"I was caught up in the deception that followed," he wrote of the White House's denials about having any hand in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized the administration for allegedly manipulating prewar intelligence.
"It was the defining moment in my time working for the president," he wrote, "and one of the most painful experiences of my life."
McClellan also contends that Karl Rove, the former chief political adviser in the White House, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former assistant to the president and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff who was convicted of obstruction of justice in the CIA leak investigation, had meetings in which it appeared they were coordinating their stories about the events regarding Plame and Wilson.
Rove adamantly denied this Tuesday night in an interview with Fox News' Alan Colmes.
"Scooter and I visited all the time," Rove said. "I don't know what the particular meeting in question was about. I know what it wasn't about - it was not about Plame and Wilson."
Calling McClellan's claim "earth-shattering," Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida said the former press secretary should be compelled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
McClellan portrayed the president as an "instinctive leader more than an intellectual leader" who believed that the invasion of Iraq would lead to a broader peace in the Middle East but could not sell it that way to the American public. So, McClellan said, Bush turned to intelligence about Saddam Hussein that supported his case and disregarded or discarded any intelligence that disputed the later-refuted contention that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Bush "signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was less than candid and honest," he wrote.
Ari Fleischer, who served as Bush's first press secretary, echoed the White House's suggestion that this is not the Scott McClellan whom he remembers. Yet, in an interview with Fox News, Fleischer also voiced some sympathy for the task that McClellan faced.
"He got dealt a deck of cards that were very tough," Fleischer said. "He was the press secretary at a time when the war in Iraq started to go very badly, he had issues inside with staffers who deceived him. There are some legit issues that Scott raises, but the point he makes about the president and the war in Iraq, that's just the part I don't understand."
Mark Silva writes for the Chicago Tribune.
