I'm sure I've missed something somewhere, but there remains one thing that no Washington journalist has allowed themselves to speculate about, at least in print: who leaked the ICRC report?
I suspect it was someone at the State Department who wanted to stick it to their arch-rivals at the Pentagon. Dana Priest implicitly allowed for this possibility when she mentioned in her online chat at the Post website this week that, regarding the ICRC report, the "State Department got theirs through a back channel. So, yes, many people in the USG knew of their allegations."
Joshua Micah Marshall notes as well: "I've been hearing for days that the State Department at the highest levels (i.e., not a few lefty FSOs in the bureaucracy, but authorized at the highest levels) has been leaking like crazy against the civilian leadership of the Pentagon on this story."
By the way, I've still only noticed one reference to the unprecedented nature of the leak of this report, from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website, of all places. In addition to a discussion of the reasons behind the ICRC's confidentiality, this story notes that this is "one of the only confidential ICRC documents to be made public since the Geneva-based agency was founded 145 years ago."
No comments:
Post a Comment