Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta appeared gravely concerned with the Monday Atlantic report by Jeffrey Goldberg — in which he was told secret military plans were shared with him via a group chat to which he seemed to have mistakenly been added.
Trump National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to a group chat in which the Principals Committee – the heads of the top American national security agencies — discussed plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen earlier this month.
Goldberg’s report of how he learned about a planned bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen over the weekend was described by Panetta as a “very serious mistake” and a “serious blunder’ during a Monday afternoon appearance on CNN.
“Secretary, what’s your reaction to this reporting?” asked Boris Sanchez.
Panetta: Well, it’s obviously a very serious mistake on the part of whoever included Goldberg in this highly classified chain of command messaging that went on that involved war plants. To have had somebody from the Atlantic on that chain without question was a serious mistake. And I hope the White House takes this seriously. The last thing you want to do when you’re talking about war plans is to have a serious leak like this that could undermine the war plans, but also jeopardize lives. So I hope they take this seriously.
Sanchez :what would that look like secretary
Panetta: I think they would have to do a full investigation as to who included this name on that chain involving the highest officials in national security, from the president to the vice president to a secretary of defense, et cetera, how the name of a journalist was added to that list. This is just a serious blunder, and not only could violate the espionage laws, but more importantly can undermine our national security. That’s probably the greater problem, is that it reveals our most secret war plans that require that we protect that information in order to be able to conduct what is obviously a serious operation of war.
Sanchez :To that point, Secretary, I wonder what could have happened here if it wasn’t Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief at The Atlantic, who received this and decided to publish this story, if it had been someone else on the contact list that was added to the signal chat, what would have been a worst-case scenario that would have put national security at risk?
Panetta: Well, the worst case scenario, I mean, thankfully, Jeffrey Goldberg just assumed that this was either a joke or some kind of mistake and obviously didn’t pay attention. But somebody. would have the United States as an adversary could reveal this information immediately to the Houthis in Yemen that they were about to be attacked and they in turn could have responded and attacked US facilities in the Red Sea causing casualties of our troops and of our men and women in uniform. If it were somebody who did not have the United States’s national security interests at heart, but rather had the interests of our adversaries at heart he could have seriously disrupted these war plans.
Sanchez: I wonder what you make of the administration’s response, framing this, not denying the story, but framing this as an example of a thorough policy discussion, a thorough discussion about how to approach policy toward the Houthis.
Panetta: Well, look, this is a chain of command. It’s provided so that our top officials can have that conversation as to whether or not to conduct these war plans. So there’s no question this is legitimate. But what they’re not paying attention to is that you’ve included somebody on the outside who has no business knowing about this information. There was a mistake here. somebody on the Atlantic got the most sensitive emails you can imagine at the federal level. That is a serious blunder. It has to be investigated and somebody frankly needs to get fired.
Panetta concluded by adding that in his time in office, he and his fellow advisors met in the National Security Chamber “that’s highly secure, located in the basement of the White House, that we wouldn’t have had people there who’d been cleared. We would have known who was there, and we would’ve had that discussion in person.”
“But because this involves war plans, uou want to make very sure that those who have proper authority in our national security chain are there and are being asked what is their view with regards to whether or not these war plans ought to be implemented,” he said.
“This is a very serious matter. When you’re planning an attack on an adversary, you want to be very sure that that information is highly classified and highly protected.”
Watch above via CNN.
The post ‘Very Serious Mistake!’ Ex-Def Sec Sounds Alarm on Secret War Plans Shared on Group Chat: Could Have Cost US Military Lives first appeared on Mediaite.
