Congress needs to read McChrystal’s report

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Let’s hear it for Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich. The ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee is one of the few congressmen on record as having read the unredacted Afghanistan strategy report by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The classified McChrystal report – not the redacted version published by The Washington Post — contains a series of recommendations from increasing troop strength to addressing the Afghan prison system, which has become an insurgent “sanctuary and base to conduct lethal operations.” Unlike Hoekstra, it appears that few of Hoekstra’s House colleagues have followed his example and actually read what McChrystal said.The Examiner called every member of the House Armed Services Committee, for example, and received mixed responses.

“I can’t remember whether I read the classified or the declassified report. I can’t remember,” Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told The Examiner‘s Susan Ferrechio last week. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., admitted to not even being aware that the report was available. “I’m worried about health care,” McDermott told Ferrechio, “I actually didn’t even know it was out there.” A spokesman for Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said he read only the report that was made public.

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