Posted on 11/14/2006 7:42:57 PM PST by neverdem
|
For the second time this year, the New York Times has taken an interest in the vast collection of documents captured in postwar Iraq. The Times first noticed these materials six months ago, when the U.S. government began posting images of them on the Internet. In a dismissive report, the Times noted that intelligence professionals opposed the document release but had gone along under pressure from Republicans engaged in a quixotic attempt to find an ex post facto justification (terror connections, weapons of mass destruction efforts) for the Iraq war.
By now, thousands of documents have been posted, and last Friday, the Times wrote about them for a second time in its lead story on page one. The government had posted on the site a captured document detailing Iraqi plans for a nuclear weapon dating back to the first Gulf war, in 1991, when Iraq was less than a year away from completing a bomb. This was foolish and dangerous, the Times article suggested, as it provided a road map possibly useful to Iran and others seeking to build nuclear weapons. In their misbegotten effort to justify the Iraq war, the Times said, congressional Republicans, "conservative publications," and "amateur historians" had caused documents to be released that jeopardized national security. As a result of the Times's harrumphing, the government promptly shut down the document website.
Let us first reiterate what ought to be obvious. The U.S. government should not release documents that damage national security. In a speech this summer, House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra reported that the intelligence community had classified and withheld more than 30 percent of the Iraqi documents it has reviewed. If the intelligence community nevertheless released nuclear plans that really could be helpful to Iran, et al. (which is unclear), then it shouldn't have. Neither Hoekstra nor "conservative publications" nor "amateur historians" urged potentially dangerous disclosures. They simply urged that citizens be allowed to read for themselves what was found in the files of Saddam's regime in order to judge claims about terror connections and WMD threats.
The New York Times usually favors making information public. Indeed, twice in the past two years it has published details about eavesdropping and finance-tracking efforts by the U.S. government, two of the most effective and most closely guarded programs in the war on terror. The Times stubbornly defended that reporting even after government officials said the articles had done significant damage to national security. No matter, countered the Times, the public has a right to know.
But not about Saddam and the captured Iraqi records. And when the documents did begin to trickle out, the Times summoned only enough interest to dismiss the effort as a waste of time. So people who get their news from the Times may not know about the contents of documents that have already been released. One lays out plans for "Blessed July," an Iraqi regime-sponsored terrorist plot targeting Western interests in northern Iraq and Europe. Another mandates that the Iraqi regime pay foreign terrorists in the country at the same rate it paid its homegrown terrorists in the Saddam Fedayeen. Yet another details an offer from Hamas to stage suicide attacks against Americans. Still another presents a detailed plan for "utilizing" Arab suicide bombers. And on it goes.
And there are other interesting documents that have not yet been released, but whose existence has been reported here and in other publications, as well as in official government reports.
There's the one that confirms Saddam Hussein's Iraq trained thousands of non-Iraqi terrorists from 1998 to 2003. And the one that shows the Iraqi regime provided money and weapons to Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines. And the one that lists hundreds of jihadists imported from Gulf countries before the war. And the one demonstrating that for a decade, ending only with its overthrow, Saddam Hussein's regime harbored and financed the man who had mixed the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the native Iraqi Abdul Rahman Yasin. It's a document that might be relevant to the national debate--now in its fifth year--about whether Iraq is part of the war on terror or a distraction from it. And yet the Times has not once mentioned it in its pages.
That news apparently isn't fit to print, which is why the document-release project, enlisting the attention of thousands of ordinary, interested web readers, is valuable. Of course the intelligence community should make sure that potentially dangerous information is not released. But as long as the New York Times remains an advocate of secrecy and suppression of debate, the American people should see for themselves the evidence about the nature and activities of Saddam's regime. --The Editors
|
| © Copyright 2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. |
yup, too bad the MSM couldn't be bothered to publish some of these papers on the front pages or in the first 5 minutes of their reporting BEFORE the election...
Does the White House cite the documents? If not, why not?
Ask Tony Snow. I think their PR has been abysmal considering all the lies and treachery it has had to contend with.
Good write up, but as we know there is MUCH
yet to be written on this subject....JJ61
ping
My suspicion is it originally was a bait for '08. Those who scream "no WMDs in Iraq" would be proven wrong on basis of these documents. Hillary is about the only one who never took the bait, instead supportive of the reasons for going to war (after all, her husband pushed "regime change" based on WMD threat) but criticizing the prosecution of the war and "incompetence". Others switched into this position as well.
At this point I don't know if even finding the WMDs tomorrow would change the perception of "failure" in Iraq, it has been so redefined and reported with such relentless bias by the media and Dems (one and the same, I know), so that the reasons for going there in the first place don't even seem to matter.
Anyone still remembers Oil-For-Food fraud discovered in these documents? Funny how all news about it fizzled out same way as Plame blame game after Armitage "confession"...
PR has not been a strong suite of any Bush administration, while Democrats usually have nothing but PR as their weapons in accomplishing their goals. It's a shame. Republican must work twice as hard at PR because of the blatantly hostile media, yet seemingly ignore it or just give up the fight.
After reviewing all the evidence it's obvious that Hussein was up to his neck in international terror. What is the liberal reaction to this irrefutable info? "So what?" is the lib reaction. In short no amount of proof even a video-tape of Hussein and Bin-Ladin engaged in compromising positions or personally mixing sarin gas canisters would make libs change their minds about the war.
Yesterday, CNN radio featured a short clip on the Scooter Libby prosecution. The prosecution proceeds as if Armitage never made his confession. Conservatism or association/employment with Republicans is becoming the only crime liberals are willing to confront. I pray that President Bush will pardon Libby and see that his monetary expenses are reimbursed.
What evidence does the White House cite as proof of the Hussein connection to international terror?
They've got burned before with phony evidence, so I presume they'll use extra caution in looking at new claims.
I guess you didn't read about his support for Palestinian terrorists. He was paying the families of of suicide bombers twentyfive grand. The bomb mixer in the 1993 Twin Towers bombing was an Iraqi who fled back to Iraq and was given shelter by Hussein. Recent documents taken from Hussein's deposal revealed his working arrangement with Al-Qaeda and his training camps for thousands of foreign terrorists. That's just the tip of the iceberg. But you're saying you doubt he supported terrorists. Why should I not believe the White House?
Hang them all so I can toast to it.
We need an E-mail campaign to Fox News to run
some segments on the Iraqi pre-war documents
and what has been discovered through this program.
How dear the rotten liberal left give away this
country's Intel secrets while cloaking the truth
of Saddam's evil....JJ61
How DARE, that is....JJ61
Agree. I am contacting the FMSO and other intelligence agency to ask them when and if the website will be up again.
You're welcome.
It's quite appalling how little attention this has gotten.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.