Quote:

---

They didn't advocate posting documents that would compromise our security, but they did not use sound judgement in not reviewing the documents first

---

So if I'm reading you correctly, you are saying their defense is..."oops, my bad."

"reviewing the documents first"

Uh, hello? Shouldn't the DNI (his office) do this? Isn't that why they are there???

No...their defense is, at least for Hoekstra, "Don't blame us...we pressured the guy, we demanded everything be made public, we wanted to give the public something to make them believe we had the right reasons to go to war...even though we didn't read the documents...its Negroponte's fault"

It wasn't one item! It was a whole plethora of documents. Hoekstra's position was that the part of it that was safe to disclose ought to be disclosed; it is the DNI's job to determine what portion that is - now, what part of that is not simple common sense?

I know it was a plethora...but you'd think someone in the staff of the Senate & House Intelligence Chairmen would have read some of the documents before making a knee-jerk decision to demand the DNI publish ALL of the documents on a public forum such as the internet.

They did not demand that he publish ALL of them. They requested that he publish the ones that could be published without harming security. Again, I don't understand the problem with that.

Imagine I made a mistake filing our quarterly financials, and published all of our customer's names and account balances. Would it make sense to blame the SEC?

No...it would not make sense to blame the SEC...but...if it is wrong to blame the SEC for the mishap of the individual in charge of filing, why should we blame the DNI and not Hoekstra and Roberts?

By the way...Hoekstra made comments saying that risks were minimal to the US in a press release issued by his own office (http://hoekstra.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=42502)

I don't think you are understanding the analogy. The congressmen requested that the DNI disclose documents that were safe to disclose. His staff screwed up and disclosed documents that were not safe to disclose.

Similarly, the SEC requires financial disclosures. If I were to screw up and disclose confidential customer information that was not supposed to be disclosed, would that be on my head, or the SEC's - obviously, you agree that this would be my mistake, not the SEC's.

I don't see how you cannot see that the analogous mistake rests with the DNI, and not the congressmen.

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfled; "You build a publicly accessible web portal of war-time intelligence data with the resources, processes support that you have, not with resources, processes and support that you actually need."

You're right...I did confuse the analogy a little bit, thanks for clearing it up for me.

Now that it is clear, my understanding of the situation is this:

1) Hoekstra and Roberts asked the DNI to create a website which would give free access to documents found in Iraq to justify the causes of war given to us by the Bush Administration.

2) Negroponte DID NOT want to create the website.

So somewhere between the pressuring by Roberts and Hoekstra, and the nuke plans being put into public domain, something or someone persuaded Negroponte to give in and create the website.

Joker, maybe you're right...maybe someone at the DNI did screw up.

But, I put a portion of the blame on Hoekstra. He wrongly claimed that a vast number of weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq in July, and even the Rumsfeld Pentagon debuffed him. Seems to me that the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is not so intelligent himself.

Your concerns about his intelligence are irrelevant to this discussion. He may be as dumb as a doorknob, but that's not what the problem was here.

Here is a recap of the situation:

1) Intelligence community did not want to release documents.

2) Hoekstra did, and introduced a bill that would have required their release, absent a certification from the DNI that releasing any particular document would present a security risk.

3) DNI relented, and agreed to create a process to declassify and release documents; as a result, Hoekstra let the bill drop.

4) DNI released something that apparently should not have been released.

5) This is reported by "whistleblowers" to the NYT, rather than to the DNI. (Gee, I wonder which was more likely to draw the attention of any rogue states?)

6) The NYT uses the story to attempt to discredit Republicans in Congress immediately prior to the election, apparently forgetting that it showed Saddam had not given up his attempts to develop WMD.

By intelligence...I don't mean in his actual smarts...I'm sure he is very smart...

I should have meant his credibility due to his statements in July about finding WMDs in Iraq and his comments in August (per his own press department) about how there would be minimal risks to US security contained in these documents.

I see a lot of problems here...and this is why I think we need change...

you guys need to start PMing each other...maybe meet for lunch or an after dinner boxing match

Sorry, Happy - didn't mean to make you jealous.

if you choose the boxing match, let me know and I'll promote it. we can make a few bucks, i'm sure