There was a great line in the movie Absence of Malice in which Wilford Brimley says, “You had a leak? You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat.’ Here was a guy who knew what a leak was.
We just spent two years investigating whether or not anyone illegally leaked the name of one former covert CIA operative who was likely never going to be given a foreign assignment again, despite what you may have heard about her live being in danger. Since that time, leaks have become the favorite pastime for all those who don’t see the world beyond the Beltway.
There were so many leaks of grand jury testimony during Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation, that leaks about who was leaking sprung up in the press. Grand Jury testimony is not supposed to be leaked. In fact, publicly discussing the testimony brings a prison term with it. If there was so much outrage over the initial leak of Vanity Fair’s pinup girl, Valerie Plame’s name (oops, I just endangered her life again), then where has the outrage vanished to about the Grand Jury leaks?
Today, reporting on several leaks from within the CIA and others, the Washington Post has a story that claims the U.S. has several secret prisons in Asia and Eastern Europe. Per the report, these prisons are housing captured insurgents and, to get around U.S. laws regarding the treatment of enemy combatants, the U.S. has placed them there so they can be tortured to reveal information about future attacks, etc. Further leaks and educated guesses have suggested the prisons, if they exist, are located in Poland and Romania. The European Union, better known as the House of the Timid, has declared these prisons as inconsistent with EU human rights treaties among the member nations and has ordered an investigation. The good news is; the war will be over before they decide which country will lead the investigation.
But what does this say about the press, the leakers, and the way the Valerie Plame investigation played out? I guess it suggests the press will place a news scoop over national security any day, even if it endangers lives (less we forget it was the press that made the decision to use Valerie Plame’s name in the first place). As for the leakers, the public has to wonder about their agenda as it rightfully did with Scooter Libby. I suspect the leaks coming from the CIA shows a deeper fissure between the Administration and the intelligence community, perhaps over the fact the CIA got the brunt of the blame over faulty Iraq intelligence. And I suppose the Valerie Plame case is another example of lost perspective, in this case looking for the villains who were merely defending a political attack, but letting the media off the hook on the actual printing of her name. It’s the same perspective that sent G. Gordon Liddy to jail for five years for having one FBI file in his possession and ignoring the Clinton apparatus for taking – and never returning – nearly 1,000 raw FBI files on political opponents. One is a crime, and the other a “bureaucratic snafu.”
Of the leaks, the one most damaging is the report on the prisons. Why would anyone at CIA want to leak this information? Not only should the leaker(s) have expected the public outcry, but they also must have known the leaks would put all of their colleagues operating in those countries in danger. This news may also make it more likely for terrorist attacks inside the named countries. There may end up being plenty of blood on the hands of the leakers and those who decided to run with this story.
A few years back, a former CIA operative named Philip Agee wrote a book naming undercover CIA agents in various countries. This led to several executions and the destruction of years of asset-building around the world. I believe in a free press and even revel in it when I can. But when should their desire to sell books and newspapers override the public interest and our national security? Apparently, it seems, only when it affects critics of the White House.
6 comments:
I guess I'm blogging again, even though there was no real screams for it.
And just in case anyone wondered where I stand on torturing enemy combatants, I think I view things as most Americans do: if we can save American lives by running electricity through their private parts, I say, "up the voltage."
Hey Henry, how do I put the web counter on this site? I saw that you have one and I signed up for it but I have no idea where to put it. I did figure how to link to your blogs, though.
Sorry for such a long delay in responding. I say, "up the voltage", too, although I don't know how you find a true balance between how far you go with the 'torture' and saving lives.
A question regarding leaks by certain members of the CIA: Is it possible that there are some/many holdovers from the Clinton years who cannot STAND Bush and are therefore willing to risk national security or other agents lives to further their own political ideology?
Web counter? I don't think I have one on my blog (http://sladed.blogspot.com). I do have one on http://pulltabchain.freewebpage.org so email me about the counter you signed up for and I'll help you with it if I can. A counter might be a good idea because then you can get an idea of how many "lurkers" out there (I know of one in my household!)
Like the way I worked both of my sites into that last comment?!
You are a great self-promoter! I got the web counter from the pulltabchain, just don't know how to insert it in here to catch those lurkers.
You're right about a division not only in the CIA but within the Defense Intelligence Agency. Don't forget we changed from being a battle-oriented military to "peacemakers" during both the last years of Bush 41 and then Clinton. There are also intelligence services with State Dept., and NSA and they all have their own agendas; some don't like the action in Iraq, some don't like getting the blame, and some don't like Bush like you say. And, people leak for their own reasons, sometimes as simple as seeing their stories in the news.
Either way, there has been inconsistent intelligence gathering that I really doubt was manipulated into making a case to go to war. Regardless of what you're hearing, Saddam had WMD and pulled back from using them for reasons I stated on your Sladed Blog (another plug!).
Where the U.S. decision-makers were let down was a failure in the intelligence community to know that it was comprimised by Iraqi intelligence that was peddling bad information. We were told that many of the Iraqi irregulars would not fight and that entire batallions would surrender as hostilities began. In short, we supposedly had accurate information that most Iraqis wouldn't fight to save Saddam. We were misled and, we not only brought just 70,000 troops into battle, they were only given 3-5 days worth of water and ammunition assuming little to no resistence. We were bogged down several times by fierce counter-attacks. We also underestimated the Turks and how they blocked our troops from entering Iraq from the north so we had the entire 4th Division sitting on a ship traveling from Turkey to the Red Sea. It turns out they missed the entire march to Baghdad. That too was unreliable intelligence.
The questions being asked by hyprocritical democrats shouldn't be did Bush cook the intelligence books to lead us to war, but rather why did our intelligence services so badly misread the entire theater of battle.
And I still say up the voltage!
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