In times of war, the death penalty is even a possibility if the leak were egregious enough. -- Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense

Rumsfeld: Leaking Classified Info 'Outrageously Irresponsible'

By Sgt. 1st Class Kathleen T. Rhem,
USA American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2002 -- Anyone in DoD who would leak classified information to the press is so "outrageously irresponsible" that an investigation to find that person is worth the cost, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said July 22.

Rumsfeld ordered the Air Force's Office of Special Investigation to look into a leak that is the purported basis of a July 5 New York Times article on a secret war plan for an attack on Iraq. The information in the article allegedly came from a top-secret document provided by an anonymous defense official.

"I think anyone who has a position where they touch a war plan has an obligation to not leak it to the press or anybody else, because it kills people," Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon press briefing.

David Irving comments: SO what is called "whistleblowing" in civilian life, and is rewarded and protected by law, is a crime in the military. This is not the first time that the US press has shown a greater sense of national responsibility than a nation's Cabinet level officers. In pre Pear-Harbor 1941 Colonel McCormick's Chicago Tribune revealed the US General Staff's plans for war, a bold act which unmasked FDR's own duplicity (and occasioned the US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg not a little difficulty).     Donald Rumsfeld displays disturbing traits: he has the blithe, surehanded touch of the megalomaniac -- with a flick of a finger he wipes off the map entire, wretched, third world towns and villages in the most excruciating way; he seems (judging by his C-Span performances) to delight in the killing of innocents that is involved.    Now comes Stage II, Iraq, and it turns out that somebody has a conscience after all (which does not surprise me: I met many US armed forces officers, in the days when I lectured to US II and III Corps in Germany, and I intensively admired their professionalism).    What seems to have happened is this -- unless this news item is a piece of outrageous disinformation, displaying greater ingenuity than even the most cunning plan hatched by Blackadder's sidekick Baldrick: An officer has learned that his superiors are about to issue orders which he considers to be criminal -- launching a war of aggression, evidently at the behest of Big Business, and without any mandate from the US Congress -- and he has turned the file over to a responsible newspaper of record, The New York Times. In short, A Whistleblower.    Nothing else explains Donald's explosion of petty spleen.

He was adamant that the person who leaked the document should be jailed. He said people could get killed if others start treating "war plans like paper airplanes" they can fly to anybody who wants them.

"I think it is so egregious, so terrible, that I decided to have an investigation notwithstanding the cost," Rumsfeld said.

According to military legal experts, jail time for such a crime is a real possibility. A senior defense official explained military people caught leaking classified information can be charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and civilians under the Espionage Act.

"Depending on the severity of the leak, people caught passing classified information could spend significant time in jail under the Espionage Act and the UCMJ," he said. In times of war, the death penalty is even a possibility if the leak were egregious enough, he added.

At a minimum, individuals caught leaking classified information would lose their security clearances, which usually means the loss of their jobs as well, the official said.

During the briefing, Rumsfeld also said DoD employees who know of leaks should come forward. "I hope that if there's anyone in the Department of Defense who knows who did that, that they will give someone in a position of responsibility that information, because they have every bit as big an obligation to do that as they do to not release it in the first place," he said.

Rumsfeld also vehemently dismissed the notion that someone might have leaked the information to expose a flawed plan, thus saving lives. "There is nothing you could say that would lead me to believe that the individual was well motivated and trying to serve his country by violating federal criminal law -- nothing you could say," he said.

AFPS reporter Jim Garamone contributed to this article.

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