College students accustomed to hearing news on the Iraq War from professors and protesters who have never actually been there might find the documents retrieved by the U.S. forces there to be of interest.
Thomas Joscelyn, a terrorism researcher, told the audience that “It shouldn’t really be a surprise to us,” about Saddam’s relationship with Islamic terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
Michael Tanji the former Chief of the Document and Media Exploitation Division at the Defense Intelligence Agency said that “the sheer size of this problem is something people really don’t appreciate.”
When it comes to the intelligence agencies ability to examine these documents more and especially translating those, Tanji stated, “You don’t have a lot of people and you don’t have a lot of expertise.”
The question did arise about whether or not the documents being released were being done so by the Bush administration to strengthen their case for war against Iraq. Thomas Joscelyn said that it was not the case, since the Bush administration had been trying to keep the documents classified rather than declassifying.
No one said that these documents would, could or will make or break the case for going to war with Iraq. What they will do is help the American people get a better understanding of life during the Saddam regime. Just as in World War II and the Germans, America has the opportunity to see life as it truly was in a country ruled by a dictator.
On July 11th, Representative Peter Hoekstra, who is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, spoke at the Heritage Foundation about documents from pre-war Iraq. These documents go beyond what the Iraqi Survey Group has compiled since they were “limited in their ability” of collecting information about pre-war Iraq because of the “security situation” that exists as the fighting continues in the country.
Representative Hoekstra argued that the intelligence community and American people should “peel back the layers” when it comes to these documents, especially since they give “greater insight into” the mind and world of the Saddam regime. The documents, which are in 48,000 boxes, also include audio files as well as videos.
Hoekstra realizes that many of the documents aren’t smoking guns. “I realize the limitations of what we’ll find in these documents,” he said. He also noted that “the really good stuff” was probably destroyed before or during the American military strike.
Still, Hoekstra is an advocate for releasing many of the documents for the American public to see. He had noted that 37% of the documents that have been reviewed so far have been stamped classified; these include police documents that date back three to four years and are not translated into English. Hoekstra does believe that there are some classified documents that need to remain classified, solely because of the brutal nature of them, including video footage of prisoners being tortured and murdered.
Representative Hoekstra admits that studying and releasing these documents is “no longer a priority of the intelligence community.” He believes that future studying of the documents will be found in the “cottage industry,” or private sector.
“I believe there is still much we do not know about pre-war Iraq,” Hoekstra stated. “There maybe additional stuff in these documents that might give insight to what Iraqis thought of the future.”
Matthew Murphy is an intern at Accuracy in Academia.
