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Congressional Intelligence Leaks

Geoff Metcalf
Monday, March 14, 2005

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car
keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O'Rourke

The inability of certain Congress critters to keep their pie holes
shut on security matters creates inevitable consequences. One obvious
consequence of leaked secret stuff is that the constitutional
responsibility of advice, consent and oversight is undermined big
time.

Hey, if senators can't be trusted to keep top-secret stuff SECRET,
guess what ... there will be natural (and although inappropriate,
understandable) reluctance for spooks to fully inform Congress. That's
a bad thing.

"Loose lips sink ships" was (and is) a military admonition of caution.

A few years ago leaks of classified information prompted the president
to limit top-secret briefings to just eight House and Senate leaders.
Some may argue that's eight too many ... or 92 too few.

There ARE consequences to what we do and don't do, and nowhere more so
than in the arena of intelligence.

If one offends the sensibilities of political correctness, the
immediate draconian consequences are axiomatic: Crucify the bastard!
However, if ‘certain people' outrageously break the law, policy and
procedures with intelligence matters, accountability drifts on the
wind of partisan proclivities.

In December 2004 intelligence types were allegedly seeking a criminal
investigation into the outing of a top-secret spy-satellite program by
some disagreeable Democrat senators.

The Bush administration was major league torqued over leaks about a
new covert generation of satellites.

The premature, inappropriate congressional brain flatulence was
articulated by Senators Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden. Although the
petty partisan hacks didn't ID the satellite program or give details,
a Washington Post follow-up identified the program for what it is. The
details included in the Post make clear that people with intimate
knowledge of the program leaked details.

"At a minimum, what they did was irresponsible," said an official.

It was way more.

Once upon a time discussions were under way about whether to ask
Senate Republicans to consider removing Rockefeller and Wyden from the
committee. That was December. I haven't been able to find ‘Jack'
since.

Despite the vacuous incompetence of the Senate Ethics Committee (as
worthless as mammary glands on a bull), in the interest of maintaining
the fiction of credibility, the ‘form' of an investigation should have
been imperative.

Meanwhile, a criminal grand jury allegedly is still looking into
whether former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger should be
charged for removal of documents from the National Archives. This is
(or should be) a big deal:

# Berger admitted that he removed as many as 50 top-secret documents
from the archives, calling it an "honest mistake." Not even!

# He also acknowledged that he destroyed some documents, but claimed
it was by accident. Accident, my Airborne fourth point of contact!

# The pilfered documents were classified "Code Word," the highest
security classification, above Top Secret. Hellooo!?!?!

Meanwhile, Sandy says he made "an honest mistake." BULLFEATHERS! It
was neither "honest" NOR a "mistake." That he got caught ... THAT was
the mistake.

The unaccountability and lack of consequences for egregious
(criminal?) ineptitude is, sadly, routine in the 87 square miles
surrounded by reality.

Senator Pat Leahy was annoyed with the Reagan administration's war on
terrorism in the 1980s. At the time he was vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee.

# "Leaky Leahy," allegedly threatened to sabotage classified
strategies he didn't like.

# Leahy ‘inadvertently' disclosed a top-secret communications
intercept during a 1985 television interview.

# "The intercept … made possible the capture of the Arab terrorists
who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered American
citizens. …"

# "The reports cost the life of at least one Egyptian operative
involved in the operation."

# In July 1987, it was reported that Leahy leaked secret information
about a 1986 covert operation planned by the Reagan administration to
topple Libya's Moammar Gaddhafi.

# U.S. intelligence officials said Leahy, along with the Republican
panel chairman, sent a written threat to expose the operation directly
to then-CIA Director William Casey.

# Weeks later, news of the secret plan turned up in the Washington
Post, causing it to be aborted.

# A year later, as the Senate was preparing to hold hearings on the
Iran-Contra scandal, Leahy had to resign his Intelligence Committee
post after he was caught leaking secret information to a reporter.

He should have been indicted, tried and sentenced.

Leahy's Iran-Contra leak was considered to be one of the most serious
breaches of secrecy in the Intelligence Committee's 10-year history.
But that was before Senator Richard Shelby leaked that we were tapping
Osama bin Laden's satellite phone. Bin Laden immediately stopped using
it, denying us the opportunity to find and kill the s.o.b.

Cicero said: "A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But
it cannot survive treason from within … for the traitor appears not a
traitor. … He rots the soul of a nation … he infects the body politic
so that it can no longer resist."

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