Redstate

"release those documents" I can't help but think he means, "release those documents that we don't think are too dangerous/important for public consumption" (ok, he wouldn't say consumption, but you get the idea!)

I'm for release of any of Saddam's documents and tapes that the administration does not consider crucial to be kept classified for national security.

But, that's just me!

they've been reviewed, assessed and any potential damage mitigated.

I'd also have no problem with the HPSCI or SSCI paying extra-special attention to this matter.  There's definately an advantage in having as much evidence of Saddam's perfidy on the street as possible.  And, I agree that the Intel Community shouldn't be allowed to pigeonhole these documents forever.

BUT, we don't want to force our intel analysts to chase wild gooses.  Hayes' story starts by quoting GOP Rep Mike Pence, who was urging the President to release more of the documents:

Pence framed his response as a question, quoting Abraham Lincoln: "One of your Republican predecessors said, 'Give the people the facts and the Republic will be saved.' There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?"

(Emphasis added)

I agree with Rep.Pence.  We should get the facts--ONCE we've done our best to separate what is fact from what isn't.

To the Redstate staff--thanks for promoting my diary.  I'd like to say I won't let you down--but I still might.  We'll see.

...with your assessment that a "blogswarm" wouldn't be the best vetting process (and I'm sure the MSM would have a field day "cherry-picking" the intelligence, too), I think Hayes' point all along has been that next to NOTHING is being done with the documents/recordings.

To tread lightly, doesn't mean to stand still, does it?

built  credibility in the GWOT by its performance to date. And sitting on these documents doesn't increase it. It seems the only thing the CIA can do is leak documents to influence domestic politics.

The coming blogstorm may be a blunt instrument. To avoid it, perhaps Mr. Negroponte could have the CIA start translating the documents and releasing those that are not a threat to the U. S. and its interests.

As for the Russians and the Germans, it is hard to see how risking the lives of their agents is in the U. S. national interest but I also don't think we need spare them embarassment for their efforts to arm Saddam and support him in his defiance of the UN by taking bribes from Oil for Food funds. The same for France, only moreso.

I also don't think we need...

Clearly, the noses-to-opinions ratio on what to do here is 1.0.
When that happens, I resolve the dilemma by asking, "What's the penalty for making a mistake?"

It's reasonable to think that raw feed from the vaults of Saddam Hussein contains material that could get people killed, start wars, and who-knows what else.

If we err the other way, some people's curiousity will not be satisfied.

Such material — so long as it remains private — has considerable power of persuasion over people who might not otherwise help us get things done. Publicly releasing the material would make useless any threat to publicly release the material, and thus deprive us of a useful stick.

If we err the other way, some people's curiousity will not be satisfied.

The Other Guys don't know what we don't know... they have to assume that the parts they are worried about have been translated and are known to us... or soon will be. This causes them to spend time and money to avoid threats that in truth we can't even make. Staying silent about what we know causes our enemies to waste resources.

If we err the other way, some people's curiousity will not be satisfied.

This sounds like a no-brainer to me.

...clears it up for me:

"Such material -- so long as it remains private -- has considerable power of persuasion over people who might not otherwise help us get things done."

Thanx.

I don't know what Hayes and Hoekstra have been saying, but the Powerline post you've cited seems to be pushing an official release after they've been vetted. Hinderaker's point is that Negropante does not seem to have given document exploitation a priority status. That is a mistake, not only politically but strategically. The more evidence we put forth to show that the war in Iraq was not based on faulty intelligence, the more support we'll have, both domestically and internationally, for future foreign policy endeavours. And those are not very far away (see Iran).  

Something I just posted on my blog, in it's entirety:

"Mr. Negroponte, release those documents!" -- Take 2

Roughly a day ago I posted "Mr. Negroponte, release those documents!" in which I argued for releasing a large volume of unscreened and unvetted  captured Iraqi documents and tapes to the blogosphere for piecemeal translation by "an army of Davids." Roughly half an hour ago I ran across this item at RedState:

Beware Blogswarming the Unreleased Iraqi Docs
By: smagar

If the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, is hesitant about releasing thousands of untranslated and unanalyzed Saddam Iraqi regime documents, as well as hours of tape recordings of Hussein's conversations with his cronies, that's fine with me.  And, if we're going to be fair and rational about how this Global War on Terrorism is prosecuted, it should be fine with the rest of us.

