TerrorismLawmaker wants more Bin Laden documents declassified
There were so many documents seized by U.S. Special Forces in the 2011 raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan have been, that official described them as the equivalent of “a small college library,” but two years after the raid, only seventeen documents are public. Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants the documents declassified. Leaders of the U.S. intelligence community do not think it is a good idea.
Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants the Obama administration to declassify the documents seized in the May 2011 raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Afghanistan.
National security advisor Tom Donilon described the documents taken from the compound as the equivalent of “a small college library,” but two years after the raid, only seventeen documents are public.
“It’s always a dangerous thing to put a very narrow political lens on a direction of a group that is this lethal to Americans, to our allies, to Muslims around the world,” Rogers told Fox News.
“We need to have that extra set of eyes scrutinizing this information and coming to a conclusion about where were they (Al Qaeda) going, did we miss something? Is there something we could be doing better to try and counter their growth industry of Al Qaeda affiliates around the world?”
Members of Seal Team 6 gathered many thumb drives and CDs at the compound, and brought them back with them. This week, the House Intelligence panel will examine these documents.
Thomas Joscelyn from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who analyzed the Bin Laden documents, told Fox that the number of documents is much larger than what has been publicly known.
“Six thousand [documents] is not even the right number from what I’ve been told from several knowledgeable sources,” Joscelyn said. “Hundreds of thousands of documents and files were recovered in the raid.”
Fox News notes that in April, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and his counterpart from the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, testified before a congressional panel, saying that the bin Laden documents have been the subject of at least two reviews, one by the CIA and a second by military intelligence, and these two reports generating more than 400 intelligence reports.
“I do think there is a good call, a good reason for us to declassify to the extent that we can,” Clapper told members of the House Intelligence Committee. “There were at least 400 — over 400 — intelligence reports that were issued in the initial aftermath immediately after the raid.”
“There have been hundreds of additional reports that have been subsequently published that has allowed us to understand what we have, you know, been facing for some time,” Flynn added. “This exploited information, that is being shared around certainly in our military channels and I know throughout the intelligence community for any lessons learned.”
Caitlin Hayden, National Security Council spokeswoman, told Fox in a statement: “The documents have been instrumental in refining our understanding of (Al Qaeda) and bin Laden’s role in it, and …has contributed to the analysis the President and senior police makers receive regularly and draw on in making decisions.”
