New Haven Independent

Lieberman, in the midst of a reelection campaign in which the war is a central issue, said he wants to know more about the risks of a full release. He called the original leak of the report last weekend “a shame.”

Lamont said releasing the full report will shed more light on the question of whether the Iraq War has improved conditions in that country and made the world more or less safe. “The more information we have, the better,” especially in this “crucial” election year, Lamont said.

The question of whether to release the full report produced a split Wednesday between leading Democrats and the White House, as the Iraq War, and the latest intelligence revelations, continued to reverberate in the hard-fought Connecticut Senate race between Lieberman and Lamont.

In a conference call with reporters, Lieberman, a three-term senator, said he had read a four-page excerpt President Bush released Tuesday of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the rise in Islamic terrorism in the wake of the U.S.-launched war in Iraq. Lieberman, who’s running for reelection on the “Connecticut for Lieberman” ticket, argued that the excerpt confirmed the need to increase the number of U.S. troops embedded in Iraq in order to “get the job done” instead of “giving up” and handing jihadists a victory. Lieberman’s Democratic opponent in the Senate race, Ned Lamont, cited the NIE as support for his call for a withdrawal of American troops in order to force Iraqis to restore order in their own country. Click here to read an article detailing the two candidates’ reactions to the NIE.

Their debate echoed similar arguments between House and Senate candidates across the country this week. The story about the NIE broke in The New York Times Sunday. Bowing to pressure, President Bush released the four-page excerpt of the NIE to the public. Like Lieberman, Bush argued that the excerpt showed that the chaos and rise in jihadist terrorism requires more, not less, of an American military presence. In releasing his excerpt, Bush said he wanted to set the record straight, claiming that news accounts about the report presented a partial, skewed view.

But his release, too, was partial — four pages. Does it indeed set the record straight?

Leading Democrats Wednesday, like U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, called on Bush to release the entire document in order to give the public “the full story.” The Bush administration refused, saying that to release the full report would endanger lives by revealing classified secrets.

Asked during the conference call where he stood, Lieberman declined to join the Democrats’ call.

“Look, it’s a shame that this was leaked,” he said. “But I think in the context of this being leaked [to the press], it was important that the essence of it be” released.

How about the rest of the report? “Well, I’m going to ask some questions about that. I gather that on Iraq the administration is arguing this gives the full picture on Iraq without compromising” classified information.

“I’m going to ask my colleagues on the [Intelligence] Committee what the risks of release are,” he said. “If it’s classified, presumably there’s a reason for it to be classified. Leaking classified information is not a good idea.”

Lamont, contacted afterwards between campaign stops, said the leak was necessary to rebut Bush’s and Lieberman’s arguments that he said “misrepresented the conclusions of the [nation’s] 16 intelligence agencies. [Bush and Lieberman] kept saying America is safer. We are less safe. This war is fueling a generation of Islamic terrorists that makes the world less safe, that makes us less safe.”

Lamont said he joined the Capitol Hill Democrats’ call for a full release of the NIE, including both sections about national security in general and about the conditions in Iraq.

Lieberman has been “rosy” about progress in Iraq, Lamont said. “My understanding is that the NIE comes up with a different conclusion. Let’s see what they have to say. The more information we have, the better. We’re coming up to a pivotal election. Do we want to stay the course? Or do we want to change course?”

What about Bush’s claim that releasing more information would jeopardize people’s lives?

“If there are any specific techniques that should be redlined out because it could jeopardize guys in the field, that should be protected. But we should err on the side” of disclosure, Lamont responded. He said his “understanding” is that the report is more general, not chocked full of specific classified secrets. Where did he gain that understanding? “From talking to some military people and folks at the think tanks who are familiar with” these reports.

The Route to Better Jobs

Lieberman initiated the conference call with reporters to highlight a bill he has cosponsored called the National Competitive Investment Act. He said it would help create well-paying jobs by boosting science education from kindergarten through the post-graduate school level, recruit and train more science teachers, and increase spending on federal science research.

“China has now replaced the U.S. as the leading exporter of technology,” he said. The U.S. needs to redouble its efforts toward innovation in order to “create the high-paying jobs of the future,” Lieberman said.

He was asked to balance the importance of global trade treaties with the importance of increased domestic spending on science research and education in job creation.

“They’re both important,” he responded. “No matter how favorable trade agreements may be, we are facing competition globally the likes of which we have not faced before. It’s not just the low-wage competition that’s been historic. What’s happening now, people abroad are being educated to a very high skill level. So that countries abroad can certainly compete with us on that level. We’ve got to continuously improve the skills of our students and graduates and encourage innovation every way we can. The bright idea, the internet, the fax machine, whatever else, that matches up with capital, that’s the way you create jobs.

“Obviously, we want trade to be fair. That is part of it as well. But we’re never going to improve our standard of living and make opportunity available for the next generations of Americans if we try to put a kind of bubble or walls around America for trade. The business of negotiating for fair trade agreements is very, very important. It’s important for us. One of the things trade does is it helps raise the living standards of the poorest people in the world.”