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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clappy who wrote (4848)	8/19/2002 8:24:20 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Check out The Donahue Show on MSNBC right now... He's interviewing Studs Terkel (the Pulitzer Prize winning historian).

To: Clappy who wrote (4848)	8/20/2002 4:37:27 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

If not for leaks, we'd be in the dark By HELEN THOMAS Columnist HEARST NEWSPAPERS Tuesday, August 20, 2002 WASHINGTON -- Thank goodness for leaks. Without them, we wouldn't know what the secretive Bush administration is up to. So we're grateful when some knowledgeable official thinks the American people also should be privy to the facts -- especially when it comes to war and peace. Why should we have to wait for years for the government to reveal the truth of the historical events that have engulfed us? The State Department is currently operating under a Clinton administration executive order issued in 1995 providing for declassification of official documents after 25 years. That's too long for us to learn from our mistakes. The rule seems designed to protect officials from accountability. Every administration I've covered since John F. Kennedy's has treated official information as its private preserve. But I believe we have a right to know almost everything that is done in our name. In tracking down leaks, official wrath usually falls on the reporter. So it's somewhat amusing to see members of the House and Senate intelligence committees squirm when asked to take FBI lie detector tests as the agents search for a news leak that upset the White House. That leak revealed that the National Security Agency had intercepted two messages last Sept. 10 that a terrorist attack was imminent. The messages in Arabic were not translated until Sept. 12. We weren't supposed to know that. Why not? Sure it's painful and tragic to confront our intelligence failures. But isn't it better to pick up the pieces and learn from our mistakes? Under the doctrine of separation of powers, Congress should have told the White House to get lost. Instead the committee chairmen meekly agreed to the humiliating fishing expedition. As a general rule, I believe the news leaker does a service to the country. Too many government papers are stamped "top secret." Fortunately, some insiders have been courageous enough to disclose unauthorized confidential information to the media. And somehow the republic has survived. Considering the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy, without leaks reporters would have to rely on being spoon-fed by officials who put their own "spin" on the news. In other administrations, the president or his top aides did the leaking themselves. President Kennedy wryly noted that the ship of state was the only ship that leaked from the top. The still unidentified "Deep Throat" certainly did the nation a big favor in helping expose the Watergate scandal. A leak is sometimes a trial balloon, planted by an administration official to see what kind of public reaction it generates. Or it could be information deliberately passed on to confuse or spook one's political or military foes. One of these motives is likely behind the recent leaks to the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal about different U.S. scenarios for invading Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has laid down the law to Pentagon officials who blab to reporters. When Laurent Murawiec of the Rand Corporation last month briefed the Defense Policy Board -- a Pentagon advisory panel made up of former senior officials and retired top military officers -- he described Saudi Arabia as "very active on the terror chain ... that supports our enemies and attacks our allies." Murawiec recommended that the United States demand Saudi Arabia stop supporting terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and financial assets in the United States. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell quickly repudiated Murawiec's outrageous remarks, saying they don't represent U.S. policy. Rand -- a defense think tank reputed for thinking the unthinkable -- said Murawiec was speaking for himself. But, typically, the defense secretary also attacked the unidentified leaker who had the nerve to disclose to the Washington Post that such a shocking plan was being peddled at the Pentagon. Rumsfeld branded the leak as "unfortunate." "I just think it's a terribly unprofessional thing to do and clearly harmful," Rumsfeld added. I disagree. Why shouldn't Congress and the public be alerted to what Pentagon hardliners may be secretly contemplating in the future. Marlin Fitzwater, who was President George Bush's press secretary, used to caution officials that the best way to handle a leak was to ignore it. Other presidents went off the deep end in pursuit of leakers. We all remember the infamous Nixon administration "plumbers" who were supposed to plug news leaks and ferret out the leakers. That campaign led to the wiretapping of some prominent government officials and some reporters. It became another example of the abuse of power that led to the Watergate scandal and the downfall of Richard Nixon. Americans should be the best-informed people in the world. Knowledge is power. So bring on the leakers. --------------------------------------------------- Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: helent@hearstdc.com. Copyright 2002 Hearst Newspapers. seattlepi.nwsource.com