Intel shell game -- GOP not alone in putting politics before national security

It worked.  The administration has succeeded in stalling the release of the potentially devastating CIA Inspector-General report until after the election. But it could not have done this on its own.

In his October 19 scoop in the LA Times, Robert Scheer had disclosed how a CIA Inspector General report that detailed pre and post 911 intel failures had been bottled up by the administration for four months. In this and a follow-up LA Times article the next day, House intel leaders Jane Harman (D) and Pete Hoekstra (R) sought to direct blame for the delay elsewhere by revealing they had written a letter to the CIA two weeks prior asking for the report's release. Harman said  "We believe  that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report. ... We are very concerned."

[So why wait more than three months to quietly write a letter to the CIA (i.e. to their former boss now-Bush-underling Goss -- it does indeed get quite convoluted -- ever since Goss left the intel committee chairmanship, accepting intel responsibility has been a game of pass-the-buck back and  forth), arguably so they could later say "we tried", rather than publicly screaming about it all along -- very concerned  indeed?]

Meanwhile Hoekstra and Harman had been prominently fiddling with details of proposed legislation intended to implement recommendations of the 911 Commission report, negotiating with Senators Collins and Lieberman over differences between a bi-partisan Senate bill and a partisan GOP House version (in the shadows of finger-pointing between spokesmen for GOP House & Senate leaders Delay and Frist). 

Regardless of the validity of a particularly harsh  review of the 911 report itself in the October 2004 Harpers, "Whitewash as Public Service"*, and regardless of specific/possible merits or failings of the associated respective Senate and House proposed bills, the question must still be asked: Why were these politicians-would-be-legislators even considering details of intel-revamp legislation without first insisting on the release of, reviewing details of, and including essential considerations of the bottled-up CIA IG  report?  How audacious to be pretending to be trying to fix the flaws in our nation's intelligence apparatus while ignoring the single independent-of-politics report identifying those flaws. And how insulting to our personal intelligence to try to slip this scam past us.

Worse yet, these supposed-to-be public servants arguably have thereby served as de-facto agents (wittingly or un) -- to Delay release of a CIA IG report that might irreparably and deservedly Harm an egregious administration -- by exposing its facade of  national-security toughness as a Hoax.   Apparently, keeping one's butt i.e. seat in the House and/or the White House is more important to some folks than keeping America safe, neither party has a monopoly  in  this department, and reelection politics is the one area in which incumbent Republicans and Democrats can and do work together.

* The 911 report purportedly "defrauds the nation", according  to a Benjamin DeMott review in the October 2004 Harpers.   Perhaps the most telling albeit-subjective line in  this lengthy, detailed and somewhat densely-prosed review: "The ideal readers of the 9/11 Commission Report are those who resemble the Commission itself in believing  that a strong inclination to trust  the word of highly placed others is evidence of personal moral distinction" (our italics -- a  tribute to this clause as a contribution to understanding roots of arrogance). 

Posted 11-02-05