NY Times: The C.I.A. as History's Editor

[DemoVet]

Only 4 paras so I'll post it whole:

If only the Central Intelligence Agency had been half as vigilant on the road to the Iraq war as it has been in redacting the Senate's critique of its failures. The Senate Intelligence Committee remains in a tug of war with the Bush administration over the panel's overdue report on intelligence bunglings, with the C.I.A. allowed to play the role of censor. After weeks of delay, the agency has decreed that much of the report is too sensitive for the public to know.

The C.I.A.'s censors returned a version of the report that committee staff members call a blacked-out work of art. It is rife with deletions, which amount to as much as 40 percent of the 400 pages. No one is discussing specific redactions, but the C.I.A.'s performance only feeds suspicions that the administration is trying to chisel away the painful truth.

The C.I.A. claims that much of the Iraq report is about intelligence sources and methods that must remain classified. But intelligence committee professionals know how to produce reports that compromise few secrets. The wholesale job of bowdlerization reported by The Times's Douglas Jehl this week will only further tatter the C.I.A.'s reputation as Congress considers reforming the agency.

This is about nothing less than telling the public the truth about how it was led into Iraq. Committee leaders must fight for a forceful accounting. If the White House cannot be prodded to get a fairer job from the C.I.A., the committee should ask Senate approval to present a properly revealing version of the report directly to the public.

I'm enjoying the irony of the paper of record lecturing the administration that "This is about nothing less than telling the public the truth about how it was led into Iraq" I think we're still due a little more truth from the Times as to their culpability, through gross editorial negligence, in helping the administration disinform us. The Times can count itself among those whose hands pushed this country along the path to unjustified war, hands that are now stained with the blood of many Iraqis and Americans.



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/18/opinion/18FRI3.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=

[teryang]

1. Any Senator can publish the full report

...if he can get access to it. Rules governing review of classified documents by the committee make it physically difficult to do this. This is what hamstrings the oversight function. The committee rules favor the intelligence agencies not the Senate's constitutional duty to inform the public.

But there is nothing to stop any Senator from publishing what he or she knows about the witheld portions of the report except the fear of political consequences. Legally they have total immunity for disclosing any information on the floor of the Senate.

Such disclosures could force the issue. But our Senators are just posturing.