So far it seems that the main documents missing are the drafts for the after-action report written by Richard Clarke and later "refined" by the Clinton Administration. I am curious as to why Berger specifically chose to pocket and totally lose those documents. Hmmm...are there signficant differences in conclusion and/or emphasis between the drafts and the final version of the report that Clarke and the Clinton Administration put out? Inquiring minds want to know...Berger doesn't seem like the type of person to just simply make a rash decision and shove questionable documents in his pants, socks, and briefcase. I am sure that he probably deliberated such options prior to going to the National Archives annex in Maryland.
Also, I find it curious that every news source thus far have given out the information that it is "believed" that copies of the draft still exist at the National Archives. Are they getting this information directly from Archives personnel? If so, I think that someone is bluffing. With classified documents, they are either there or not. Especially by this point in time, that information should be confirmed by now. I think that copies of the drafts do not actually exist. Did Berger know this? Inquiring minds want to know...
I still have the same problem with this. Where is security in an archive of top secret documents? Could you or I just walk in with a briefcase, load up with documents, and walk out without a single challenge by a single guard? Is that how they have it set up? One person could go in there and day by day, literally destroy thousands of documents.
No, not really, especially with something (a draft) like this. Here is the way it would work.
The author (Clarke) would write his rough draft, then there would be copies made, probably something like 10. Each copy would be labeled (for instance Copy 2 of 10) then each copy would have a routing memo attached and circulated around for comments from all relevant people. People would mark up the draft with their comments (Crossing stuff out, adding comments in the margins, possibly attaching a page with additional comments, changing emphasis whatever). Eventually all of the copies and the comments would make it back to who ever was going to finalize it, most likely the original author. They would incorporate or ignore the comments.
The point of this is that each of the copies is different...it has different people's comments on it. So while a copy or two might be still be in existance, all of the copies would have different comments by different people. I think it likely that those comments are the evidence that Burglar was trying to destroy.
I don't know who said what, but someone said something in their comments that would be damning with the hindsight of 9/11. It could very easily be Clinton himself, or Burglar or someone else senior making a comment about minimizing the threat of terrorism or arguing that we don't need to do anything about the Islamic terrorism threat. Or even more likely, that the political cost of taking appropriate security measures was not worth it.
After all, this was an after action report after they did nothing, and nothing happened and a little basic law enforcement caught the bad guy. Clarke's original purpose in writing the report was to agitate for more focus on counter terrorism...and it didn't happen. Someone said something in their comments that made it not happen. And that someone had to be high up.