Berger on the 'Wall'

Mr. Berger admits to having deliberately taken handwritten notes he'd made out of the Archives reading room. On the more serious charges involving the removal (and subsequent discarding) of highly classified documents -- including drafts of a key, after-action memo Mr. Berger had himself ordered on the U.S. response to al Qaeda threats in the run-up to the Millennium -- he maintains he did so "inadvertently."

There's only one way to clear away the political smoke: Release all the drafts of the review Mr. Berger took from the room.

If it's all as innocent as Mr. Berger's friends are saying, there's no reason not to make them public. But there are good reasons for questioning Mr. Berger's dog-ate-my-homework explanation. To begin with, he was not simply preparing for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission. He was the point man for the Clinton Administration, reviewing and selecting the documents to be turned over to the Commission.

Written by Richard Clarke for the NSC, the key document was called the Millennium After-Action Review because it dealt with al Qaeda attacks timed for the eve of the Millennium celebrations. In his own 9/11 testimony, Mr. Berger described these al Qaeda plans as "the most serious threat spike of our time in government." He went on to say that they provoked "sustained attention and rigorous actions" from the Administration that ended up saving lives.

But Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has the advantage of having read the document in question, had a different take. In his own 9/11 testimony in April, Mr. Ashcroft recommended that the Commission "study carefully" the after-action memo. He described it as laying out vulnerabilities and calling for aggressive remedies of the type he and the Bush Administration have been criticized for. Mr. Ashcroft further noted that when he took office, this "highly classified review" was "not among" the items he was briefed on during the transition.

Maybe that is because of the potential for embarrassment at the mentality the memo reveals. Mr. Ashcroft testified that the Justice Department's "surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses." The most glaring, of course, were the restrictions on the sharing of critical information between intelligence and law enforcement -- even within the FBI itself. This was the infamous "wall of separation" that Clinton Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick instructed the FBI director should "go beyond what is legally required."

Mr. Berger attributes the disappearance of this classified information to the kind of "sloppiness" that comes from reviewing "thousands of pages of documents." But it strikes us as amazing that mere sloppiness could account for how Mr. Berger seized on the same memo during two different visits.

We're not interested in rehashing what the Clinton Administration or even Mr. Berger did or didn't do vis-a-vis the al Qaeda threat pre-9/11. Nor are we much interested about Mr. Berger's troubles with the law. What does interest us is what this memo might tell us about how America should respond to terror.

Yes, the originals are important.

Never-the-less, the dims must consider us to be totally whacko, because we have WJC coming out saying they are all laughing about it. ie, Sandy Berger is sloppy.

And yes, "inadvertently" is not even possible. Wrong word here.
Nothing gets into anyone's pants, inadvertently???!!!??? Or socks either, I might add.

Glad as you say, some can not be copied.

My wonderment is that as I looked today............the news papers aren't talking about it.

Is there too much news today, just to ignore this?
You know..........wait it out and it goes away.

In addition, this "drafts" business has a possibility that I had not considered until now. Suppose that the "marginal notes" or "comments" someone placed on a draft consisted of "PostIt notes"? (For example: Remove this reference to OBL being offered by Sudan - WJC) ... How would this be attached permanently to that draft copy for the sake of the archives?

I can never remember anyone using postit notes when editing or commenting classified documents. I can't imagine it being good practice. The work I did was in the generation of reports (analysis of radar imaging data - both theoretical and measured). This is in contrast with classified reports treated as inter-office memos or briefings like the docs Berger seems to have been after.

Thanks for the response about "post-its" - I finally saw it.

Those little doboppies weren't even invented yet when I was dealing with classified, so it wasn't an issue at all.

I would be surprised if it is even "legal" to do so in connection with this TS+ stuff, but wanted to ask someone who might know.

BY the Way: I've referred many Grateful FReepers to your excellent rundown --- I'm glad you posted is so many times, and so are they.
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Thanks for the response about "post-its" - I finally saw it.

Those little doboppies weren't even invented yet when I was dealing with classified, so it wasn't an issue at all.

You're welcome. Actually, I was also straining to remember if we had post it notes around during my time. Of course we also didn't have cell phones, digital cameras ...etc

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