The New York Times is officially out of control.
Many on the right have been outraged over the New York Times (and other media) leaking of our classified counter terrorism plans. While that argument has merit, it is obviously easier for them to make with a Republican in office. If Clinton were still in office many of those same people would be supporting the Times on some of these stories.
As for myself, I am willing to give me media a wide berth when it comes to protecting our civil liberties. Back when we thought the call data story was completely accurate I publically disagreed with just about everyone on the right over that issue and backed the media on that leak. (Of course later we found that story to be flawed.)
So I come to this issue with a clear history not of a partisan but as a supporter of both the war on terror AND our civil liberties.
That’s why I consider myself well qualified to make the case the Times is out of control when they published classified information about troop deployments in Iraq.
U.S. General in Iraq Outlines Troop Cuts
By MICHAEL R. GORDONWASHINGTON, June 24 — The top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, American officials say.
According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the number of American combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to 5 or 6 from the current level of 14 by December 2007.
Under the plan, the first reductions would involve two combat brigades that would rotate out of Iraq in September without being replaced. Military officials do not typically characterize reductions by total troop numbers, but rather by brigades. Combat brigades, which generally have about 3,500 troops, do not make up the bulk of the 127,000-member American force in Iraq, and other kinds of units would not be pulled out as quickly.
American officials emphasized that any withdrawals would depend on continued progress, including the development of competent Iraqi security forces, a reduction in Sunni Arab hostility toward the new Iraqi government and the assumption that the insurgency will not expand beyond Iraq’s six central provinces. Even so, the projected troop withdrawals in 2007 are more significant than many experts had expected.
General Casey’s briefing has remained a closely held secret, and it was described by American officials who agreed to discuss the details only on condition of anonymity.
There are so many things to say about this story it is hard to know where to start. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that the Times never again needs to run another story on Valerie Plame. If you want to compare that story to leaking classified troop strength numbers in a war zone; there simply is no comparison to be made. Michael Gordon should be frog-marched out of the newsroom.
The second thing to note is that the media and the left can now dispense with the whining about not having an “exit plan.” We clearly have one and the NY Times put it on the front page.
But let’s get to the meat of the story. The Times knowingly and willingly received classified information and the purposely published it. They’ve done that before but this story is critically different than past times. There is no vested national interest in this information being leaked. In the past, the Times could hide behind the public’s “right to know.” The public has no “right to know” our war plans. They can’t hide behind the skirt of “protecting civil liberties” in this story as they have in past stories.
They published classified information not to inform the public but only because they could.
Ed Morrisey makes the compelling case that this is a controlled leak. That doesn’t let the Times off the hook… In fact, if true, it damns them more.
It shows the Pentagon understands and accepts as reality that the New York Times will knowingly print classified information it receives. Further, it shows the Pentagon knows that the most effective way to get their story out thru the media is to package it as a classified leak. A damning reality to be sure.
Though I should also note if Ed is correct and the Pentagon planted this leak, the timing must also mean we really have demolished the insurgency in the last few weeks.
It is true the information released is sketchy but that is more a function of the Pentagon’s plan being based on reality on the ground in Iraq and not the Times selectively withholding sensitive material.
The case against the Times grows stronger when you consider the argument against releasing an “exit plan” was that it automatically tips our hand to the insurgency. Clearly the Times is well versed in this argument but ran the story anyway.
I don’t understand what makes the Times think they can print classified troop strength numbers.
If I had bugged that briefing room and I published classified Pentagon war plans on Wizbang, the FBI would have me in custody in hours. Why is that not the case with the New York Times?
You know why you don’t tell the democrates your war plans? Because the first thing they will do is put it on the front page of the NY Times for the enemy to read about. I mean come on, are you a bunch of freak’n noobs to real world war. What kind of idiot, publish’s their strageties of war in the news paper, I call you “Stupid Freak’s”
You’re of course saying the exact same thing that could be used to justify any and every single instance where the Press exposes any classified information.
