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Jill Abramson regrets stance on James Risen Iran story

Former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson said in an interview released Sunday that she regrets not pushing the Times to publish a story by national security reporter James Risen about a reportedly flawed CIA effort to undermine Iran's nuclear program — an account that unleashed a nearly seven-year drive by the U.S. government to force Risen to identify his sources.

Risen elected to put the story in a book he wrote, "State of War," which was published in 2006, several years after the Times elected not to detail the saga in which the CIA was said to have botched an operation to provide flawed nuclear blueprints to Tehran through an intermediary.

"I regret it now, but I think that I leaned towards not publishing," Abramson said in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" posted on the program's website. "It seemed, in the calculus of all of the major stories we were dealing with at that point, not worth it to me and I regret that decision now. I regret that I did not back a great reporter, Jim Risen, who I’ve worked with and who then worked for me and whose work I knew was solid as a rock."

Prosecutors have suggested in court filings that Risen's decision to publish the story despite the Times's refusal to do so undercuts his grounds for defying subpoenas demanding the identities of his confidential sources. After a series of court battles that Risen ultimately lost, the government is again considering issuing a fresh subpoena to him to testify at the trial of a CIA officer accused of providing him with classified information, Jeffrey Sterling. The trial is now set for January 2015.

Abramson's stance could help bolster Risen's argument that the information was newsworthy, particularly as concern about Iran's nuclear program ramped up in the past decade.

In the excerpt from the "60 Minutes" interview, recorded for a segment aired on the show Sunday but not broadcast during the program itself, Abramson describes a meeting in which National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice urged the Times to kill the story.

"She barely looked up. She basically read in a very stern manner from her notes on this legal pad, which were just point after point about why this story would be damaging to the national security. … I felt a bit surreal," Abramson told CBS's Lesley Stahl. "Her bottom line … was to make sure that Jim cease all reporting on this story, which was really an extraordinary request."

In 2011, District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected a request by prosecutors to admit Rice's talking points as evidence without her appearing on the witness stand to discuss them. In an earlier court pleading, prosecutors suggested they might call Rice as a witness.

Court records indicated CIA Director George Tenet and Risen were also at the April 2003 meeting, but Abramson did not mention that in the excerpt posted by CBS.

In the "60 Minutes" broadcast Sunday, former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden said he would not be pressing the effort to force Risen to divulge his sources.

"Frankly, Lesley, I don't understand the necessity to pursue Jim," Hayden told Stahl. "I'm conflicted. I know the damage that is done. And I do ... I have to think about, so how do I redress that? And if the method of redressing that actually harms the broad freedom of the press, that's still wrong. The government needs to be strong enough to keep me safe, but I don't want it so strong that it threatens my liberties."

The "60 Minutes" story referred at several points to the possibility that Risen might end up jailed for refusing to reveal his sources. Unmentioned in the program was that Attorney General Eric Holder has indicated on several occasions that he will not take part in sending a journalist to jail over his reporting and that President Barack Obama has made a similar statement.