“I want a system that is biased in favor of declassification. I want some assurance that they aren’t just picking the stuff that’s garbage and releasing that. If we’re only declassifying maps of Baghdad, I’m not going to be happy.”
– Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), House intelligence committee chairman, last March. Hoekstra was frustrated that spy chief John Negroponte was resisting his call to release seized Iraqi documents that Hoekstra was convinced would justify the war in Iraq.
“It looks like they screwed up.”
– Hoekstra chiding senior intelligence officials (including Negroponte) yesterday. It was revealed last week that sensitive nuclear secrets were among a batch of Iraqi documents released as part of Hoekstra’s favorite declassification program. The documents, which predate the 1991 Persian Gulf War, “show that the Iraqi program may be much further along than anybody ever anticipated,” Hoekstra said.
