WTF? DoD will block testimony to Congressional committees [View All]

[MH1]

Was this reported earlier and I missed it? From an editorial in the Boston Globe today:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/05/20/dont_let_bush_muzzle_gis/

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But new Bush administration guidelines would limit Congress's freedom to get testimony from a wide range of service members and civilian Pentagon employees. The Department of Defense is reserving the right to bar enlisted personnel, career bureaucrats, and any officers below the rank of colonel from testifying to oversight committees or having their statements transcribed. According to the guidelines, "Junior officers . . . and non-commissioned officers, deemed appropriate by the may provide support to briefers or witnesses, but shall not be asked or required to have their names entered into the record or speak on the record."

The new rules, spelled out in a letter to the staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, are the handiwork of Robert L. Wilkie, the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs. Wilkie has held this position since last year and in the past served as an aide to former senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and then on the staff of President Bush's National Security Council from 2003 to 2005. While Congress and the Pentagon have long had to negotiate back and forth on which representatives of the department would appear on Capitol Hill, the Wilkie guidelines are new. A special Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations, chaired by Representative Martin Meehan of Lowell, has written at least 10 letters to the Pentagon seeking information and received just one official reply.

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Does anyone know more about this?