Martin A Knight
Martin, clearly you are giving much too much value to what the NYT has printed. All of the examples you give get into much more detail than anything than what was revealed. No operational details, algorithms, etc. have been leaked. To use your own examples, it would be like the NYT printing articles that said:
US Army determined to Liberate France, but with no specifics as to how and when;
US Possesses Nuclear Weapons, and maybe even mention that they are located on bases in the Western part of the country – of course this is true, but its probably not even half the story;
US Launches New Advanced Satellite Capable of Seeing your Ass, but please, leaking the algorithm, you’re joking, right?;
And finally, the mobsters, let me just say this clearly – everyone knows cell phones are shady, if you know this and are a criminal/terrorist, you suspect all forms of electronic communication. If you didn’t know this, you’d get nowhere in trying to be one. We can argue all day about “reminding them”, but just go with your gut – THEY ALREADY KNOW.
If you want to continue this debate, please cite the specific piece of information from the articles that helps the terrorists. General, overarching articles that say “US is watching you” are not surprising anyone.
sean …
The fact is; the Germans “ALREADY [KNEW]” that for the Allies to break into Europe, they would need to mount a massive amphibious landing of enough troops to overwhelm their coastal defenses before they could be re-enforced. But yet they were surprised on D-Day.
Why? Even though they “ALREADY [KNEW]”, they got sloppy, they got complacent and Eisenhower and his people, even though Operation Overlord was brilliantly conceived and executed, got lucky.
Imagine if the New York Times had published on the 25th of May 1944 that their sources within the War Department had told them that the Allies intend to employ an amphibious assault to secure a beachhead in Europe? What if that led to the Germans beefing up their defenses around the coasts … including Normandy?
Even if the New York Times had made no mention of Normandy or the 5th of June (the original planned date), would they “ALREADY [KNEW]” be an excuse?
You see, you’re operating on the assumption that, unlike ordinary run of the mill criminals, yes, even mobsters, terrorists never get sloppy. You’re taking it as a given that terrorists/criminals never keep a line (i.e. phone number, e-mail address) long enough for US intelligence to get a bead on it.
And that is simply not true.
Mobsters are not superhuman with extraordinary powers of foresight, omniscience and perfect professionalism in maintaining their secrecy. They make mistakes. The same thing applies to terrorists. Your belief that no matter what is tried to bring them down, “THEY ALREADY KNOW” is nothing more than defeatism.
How else do the police catch mobsters? They get sloppy, they get complacent, they get desperate. And furthermore, even though mobsters know that they can get tapped they still use phones and e-mail. Somehow, someway, they have to communicate and to do so effectively they need to have a point of contact that has some level of longevity.
In other words, and I do have some experience here, if one or two terrorist cell members change their numbers, that may not be a problem because Intelligence agencies have a key number they can backtrack. But a story like the one filed by New York Times immeditately sends up all sorts of alarms; all the numbers in the cells or network of cells now change.
In many cases, intelligence agencies would now have to start from scratch, once again looking for needles in a haystack.
The same thing applies to this bank account issue. A lot of accounts would simply get emptied and abandoned and new ones would be opened to continue facilitating terrorism. After all, even though “THEY ALREADY KNOW”, mobsters still use bank transfers. For the government to get a hold of these new terrorist accounts may take time the United States can ill afford.
General, overarching articles that say “US is watching you” are not surprising anyone.
Then what exactly is “news” in the article in question? Since it was such common knowledge so much so that even “THEY ALREADY KNOW” why did the New York Times bother publishing it?
Fact is, somebody leaked the info, who knows whether it’s a dem or republican.
I’m MORE than willing to make a wager. Are you?
It’s newsworthy since it’s causing this thread here, so why blame a newspaper for printing news.
If Bill Keller shot a kid, it’d be mentioned here. It’d become news.
It’d ALSO be illegal.
The current administration has already leaked information that benefited them before and literally helped lead to the rediculous war in Iraq. So if you have such a problem with the current leak, and want them hanged or whatnot, might as well start with your current leadership team.
