Document Dance

This past week the USG released around 17 documents captured from the bin Laden safe house in Abottabad via the CTC.  Those wishing to receive downloads had to provide an email request and go on their mailing list, for some reason. 

Of course there were many more. Writers from the Long War Journal are asking why just 17:

Overall, however, the government should declassify and release nearly all of bin Laden's files. Some of the files were authored more than a decade ago, yet none of those dated documents were released today. The earliest document released by CTC is dated September 2006. This means that any documents pertaining to the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Oct. 12, 2000 USS Cole bombing, and the Aug. 7, 1998 embassy bombings were not released. Yet, these are the types of documents that deal directly with al Qaeda's assault on American interests that precipitated more than a decade of controversial counterterrorism measures and wars.

Wonder what might appear on some of those communiques vis a vis Iraq? Iran? Sudan?  Etc.

It's understandable that the govt would want to sequester some of the docs from public view to protect diplomatic relations, agents or troops in the field, or national security in general.  Perhaps they may affect the terror trials about to occur at Gitmo.  But this controlled release sounds similar to the trove of documents captured in Iraq that trickled out over the course of several years, including some that tied the Taliban to Iraq (which almost every major media sans Fox ignored).  The official flow stopped but the Joint Forces analysi center released a report, which was largely spun by mainstream reports.  Not sure all the docs have ever been analyzed.