Unfortunately, more and more of the conservative blogosphere is demanding a full release of ALL the documents and tapes, with only passing or indifferent concern to the impact on American intelligence, military and diplomatic operations.  And THAT should concern us all.

Do we want the Bush administration to manage the war in/diplomacy related to Iraq, or a conservative blogswarm?  Now's the time to ask that question.

[Read on here.]

Please consider this post a retraction of my earlier post on this matter.

These Documents are equal too the 'Vona Papers'. Their are Millions of Iraq documents that need to be translated and we do not have the man power or the skilled Arabic translators.

Just the vetting and backgroud checking of these translators would take way to long. Their might be some distrubing information in these documents, but, we need to get into them and find out what we don't know.

the Powerline post you've cited seems to be pushing an official release after they've been vetted. Hinderaker's point is that Negropante does not seem to have given document exploitation a priority status.

Actually, I think Hindraker's point was that Negroponte is ignoring the President.  Hindraker insinuates that Negroponte is being insubordinate:

John Negroponte "owns" the millions of pages of documents and countless hours of tapes that have been captured, but not yet exploited. And Negroponte doesn't want their contents made public. So it isn't happening, no matter what President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld say. This is, of course, no way to run a railroad.

President Bush has, of course, been fighting much of the federal bureaucracy for the past five years. But one might have expected his own nominee, Negroponte, to be a little more responsive.

(Emphasis added)

The last comment above is from an update to Hindraker's post.  It presumes that Negroponte has the ability and resources to send a batch PRINT command to the archives room and-- voila!-- Instant Verified & Deconflicted Intelligence!  

To elaborate, our pool of people with the education and expertise necessary to (a) translate these documents accurately , (b) place them in context with all the other info we have on hand, classified AND unclassified , (c) determine whether they are fakes or not and (d) ensure we don't expose covert sources or imperil/backstab potential allies, is not too big.  PLUS, I'll suspect most of our best analysts are supporting CURRENT OPERATIONS in Iraq.  

If Negroponte releases millions of docs and thousands of hours of tape that have only been translated into basic English, the Intel Community will get bombarded with thousands of questions that THEY will have to ultimately answer.  Essentially, the IC will have to assume the role of an "Ask Jeeves," replying to the latest question that FNC or CNN or MSNBC are fretting about on 24/7 cable.

Imagine the glee that B-level national security/foreign policy talking heads must feel at the thought of a docswarm.  They can speculate endlessly about what this document (does/might/coulda) mean, when coupled with this document, and that nuance a "Iraqi expert" claims to hear in that garbled section of tape.  And, if they fire up enough cable news newsreaders to get a buzz going, the DNI will have to respond, to debunk the speculation.

If you were Negroponte, would YOU like to open that can of worms?  In the midst of a war?

"Insubordination" is one way to describe Negroponte's hesitation, especially if one feels like venting. "Prudence" is another way.

I'm sorry to see that Carol Platt Liebau has jumped on the bandwagon.  

Time to Let the Documents Out

Many Republicans may not have liked Harriet Miers. Many Republicans disagree with President Bush over the ports issue and over federal spending.

But all of us agree on one thing: The Saddam files should be released to the American people.

Now.

Actually, Ms. Platt Liebau, we do not ALL agree that the documents should be released now.  

If this kind of opining exemplifies the deep, thorough thinking that will drive the course of the conservative blogosphere, the White House should be very, very careful when someone tells them that they should do XYZ because "the bloggers want it."

Negroponte's mission is not to scratch blogger itches.  It is to best marshal all our intelligence resources, and focus them so they achieve the maximum effect against our enemies, and give us and our allies the best possible protection.  I'd rather his analysts be doing that, instead of trying to de-hyperventilate the raging clusterf*** that is our media's "Conventional Wisdom."

