This has been a rewarding couple of weeks for Post readers.
The investigative and business staffs have produced two probing, hard-hitting series. Last week, a five-parter by staff writers Peter Behr and April Witt laid out, in remarkable and powerful detail, the inside story of the collapse of Enron. The week before, a two-parter by reporter Alec Klein on accounting practices at AOL Time Warner set in motion civil and criminal investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, respectively. Metro reporters Yolanda Woodlee, Craig Timberg and others did a solid job in covering, and helping to uncover, the scandal surrounding the electoral nominating petitions gathered in support of Washington Mayor Anthony A. Williams.
But what, ultimately, may be the most important stories of recent days were by The Post’s Pentagon correspondent, Tom Ricks, and by his counterparts at the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and maybe others. These were accounts of possible military scenarios being debated inside an otherwise tight-lipped administration and Pentagon concerning what is widely expected to be an eventual attack on Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein.
Leaks of national security information have always happened. Sometimes they are not “leaks” in the sense that people probably imagine them, where someone hands a reporter a classified document. That scenario is probably very rare. More often, these stories come about because knowledgeable reporters have good sources, know where to go and what questions to ask and are able to find people willing to talk. Sometimes they talk because they are upset with policy or believe the public deserves to know more than it is being told, and sometimes the motivations may be more devious or selfish. Reporters have an obligation to tell readers as much as they can about these motivations.
But the leaks of recent weeks constitute a stream rather than a drip. In May Ricks first reported that officials within the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff had doubts about the administration’s aggressive posture toward Iraq and that an invasion would require at least 200,000 troops. In July the New York Times published three front-page stories about possible assault scenarios that involved surrounding Iraq with 250,000 troops coming from three directions, the need for a base in Jordan and another possible plan that involved a quick takeover of the capital, Baghdad. In July USA Today printed on its front page several important stories about what might trigger an attack. Then Ricks, last Sunday and again on Thursday, provided fascinating inside looks at the divisions within the administration and the military.
The rush of leaks has created a spectacle for media watchers, setting off musings about what’s behind them and whether they reflect a newspaper bias for or against any would-be conflict. Having watched this kind of thing unfold before, my strong sense is that such leaks don’t compromise security. The U.S. military, if it does act, will do so in a way that hasn’t been on anyone’s front page.
What these stories do show is the great benefit of reading newspapers if you care about whether and how this country is going to war. Aside from making its intentions clear to remove Saddam Hussein, the administration has not opened itself up yet to questions about the specific reasons, rationale, risks and evidence for such action. It has been the press — and especially big newspapers with large circulations and reach — that has been leading the effort to uncover the road to war. Congress only last week started to promote anything close to a national dialogue on this, with two days of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings that honored an administration request not to provide testimony at this time.
Unless you happen to be in the relatively small, all-volunteer armed forces, or in the reserves, going to war for the past quarter-century has been pretty painless. You can watch it on TV, you don’t pay higher taxes, and there are few casualties. Most of those are foreigners or others killed in badly misnamed “friendly fire” accidents. There are better ways to debate the pros and cons of going to war with Iraq. But thus far it is the leaks that have opened things up.
