CIA lied to Congress

In some ways, this really isn't surprising. From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.’s alleged deceptions,. But he said, “We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, referred to Mr. Panetta’s disclosure in a letter to the committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, Congressional Quarterly reported on Wednesday. Mr. Reyes wrote that the committee “has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to.”

As I've said, I'm not surprised that the CIA lied to Congress from 2001 onwards. You have to go back to the individual sitting in the White House in 2001 that initiated this cult of lying--we're talking former President George W. Bush here. The Bush administration lied to Congress and the American people on just about everything--the WMDs in Iraq, intelligence failures and the reasons sending the U.S. into war in Iraq, the secret prisons, Abu Ghraib, waterboarding and torture, the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the U.S. attorney firings--the list just goes on. When President Barack Obama came into the White House of this year, I'd say that the CIA continued to lie to Congress because the Obama administration wanted to sweep the Bush administration's transgressions under a rug. I would say that President Obama doesn't want congressional investigations into the Bush administration for fears that a future Republican president may demand investigations into the Obama administration. In other words, it is politics as usual, and forget whether serious laws were broken by former leaders and public officials.

And we're seeing politics as usual continuing on in the NY Times story:

In a related development, President Obama threatened to veto the pending Intelligence Authorization Bill if it included a provision that would allow information about covert actions to be given to the entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees, rather than the so-called Gang of Eight — the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses of Congress and the two Intelligence Committees.

A White House statement released on Wednesday said the proposed expansion of briefings would undermine “a long tradition spanning decades of comity between the branches regarding intelligence matters.” Democrats have complained that under President George W. Bush, entire programs were hidden from most committee members for years.

This is frickin' bullcrap on President Obama's part. The Obama administration doesn't want the CIA to disclose their activities, and their lying, to the entire congressional intelligence committees. So they make up this dog and pony show of saying that the CIA provided "a long tradition spanning decades of comity" to the congressional intelligence panels. That may have been true in the previous decades, but I can't recall a time when the CIA, and a previous presidential administration, engaged in such egregious lying to Congress--the Nixon administration's lying seems like child's play compared to what the Bush administration did. In this case, President Obama does not want to provide a fuller disclosure of intelligence matters to Congress, but would rather keep the status quoe of informing the congressional leaders, rather than the full committees.

Of course, this brings up another problem. Who is to say that a future presidential administration will probably order the CIA to continue lying to Congress--whether it is the congressional leaders, or the full intelligence committee members? If a future president, or an executive department, is going to lie to Congress about anything, then Congress is pretty much screwed here. There is no recourse that Congress has to punish such liars in the executive branch, with the exception of cutting off money funding such executive departments. Cutting off CIA funding may be a powerful punishment for the CIA's lying to Congress, but in today's polarizing political climate, that is not going to happen.

Which brings us to the polarizing political climate of today. Continuing with the NY Times story:

The question of the C.I.A.’s candor with the Congressional oversight committees has been hotly disputed since Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the agency of failing to disclose in a 2002 briefing that it had used waterboarding against a terrorism suspect. Ms. Pelosi said the agency routinely misled Congress, though she later said she intended to fault the Bush administration rather than career intelligence officials.

Since then, Republicans have called Ms. Pelosi’s complaint an unwarranted attack on the integrity of counterterrorism officers and have demanded an investigation. Democrats have rebuffed the demand.

In a statement Wednesday night, a C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, noted that the agency “took the initiative to notify the oversight committees” about the past failures. He said the agency and Mr. Panetta “believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed.”

A couple of points here. First, the CIA is continuing to lie to Congress about previously lying to Congress. You just have to love the statement about the CIA taking the initiative to "notify the oversight committees" about the department's previous lies to Congress, but then implicitly rejecting the congressional Democrats demands for CIA director Leon Panetta to explain his lying to Congress for the past nine years, saying that Panetta believes it vital "to keep Congress fully and currently informed." Talk about doublespeak here. Panetta is not going to give squat to Congress.

