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Santorum, Hoekstra: Release Iraq Papers
It's a blogger's dream come true: Millions of pre-Iraq war intelligence documents are now being posted online and two Republican congressmen are asking for their assistance in digesting them. They can thank Sen. Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Senate Republican, and House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., for helping to make it happen. The two said during a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday that they lobbied the White House and intelligence leaders to release millions of pages of documents and audio recordings captured during current and previous U.S. military operations in Iraq. The first dump started Wednesday night via a Pentagon Web site at the direction of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, and the release is expected to continue for months. "We are hoping to unleash the power of the Internet, unleash the power of the blogosphere to get through these documents and give us a better understanding of exactly what was going on in Iraq prior to the war," Hoekstra said. Hoekstra said U.S. intelligence analysts should be looking for current and future threats instead of studying the past, and most of the information in the boxes is three to 15 years old.
Story Continues Below Both said they do not believe the information contains material that could put Americans at risk, but it is not clear what is in all the material. Hoekstra said Saddam Hussein had a system in place to destroy documents so the material is just the "crumbs" that were left. Police records will not be released, but Hoekstra said he would push for releasing documents even if they put an unflattering light on U.S. allies. The two said they know the release carries some risks - such as people questioning the accuracy of the Arabic translations of some documents - but that the public's right to know outweighs the risks. Santorum, who has supported the war, said that some of the documents might even help make a case for a view of the war different than his. "My guess is there are things that are surprising that support my view of how things were going in Iraq, or at least my expectation, and there may be some things that would counter that," Santorum said. "It's important from my perspective ... just to get the information out there so the American public has a better understanding of what actually happened."
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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