Greta: Washington loves its 'classified' secrets

'Off the Record,' 3/3/15: The government would rather play cloak and daggers than be transparent about the potential deal with Iran. How can we know whether it's a good deal or a bad one?

By Greta Van Susteren

Let's all go "Off the Record" for a minute. Secrets - Washington loves them. It is a great way to hide bad behavior or stupid judgment. Just stamp it "classified" and American people will never hear about it. Sneaky, huh?

Which brings me to the deal that the US is working with Iran about its nuclear weapons program. Everyone has an opinion. How can we possibly decide if it's a good deal or bad deal or whether more sanctions should be imposed or not, when we don't even know what the deal is? We don't even know how far Iran is with nuclear weapons program.

The status of their weapons program development makes a big difference. And why don't we know this basic fact? Because the government won't tell us what it knows. And everytime I ask, someone tells me it is classified.

Why is that classified? Why can't we know how close our government thinks Iran is to a nuclear weapon? Could it be 15 years or maybe 15 minutes? We should know. What is it? It matters. And we should know.

Otherwise, we're just sitting in the dark, making wild guesses about national security issue. Our government should stop playing cloak and dagger, and provide that promised transparency. This information should not be classified. This is something they should tell us.

And P.S., speaking of classified documents, former CIA director David Petraeus pleaded guilty today to leaking classified information to his mistress. So much for top secrets. And that's my "Off the Record" comment tonight.