Barack Obama facing calls for investigation into intelligence leaks

The Obama administration is facing cross-party calls for an independent investigation into a spate of recent intelligence leaks about its secret war against al-Qaeda and efforts to disable Iran's nuclear programme using computer viruses.

President Barack Obama speaking in New York

Senior Republicans have accused the Obama White House of deliberately leaking material in order to burnish his credentials as commander-in-chief.

Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said the leaks were deliberately designed to make the president "look decisive" and came from the "highest levels" of the White House, an accusation that the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said was "grossly irresponsible".

However senior Democrats have also raised concerns about a number of books and articles which describe the inner workings of the Obama White House and the US national security establishment in extraordinary, fly-on-the-wall detail.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee said the leaks were endangering lives and making other intelligence agencies nervous about sharing information with the US.

She added that her Committee would discuss the appointment of an independent 'Special Counsel' to investigate, alongside an existing investigation by the FBI, after Republicans said it was impossible for the White House to 'investigate itself'.

"What we're seeing is an avalanche of leaks, and it's very, very disturbing," she added in a television interview with CNN, "It's dismayed our allies, it puts American lives in jeopardy, it puts our nation's security in jeopardy." Sen. Feinstein said that individual snippets of information might be considered harmless in themselves, but were being used by reporters to piece together a picture that, viewed in its entirety, were potentially massive damaging.

Citing a recent article on how Mr Obama personally approved drone strikes on al-Qaeda targets by the New York Times correspondent David Sanger she said her "heart dropped".

"He wove a tapestry which has an impact that's beyond any single piece of information and he's very good at what he does. And he spent a year figuring it all out."