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SPY AGENCIES DENY PROVIDING 'SOONG-CHEN MEETING' INFO TO PRESIDENT

ROC Central News Agency

2005-10-20 12:46:39

    Taipei, Oct. 20 (CNA) Eight intelligence agencies denied Thursday that they had provided any information about the alleged secret meeting between People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong and Chinese official Chen Yunlin in the United States to President Chen Shui-bian.

    Officials from the eight units, including the National Security Bureau (NSB) , the Bureau of Investigation under the Ministry of Justice, and the Military Intelligence Bureau under the Ministry of National Defense, also denied that the Presidential Office or National Security Council (NSC) , which is headed by the president, had ordered them to check the allegation.

    The officials were invited to a breakfast meeting by the PFP's legislative caucus, during which they all denied that they had given any such information to the president.

    During two recent TV interviews, President Chen claimed that Soong met with the director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office in the United States in January. Soong has filed two libel suits against the president, demanding NT$50 million in compensation and an apology published in major newspapers for three days in a row.

    NSB Chief Secretary Lin Cheng-tung said his bureau, which gathers all sorts of intelligence from other spy agencies, sends to the president only the information that it regards as valuable. And what his bureau has presented to the president does not include the so-called "Soong-Chen (Yunlin) meeting," he added.

    NSB Director Hsueh Shih-min had earlier told the legislature that if the NSB had given any information about the alleged "Soong-Chen meeting" to the president, he would step down to take responsibility.

    PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao asked Lin Cheng-tung and other spy agencies' representatives at the breakfast meeting if they had been asked by the Presidential Office or the NSC to double-check the validity of the president's allegation. The reply was a unanimous "no."

    Lin said, besides the eight units being represented at the breakfast meeting, "there should be no other government units in Taiwan whose mandate is intelligence gathering and analysis."

    Chang said that since the eight units claimed they had neither supplied to the president nor checked the alleged information, the president might have disclosed a piece of "false information" that had not been confirmed, indicating he had "poor judgment in trying to use false information as a political tool."

    As to the president's claim that his allegation "was based on something, " Chang said that "something" could be "fabricated" in the event that the president were forced to show it.

(By S.C. Chang)

ENDITEM/Li