Eli Lake reports on an exodus:

Two former CIA directors have resigned from the board of the organization planning tomorrow to make public secret recordings of Saddam Hussein and his advisers.

In the last week both John Deutch and James Woolsey abruptly left their positions at Intelligence Summit, according to its president, John Loftus, who said their departure is part of a campaign by the directorate of national intelligence to punish him for releasing the recordings.

Insert canned description of the controversy here. My money is on Woolsey’s account.

Mr. Loftus has promised that the recordings he will release to the public tomorrow will show that Saddam personally discussed a germ attack on Washington at some point after 2000. However, ABC News, which obtained the recordings from Mr. Loftus’s source – a former U.N. weapons inspector, John Tierney, who was asked by the FBI in September 2005 to translate them – says otherwise.

The Hayes to Government approach: “Please?”

The Loftus to Government approach: “Look what I’ve got!”

Big difference.

I was not impressed with the Nightline coverage, but given the short amount of time allotted and perhaps a certain . . . predilection on the part of those doing the presenting, I think it is safe to say that they didn’t do all 12 hours justice.

The CIA, FBI, and directorate of national intelligence have resisted calls from Congress to reopen the hunt. But an interagency outfit known as the Media Exploitation Center, administered by the Defense Intelligence Agency, last month started its own search of these materials to attempt to discover the location of the weapons of mass destruction.

“There are elements in NSA and DIA that believe there is enough evidence to warrant further re-examination and a relook at all the material,” a congressional staff member told The New York Sun yesterday. “This includes the imagery, documents, and human sources. They also think a more extensive debriefing of knowledgeable human sources and third party nationals is in order.”

Best wishes R. and L.

About the Author

Michael Tanji

Michael Tanji spent nearly 20 years in the US intelligence community. Trained in both SIGINT and HUMINT disciplines he has worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office. At various points in his career he served as an expert in information warfare, computer network operations, computer forensics, and indications and warning. A veteran of the US Army, Michael has served in both strategic and tactical assignments in the Pacific Theater, the Balkans, and the Middle East.