Here's an article from Hayes in which he laments the slow exploitation of the Iraqi documents.

Estimates from people involved in the document exploitation project tell us the U.S. government has in its possession some 2 million "exploitable items." Of that number, less than 3 percent--somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 items--have been fully exploited.

What these documents demonstrate more than anything else is that the U.S. intelligence community and the Bush administration should make document exploitation a high priority.

While I understand the difficulty in properly vetting the documents, their importance is not only from an historical perspective, but they would also help us in our current effort. Like Sec. Rumselfd has said, winning the media war is very important nowadays. While I have no idea if Negroponte is personally at fault, the fact that only 3% of the docs have been released, indicates that they're not much of a priority to the administration. Which is what Hayes and Hinderaker are pointing out, and I think they're on target. They want a concerted effort and the neccessary resources devoted to speed up the vetting process so that the material can be exploited before it's too late.

If they are calling for a "document dump" on the public, then I'd agree with you, but that's not what I see here.

when you consider the other missions that our Intelligence Community (which Negroponte heads) has.

When Platt Liebau calls for the docs to be released NOW, that's a document dump. When Hindraker insinuates that Negroponte's failure to date to release indicates he's being insubordinate, that's a call for a document dump.  

And, I think you're being charatable, to Hindraker especially, here.  He is, IMO, deliberately faulting Negroponte.  For the reasons I've already laid out, I'm not sure Negroponte can provide the information Hindraker and Hayes want, as fast as they want.  In that case, they're being unfair to Negroponte.

Concur that it's important to win the media war.  But, here's the problems I have with that argument being used to insist on faster document translation and release:

• Is the "document-release-NOW" crowd saying that, without more PR info, President Bush might have to pull out of Iraq before his term ends?  Personally, I don't see GWB being stampeded out of Iraq before his term ends.  That would mean that these docs would be most useful in the 2008 campaign, as the country (and Presidential candidates) debate whether we should stay in Iraq into 2009 and beyond.  That's two years from now, by which time I suspect lots of the docs will have been translated and assessed.
  
• To reiterate, a large-scale release of documents/tapes anytime soon will mean that a lower percentage of those documents/tapes will have gotten a thorough going-over.  This increases the chances of forgeries, or docs full of falsehoods written by scared Baathist officials trying to mislead Saddam, getting legs in the media.  The Administration will be called upon to chase these docs down as well.  And, the misperceptions they create might hurt the Administration's PR case as much as they could help it.

It's Negroponte's job to do this job right.   In this particular instance (let me be clear on that), I think Hindraker, Hayes, Platt Liebau and others are doing us all a disservice.  They're starting a blogpush for Negroponte to provide information that we all can use-- and Negroponte probably doesn't have it yet!  Most of what he has is mounds of unanalyzed/unvetted raw data.  Yet, Hindraker and others are implying that Negroponte has the data, in ready-to-use form, but simply won't give it up.  That can undermine Negroponte.

Are we ready to do that?  Over this?

is such an ugly word. I think "convincing argument for your cooperation" is so much nicer :)

Only the guilty can be blackmailed!

there are clearly a few issues here - Bush is obviously pissed that there is probably info in there that would lend political support at a time of need and nobody has thought to get the information out.  Then there is the issue of exactly why it is taking so long to go through all this stuff - one would think it would still rank as a fairly high priority but the impression is people do not view it as such.  And if they do not view it as pressing then evey effort should be made to release the original documents with names redacted for all but the most well known players (to the extent that is possible). If the three letter guys don't have the staffing or time to run through this then let the MSM and friends enlist for hire translators.

As to the political sensitivities of our 'allies' - I say who cares.  Let their public know how knee deep they were in Iraq.  And I'm sure Germany, France and Russia have never, ever released unflattering or damaging information about the US or our operations which we consider important secrets?  Remember - these are not our secrets they are Iraq's secrets.  But I'm sure the biggest fear is that there will be some very unflattering information about our own governments past support of Iraq.  To the extent that operational methods are not revealed these too should be released.  Its well past time to clear the air and remove doubts about who did what to whom if at all.

there are clearly a few issues here

No disagreement there--so far, so good.

