Cicadas

I'm starting to think that every dozen years ago the same bunch of corrupt idiots, or their intellectual progeny, get into power and proceed to screw things up until they get caught, at which point the "establishment," with which they're intimately intertwined, demands leniency, letting them go lurk underground until they're ready to pop up and screw things up all over again.

WASHINGTON - An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday.

The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have first-hand knowledge of the subject.

In addition, one said, FBI investigators in recent weeks have conducted interviews to determine whether Pentagon officials gave highly classified U.S. intelligence to a leading Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, which may in turn have passed it on to Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi has denied his group was involved in any wrongdoing.

The linkage, if any, between the two leak investigations, remains unclear.

But they both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official.

...

But other sources said the FBI investigation is more wide-ranging than initial news reports suggested.

They said it has involved interviews of current and former officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department.

Investigators have asked about the security practices of several other Defense Department civilians, they said.

...

A former Feith employee, Karen Kwiatkowski, has described how senior Israeli military officers were sometimes escorted to his Pentagon office without signing in as security regulations required.