The Sharing of War Plans with a Reporter is a Much Bigger Deal Than the Trump Administration is Letting On.

I know it has been a few years, but when I was seconded to the Bush I Pentagon from the National Intelligence Council I discovered war plans were some of the most carefully guarded secrets anywhere in the US government. This came as no surprise. For example, much like access to human source information is handled in the intelligence community (IC), I was well aware that even CIA analysts with Top Secret Code Word clearances were banned from learning details of whom and where the classified HUMINT information was coming from. For other extremely sensitive intelligence often only an extremely small number of people whose name appeared on a short list” were given access, and even then they had to sign that they had seen the report.

In the Bush I Administration war plans were even more restricted. At the time I was the senior most civilian policymaker on East Asia in the Pentagon. I knew that Secretary of Defense Cheney watched events in North Korea very closely even personally reading raw collection reports unwilling to wait for the IC to provide him their take on the new information. So, I wasn’t surprised when I learned that he had requested to be briefed on the Korea War Plan. The Joint Staff of course agreed and arranged a briefing for the Secretary in their meeting room commonly referred to as the “tank.”

The problem occurred when the Secretary informed the Chiefs that he wanted me to accompany him to the briefing. The Chiefs immediately responded that they were not prepared to share the war plan with me despite all my intelligence clearances. Only after the Secretary informed them that in that case he would not be putting the briefing on his schedule did they relent.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I learned that a war plan had recently been shared with an outsider, and a journalist to boot. Had such a breach occurred in any other Administration somebody would likely have found themselves out of a job or in jail. Especially alarming, this case suggests that the firings of top military officers by Secretary Hegseth in his first few day at the Pentagon have so cowed the Joint Chiefs that they will let him play fast and loose with even their most well-guarded secrets. At any other time in our history, my guess is that the Secretary of Defense would have already resigned on his own or been fired over such a breach in national security.

Just saying.