The Secrecy Policy of the US Government is the Reason for Dropping the Confidence

The secrecy policy of the George W. Bush administration is going to the extreme. It keeps silent about attacking Iraq and denunciation about the involvement of the high ranking officials to the enterprises absurdity, and what is more, when any information related to those is leaked, it overreact seriously by mentioning criminal charges and making secrecy law. However, the Los Angeles Times reported on the 22nd that those secrecy policies and controlling information were the main reasons for dropping the confidence level of the Bush administration.

▽Spread Secrecy Policy = The typical case of the secrecy is the plan for attacking Iraq. The major media such as the New York Times on the 11th publicized the secret document of the Pentagon, which contained information of generally attacking Iraq from three directions by the joint operation of 3 forces. After this information was publicized, the Defense Secretary ordered department level of investigation for searching out the traitor, and he declared that the traitor will be imprisoned.

The Vice President Dick Chenny is investigating a case even using a lie detector when the internal information saying that ‘although the NSA obtained the secret document about 9.11 terror attack by the Al Qaida before the attack, they ignored it.’ Since the press quoted ‘news channel in the Congress’ as the source for the document, the Vice President Chenny extended the investigation sphere even to the prominent senators belong to the Senate Intelligence Committee, so he is strongly repelled by the Congress.

When a reporter, who is accredited to the Department of State, mentioned that he obtained the document about the shabby routine of the issuance of visa during the regular briefing on the 12th, the Department of State detained the reporter without permission from a judge to search for the document and to seize it.

In the meantime, the US Central Intelligence Agency is strongly trying to make a secrecy law with blocking the information and criminal charges for the traitor as the main points.

▽Repulsion of press and civic groups=The direct moment when the press and civic groups, who generally were in favor of the President Bush’s effort to keep secrecy after the 9.11 terror attack, changed their attitude was since the US intelligence agencies showed the lack of countermeasure abilities against terrorism on May, and the Bush administration’s involvement to the enterprise absurdity was started to show up last month.

The Washington Post recently reported that, especially, although all kinds of different suspicions about accounting filthiness and internal transactions while the President Bush was working for the Haken Energy as a board member keep exposing, the White House refused to provide any related information, so the discontent of the press is reaching its limit.

This newspaper reported that the White House accredited reporters, who have discontents about the information control of the White House, from 30 some major media such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the USA Today, the Associated Press, the ABC are either giving up their accreditation to the White House or hoping to change the accreditation to another department.

Mi-Kyung Jung mickey@donga.com