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 oday's
Washington Post features a front-page
news article disclosing the existence of what it ominously calls
a "shadow government" — a cadre of as many as 200
senior officials said to be working outside of the nation's capital
in two secret locations. This is a most regrettable revelation as
it will almost certainly lead to the compromise of one of the most
sensitive and, arguably, one of them most important federal activities
since Sept. 11: Ensuring the continuity of accountable and representative
government in the face of terrorists' manifest ambitions to "decapitate"
our country by destroying its leadership.
While the Post
exercised a modicum of restraint by acceding to Bush administration
demands not to identify the two locations, it is predictable that,
by calling attention to the existence of such facilities, the paper
has effectively challenged every other reporter on the planet to
be the one to get credit for disclosing their precise whereabouts.
One of the authors of the initial article, Barton Gellman, gave
further, tantalizing hints in an interview on National Public Radio
this morning: Both facilities are on the East Coast; one is in the
military chain of command; one has been routinely updated, the other
has obsolescent equipment dating from the Cold War days. Ready,
set, go!
A few years
back, in a fit of the "Cold War's over" irresponsibility,
congressional leaders saw fit to reveal the existence of a secret
bunker at the Greenbrier Hotel complex, created covertly in the
1950s for the purpose of evacuating and sustaining the legislative
branch in the event of emergency. It can only be hoped — probably
vainly — that some other such facility has been prepared in
the meantime. If so, there is a chance that our constitutional form
of government could continue to function at some level, even under
the extremely difficult circumstances imposed by a weapon-of-mass-destruction
(WMD) attack on Washington.
More likely,
no such preparation has been made, in light of the high costs associated
with replicating compromised facilities and the extreme contempt
for continuity-of-government (COG) activities expressed by people
like former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and Secretary
of State/White House Chief of Staff James Baker during the Bush
41 era and the Clinton national-security team.
In World War
II, those with knowledge of the movements of convoys were warned
that "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Today, in what some have
called World War IV (III having been the Cold War), indiscreet comments
about the existence and functioning of COG operations, personnel,
and sites invites their compromise. At best, that will mean relocation
with all of the attendant expense and disruptions; at worst, it
will mean the destruction of these vital "nodes" and with
them, perhaps, the government we will then need more than ever.
Similar indiscretion
has recently taken another casualty in the U.S. capabilities to
wage the war on terrorism as effectively as possible: False, but
widely repeated, claims by unnamed sources in the Defense Department
that the recently established Office of Strategic Influence (OSI)
was planning to use disinformation to manipulate foreign media and
governments. These unsubstantiated charges were repeated and amplified
by the New York Times and other media to the point that Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld felt the OSI had been so badly "crippled"
that he had no choice but to shut it down.
Even though
the Office of Strategic Influence was not going to engage
in disinformation, the fact is that keeping such vital activities
as strategic influence and continuity of government as far removed
as possible from the enemies' eyes is not only necessary to maximize
the effectiveness of such operations. It is usually essential to
their ability to operate at all. Joseph Persico op-ed. article published
in yesterday's Wall Street Journal makes the case for secrecy
in such matters. His injunction "Shhhhh!" should be followed
scrupulously lest we be obliged to fight the war on terror disarmed
of needed capabilities and more vulnerable to our enemies than we
can afford to be.
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