Executive Branch Can't Be Trusted with State Secrets

I listened transfixed to Senator Dick Durbin yesterday recounting how sadly he watched, voting against but unable to speak out, as the very facts he had been told in the Intelligence Committee's closed and secret briefings were denied by the administration as it terrorized the country into war.

Now when I googled this I found it worded this way at The Corner;

SAY WHAT? DID SEN. DURBIN RUN THIS PAST HIS COLLEAGUES?

DURBIN SAYS INTEL COMMITTEE MEMBERS WERE AWARE THAT IRAQ INTEL
DID NOT SUPPORT THE RHETORIC IN RUN-UP TO IRAQ WAR

“I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and I would read the headlines in the paper in the morning and I'd watch the television newscast and I'd shake my head. …[T]he information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it.” (Sen. Dick Durbin, Floor Speech, 04/25/07)

“You see, in the Intelligence Committee, we're sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say, ‘The statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that's being given to this Congress.’” (Sen. Dick Durbin, Floor Speech, 04/25/07)

“And so in my frustration, I sat here on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq thinking the American people are being misled. They are not being told the truth.” (Sen. Dick Durbin, Floor Speech, 04/25/07)

IS SENATOR DURBIN SAYING THAT DEMOCRAT INTEL COMMITTEE MEMBERS WILLFULLY MISLED THE PUBLIC?

That is as bizarre a statement by K-Lo as I could imagine. DemocratIC committee members were misused, as were all the committee members, by being held to an oath not to reveal state secrets - while those secrets were denied, and lied about, to the Congress and the public. The facts were state secrets. The lie was not - it had already been outed via the Vice President's office to Judy Miller and Co. at the New York Times.

The misuse of oaths of state secrets by the administration was detailed in the events given last night Bill Moyers' "Selling The War". When Cheney told state secrets on Meet The Press, he was not guilty of treason, as he had already had them revealed to Judy Miller and Co. of the New York Times, and they had been published. Only by knowing that they were already out there could he have known to prepare a statement about the aluminum tubes (the lie as to the facts that Durbin could not reveal), even though he knew the information was false. But only by authorizing that release of information - not stopping it as he is sworn to - could the Vice-President have known of its release.

Wait, you may say, treason had been committed then when they were revealed to Judy Miller and Co. Treason can't be committed without knowledge that you are revealing state secrets at the time. Therefore, those charges have not been brought by prosecutor Fitzpatrick, and those that were brought, only against Scooter Libby. Even Libby has not been charged with treason. I know, proving intent is almost impossible. Twisting in knots, yet?

State secrets were revealed in a scripted event on Meet The Press - so Cheney knew they were already out in public and therefore had not exercised his responsibility to protect the U.S. by keeping state secrets. In this instance, though, it was worse. He lied about those state secrets and depended on the Senate Intelligence Committee members with 'Need to Know' to keep their oaths to protect the country. If this were written by Shakespeare, Cheney could be well described as 'thrice damned'. I'm not William Shakespeare. I'll just call Cheney a war criminal of the lowest and most despicable order. Lying while trusting the honorable people around him not to reveal state secrets - which would have stopped us from going to war.

The Hague may be too good for them.