Bureaucracy Watch : Cable Vision

The State Department is refusing to release the text of the cable the U.S. ambassador to Iraq sent back to Washington after her meeting with Saddam Hussein on July 25. The department argues that such cable traffic is confidential and that its release would create a bad precedent.

Ordinarily the department would be correct, but in the case at hand it is being bureaucratic. The cable needs to be released because the only existing account of that long conversation between Ambassador April Glaspie and Iraq’s president suggests that Washington may have mislead Saddam Hussein into thinking that he could invade Kuwait without U.S. retaliation. That account exists in the form of a transcript prepared and released by the Iraqi government. In testimony before the Senate and House this week, Glaspie claimed that the Iraqis had doctored the transcript and that, on the contrary, she warned Hussein against using violence on Kuwait.

Glaspie’s account was compelling, and several senators fell all over themselves trying to appear ever so courtly as the highly articulate career diplomat defended herself. At one point, Paul Simon, the bow-tied senator from Illinois, practically patted “Madame Ambassador” on the head for being such a smart girl, as it were.

Such suffocating condescension aside, Congress should insist that the State Department make an exception and release the cable. The American people have the right to the full story. And Ambassador Glaspie, assuming she’s telling the truth, deserves full vindication.