Posted on 03/11/2006 9:22:21 AM PST by kimosabe31
On February 16, President George W. Bush assembled a small group of congressional Republicans for a briefing on Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley were there, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad participated via teleconference from Baghdad. As the meeting was beginning, Mike Pence spoke up. The Indiana Republican, a leader of conservatives in the House, was seated next to Bush."Yesterday, Mr. President, the war had its best night on the network news since the war ended," Pence said."Is this the tapes thing?" Bush asked, referring to two ABC News reports that included excerpts of recordings Saddam Hussein made of meetings with his war cabinet in the years before the U.S. invasion. Bush had not seen the newscasts but had been briefed on them.
Pence framed his response as a question, quoting Abraham Lincoln: "One of your Republican predecessors said, 'Give the people the facts and the Republic will be saved.' There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?
"Bush replied that he wanted the documents released. He turned to Hadley and asked for an update. Hadley explained that John Negroponte, Bush's Director of National Intelligence, "owns the documents" and that DNI lawyers were deciding how they might be handled.
Bush extended his arms in exasperation and worried aloud that people who see the documents in 10 years will wonder why they weren't released sooner. "If I knew then what I know now," Bush said in the voice of a war skeptic, "I would have been more supportive of the war.
"Bush told Hadley to expedite the release of the Iraq documents. "This stuff ought to be out. Put this stuff out."
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Negroponte apparently feels Ted Kennedy, Howard Dan, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and every other loud mouth, duplicitous lib that has accused the POTUS of "lying" about WMD's are his allies. He and his DNI "viper" lawyers are protecting the lying libs from public exposure at the expense of the presidents credibility. The president needs to call Negroponte in and inform him that "although these docs/tapes may 'belong' to you as head of DNI, YOU work for me. NOW get these documents released immediately or you AND your lawyers are out on the street". See if that doesn't get arrogant Negroponte’s attention.
Didn't seem to have the nature of a "suggestion" did it?
Bet we'll be seeing stuff soon if Hadley places any value on his job.
The idea that the President of the United States cannot declassify this information is ridiculous. He should fire the DNI staffers who are obviously just clinton shills.
Thought you might be interested in this.
I agree!! A bigtime house-cleaning is WAY overdue!!
"Negroponte and his staff have repeatedly expressed concern that releasing this information might embarrass our allies."
Heck, just have Dick Cheney declassify it.
What, exactly, is Negroponte's reasoning behind not releasing this information? I don't get it.
I suspect this stuff will be declassified just before the 2006 elections. Max impact, you know.
"Hadley explained that John Negroponte, Bush's Director of National Intelligence, "owns the documents"...."
This is egotism gone wild. The American People own the captured documents of Saddam and Iraq, not Negroponte!
Our soldiers fought to defeat him, our taxes paid for the war and are paying for the continuation.
There is nothing there, good or harmful, that should impede full disclosure for a democratic republic.
Wonder what allies this refers to? Those wonderful allies that did everything they could to stall and block us in the UN over the Iraq war? He's worried about those wonderful 'allies'?
LOL!
Oil for food folks.
"Wonder what allies this refers to? Those wonderful allies that did everything they could to stall and block us in the UN over the Iraq war? He's worried about those wonderful 'allies'?"
That's the real question.
All of our flaws with regard to Iraq have been exposed - the intelligence issues, the political in fighting etc.
If people calling themselves our allies were secretly helping Sadaam should that stay secret? Talk about a double standard.
If I were the POTUS I would give him [Negroponte] a week at the most and then I would fire his ass if he didn't comply with MY ORDERS!!!
It's probably a very good thing to get these things out in public, as it stands to reason that there's only going to be backup for The President's policy in there.
I can see, though, that given the volume of data it would sill be a good idea to find out what all is in there before it is summarily declassified. Who knows... there might be some good intel that could be exploited before certain facts were then made public.
It doesn't strike me as a big deal. Find out what's there, act on anything thing that is useful, and declassify it as you go through.
I've been talking about it all day on different threads!
I'd like to see freepers start to call their congressmen about this article. The left is running the agenda and coming up with stupid stuff to cover up the more important things -- like Saddam's tapes.
Timing IS everything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.