Return-Path: <sentto-279987-3305-1003849536-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Tue, 23 Oct 2001 08:07:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 19341 invoked by uid 510); 23 Oct 2001 15:05:05 -0000 Received: from n5.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.55) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 23 Oct 2001 15:05:05 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-3305-1003849536-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.1.223] by n5.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 23 Oct 2001 15:05:36 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 23 Oct 2001 15:05:36 -0000 Received: (qmail 69450 invoked from network); 23 Oct 2001 15:05:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 23 Oct 2001 15:05:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta2 with SMTP; 23 Oct 2001 15:05:35 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f9NF5vV20857 for iwar@onelist.com; Tue, 23 Oct 2001 08:05:57 -0700 Message-Id: <200110231505.f9NF5vV20857@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 08:05:57 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:Rumsfeld.Assails.Leak.On.Troops] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Washington Post October 23, 2001 Rumsfeld Assails Leak On Troops Secretary's Warning to Pentagon Staff May Spur Friction With Media By Vernon Loeb and Bradley Graham, Washington Post Staff Writers Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed consternation yesterday with recent press reports on the presence of U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan and said defense officials who leaked the information had violated federal criminal law and put soldiers' lives at risk. Rumsfeld said a close hold on information is justified by the nature of the conflict is Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are fighting against a ruling government militia, the Taliban, and a shadowy terrorist organization, al Qaeda, that do not present conventional military targets. In such a war, he said, the success of U.S. attacks is heavily dependent upon surprise. "It is not in our country's interest to let them know when, how or even why we are conducting certain operations," Rumsfeld said, adding that the release of such information "clearly was a violation of federal criminal law and something that was totally [in] disregard for the lives of the people involved in that operation." With special operations just beginning on the ground in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld's stern warning to his own employees seemed almost certain to further chill relations between the Pentagon and the media at a time when information is already being more closely held than in recent U.S. military conflicts. Rumsfeld's focus on press leaks, coming at the beginning of his regular press briefing, placed new and vivid emphasis on a theme he first struck on Sept. 12, the day after terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. At that time, Rumsfeld said that a defense official willing to leak information is someone willing to violate the law and "frustrate our efforts to track down and deal with terrorists." His comments yesterday were directed at an article published last Friday in The Washington Post that said small numbers of U.S. special forces were on the ground in Afghanistan. The article said nothing about raids by U.S. Army Rangers and other Special Forces that began later on Friday, Washington time, although reports by CBS and NBC broadcast on Friday night revealed that those operations were underway. Rumsfeld said the reports did not jeopardize lives. "All returned safely," he said. But Rumsfeld said he was "floored" by the fact that defense officials had provided classified information about the presence of Special Forces in Afghanistan. Asked whether he planned to search for the source of the leak, Rumsfeld said he didn't have time, but added: "I certainly hope that the people who were parachuting in don't find the person." The Washington Post has a long-standing policy of not publishing material it believes would jeopardize operational security or put soldiers' lives at risk. The Post reviews potentially sensitive material with administration officials and over the past month has not published specific details cited by officials as endangering national security. In the case of Friday's article, no appeal was made by the government to withhold information. Media representatives and advocates for greater openness in government said Rumsfeld's clamp-down on information is hurting the Pentagon's credibility and forcing reporters to solicit information through back-channel conversations with sources just to obtain basic information about the conduct of the war. "There are a number of journalists and former journalists who are very concerned about how the relationship between the press and the government can be conducted on a rational basis that can provide the American people with the information they need without jeopardizing national security," said Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and former Washington bureau chief of the New York Times. "Those efforts are not furthered or helped by ad hominem arguments that only confuse the American people and raise the level of distrust on all sides," he said. "If his concerns were with people in the Pentagon leaking information, he should be talking to them -- he doesn't have to talk to the press and the public about it." Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy, added that what Rumsfeld and the Pentagon need above all else is to maintain credibility with the public. "The only way to do that is to provide all information that can be released without jeopardizing operational security," he said. "But that kind of information has been hard to come by. This is probably the most secretive military operation of its scale that the United States has conducted in modern times." Anthony H. Cordesman, a former defense official and military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he finds it perfectly understandable that Rumsfeld has chosen to ride herd on press leaks at the Pentagon. "It doesn't matter whether a democratic society finds out [about special operations] three weeks late, or 48 hours late," Cordesman said. "Breaking the news has no value to a democratic society. Analyzing the news does. If it's a choice between American casualties and this strange we-have-to-know-it-now intimacy, the player is more important than the sports fan." During his briefing, Rumsfeld noted that he has agreed that he and other senior defense officials will provide press briefings on the war in Afghanistan five days a week. He also said that videotapes released Saturday of the Special Forces raid in Afghanistan represented the first such footage ever released. He also said he is considering the possibility of allowing journalists to cover the war from the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea being used for the staging of Special Forces helicopter assaults. Journalists are already present on three carriers from which Navy jets are flying missions. As he did several weeks ago, Rumsfeld promised that neither he nor other defense officials would deliberately lie to the media as part of a disinformation campaign. And he took exception with those who charge that he is conducting an unusually secretive military campaign. "We certainly want to work out ways to work with the press that make the most sense from all of our standpoints," he said. "Because the nature of this conflict is so different from previous ones, I suspect that old models won't work." But by past standards of recent war coverage, the Pentagon under Rumsfeld has imposed much tighter controls over the media's access to military operations and to senior military commanders. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, dozens of journalists were permitted to accompany Army units that swept through western Iraq or to join Marines who punched through to Kuwait. They interviewed top generals and received regular briefings from Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the head of U.S. Central Command. Although frictions arose over delays in the military's processing of journalistic dispatches and other issues, news organizations and the Pentagon reached agreement in 1992 on a basic outline for future war coverage. This led to closer interaction between journalists and troops during the U.S. interventions in Somalia and Haiti. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Pinpoint the right security solution for your company- Learn how to add 128- bit encryption and to authenticate your web site with VeriSign's FREE guide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/yQix2C/33_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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