Report Critical of Rumsfeld Is Pulled After DOD Protest

[Rose Siding]

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 16, 2005; Page A05

A government commission studying overseas military bases sent Congress a report critical of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, then removed the document from the commission Web site after the Pentagon complained that it divulged classified information.

The panel contends that the 262-page report is based only on public sources, and several commission officials say they believe the Defense Department came down on them so hard because their conclusions include harsh criticism of some elements of Rumsfeld's strategy for streamlining the military.
...
According to e-mails that an official involved in the dispute read to The Washington Post, Barry Pavel, the Defense Department's director of strategy on global posture, wrote to Cornella on May 7 to warn of "the potential need to conduct an investigation regarding violation of security classification procedures, including the IT-related aspects (eg, possibly having to clean your servers, etc)."

Commission officials said they took that as a threat to revoke their security clearances and to bring military police or information technology agents to their Arlington offices......MORE......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500872.html

[Zenlitened]

1. "the Pentagon complained that it divulged classified information"

Huh? Like it's a secret that Rumsfeld is completely incompetent?

:shrug:

[jayctravis]

2. Lately every freaking piece of paper...

from the whitewash house contains classified information. I don't remember this happening under previous administrations quite so frequently.

[aquart]

5. Nixon, mainly.

And look what happened to him.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. More scary stuff -- stifling criticism, things disappearing. NT

[Solly Mack]

4. Some of the critical comments

bascially say the DoD underestimates costs and the troop w/d from Germany needs rethinking.


http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=BASES-OVERSEAS-05-05-05&cat=AN


May 9th, 2005 (date report came out)

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:n4Jyik_lMq4J:p142.news.scd.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050509/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/base_closings/nc:693+Overseas+Basing+Commission,+May+9,+2005&hl=en&start=8


On edit:

The Commission web site

http://www.obc.gov/reports.asp

the report can't be found.

[alfredo]

6. Even the google cache was scrubbed.

[Solly Mack]

9. I know..and I looked hard! All I could find were snips

from May 9th newspapers. I surprised the news articles about the May 9th release were not also scrubbed since they contained afew (very few) snippets. I expect them to be scrubbed soon.

There were 93 pages ( submitted - according to one article) that contained the "offending" passages.

[alfredo]

10. I guess we need to monitor government sites

to try to catch reports or comments that may get scrubbed .

[Solly Mack]

11. No kidding!

[alfredo]

13. I wouldn't know where to start. Thomas keeps me busy.

Look up S.852. It's a massive giveaway to the Asbestos industry. Cheney is connected to the industry through Halliburton. (Dresser)

It is also an attack against public interest lawyers by drying up another source of income.

[Solly Mack]

14. I signed a petition against S.852 a little while back

forget what site though

[alfredo]

16. I believe there is a petition site for that bill.

[ohtransplant]

7. It's a national secret

that Rummy's not the great SOD they want people to believe. He's more interested in snappy banter with the press than some moldy old report. Better file that for a few years...

[IndianaGreen]

8. Rumsfeld is not that popular among the DOD professionals

some of whom are convinced that the man has a few loose screws inside his head.

[rodeodance]

12. Report Critical of Rumsfeld Is Pulled After DOD Protest (more secrets)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500872.html


Report Critical of Rumsfeld Is Pulled After DOD Protest

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 16, 2005; Page A05

A government commission studying overseas military bases sent Congress a report that included criticism of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's strategy, then removed the document from the commission Web site after the Pentagon complained that it divulged classified information.

The congressionally appointed panel contends that the 262-page report is based only on public sources, and several commission officials say they believe the Defense Department was annoyed because their conclusions include harsh criticism of some elements of Rumsfeld's plan for streamlining the military.
An official involved in the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Pentagon's primary complaint appeared to be that the report specified Bulgaria and Romania as countries U.S. forces would rotate through for training, rather than using a more vague regional identification such as Eastern Europe.

The Overseas Basing Commission released a partial version of the report at a news conference on May 9, but now the panel has removed that version from its Web site because of the Pentagon's complaints.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

15. Perhaps they could post a page linking to all the public sources

The government would have to act to classify each and every individual document. And anything that isn't available online must be published-- post the individual publications, or at least their titles and availability.