If the DSM are today's Pentagon Papers, who is the new Deep Throat?

[The Backlash Cometh]

My vote is on Sibel Edmonds. She's not a classic Deep Throat, but one who certainly has secrets from her FBI work which could stir things up.

[rox63]

1. My vote is for

The guy in the UK who has been leaking the documents.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Hmm..

Or the Scot who gave testimony in Congress?

Is Sibel Edmonds U.S. born? I'm wondering if it says something about us Americans, that the only people who seem to have an honest connection with the public, are foreign born?

[maddezmom]

5. George Galloway

could be right? :shrug:

[HamdenRice]

3. Deep Throat is probably a British intelligence or even cabinet official

This is a very important question because the DSM was highly classified and its distribution was limited to only the British embassy, the very highest level of MI6 and a few cabinet officials. Indeed, it was written by a foreign policy aid to the Prime Minister and addressed to the British Ambassador to the US and cc'd to MI6. Such memos would not have been distributed downward to lower ranking MI6 or ministry officials, but only upward to cabinet members and perhaps to permanent secretaries. Here was the heading:

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

<end quote>

As you can see, it's distribution even within the cabinet was extremely limited.

This raises a potentially explosive issue: namely that some person very high up in the British political establishment is extraordinarily opposed to the Iraq War, and has decided to sabotage the policy and the US-UK gordian knot by leaking the memo.

The only other possibility would be someone within the US intelligence services either opposed to the War or angry at shrub's intelligence bashing. But because this memo was not shared with US intelligence, it could only come from signals intelligence, such as the NSA, as an intercept of British intelligence.

My bet is it is someone listed on the cc list, or a permanent cabinet secretary.

<edited for correction>

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. It takes a foreigner to save America's soul?

Good reasoning on your part.

[Squeech]

6. Not exactly

There's a document that must exist, but they're keeping it under wraps for obvious reasons: a presidential finding approving torture, with dumbya's signature on it.

Why must it exist? Because that's the direction that all of Gonzales's memos were pointing to-- his arguments boiled down to "We can't tie the hands of the Commander in Chief in a time of war," but they also pretty clearly required the C-in-C to make an official statement saying that the gloves were off. And they've been merrily waterboarding ever since. Q.E.D. that statement must exist. And that's the document we need some White House or Pentagon insider to produce.

This isn't my own idea, I got it from one of the blogs-- maybe Body and Soul, which has shouldered the loathsome task of collecting all the torture stories.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. But the cause for war was bogus, so now there is no reason to protect

the White House and their cronies. What excuse could they possibly have now since it's in our national best interest to get the truth out and square things with our allies?

[H2O Man]

8. Great point.

The "Pentagon Papers," made public by Daniel Ellsburg, will not come out in the same way. However, in the years 2003-2004, a number of the people connected to the republican leadership did come forward. Clarke, Phillips, Schauer, and others took brave stances against the revolutionary presidency.

A "Deep Throat" will come from someone who is a conservative republican, who recognizes that the US Constitution is in great danger by the imperial actions of President Cheney. It would not be any of the people listed in this thread, because they lack the access to the information needed. Colin Powell doesn't have the inner strength; like LBJ, he has become a bitter bull castrated late in life. George Tenet is a possibility. But if I were to make a guess, I'd say that Richard Armitage has the moral character needed to step up to the plate. I think it is possible that by the middle of this summer, some good reporter makes contact with him.