While this attitude to the business of government – “just throw it out there and see what happens” – might be appealing in its openness, you run into trouble when talking about sensitive or classified information pertaining to intelligence gathering and military operations.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz sought to shift the blame.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz sought to shift the blame.Credit: Bloomberg
The administration’s defence is effectively: no harm, no foul. The strikes in Yemen were a success, nothing important leaked in advance, so there’s nothing to see here.
US allies might see it a little differently. They might be asking whether the US can be trusted to handle secret intelligence if top officials are so careless they don’t notice a random journalist has been added to their group chat. Despite the assurances of CIA director John Ratcliffe that Signal is approved for these discussions, they might wonder about the norms and protocols followed by this administration.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office and the Department of Foreign Affairs did not directly answer questions about whether Australia– a Five Eyes intelligence partner of the US – would raise concerns about this incident.
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“This incident is a matter for the United States,” a spokesperson said. “Australia and the United States engage regularly on implementation of mutually recognised standards for the protection of classified material.”
Meanwhile, the whole affair risks turning into yet another example of the cover-up being the crime. At a well-timed Senate intelligence committee hearing on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard equivocated on key matters and dismissed its seriousness.
They both maintained no classified information was discussed in the chat. But later, they clarified they meant information that was classified by the intelligence community. The Defence Department was responsible for classifying its information, they said, and deferred to that department.
Indeed, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is now the one with the biggest questions to answer about the material he posted in the group chat which, according to Goldberg, contained “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.
At any rate, no matter the classification, most punters would accept that a private group chat about imminent military strikes on a US adversary is not something that should be shared with a random outsider – let alone a journalist – and that this amounts to a pretty serious security breach.
Not so John Ratcliffe, who was asked directly by Democratic senator Jon Ossoff: “Director Ratcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct?” Ratcliffe replied: “No.”
That might be the most worrying answer of all.
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