Bush Condemns Bank Spying Disclosure

President Bush sharply condemned on Monday the disclosure of a program of secret monitoring of suspected terrorists' financial transactions. "The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said.

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Mr. Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror."

The monitoring program has been active since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times disclosed it last week.

Using broad government subpoenas, the program allows U.S. counterterror analysts to obtain financial information from a vast database maintained by a company based in Belgium. It routes about 11 million financial transactions daily among 7,800 banks and other financial institutions in 200 countries.

"Congress was briefed, and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Mr. Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. troops in Iraq.

"We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing."

"The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and at the same time make sure we understand what the terrorists are trying to do," Mr. Bush said. He said that to figure out what terrorists plan to do, "You try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing, and the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."

In advance of Mr. Bush's remarks, The New York Times defended itself against criticism for disclosing the program.

In a note on the paper's Web site Sunday, Executive Editor Bill Keller said the Times spent weeks discussing with Bush administration officials whether to publish the report.

He said part of the government's argument was that the anti-terror program would no longer be effective if it became known, because international bankers would be unwilling to cooperate and terrorists would find other ways to move money.

"We don't know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling," Keller said, pointing out that the banks were under subpoena to provide the information. "The Bush administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere."

The note to readers was published the same day Rep. Peter King urged the Bush administration to prosecute the paper.

"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," the New York Republican told The Associated Press.

Keller said the administration also argued "in a halfhearted way" that disclosure of the program "would lead terrorists to change tactics."

Keller wrote, however, that the Treasury Department has "trumpeted... that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash."