A Politician Kept a Secret? Riiiggghhttt!

Senator Dick Durbin said that he knew the American public was being mislead about the war, but because of a secrecy vow as a Member of the Sentate Intelligence Committee, he kept it a secret.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.

"The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002.

"I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are 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 is being given to this Congress."

This does not seem particularly right with me, and with many others.

Politically, this is a really dumb move by Durbin. By saying he knew the intelligence was different and not acting on it, he puts himself in the position of being an enabler of the Bush Administration. That is not a pretty picture. By admitting he kept the secret, he looks incompetent since every Senator on the Hill knows how to "leak" information, but Durbin can't when it would clearly benefit him and his party.

Finally, in making these statements he is calling his fellow Senate Intelligence Committee colleagues either stupid or complicit in a scheme to delude the American people. The problem is that the five Democrats who voted for the war in 2002 saw the same intelligence and yet voted for military action. Things just are not jibing here.

The White House said there were intelligence errors, but everyone saw the same intelligence.

I am still trying to figure out how Durbin and the Democrats benefit from this disclosure.