State Dep’t Classifies Publicly-Available Corruption DocumentAnother triumph for the State Department!
You’ll recall that yesterday, Rep. Henry Waxman wrote to Condoleezza Rice to complain, among other things, that her department promptly classified internal assessments of corruption in the Iraqi government when it learned that his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sought them out. Among those documents: an 80-page U.S. Embassy-Baghdad report on pervasive Iraqi corruption leaked to The Nation’s David Corn.
As it turns out, Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists obtained a copy of the document last week — before State had it classified — and posted it on the FAS webpage. Click here to read the document that State doesn’t want Waxman — or, for that matter, you — to read.
Here’s a characteristic excerpt:
In his letter yesterday, Waxman called State’s newfound realization that the document’s release will jeopardize national security “absurd.”