Where Are the Pentagon Papers?
WHEN SENATOR CARL LEVIN REQUESTED the partial declassification of a Defense Intelligence Agency report in mid-October, the response was swift: He had it in his hands in eight days, reports the New York Times. If only I were a senator. For two years, I have been working to obtain copies of unclassified documents discovered in postwar Iraq. My reasoning is simple: If we understand what the Iraqi regime was doing in the months and years before the war, we will be better able to assess the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and, perhaps, to better understand the insurgency. It’s not a light subject, to be sure. But the quest for the documents, while frustrating, has also been highly amusing. It is a story of bureaucratic incompetence and strategic incoherence. It is also a story this one not funny at all about the failure to explain the Iraq war. Two years after I started my pursuit, I’m not much closer to my goal. Why? I have been told countless times by officials of the executi
