Peter King questions Bin Laden movie White House admittance

A senior Republican has identified for an investigation into reports the White House fed secrets about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden to Hollywood film-makers.

Peter King, chair of the House of Representatives homeland security committee, referred to a report advising the White House expects the film will make better President Obama's election offer.

New York Times writer Maureen Dowd said film-makers had "top-level admittance ".

The White House called that report - and Mr. King's asserts - "ridiculous".

Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda head who had spent almost ten years in hiding since fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001, was killed in May in a raid into Pakistan by team of a selected Navy Seals especial forces team.

The killing of the man followed the 9/11 terror attack marked the latest high point in Mr. Obama's presidency.

Since then the president has been determined by unemployment, a lethargic economy and partisan wrangling and congestion in Washington and has seen his approval rating slip.

'Home-stretch boost'

In the outcome of the raid, senior US military authorities condemned media leaks of information to the news media, saying they endangered future operations.

On 6 August, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that Sony Pictures had started making a film about the Bin Laden attack by Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the Oscar-winning director and writer of The Hurt Locker, which depicted a team of US bomb-defusers in Iraq.

"The filmmakers are acquiring highest-level approach to the most confidential mission in history," Ms Dowd wrote, adding up that the movie would "no uncertainty reflects the president's cool, plucky decision against shaky peculiars".

Ms Dowd said the movie was due to be launched in October 2012, "exactly timed to give a home-stretch enhance to a campaign that has developed tougher".

In a letter to addressed to the inspectors general of the CIA and the Department of Defense, Mr. King, a New York Republican, inquired the authorities to inspect the level to which the White House, the CIA and Department of Defense discussed "the advisability of providing Hollywood producers with access to underground military operators and overt CIA officers".

He also questioned whether the movie would be put forward for pre-screening and what measures the Obama administration had taken to make sure no operational coverts were disclosed, along with other matters.

"The management's first duty in declassifying stuffs is to give complete reporting to Congress and the American people, in an attempt to create public reliance through clarity of government," Mr. King wrote.

On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said advises the management had given covert information to the film-producers were "ridiculous".

He said the White House press office creates an effort to make sure that news articles, documentary films and Hollywood productions about the president are correct, and objectives to put up film-producers who want interviews with White House authorities.

"We do not share secret information," Mr. Carney said.

"And I would expect that as we face a constant risk from terrorism, the House Committee on Homeland Security would have more significant topics to talk than a movie."