If you find it .. could you please ping me?
Sinking ships of accountability
By Brad Keena
web posted June 24, 2002
The White House was appropriately miffed last week when someone on Capitol Hill leaked classified snippets of information to the media after a closed-door hearing probing the September 11 attacks. The classified briefing before the bipartisan House-Senate intelligence committee included testimony from Lt. General Michael Hayden, who heads the National Security Agency (NSA), the outfit whose mission is to monitor communications from around the world, break codes and make codes.
Among the hundreds of thousands of messages captured September 10 were two hints that something might be afoot, Hayden is said to have told the panel. The next day, in the morning paper, the General read what he told the Congressmen and Senators not to repeat the day before. What was it they used to say during World War II - "loose lips sink ships?"
Apparently, all that is out the window in 2002, especially when control of the Senate is at stake in a mid-term election year of a popular president trying to fight a war. After all, what's another terrorist attack compared to the political goal of making the president look like a dope so you can win Senate seats for your party? (Unless, of course, the leaker turns out to be a Republican, in which case he is an even bigger dope than what he had tried to make the President appear to be.)
"The selective, inappropriate leaking of snippets of information risks undermining national security and risks undermining the promises made to protect the sensitive information," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "The president [has] very deep concerns about anything that would be inappropriately leaked that could in any way endanger America's ability to gather intelligence information, and even that could harm our ability to maintain sources and methods and anything that could interfere with America's ability to fight the war on terrorism."
The president was equally "concerned" [mad as hell?] last October when a knucklehead on Capitol Hill leaked damaging classified information about the government's response to the 9/11 attacks. Then there was that 1998 leak of information about the National Security Agency's efforts to eavesdrop on Osama bin Laden's satellite phone conversations. After that, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks stopped using phones altogether, officials say.
What exactly was leaked to the classified-snippet hungry media last week? As the media has now repeated - worldwide - it was a pair of simple, four-word phrases captured by the NSA from phone calls on September 10: "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match begins tomorrow." Among the most credible people in the Administration, General Hayden is respected by both parties as a good manager, sincere in his goal of transforming a Cold War relic into a valuable agency in the fight against tribal opponents.
On Capitol Hill last week, he was trying to do his job, briefing the handful of Senators and Congressmen charged with keeping the NSA accountable. In a perfect world, it's a great system. One agency with all kinds of power reports its progress and activities before another branch of the government. Checks and balances. Legislative overseeing Executive. Sadly, not only is it not a perfect world, it's a political world -- one that rewards political dirty tricks with political advantage. That Hayden was frustrated is an understatement.
The reason: he can't tell the rest of the story without breaking the law. You see, it's supposed to be illegal for those who have been trusted with classified information to turn around and divulge that kind of information to those who are not. In this case, he can't stand up and explain to the media that these snippets were from two out of hundreds of thousands of conversations picked up by the NSA that day, or that his analysts get lots of phrases like this, or that few of these potential warnings, if any, ever amount to anything.
He can't tell us who they think said it, why they were low-priority sources, or if the rest of the conversations had anything even remotely to do with what we now know happened the next day. The media and the public might say, "Why shouldn't we learn what's going on. We have a right to know."
Ordinarily, I would tend to agree, but not in like this case. Truth does not become Truth by disclosure; Truth is constant, disclosed or not. However, a snippet of Truth, where disclosed in part or out of context, can be fashioned into Falsehood, thereby defrauding the original Truth from whence it came. We call that "calumny." Saying the President and the agency under him knew about 9/11 but did nothing is a calumny. And it is also political ammunition.
There are close races this fall in Missouri, South Dakota, Georgia, Arkansas, and Minnesota, to name a few. By November, the president will likely have visited all of those states. A discredited president would make a weak impression: advantage Democrats, who currently hold the Senate by a mere thread.
Now, I'd like to say "that's politics," and it is, for the most part. And I'll remind you that I'm second to none in my earnest conviction that secret and powerful agencies must be held accountable, lest those holding the rains of power become seduced by what's in their hands, and use that power to trample the freedoms of the citizenry. [Power corrupts; that is its nature. We are weak; that is our nature.] I am keen on the need for serious questions to get answered, even during times that require national unity, i.e., times of war.