Bush is obviously pissed that there is probably info in there that would lend political support at a time of need

Concur--you and I are two for two so far.

(All emphasis from here on now is added)

and nobody has thought to get the information out.

Mmmm...I'll bet it feels good to say that.  But, IMO, saying "nobody" thought about the benefits of releasing this info is (a) way too broad and (b) almost assuredly wrong.

Then there is the issue of exactly why it is taking so long to go through all this stuff - one would think it would still rank as a fairly high priority but the impression is people do not view it as such.

My diary gives plenty of reasons why this info might not yet be on the street en masse.  As I'm presuming you read those reasons, and have rejected them, I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree.

if they do not view it as pressing then evey effort should be made to release the original documents with names redacted for all but the most well known players (to the extent that is possible).

And then, the B-level MSM pundit wannabes will

• speculate about the redacted names
  
• make allegations about who the blacked-out named officials MUST be
  
• still create a series of miniblogswarms, which the Administration will have to chase down
  
• demand that the redacted names be released, so all the speculation can be ended!

If the three letter guys don't have the staffing or time to run through this then let the MSM and friends enlist for hire translators.

Sounds good in theory.  But, imagine some B-level pundit waving around three "smoking guns" from the Stack Of Untranslated Stuff--all of which were translated by Dingleberry Translators, whom the DNI hurriedly contracted out to help with translations.  Does Dingleberry know what they're doing?  Do they have good translators?  Did their people translate these document accurately? Do they understand the nuances created by dialect?  Are its employees drawn mostly from Ivy League Middle Eastern Studies curricula--and, thus full of the patriotism that four years of studying about American unfairness and pro-Zionisma and racism instills, a workforce whose work for the DOD can be trusted?

Well, under your scenario, the DOD and DNI will have to answer all those questions.  While B-Level Pundit is spinning up FNC and CNN and MSNBC, they'd have to retranslate the documents to make sure that Dingleberry's crew (a) didn't make a dialect mistake (b) didn't get confused by Iraqi miitary and government acronyms they didn't understand (c) etc....  Then, if they did make mistakes, DOD would have to convince the media audience that the sky really isn't falling.

At which time, B-Level Pundit #2 rolls out four more "smoking guns," translated this time by Arabic-Docs-R-Us.  And so on, and so on, and so on.

</sarcasm&gt

I've no problem with the DNI contracting out initial translations.  But, I'd like someone in the DOD or IC to Q.C those docs before they go out.  By all means, QC and release the most promising docs first.  But, it's important to do a good job first, and a fast one second.

As to the political sensitivities of our 'allies' - I say who cares.  Let their public know how knee deep they were in Iraq.

You're right--who needs allies?  Allies, that is, who have militaries trained and equipped to fight.  Let's gratuitously alienate those countries who might be useful GWOT partners. I'd rather try to leave Russia and France enough wiggle room to cooperate with us to at least some extent.  "Busting" them out in public could erase much of that room.

both friend and foe (or, in this case, blackmailer), by divulging confidential and sensitive information willy-nilly, with insufficient care or caution...then, other nations will be less willing to partern with those careless governments.  Nations who can't or won't keep a secret are not good partners in a covert war, like counterterrorism.

with those careless governments

Most of the documents in question are unclassified.  By definition, they do not do things like endangering anyone's sources or methods of gathering intelligence.

Firing Negroponte has one other advantage.  It will send a message to all the folks who have been silently undermining the President's policy that he is serious about something being done when he tells them to get something done.

You might be right that we should proceed with caution, but after seeing  articles like this, it's hard to hold back.

Newly translated Iraqi documents from Saddam Hussein's regime show that President Bush was factually accurate when he told the nation in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Iraq had recently sought uranium from Africa.

Like I said, such documents would immeasurably affect our current operations and foreign policy strategy in a positive way. It is vital to get them out as soon as possible, while taking all neccessary precautions so that they don't do more harm then good.

