Change of Culture Needed at State Department

Acting as the current spokesman for the State Department, former Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby (Ret), disagreed with FBI Director Comey’s characterization that there is a culture of carelessness within the State Department with respect to the handling of classified information.

About 1979, I decided to stick with the operations side of the “ops/intel interface”.  There’s much more money on the INTEL side.  Over the years, I have observed a feeling of superiority among the Special Forces.  They thought they were Special (and above the law).  General David Petraeus was the commander of the Special Forces before he was chosen to lead the surge.

The CIA is under the State Department (not Defense).  Prior to George W. Bush, covert operations were covert.  My views on this are expressed in http://dr2h.blogspot.com/2012/09/covert-operations-should-be-covert.html.

I helped the State Department migrate to “Open Systems” in the 1990s.  Their computer system consisted on Wang computers.  When the US Government had trouble connecting the dots a few years ago, I figured it was because Hillary “pulled the plug” after the Bradley Manning affair.  Our stated objective was to provide all relevant information to the Warfighters in a timely manner.

Kirby announced July 7, 2016, that the State Department would reopen their investigation into Hillary’s emails.

Back “in the day”, Henry Kissinger was photographed reading a Top Secret document and the photo appeared in Time or Newsweek.

Somebody needs to instill some sanity in the handling of classified information at the Department of State and in the Special Operations community.  Nobody should be above the law.