Say Anything Blog

CIA Director Leon Panetta has had enough and has demanded that the Justice Department investigate the numerous intelligence leaks that keep popping out of our intelligence pipelines in a steady drip of information, and is damaging to our intelligence gathering capabilities as well as possibly crippling the execution of tactical operations:

Besieged by leaks of several closely held secrets, the CIA has asked the Justice Department to examine what it regards as the criminal disclosure of a secret program to kill foreign terrorist leaders abroad, The Washington Times has learned.

[...]

The vice chairman of the the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence declined to discuss any possible leak investigations but told the Times on Thursday that a growing number of disclosures of highly secret programs, tactics and other information had caused “irreparable damage” to the U.S. intelligence community.

“They foil our attempts to carry out classified missions,” Sen. Christopher S. Bond said in an interview. “They tell our intelligence community: We don’t have your back; we’re stabbing you in the back. Our allies ask us, ‘How can we trust you to deal in classified matters in private, when the details are leaked to the press?’”

Mr. Bond, a Republican from Missouri, said he heard this refrain in recent meetings with heads of European, South Asian and Middle Eastern allied intelligence services. “Nobody has told me they won’t cooperate, but they are asking the question,” he said.

The New York Times, one of the most frequent and egregious town criers where sensitive information is concerned, is ever eager to blast any and all classified information they uncover.

One element of the new leak investigation involves a New York Times story last month that said the secret program employed the security contractor Xe - formerly known as Blackwater. The plan was never put into effect - and Mr. Panetta canceled it as soon as he learned of it, according to the CIA.

But the disclosure has had other consequences: Al Qaeda has placed Xe’s chief executive, Eric Prince, on its own version of a most-wanted list, said Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the contractor.

Most reasonable should people agree that the leaks - and the NYT’s evident inside connections to the CIA - should be vigorously investigated. The paper’s reporters want to be the next Woodward and Bernstein and nothing like the small issue of national security or getting people killed through their irresponsible babbling will stop them from that endeavor.

There should be an investigation, and an intensive one.

My question is, though, will the Eric Holder-led Justice Department actually do one? We’re watching them actively ignore a clear case of racially motivated voter intimidation, and we’re watching them pursue CIA interrogators who were cleared five years ago. Will they initiate an investigation into who the leakers are, and who their outside handlers may be?

I doubt it.

They may take a swipe at it for PR’s sake, but I doubt they’ll pursue the leakers with the same zeal with which they’re set to pursue those mean ol’ interrogators.

Of course, I could be wrong.

One more thing - the left will squeal that it’s the responsibility of the press to watch our government for abuses and keep it in check. They’re right. It is.

But - when they start looking at the current administration and its surrounding circle of tax cheats, far left ideologues, and downright shady characters with the same degree of intensity that they display any time anyone from the Bush Administration era is mentioned I’ll feel a bit better about their professionalism - and their intent.