I wonder how angry Joe Wilson and the Democrats are over the latest leak of classified national security information to the press:
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA’s unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA’s covert actions.
The system depends on secrecy, huh? Then why is it in the Washington Post?
Christopher Fotos has a good take on this:
Look, there are important issues here and I’m ambivalent about stories like this — I don’t want any authority torturing anyone. But just once, I’d like to see an anonymous source properly described. Here, most of the time Priest cites “intelligence officials,” she should say “who oppose the secret prison program and hope to destroy it by leaking classified information.” That would be more direct — more honest — than the vague constructions she uses: “Meanwhile, the debate over the wisdom of the program continues among CIA officers… considerable concern lingers about [its] legality, morality and practicality…”
I somehow doubt the Dems will close the Senate over this one.