IN WAR, THE APHORISM GOES, the first casualty is truth. That’s not the case in Washington at the outset of the war against terrorism. Instead, the first casualty is access–to national security intelligence, to operational details of the war, to much of President George W. Bush’s schedule (especially travel information), to Vice President Dick Cheney, to junior aides at the White House. And it’s not only the media that’s being denied access. It’s Congress and administration officials too. Any doubt about who’s behind the squeezing of access was removed yesterday when the president himself scolded Congress for leaking classified information and jeopardizing American lives. Bush took up the subject aggressively when reporters mentioned it during a photo opportunity with German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. If members of Congress have “heartburn” about limits he’s imposed on information going to them, they should relieve it by not leaking sensitive material, Bush said. “We’re now in extraordinary times,” he went on, “. . . and yet I see in the media that somebody, or somebodies, feel that they should be able to talk about classified information. And that’s just wrong.” Whew! The president has always gotten steamed about leaks, but this was his most vigorous denunciation ever. And he had a point. War has changed things. American lives are at stake. And in setting the balance between informing the press, politicians, and the public and keeping information secret, the weight has now shifted to secrecy. What prompted all this was an incident last week in which the White House learned of classified information a reporter had picked up on Capitol Hill. Presidential aides got the reporter to hold off on publishing most of it. Then the president dispatched a memo saying that classified briefings about the war would be provided only to the four bipartisan leaders and the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. This angered many members who were cut out, and indeed it was an extreme step. But the truth is some folks on Capitol Hill blab uncontrollably, and Bush found a way to deal with it–cut off their access to sensitive material. What about the other measures by the White House to close loose lips? Andy Card, Bush’s chief of staff, has repeatedly told presidential assistants that only designated senior officials are allowed to talk to the press. Actually, this was pretty much the case at the White House pre-September 11. Junior aides, in particular, were warned they’d be in deep trouble if they conversed with reporters, even those who are trusted friends. This drove reporters crazy, since they often rely on old contacts for information. At the moment, however, the White House isn’t much interested in whether reporters are happy or not, and understandably so. As for operational details, there’s nothing new about keeping this stuff from the press. Most reporters can be trusted to keep quiet on this subject, but not all. Bush’s travel? The press gets a far sketchier version than they have in the past, but reporters haven’t whined, and they’ve been good about not disclosing Bush’s plans (which might alert a terrorist). Cheney? He’s separated from Bush so that if one of them is killed in a terrorist attack, the executive branch can still function. This isn’t new either: President and veep, for example, never fly on the same plane in case it crashes. Cheney’s vanishing has nothing to do with the press, but it does mean they don’t have access to him in person. Presidents do what they think they have to do to protect information in wartime. And it’s different every time. In World War II, censorship was imposed on war correspondents, and they accepted it. Today, they wouldn’t. In Vietnam, they were given total access, and the military concluded this was unhelpful. Today, the Pentagon won’t go along with that. Bush has come up with his own seat-of-the-pants method to keep secrets in the war on terrorism. And who knows? It won’t please the media or Congress, but it may work. Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
