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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

These are the end graphs of an article to be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/opinion/28ellsberg.html

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Truths Worth Telling
By DANIEL ELLSBERG

Published: September 28, 2004

. . . . All administrations classify far more information than is 
justifiable in a democracy - and the Bush administration has been 
especially secretive. Information should never be classified as secret 
merely because it is embarrassing or incriminating. But in practice, in 
this as in any administration, no information is guarded more closely.
Surely there are officials in the present administration who recognize that 
the United States has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so far 
kept their silence - as I long did about the war in Vietnam. To them I have 
a personal message: don't repeat my mistakes. Don't wait until more troops 
are sent, and thousands more have died, before telling truths that could 
end a war and save lives. Do what I wish I had done in 1964: go to the 
press, to Congress, and document your claims.
Technology may make it easier to tell your story, but the decision to do so 
will be no less difficult. The personal risks of making disclosures 
embarrassing to your superiors are real. If you are identified as the 
source, your career will be over; friendships will be lost; you may even be 
prosecuted. But some 140,000 Americans are risking their lives every day in 
Iraq. Our nation is in urgent need of comparable moral courage from its 
public officials.
Daniel Ellsberg is the author of "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the 
Pentagon Papers."