Update: The Saddam Files

It looks like the release of the Saddam Files is imminent.

Finally, after months of waiting, the America people will soon have access to more of the 3,000 hours of audiotapes of Saddam Hussein and 48,000 boxes of records from the regime's activities.

According to Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, John Negroponte has loosened his grip and the Administration has agreed to release the documents.

Hayes writes:
The Bush administration has decided to release most of the documents captured in post-war Afghanistan and Iraq. The details of the document release are still being worked out, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions. Those details are critical. At issue are things like the timeframe for releasing the documents, the mechanism for scrubbing documents for sensitive information, and most important, the criteria for withholding documents from the public. But some of the captured files should be available to the public and journalists within weeks if not days.

...Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who has been steadfast in his resolve to see these documents released, said today that "this is a bold decision in favor of openness that will go a long way towards improving our understanding of prewar Iraq . . . By placing these documents online and allowing the public the opportunity to review them, we can cut years off the time it will take to gain knowledge from this potential treasure trove of information."

Hadley and John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), informed House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra on Saturday. The three men all attended the white-tie Gridiron Club dinner, a mainstay of the Washington establishment in which journalists and politicians poke fun at one another and themselves in a series of songs and skits.

..."Saddam Hussein and his henchmen systematically destroyed much of the good stuff," says Hoekstra. "We want to see what he missed." Indeed, in one memo found in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), the director of Iraqi Intelligence commands recipients to burn their offices. Paul Bremer, in his book My Year in Iraq, describes reading a similar memo. He writes: "Operatives were to engage in sabotage and looting."

Michael Tanji worked for four years on media exploitation for the DIA, rising to division chief. He believes that with proper resources devoted to digital media exploitation, even some of the information the Iraqis intended to destroy can be recovered.

"It is the release of captured digital media, more than paper documents, that will likely provide the most comprehensive view on what was going on in Iraq; the state of any WMD programs as well as the true nature of what was on the mind of Saddam's trusted class," says Tanji.

...No one can say with any certainty what will come from the document release. Intelligence officials with knowledge of the exploitation process estimate that less than 4 percent of the overall document collection has been fully exploited. It's reasonable to assume that documents in the collection will provide support to both supporters of the war in Iraq and critics. Summaries of the exploited materials, listed in a U.S. government database known as HARMONY, suggest that the new material will at least complicate the overly simplified conventional wisdom that the former Iraqi regime posed no real threat.

There are mounds of materials to go through, with less than four percent having been analyzed. No definitive picture of the inner workings of Saddam's regime and its threat to U.S. security is anywhere near being assembled.

Nevertheless, the long overdue release of the documents to the public will shed at least some light on Saddam's Iraq.

The libs will have to give up their beloved "there were no WMDs" mantra, or at least suspend it for a while. They will no longer be able to chant that Bush misled the country about Iraq. Now, there will be evidence that challenges the Left's "Bush lied" rallying cry.

Of course, that means that the lib media will do everything they can to discredit and dismiss and ignore the information that will be gleaned from these documents.

I expect to see a lot of selective blindness from the libs.