If they're unclassified, that means they've been translated, had the translation Q'C'ed, analyzed and risk mitigation assessment complete.  Otherwise, they can't be unclassified.  I'll suspect that many--if not most--of these docs haven't completed such a thorough review.

If I find an Iraqi-produced document in a closet in Basra, and it's determined that its contents could harm US national security (for whatever reason), is the DOD obligated to release it, simply because the US didn't generate it in the first place?  Not in my opinion.  

Harold, go back to my original concerns.  A mass document release anytime soon will mean that many of those docs will likely have gotten only a cursory look.  The DNI will then be bombarded with all sorts of speculation--much of it wrong, I'll guess--as to what all these documents mean.  Only the IC will have the assets to answer that.  For nothing else, before we make any definitive determination about what Hussein was doing (or knew) on WMD or any subject, any "smoking gun" that derives from a mad dump of unclassified Iraqi docs will have to be checked against what our classified sources say.  A Washington think tank can't do that--only the IC can.  And, it is busy doing other things.

Personally, I want our Iraqi intelligence analytical pool focused on current intelligence designed to support our warfighters.  I don't want them distracted by a "snowflake" from OSD, generated in an attempt to shut up some conservative blogger who's managed to spin up Alyson Cammerata/Rita Cosby/Joe Scarborough/yhada yhada yhada.

That's a very serious charge you've just leveled--that Negroponte is "silently undermining the President's policy." It implies that Negroponte's doing something sinister.  If you don't have any evidence to support this charge besides the DNI's reluctance to start a Great Gumball Document Dump Rally, IMO it's grounding is weak.

But, I'm willing to listen.  What else do you have?

Hayes has done a lot of writing on this.  So far, it's tended to be pretty much on the mark.  He's got a lot of credibility in my book.

And foot-dragging has extended to unclassified documents.  This has been the DOD.

Why is the foot-dragging going on over unclassified documents?  If they do have such sensitive info, then why weren't they classified?

I'll bet he wants muy more documents to be released.  Much more data for him and others to peruse, speculate about on FNC and write about in the WS.  I am NOT saying he's being insincere.  But, you must admit that it is his professional interest to get these documents released.  (That's my cynical side speaking).

If the DOD could pass the data to Hayes & Co, and not have to worry that they'd be dragged back into the matter, to respond to whatever charges/assessments/speculations that Hayes and many, many others will posit, then I'd see no problem in their doing so.

But, anyone who thinks that the DOD and Intelligence Community could ignore a blogswarm--especially one that spooks Congress--is naive or dumb.

The data doesn't "belong" to John Negroponte--it belongs to George W. Bush, as our elected Commander In Chief.

What Negroponte, IMO, should do, now that the conservative blogosphere has its teeth in this and won't let go, is:

• Do a risk asssessment on the kinds/types of documents the IC possesses.  Specifically, ID the risks in releasing any documents/tapes that have not had ALL of the following steps completed:  (a) a basic translation into English; (b) a QC of that translation; (c) a classification assessment; (d) a risk assessment, to determine if they contain any sensitive information.  
  
• Brief the President on the pros/cons, ask him for his decision/guidance, and then act on it.  Remember, intel advises the commander; it's the commander who ultimately makes the call. Trying to make Negroponte the fall guy (in hopes of bullying him into a document dump, perhaps?), is IMO an attempt at an end-around of what the process should be.  Negroponte doesn't own the data, as Hindraker implied.  He manages it, on GWB's behalf.  It's Negroponte's duty to brief the President, apprise him of the risks and benefits inherent in a mass document release, and then ask the President to give any guidance he sees fit on the parameters of any release.
  
• REMIND the President that we only have so many qualified and experienced Iraq intelligence analysts.  And, they are decisively committed to current intelligence.  The more we distract them from current intelligence support, to address a panicky Congress's demands to "get to the bottom" of the four documents (insert name of strident conservative talk show host) is screaming about, the less intelligence "top cover" our troops have.  And, that will increase the likelihood that we'll find terrorists the hard way (e.g., driving over the IED they buried), instead of the preferred way (e.g., deducing through pattern analysis that an IED-making team has appeared in the town our unit patrols).
  
