On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify - By Alan Grayson [View all]
On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify
By ALAN GRAYSON
September 6, 2013
WASHINGTON — THE documentary record regarding an attack on Syria consists of just two papers: a four-page unclassified summary and a 12-page classified summary. The first enumerates only the evidence in favor of an attack. I’m not allowed to tell you what’s in the classified summary, but you can draw your own conclusion.
On Thursday I asked the House Intelligence Committee staff whether there was any other documentation available, classified or unclassified. Their answer was “no.”
The Syria chemical weapons summaries are based on several hundred underlying elements of intelligence information. The unclassified summary cites intercepted telephone calls, “social media” postings and the like, but not one of these is actually quoted or attached — not even clips from YouTube. (As to whether the classified summary is the same, I couldn’t possibly comment, but again, draw your own conclusion.)
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The danger of the administration’s approach was illustrated by a widely read report last week in The Daily Caller, which claimed that the Obama administration had selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes in Syria, with one report “doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.”
The allegedly doctored report attributes the attack to the Syrian general staff. But according to The Daily Caller, “it was clear that ‘the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions.’ ”
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We have reached the point where the classified information system prevents even trusted members of Congress, who have security clearances, from learning essential facts, and then inhibits them from discussing and debating what they do know. And this extends to matters of war and peace, money and blood. The “security state” is drowning in its own phlegm.
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Alan Grayson, a Democratic representative from Florida, is a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/opinion/on-syria-vote-trust-but-verify.html
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Attended another classified briefing on #Syria & reviewed add'l materials. Now more skeptical than ever. Can't believe Pres is pushing war.
If Americans could read classified docs, they'd be even more against #Syria action. Obama admn's public statements are misleading at best.
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