Posted on 09/22/2009 3:42:13 PM PDT by Saije
To Bob Woodward, it was the modern-day equivalent of the Pentagon Papers. But to Obama administration officials, the classified assessment of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan represented, if published by The Washington Post, a potential threat to the safety of U.S. troops.
The result was that The Post agreed to a one-day delay in publishing the report by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and that the paper's top editor engaged in a lengthy discussion Sunday with three top Defense Department officials in a meeting at the Pentagon...
Woodward said in an interview Tuesday that four White House and administration officials strongly objected to publication of the full report, telling him, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and a Post lawyer in a conference call on Saturday that "if we publish it as-is, it could endanger the lives of troops."
After the Pentagon meeting with Brauchli, Woodward and Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, administration officials "did a wholesale declassification of 98 percent" of the document, Woodward said, while The Post agreed to withhold certain operational details...
Woodward...said he was given the McChrystal report for use in a book about the administration that he plans to publish next year, but he realized that its blunt assessment of Afghanistan, as President Obama is deciding whether to send more troops, "would have been overtaken by events."...
Woodward said he had already suggested to The Post "that we not even think about publishing" a section of the report on future operations in Afghanistan.
But the administration still had concerns. During the meeting with Pentagon officials, Woodward said, Brauchli strongly "disagreed with them a couple of times," leading the officials to withdraw requests that certain information be held from publication.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“Please don’t publish this because it will make us look even more incompetent, amateur, out of our depth and untrustworthy than we are.”
“if we publish it as-is, it could endanger the lives of troops.”
Oh, I see. But interrogating CIA officials, criminalizing the former administration, divulging national secrets, and limiting the authority of the entire military won’t.
The hearts and minds of Afghanistan are no more winnable than those of Vietnam. Grab ‘em by the ___ and their hearts and minds will soon follow. Works every time, the other has failed almost every time.
The only ones this administration are concerneda about endangering are themselves.
I don’t think anyone in the military would be dumb enough to leak to the WP or any other Partisan Leftist Media. They have canned multiple stories on Obama.
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