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The White House said on Tuesday that it has launched a probe into how the name of the Central Intelligence Agency's top officer in Afghanistan was inadvertently revealed during President Barack Obama's weekend trip to the Asian country.
Obama's Chief of Staff Denis McDonough has asked new White House counsel Neil Eggleston to conduct the review, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden was quoted as saying by The Hill, a congressional newspaper, on its website.
"The chief of staff has asked the White House counsel, Neil Eggleston, to look into what happened and report back to him with recommendations on how the administration can improve processes and make sure something like this does not happen again," Hayden said.
A list of 15 senior U.S. officials, first provided to journalists traveling with Obama and then forwarded to other reporters on the White House mailing list, included the "Chief of Station" in Kabul for joining a military briefing with the president on Sunday at Bagram air base north of the city.
A Washington Post reporter, who filed and sent by the White House the list to the so-called "pool report" recipients as many as 6,000, noticed and alerted White House press officials about the error.
The Obama administration had requested major news outlets to withhold the officer's name, warning he and his family could be at risk if his name was published.
"Intentionally exposing the identity of undercover CIA operatives is a crime," The Hill said, noting that former CIA officer John Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison earlier this year after admitting he had told a reporter the name of an undercover officer.
