Washington: White House Spokesman Scott McClellan, on Saturday, defended President Bush after Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby, told a grand jury that Bush authorised a leak of classified information to the press on Iraq in 2003.
McClellan countered that the President has the right to declassify any information he deems fit.
"The declassifying of information and providing it to the public when it is in the public interest is one thing. But leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious," said McClellan.
However, court documents have revealed that the leak came 10 days before the information was officially declassified.
Critics also say that Bush leaked the information for personal political gain - to support the invasion of Iraq - and not in the public interest.
After Libby's testimony, Democrats had seized upon the news and accused Bush of hipocrisy saying that Bush had always denounced leaks and had vowed to punish leakers.
The disclosure arose out of a long-running investigation into the leak of CIA's operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Libby testified that he was specifically directed by Cheney to reveal the intelligence information to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
Libby also said he was cleared to brief the reporter about Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who had criticized Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
Libby resigned from the administration in October 2005, when he was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leaking of Plame's name.
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