Watchdog Calls For Probe On John Boehner

An ethics watchdog charged Monday that House Minority Leader John Boehner broke the law and endangered national security by releasing classified information last week in a Fox News interview.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has asked the Justice Department’s Counterespionage Section to investigate whether Boehner violated US law by releasing the information.

The Ohio Republican told Neil Cavuto of a classified ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court that led to Congress expanding President Bush’s authority to spy on overseas communications.

“By revealing classified information, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives appears to have compromised national security for partisan political gain,” CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, said in a news release. “We urge the Justice Department to immediately commence an investigation.”

CREW cites a July 31 interview Boehner gave on Fox News.

“There’s been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States,” Boehner said.

CREW argues that Boehner could face up to 10 years in prison for willfully communicating classified national defense information, “which would be used to the injury of the United States.”

Although Boehner has previously criticized illegal leaks for political gain, the liberal watchdog group says his remarks to Cavuto appeared to be an effort to blame Democrats for failing to pass legislation modifying the FISA law. Congress finally adopted an update to the FISA law that eliminated the Court’s objection by allowing warrantless surveillance of international communications routed through the United States.

The following video of Boehner’s comments was posted by ThinkProgress on YouTube:

Pentagon Missing 190,000 AK-47’s

Is there anything regarding the Iraq war that the U.S. can do correct? Here’s a thought to ponder: are our troops being killed by Iran weapons or are they being killed by our own U.S. supplied weapons? Probably both, but since the Pentagon doesn’t have clue where the weapons are who really knows.

It’s not surprising that the Pentagon continues to have the highest budget since they screw up the supplies they have and always need more money.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The Pentagon cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, or about half the weapons earmarked for soldiers and police, according to a government report.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, said in a July 31 report to lawmakers that the Defense Department also cannot account for 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets reported to be issued to Iraqi forces as of September 22, 2005.

The GAO said the Pentagon concurred with its findings and has begun a review to ensure full accountability for the program to train and equip Iraqi forces.

“However, our review of the 2007 property books found continuing problems with missing and incomplete records,” the GAO report said.

The report raised concerns that weapons provided by the United States could be falling into the hands of Iraqi insurgents, just as lawmakers and policymakers in Washington await a September report on the success of President Bush’s so-called “surge” strategy for stabilizing Baghdad.

One senior Pentagon official told The Washington Post some weapons probably were being used against U.S. troops. He said an Iraqi brigade created in Falluja disintegrated in 2004 and began fighting American soldiers.

Since 2003, the United States has provided about $19.2 billion to develop Iraqi security forces, the GAO said. The Defense Department has recently asked for another $2 billion to continue the train-and-equip program.

Congress funded the program for Iraqi security forces outside traditional security assistance programs, providing the Pentagon with a large degree of flexibility in managing the effort, the GAO said.

“Officials stated that since the funding did not go through traditional security assistance programs, the DOD accountability requirements normally applicable to these programs did not apply,” the GAO report said.

Military officials in Iraq reported issuing 355,000 weapons to Iraqi security forces from June 2004 through September 2005, including 185,000 rifles and 170,000 pistols, the GAO said.

But the Defense Department could not account for 110,000 rifles and 80,000 pistols, the GAO said. Those sums amount to about 54 percent of the total weapons distributed to the Iraqi forces.

The GAO quoted officials as saying the agency responsible for handling weapons distribution was too short-staffed to record information on individual items given to Iraqi forces.

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