The New York Times seems to have really stepped in political poo this time. Having apparently learned nothing from the controversy caused by Robert Novack’s outing of Valerie Plame or its own previous controversies, the liberal New York daily has published two front-page articles based on classified military material:
U.S. General in Iraq Outlines Troop Cuts
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON, June 24 — The top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, American officials say.
According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the number of American combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to 5 or 6 from the current level of 14 by December 2007.
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General Casey’s briefing has remained a closely held secret, and it was described by American officials who agreed to discuss the details only on condition of anonymity. Word of the plan comes after a week in which the American troop presence in Iraq was stridently debated in Congress, with Democratic initiatives to force troop withdrawals defeated in the Senate.
Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, June 22 — Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.
The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.
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Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. Some of those officials expressed reservations about the program, saying that what they viewed as an urgent, temporary measure had become permanent nearly five years later without specific Congressional approval or formal authorization.
For publishing classified American war plans and espionage activities, the New York Times risks being charged under section 798 of the US Criminal Code:
(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information - … (3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; … Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
While prosecuting the NYT seems to be a matter of black letter law, there are also grey areas of media coverage that have been under attack by allied government and pro-war pundits:
- Early in the war, the US government banned photographs or videos of coffins arriving from Iraq
- The government of Canada briefly placed a ban on media attendance at funerals for dead Canadian soldiers arriving home from Afghanistan
- Journalist Robert Fisk endured severe criticism for publishing pictures of dead Iraqi civilians, resulting from early American strikes on the Iraqi capital
None of the aforementioned incidents involve divulging classified information, but are still seen as detrimental to the war effort. Should the government be allowed to restrict freedom of the press on purely ideological grounds? What separates George Bush’s restriction on war coffin photography (re: politically unfavorable media coverage) from China’s attempted censorship of politically unfavorable web searches? The treatment of the media during this war has been a slippery slope from the start, and the prosecution of the NYT will certainly not mitigate fears of “media control”.
If there’s a problem with the program itself — other than it being yet another in a long line of “secret Bush administration programs” that combined spell a pattern of irrational panic-y ass-covering, crass opportunism, or both — it’s that it includes US citizens.
That’s not to say what the New York Times did was right, but the hardcore war brigade is of course seizing this opportunity to shut down all opposition or deterrents to the war.