However, this unfortunate episode is not about checks against unbridled power, or the public's right to know, or even about what should have been done to prevent 9/11. It is about political opportunism, and it may well come at the expense of common- sense accountability. Now, I fear, future administrations will steer clear of forthrightness. I fear they'll remember the political leaks of classified information to score political points. I fear they'll resist disclosing any information of substance to the groups (or the public for that matter) that need to hear and assess that information. I fear the process of accountability is about to go right down the drain along with the leak of those snippets this week. Terrorists need not crash another plane or target another soul as far as the United States is concerned. They've done their damage and, worse, they've watched us do the rest for them.
Contact Brad Keena at jbkeena@hotmail.com
Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com
I wonder how many letters Rockefeller and his RATS will send to get an investigation of this leak? This is how many they sent trying to get the Plame investigation.
March 14, 2003: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Director Mueller requesting an investigation into the origin of the Niger documents.
May 23, 2003: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller sent a letter to the CIA and State Department Inspectors General to review issues related to the Niger documents.
June 2, 2003: Senator Rockefeller issued a press release endorsing a statement made of the previous weekend by Senator Warner calling for a joint SSCI/SASC investigation.
June 4, 2003: Senator Rockefeller issued a press release saying he would push for an investigation. Senator Roberts issued a press release saying calls for an investigation are premature.
June 10, 2003: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Senator Roberts asking for an investigation.
June 11, 2003: All Committee Democrats signed a letter to Senator Roberts asking for a meeting of the Committee to discuss the question of authorizing an inquiry into the intelligence that formed the basis for going to war.
June 11, 2003: Senator Roberts issued a press release saying this is routine committee oversight, and that criticism of the intelligence community is unwarranted. Senator Rockefeller issued a press release calling the ongoing review inadequate.
June 20, 2003: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller issued a joint press release laying out the scope of the inquiry.
August 13, 2003: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Senator Roberts making 14 points about the investigation, asking to expand the inquiry to address the "use of intelligence by policy makers" and asking for several other actions.
September 9, 2003: After press reports quoting Senator Roberts as saying the investigation was almost over, Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Senator Roberts urging him not to rush to complete the investigation prematurely.
October 29, 2003: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller sent a letter to Director Tenet expressing in strong terms that he should provide documents that have been requested and make individuals available.
October 30, 2003: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller sent letters to Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice expressing in strong terms that they should provide documents that have been requested and make individuals available.
October 31, 2003: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Director Tenet asking for documents related to the interaction between intelligence and policy makers, including the documents from the Vice President's office related to the Powell speech.
November 2, 2003: Senator Roberts made statements during a joint television appearance with Senator Rockefeller claiming that the White house would provide all documents they jointly requested.
December 5, 2003: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to National Security Advisor Rice asking for her help getting documents and access to individuals.
January 22, 2004: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Director Tenet asking for compliance with the Oct. 31 request for documents.
February 12, 2004: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller issued a joint press release announcing the Committee's unanimous approval of the expansion of the Iraq review, to include use of intelligence in the form of public statements, and listing other aspects of what became Phase II.
March 23, 2004: Senator Rockefeller sent yet another letter to Director Tenet asking for compliance with the Oct. 31 request for documents.
June 17, 2004: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller joint press release announcing the unanimous approval of the report.
July 16, 2004: Committee Democrats sent a letter to Bush asking for the one page summary of the NIE prepared for Bush. The Committee staff had been allowed to review it but could not take notes and the Committee was never given a copy.
February 3, 2005: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Senator Roberts outlining Committee priorities for the coming year and encouraging completion of Phase II.
August 5, 2005: Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Senator Roberts expressing concern over the lack of progress on Phase II and calling for a draft to be presented to the Committee at a business meeting in September.
September 29, 2005: All Committee Democrats joined in additional views to the annual Intelligence Authorization Bill criticizing the lack of progress on Phase II.