They've done it again. The New York Times has published classified information. And once again, our intelligence agencies are proving that they can't keep a secret.Mark Mazzetti, the author of the piece, needs to be summoned to a court of law and be asked to identify his sources. If he refuses to do that, everyone in the intelligence community that has seen the NIE in question should be made to take a polygraph until all of the leakers are found and fired. These leaks need to stop before serious harm comes to our country just because of some turf battle. The intelligence community is supposed to be working for the executive branch of the government and I think we can all agree that isn't happening.
I said this after 9/11 and I will say it again: Our intelligence community needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up. It is flawed and dangerous at this point because of the presence of entrenched bureaucrats who are more concerned with protecting their fiefdom than they are about protecting this country against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Some are calling for the whole NIE to be declassified and released (or at least a summary). This is the game these guys are playing. These leakers want to have classified information released to the general public so that our enemies may take comfort and solace in it. Put me down as against it. Even though the released information will give plenty of political ammunition to liberals, we have to weigh whether or not a political victory is worth releasing the classified information. I suspect that we have another case of selective leaks that do not characterize the entire NIE. Releasing the NIE will probably balance the news cycle, but at what cost? I don't know, because the information is classified. And that is the way the entire NIE should have been kept. If we had a competent intelligence community, it would have kept our secrets.
But they didn't.
And there should be a price to pay for it.
A severe price.
Some people need to lose their jobs.