• Keep Congress at arms length.  <cynicism> I suspect that some in the GOP Congress are looking for something, anything to distract voters from Abramoff, porkbarreling, etc... I also suspect that some GOP Congressmen--such as, perhaps, Pete Hoekstra, who said (affectionately, of course!) that Negroponte "is still a bureaucrat", are a bit concerned that a Dem House takeover might cost them--gasp--their chairmanships.  Methinks that might be adding a bit to the intensity of the calls for Negroponte to unlock the armory of Magic Iraqi Docs and pass the troops some ammo! Yes, Negroponte is still a bureaucrat.  And Congressmen/women are still politicians, with elections to win.</cynicism&gt

As for Hayes' gripe that DOD and DNI are holding onto unclassified documents:

• Is Hayes asserting he has a right to them?  If so, WS can file a FOIA action.  They're rich enough to pay for some good lawyers.
  
• If he's demanding them because they'd be useful in the GWOT--well, I prefer to leave that decision to the man the nation elected to make those decisions (heretofore referred to as "GWB", "President" or "Commander-in-Chief"), and the official delegated with the responsibility of overseeing all our nation's intelligence activities.  Yes, I know that Bush told Hadley to "get the documents out."  Are you sure that Negroponte had briefed GWB on all the pros and cons, prior to his making that statement?  (I'm not). Shouldn't GWB receive such a briefing before making a final release-the-docs decision?

BTW, where's your additional evidence that Negroponte is an unfit DNI and should go?  I'm still listening.

They had filed a FOIA request - and were getting a bureaucratic runaround.

We also had a clear case of the President telling the DNI he wanted the stuff out.  Foot-dragging on something like that after a direct request from the president gets close to insubordination in my book - and find me any entity outside civil government (excluding the military) where one wouldn't get immediately terminated for insubordination.

The gov't doesn't have the resources to go through all these, esp. since they're not a high priority for their Arabic translators.  They've looked at 1% in three years; it would take them decades to get through all of them.

The regime has fallen; nothing in the documents is likely to be sensitive enough to redact on national security or military intel grounds.  The important issue now is the debate over whether the war was justified, and the documents can only help in that regard.    

1.  Just because an item is translated, does not automatically make it unclassified.  The classifier may have been using a cleared translator.
   
   
2.  Even an item with just one classified paragraph makes the entire document classifed.
   
   
3.  One good reason to release these translated documents would be to educate the populace (and potential voters).  The only drawback is in getting the vintage media to cover the story in an unbiased way.

To paraphrase, Do this Right! Hmm, three years, less than one per cent translated! You call this "Right?"  

It's about time this information was released for all to see! I've seen concerns about embarassing our "Allies," as in Germany, France,Russia, LOL!! You need to try that one again! France and Russia were both assuring Saddam that they would block any action in the U.N., they were allies of Saddam and co-conspirators in the Oil for Food Scandal! I blame both Russia and France for the need to Invade Iraq and the lives lost by coliton troops as well as innocent Iraqis! If these countries would have stood with the U.S. in demanding Saddam open his country to inspections and let him know that he would be in danger of military action I wonder if it would have even been necessary to Invade Iraq!

Embrasas(SP?), we should care?, there should have been much more  "embarassment" going on with respect to the accomplices of Saddam, and that includes the corrupt and immoral UN!

Let the Chips fall where they may!!

don't forget the ultimate goal.

If these countries would have stood with the U.S. in demanding Saddam open his country to inspections and let him know that he would be in danger of military action I wonder if it would have even been necessary to Invade Iraq!

IRAN!

We could not have taken on Iran with Saddam sitting there unabated! If you have a grand vision for the ME, as does our President, an Iraqi invasion was inevitable!

Let the Chips fall where they may!!

Once we release the embarassing documents, we can no longer threaten to release the embarassing documents.