Care to reveal these leaks?
If the current leak causes “thousands to be killed”, think about the last one. Outing a CIA agent who was a critic of going to war with Iraq in the first place so the administration could take you into the current Iraq disaster with their well refined “weapons of mass destruction” marketing message.
Nobody was outed. Fitzgerald said as much.
And if you really are going to hold Plame up as the epitome of great spycraft and the single person who kept all of the wolves at bay and kept the US safe, you’re going to have a really tough road to travel down.
Beating the insurgency? Yah right! Read the news… sorry, the bad guys are going to win this one and they’re a lot worse than the joke of a threat that was in Iraq before.
Well, if we elect “America is weak” cowards such as yourself, yes, we’ll lose.
Honestly, does anyone care about the tens of thousands of lives in Iraq that we being lost or tortured each year while Sadam was in power?
The Dems are infamously and historically unconcerned with the problems of dark-skinned folks.
Martin, clearly you are giving much too much value to what the NYT has printed. All of the examples you give get into much more detail than anything than what was revealed. No operational details, algorithms, etc. have been leaked.
FAR more details were revealed in these stories than the infamous PDB that Bush got slammed for revealed about 9/11.
Just saying…
And, Martin, one of the reasons Normandy worked was that the Allies did leak false plans about an invasion elsewhere in France and did a lot of work to make it look like the invasion was going elsewhere.
HOWEVER, if today’s press was around back then, they’d have leaked satellite imagery to kill the facade.
-=Mike
If you want to continue this debate, please cite the specific piece of information from the articles that helps the terrorists. General, overarching articles that say “US is watching you” are not surprising anyone.
Martin?
Is it my fault that comprehension is so difficult for you, Lee?
Armyguy = Armyguy, so if you have any rebuttals against armyguy’s post please respond to them rather than using someone else’s post and association.
“Lets start a war with massive public support, oh but now the support is gone, so lets just stop.” – so why did the war have massive public support? Because the American people were lied to that’s why. Weapons of Mass destruction mantra resulted in the leak and outing of a cia operative who knew different. Of course Plame is not a pivotal player, but it’s just another layer on the mountain that clearly shows the Cheney administration had no room for any debate on the iraq war issue, would do anything to shut anyone up who had anything different to say, and was 100% wrong in everything they said leading up to the war:
a) Weapons of mass destruction – fact: Iraq was in no way shape or form a thret to the people of America prior to the invasion. They had no weapons.
b) Al Quaida Iraq connection – fact: Sadam and Al Qaida were enemies, there was no terrorist threat in Iraq. It’s now rampant with terrorist threat and is often now referred to as an Al Qaida training ground. You can attribute that new reality to the current leadership team of the United States, there is literally no one else to blame.
c) It would be an easy victory – fact: withdrawal is being debated in 2006 because it’s very difficult to see any progress. The majority of Iraqi’s don’t want the U.S. there, so what’s going to change that? Add in a few more Haditha’s and you’re talking about a perpetual war with no end in sight. Things are NOT going well, 6 years later. In fact, Iraq is less aligned with Western Values than in Sadam’s reign.
The only possible justification left to supporters of this mess is “Well Sadam was a bad man who tortured Iraqi’s” Fact: Iraqi’s are FAR worse off now than they were in Sadam’s reign. Truly a joke. Bush doesn’t care one bit about the lives of Iraqi’s (and lets be honest, he doesn’t care about you either unless of your a special interest group who has paid for his marketing campaigns). Former health of Iraqi’s is certainly not justification for spending trillions of more dollars on an unjust and unwinnable war that was faught for all the wrong reasons. Again, Iraqi’s are far worse off now than six years ago.
America is strong and beautiful when it is just, unfortunately there is nothing just about what Bush and Cheney have done in Iraq.
It’s time to hold someone accountable for the mess that’s been created and it’s not the NYT. You’ve been lied to, the emperor wears no clothes.