[Woodworker]

No good deed goes unpunished!

[MikefromOhio]

nah not the Russians...

its the Syrians....

[marty60]

Since when is making public intelligence data a good deed. He probably blew an op.

[trickyricky]

What happened to the guy who blew the whistle on the space shuttle o-rings?

[piasa]

Don't be too hasty if you don't know much about Shaw...

[piasa]

Shaw was playing favorites with contracting to help a friend get contracts in Iraq for his telecom business. Among other things.

[DainBramage]

Russian special forces units were involved

Seems a very important part. Declaration of Russian military involvement against the coalition, and as war unfolded.

[piasa]

The guy has tried to paint himself- or perhaps the press has tried to paint his as a conservative, upstanding guy... but does this terminology sound conservative to you or more loike something from DU?

He threatened DiRita that, if forced to step down, he would unleash "Iran Contra II," a reference to the scandal that roiled the Reagan administration.

This guy leaked the bogus story of "missing munitions" perhaps to help out the Democrat party and to cover for his own little self and his ethical problems. Or both.

[dennisw]

Administration blabbermouths are being put on notice. In the CIA and elsewhere. They are not appreciated in this era of a biased mass media.

[Wiz]

John A. Shaw might have not followed the legal steps for disclosure but without his contribution, the liberals would have continued to blame for no evidence of WMD until the end of election. This news may have had some effect not just to justify the Iraq War but also justify President Bush for his judgement leading to Iraq War in the last few weeks of the election to show the truth to the public. John A. Shaw might deserve criticism but should not be punished hard. The real enemy to be punished are terrorist supporting Russia and Syria that have hidden the WMDs.

While Russian involvement was not clear, this was also already news in the early days of year 2004 even before John A. Shaw made it public. Related news was also posted on Free Republic about WMD stored in Syria. My memory is not clear but I also thought there was also news in the first few weeks of Iraq War about Russian special force involvement in Iraq.

Syria stores Iraq's WMD that was reported in Jan 2004. http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php
http://www.2la.org/syria/wmd.html

[conservativeharleyguy]

Mere dismissal for one's job is too small a price to pay for deliberate and unauthorized disclosure of CLASSIFIED information, especially when it's done just to prove some philosophical point!

Just because we might agree with his message, doesn't mitigate his legal culpability.

There has been far too much of this kind of thing in Washington in the past several years.

If I were to intentionally disclose (i.e. "leak") classified information, I'd consider myself fortunate to merely lose my job.

It is against the law,and should be treated as such!!! Anyone who does this should be prosecuted.

[berserker]

Its pretty clear why he was let go: releasing classified material for a political reason (and admitting this was the reason), as noted in the article:

In October, Mr. Shaw told The Washington Times that he had received foreign intelligence data showing that Russian special forces units were involved in an effort to remove Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began in March 2003. ... Mr. Shaw went public to counter a political "October surprise" campaign designed to "crucify the president" over the missing explosives, he wrote to Mr. Rumsfeld. "The Kerry media-driven October surprise attack on us and the president stopped within hours," Mr. Shaw wrote. "If I had not had the openly hostile environment in [Pentagon public affairs], I would have moved the story differently. Getting the truth out instantly was more important than process."

[Mitchell]

Ping.

[TapTheSource]

Not been postin for a wile because several keys on keyboard not workin. Still, tis is definately wort readin (see wat I mean about my keyboard!!!)--TTS