Clash over classified documents; politics drives choices

A Clash on Classified Documents
Politics Drives Some Releases, Critics Say
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 31, 2004; Page A12

The Bush administration's uneven decision-making on which sensitive documents it declassifies has prompted criticism that the White House is selectively releasing information to justify its foreign policy decisions and respond to political pressure. Before the war, for example, the administration kept classified the intelligence community's significant dissents to the overall assessment that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It later released those dissents, however, after the CIA was criticized for failing to accurately assess Iraq's weapons -- a reversal cited by those who argue such decisions are being based on politics, not national security.

To make its case for war at the United Nations, the White House also released recent audiotapes of intercepted conversations -- usually among its most highly guarded secrets -- between Iraqi military officers.

Last week, in the most recent case under scrutiny, the CIA began reviewing for declassification testimony that former White House counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke gave last year to the congressional panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The CIA launched the effort at the White House's request, after Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, asked it to do so.

Goss said his staff made the request after he "was absolutely sure there was going to be a huge uproar" over Clarke's claims that Bush had ignored terrorism before September 2001. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) also asked for the declassification.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the committee, criticized Goss yesterday for bypassing what she said were normal House procedures in seeking declassification.

"This is a stunning violation that can only feed the impression that sensitive materials are being selectively declassified for political reasons, rather than national security or the public interest," Harman said. "The message this sends is that for partisan political reasons, classified material can be reviewed and selectively released."

The House rules permit the chairman to request a declassification review but say he must get the committee's approval for release, which Goss said he intends to do.

Harman also called on the White House, which often reviews CIA declassifications before documents are released, to "recuse itself from any declassification decisions and preserve the integrity of this process."

Goss disputed Harman's allegations that he had broken House rules: "I've followed the committee's procedure, and I'm puzzled by this eleventh-hour protest" from someone who has pushed to get as much of the joint inquiry's work declassified as possible.

But on the broader issue of classification, Goss, a former CIA officer, said that "the whole classification process is mayhem," and that too much is classified by U.S. agencies.

Declassification of material for political reasons "is not unheard of, but it's not routine, and every administration confronts it," said the nation's top classification manager, J. William Leonard, director of the government's Information Security Oversight Office. "But you don't have to be a whiz to figure out these are unprecedented times we're living in."

For information to be classified, the agency that produced it must describe the damage to national security that its release would create, Leonard said. But, he added, policymakers may consider other, subjective issues, such as the public interest served by disclosure.

"What we're learning is that classification is a political tool," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. "It can be used to advance or retard a particular agenda."

A 25-page version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was released in October 2002. It made clear-cut statements about Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons capabilities in two pages of "Key Judgments."

"Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons. . . . t will probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade," the section said, adding that "most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."

When a fuller, eight-page version of the key judgments section was released after the war, it contained lengthy, well-marked dissents by some in the intelligence community.

On the question of whether certain aluminum tubes were imported to Iraq for use in nuclear weapons programs, the first document said: "Most intelligence specialists assess this to be their intended use, but some believe that these tubes are probably intended for conventional weapons programs."

The second document included a dissent by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence Research (INR), which said it did not believe there was "a compelling case" that Iraq was working to acquire nuclear weapons. And INR and the Department of Energy questioned whether the tubes were well-suited for centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

The second declassification, said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a group devoted to declassifying secrets, showed the administration was not "protecting sources and methods. They were creating a document for public consumption that argued for the war."