State Department Covering Up Blackwater Activities

by Steve

Why are Condi Rice and the Bush Administration engaging in a cover-up of possible Iraqi government corruption and Blackwater’s contracting in Iraq?

From Speaker Pelosi’s “The Gavel” blog just now:

The State Department has instructed its officials that they cannot communicate with the Committee about corruption in the Maliki government unless the Committee agrees to treat all information, including “broad statements/assessments,” as national security secrets. Other points of growing contention between the Committee and the State Department include Blackwater’s assertion that the State Department has instructed the company to withhold information from the Committee and the refusal of Secretary Rice to testify.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I'm not sure how graft and corruption by Blackwater or the political reconciliation efforts of the Iraqi government are national security secrets, but it's high time for a judge to rule on the administration's stonewalling behind the national security firewall. What in the hell are Waxman and Pelosi waiting for here? We already know that Lieberman will never undertake a similar action in the Senate.

If the State Department is blowing off congressional oversight of the Iraq war and government contracting operations, then why isn’t Congress pushing this to the courts, or demanding the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, especially with a new AG nominee making the rounds on Capitol Hill?