Most Americans know that in time of war, some national-security secrets need to stay secret. The old World War Two poster said it best: “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” Yet some of the loosest lips these days are at the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Council. Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein spoke out this spring against the “avalanche of leaks” on the Osama bin Laden kill. Now come new revelations that the Obama team may have passed actionable intelligence about the operation to Hollywood film-makers.
Call it the WikiLeak Presidency, in which no secret is safe if it helps get Barack Obama re-elected.
E-mails recovered by the watchdog group Judicial Watch show just how far President Obama’s team was willing to go to turn OBL’s death into a pre-election PR blockbuster — and what they were willing to give away to get it done.
When the Obamaites learned that a Hollywood film-making team wanted to do a movie about the OBL killing, they got as excited as a 12-year-old with a new Harry Potter novel. On June 15, 2011, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications said that the White House wanted “visibility” in projects related to the OBL killing, and “this [movie] is likely the most high-profile one.” A CIA spokesperson agreed: “It makes sense to get behind a winning horse.”
They were particularly thrilled that the movie was slated to come out in early October 2012, just before the election. (Thanks to the public outcry, it’s now been postponed until afterward.)
That July 14, the Defense Department gave the film-makers direct access to the planner of the OBL operation — whose identity was otherwise highly secret. The official in charge meekly added, “The only thing we ask is that you not reveal his name because he shouldn’t be talking out of school.”
There was also worry that passing secrets to Hollywood producers might set a bad precedent: “[We] do not want to make it look like the commanders think it’s OK to talk to the media.”
The CIA went even further. According to the e-mails, when the producer noticed that the third floor of OBL’s compound had been withheld from the public-source plans he’d received, he asked if Langley would mind passing the info along. “Of course I don’t mind,” gushed the CIA spokesperson, “I’ll work on that tomorrow.”
The irony is, real secrets may have beem compromised in order to tell a narrative that was a lie from the start.
“No Easy Day,” an unauthorized account of the OBL operation by one of its Team Six members, flatly contradicts many aspects of the administration’s narrative of the raid, including the claim that OBL was armed and dangerous when he was taken out. And others report that Obama put off the OBL raid at least twice, for fear failure would wreck his reputation.
All in all, Obama & Co. look less like America’s avenging angels and more like publicity-hungry opportunists willing to do anything to get a good story in front of cameras.
According to “No Easy Day,” none of this came as a surprise to the Navy SEALs risking their lives in the raid. They’d seen Obama grab credit for the successful release of the Maerk Alabama hostages from Somali pirates back in 2009 and “there was no doubt in anyone’s mind he would take all the political credit for this too.” They even joked, “We’ll get Obama re-elected for sure.”
This leaves a final question. “No Easy Day” is itself a bundle of unauthorized leaks — including classified info, the Pentagon says. And now Judicial Watch is pushing for the release of more e-mails dealing specifically with OBL’s supposed “burial at sea.” Where does it stop?
Are we becoming a WikiLeaks Nation, where no secret stays secret unless it serves our personal agenda?
After an earlier wave of leaks, including revelations of how the Obama team had helped Israel launch a computer virus into Iran’s nuclear program (a story that got three Iranian technicians arrested as American spies), former Defense Secretary Bob Gates paid a visit to National Security Adviser Tom Donilon’s office.
“A new strategy for you,” he reportedly said. “Shut the f–k up.”
That sounds like good advice for everyone involved in this mess.
Arthur Herman’s latest book is “Freedom’s Forge.”