"The fundamental intellectual assumptions that have guided our Intelligence Community's approach to managing national security information for half a century may be in some respects crucially flawed," he writes.

Along the way, he challenges some longstanding practices that are so deeply-rooted that no one normally thinks to question them, such as the application of the "need to know" standard for sharing information.

"It may not be true," Sen. Shelby proposes radically, "that information-holders -- the traditional arbiters of who can see 'their' data -- are the entities best placed to determine whether outsiders have any 'need to know' data in their possession. Analysts who seek access to information, it turns out, may well be the participants best equipped to determine what their particular expertise and contextual understanding can bring to the analysis of certain types of data."

But information sharing is not exactly the solution either, "inasmuch as 'sharing' connotes ownership by the party that decides to share it, an idea that is antithetical to truly empowering analysts to connect all the right 'dots'."

Discussion yesterday :: read on »»

Having now waded through The Times's articles on Judy Miller, one new fact struck me as particularly bizarre -- Miller, by her own admission, was cleared to see secret information as part of her assignment as an "embedded" reporter in Iraq.  

I had no idea journalists could receive security clearances -- and I had no idea that the mainstream media would allow their reporters to have such clearances. After all, one of the most important obligations of a person receiving security clearances is not to reveal that information at any time, while one of the most important obligations of a reporter is precisely to reveal information the public has a need and right to know.

Can someone explain why this glaring conflict of interest is acceptable?

Some expert comments - read on »»

  «« click on pic for TIMEline

The critics
Bill Vann (WSWs) suggested that Miller's listing as a speaker for the Middle East Forum, a right-wing lobbying group, could be a violation of Times ethics guidelines, which barred reporters from participating in groups that seek to shape public policy.

Soon after, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post reported on a conflict within the Times staff. Quoting an irate e-mail from Baghdad bureau chief John Burns concerning a Chalabi story that he had assigned to another reporter, Kurtz included some of Miller's response, shedding even more light on how dubious her sources might have been: "I've been covering Chalabi for about 10 years. . . . He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper." More troubling still, it turned out, the army unit in which she was embedded was "using Chalabi's Intel and document network for its own WMD work." [6]  

No accountability--not then, not now
As Vice President Dick Cheney candidly admitted during the first Gulf War, when he served as defense secretary, "I do not look on the press as an asset. Frankly, I looked on it as a problem to be managed." [17]  During the second Gulf conflict, more than 600 reporters were "managed" as "embeds," agreeing to sign contracts with the military limiting when and what they could report. Each was able to provide a small slice of the war almost instantaneously; access was good, and the general feeling was that it worked well for both sides. [18]  But were they able to draw the line between propaganda and journalism?

Daniel Pipes - Middle East Forum - Judith Miller
The article having leapt from The Times' front page, my dissection of it below will not be the first. Any reading of the piece should perhaps occur in light of Miller's relationship with the Middle East Forum, run by the controversial Daniel Pipes, who has been in the news of late as a Bush nominee to the congressionally chartered U.S. Institute of Peace. A non-profit, the forum was founded in 1994.

The links of Judith Miller with the Pentagon are not new. In 1986, she wrote numerous articles on Libya, thus contributing to a massive disinformation campaign on Gaddafi which was coordinated by Admiral John Poindexter. Bob Woodward has written a major article in the Washington Post on this strategy.

When John Poindexter And Oliver North took the stand in the Iran-Contra hearings, they kept the lid on a Presidential scandal far more serious than today's. [Monica Lewinski scandal - Ed.]

Poindexter :: TIA Darpa Project - Resignation Letter 2002

"The role of a good reporter is like that of an intelligence analyst who digs for the truth, and not of a stenographer who simply reports what he/she hears without verification."

Miller was essentially the megaphone for disseminating Bush administration's `intelligence' and in promoting its agenda on Iraq. Indeed, she wrote the first article, entitled «Threats and Responses : The Iraqis ; U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts», on Saddam Hussein's WMD programme, mentioning "aluminium tubes" that could be used for nuclear weapons. That was on September 7, just a few days after Vice-President Cheney delivered the first speech in which he presented Iraq as Washington's next target.[10] [Interestingly, the forged documents on Niger uranium mystery first surfaced in Italy, via an Italian journalist who works for the Berlusconi-owned Panorama magazine.[11] Was Berlusconi asked to help Bush and Blair "fix" the intelligence to start war in Iraq, and the forged Niger documents were his government's contribution? [12]]

Miller's links with the Pentagon are not new. In 1986, she wrote numerous articles on Libya, thus contributing to a massive disinformation campaign on Muammar Gaddafi which was coordinated by Admiral John Poindexter.[13] During the first U.S.-led war in the Persian Gulf, Miller co-wrote a book with Laurie Mylroie, titled Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf. Miller and Mylroie have both been clients of Eleana Benador, whose PR firm has represented many leading pro-war figures that have appeared prominently on television and in other public venues. She has also worked closely and uncritically with Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, in developing her reports on Iraq.

Miller is also an old professional acquaintance of Godfrey Grima, a Maltese Fleet Street-trained journalist, who has been writing for The Financial Times for several years. Miller and Grima met several times on assignments in Libya, Poland, the US and Italy.

In the interview, which was published in The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was bluntly asked by Miller (tipped-off by the US intelligence services) whether he had alerted the Libyans to the attack.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici explained that he had personally informed Gaddafi that unauthorised fighter planes had just crossed southwards over Maltese territory and he had felt duty-bound to alert Libya since it was a friendly neighbouring country and because Malta had responsibility for air traffic control in the central Mediterranean.

I get the shivers reading material on this website: I'll do a DNS & WhoIs to check its origin.

1. 5 Marines Ambushed By Remote-Controlled Bomb
   
2. Mercs Ambush Marines

Is getting rid of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein essential to the war against terrorism? To encourage a debate on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy, the Council on Foreign Relations organized a webcast on U.S. policy toward Iraq as part of its series, "America's Response to Terrorism".

The debate on U.S. policy toward Iraq between Leon Fuerth and Richard Perle was webcast on January 22, 2002. Council president Leslie Gelb moderated.