Some thoughts on the "War Logs"

Commentary By Ron Beasley

As someone who was part of the intelligence community when the Pentagon Papers were published I'm a little late to the commentary.  I have really been trying to compose my thoughts.  First some thoughts on classification.  There are several classifications:

• Sensitive
• Confidential
• Secret
• Top Secret

There are sub categories of Secret and Top Secret and having the proper security clearance only means you have access to the document if you have a "need to know."  The first three are not that secret.  We used to joke that Confidential meant the information was in Newsweek last week and Secret meant it would be in Newsweek this week or next. 

For starters the War Logs are not the modern day Pentagon Papers.  The Pentagon Papers were Top Secret and probably less than a hundred people had access to them.  They presented new information that indicated that the administration and the military knew there was really no way to win and had known it for a long time.  This was verified when Lyndon Johnson's personal conversations were published.

It's going to be difficult for us ...prosecute...a war far away from home with the divisions we have here....I'm very depressed about it.  Because I see no program from either Defense or State that gives me much hope of doing anything, except just praying and gasping to hold on...and hope they'll quit.  I don't believe they're every going to quit.  And I don't see ...any...plan for victory---militarily or diplomatically.

~LBJ to Robert McNamara, June 21, 1965.

The War Logs on the other hand are Secret and thousands of military personal, government employees and private contractors had easy access.  While the Pentagon Papers were finished intelligence the War Logs are just that, war logs - raw intelligence.  Much if not most of raw intelligence is bogus.  It is the job of the analyst to determine what is wheat and what is chaff.  Much of what we see here may indeed be chaff.  As Dave pointed out the most important difference is there is nothing new.

None of this is new to anyone paying attention.  However, most people are not paying attention to the details, although they are paying attention to the general atmospherics and vaguely know that the war in Afghanistan is not achieving its stated objectives nor is it producing any security gain comparable to the costs.

After the Pentagon Papers were released the world knew that the government had been lying to them about the Vietnam war.  The release of the War Logs will will make it more difficult for the administration to wage it's disinformation campaign on Afghanistan.  That is why the Pentagon and the Obama administration are so upset.

Comments

[TC]

Collection of early skeptical reactions to the leak:

http://catastrophist.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/afghan-war-logs-netizens-react-skepticism/