedes petty politics that some of the folks are trying to reduce this to, and trying to peg us out to be just partisan, and that couldn't be farther from the truth," Taylor said. "The reason why we're doing it during a political season is because that tends to be the only time politicians want to pay attention."

OPSEC also accuses the president of leaking information that "led to the identification of the Pakistani doctor that helped us in achieving our goals and killing bin Laden." According to PolitiFact.com, a Pulitzer Prize-winning publication, that claim is false.

PolitiFact goes on to say Pakistanis identified the doctor, not Americans. "The bin Laden raid triggered the ISI investigation, not anything said by U.S. officials," PolitiFact said. "In fact, the CIA urged the doctor to leave the country and when Pakistan provided the name of the doctor, U.S. officials tried to prevent it being published."

The publication's report cites journalists close to the bin Laden raid, including dealings with Pakistani sources and residents.

"We see no evidence that it was the Obama administration that leaked the name. We rate it False."

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