But the more interesting point was the GOP attacks against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when Pelosi complained about the CIA lying to her back in May, 2009. Republican leaders were demanding that Pelosi retract her accusations that the CIA lied to her. Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for Pelosi's resignation. House Minority Leader John Boehner demanded that Pelosi should apologize for her accusations. Even CIA Director Leon Panetta jumped into the fray, saying in a May 15, 2009 message to agency employees, which was released to the public, "Let me be clear. It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress...That is against our laws and our values." Now it turns out that Pelosi was right about the CIA lying to her, the GOP was wrong in demanding Pelosi to retract her statements, apologize, or resign, and Panetta continued his lying, which furthered the GOP attacks against Pelosi. This was partisan politics, where the Republicans found an opportunity to smear Pelosi on this CIA lying--regardless of the facts. Now that it turns out that Pelosi was right on the CIA lying to her, the GOP has suddenly turned quiet, fearing that any criticism would now undermine their smear campaign against Pelosi. And you can bet that every GOP politician will never apologize to Pelosi for their own smears against her.

Senate again caves to Bush, passes telecom immunity bill

This is from The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Tuesday approved new rules for government eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, giving the White House much of the latitude it wanted and granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped in the snooping after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Protection for the telecom companies is the most prominent feature of the legislation, something President Bush had insisted on as essential to getting private sector cooperation in spying on foreign terrorists and other targets. The bill would give retroactive protection to companies that acted without court permission.

The House did not include the immunity provision in a similar bill it passed last year. House Republicans now want to adopt the Senate bill, which would avoid contentious negotiations to work out differences between the competing legislation.

About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecom companies by people alleging violations of wiretapping and privacy laws.

Bush promised to veto any new surveillance bill that did not protect the companies, arguing that it is essential if the private sector is to give the government the help it needs.

The president called the Senate bill a good piece of legislation that allows the intelligence community to monitor communications of foreign terrorists while protecting Americans' liberties. He urged the House to pass the bill and send it to his desk without delay.

The real issue here is the telecom immunity. By providing the telecoms immunity from prosecution, we will never know the extent of the relationship between the telecoms and the Bush administration on how far this illegal domestic spying program will go. President Bush will never provide the details of this spying program to Congress. The only way to get the details on this program is through the telecom lawsuits. If retroactive immunity is given to the telecoms, then those lawsuits will be thrown out of court, and the telecoms will be free from prosecution from the criminality that they knowingly engaged in.

But what really pisses me off here is the number of Democratic senators who approved of the telecom immunity:

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Tom Carper (D-DE), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Jim Webb (D-VA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)

My own California Democratic senator, Dianne Feinstein, sold our constitutional rights out for protecting the telecom industry.

Here is my own protest email sent to Dianne Feinstein's office:

Dear Senator Feinstein:

I am writing this letter in protest to your affirmative voting for Senate Bill S. 2248, also known as the FISA Amendments Act of 2007. I have just one simple question to ask you--why did you vote for this disaster of a bill? Why did you vote to allow retroactive immunity to the telecom industry for their complacency in providing the Bush administration the ability to conduct illegal domestic spying operations against American citizens? Is it because you are in bed with the Telecom and Computer/Internet industry, having taken $93,276 from the telecoms, and $167,987 from Computers/Internet industry? Protecting these industries from their own criminal conduct is more important than protecting Americans' civil rights and rights to privacy? Is that why you voted to support this disaster of a bill, which will allow the Bush administration immunity from any sort of investigation into their own malfeasance? Because that is what you have just done with your vote.

The telecom industry knew that what they were doing in allowing the Bush administration to domestically spy on Americans without a warrant was in violation of Americans' rights to privacy. This is not about national security, or the Great War on Terrorism--this is about outright greed on the telecom industry's part. And you have allowed that greed to continue. You have given the Bush administration, and the telecoms, a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in keeping the details of this massive domestic spying operation secret from the American public. By providing retroactive immunity to the telecoms for participating in this illegal operation, that they knew was illegal, we will never know the scope of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" this administration has consistently engaged in. You have failed in your duties to protect the American people, and to protect the Constitution, with this vote. What is more, you have shown your own greed in siding with your true constituents--the telecoms and Computer/Internet industries--rather than to the American people. You should be removed from office because of your accessory to this criminality that you allowing to continue.

And when you do come up for re-election, I want you to know that I will never vote for you again. In fact, if another Democrat challenges your seat, I will support that challenger in any way I can. You do not deserve to sit on that seat because of this selfish vote you have given.

Eric A Hopp

Senator Feinstein needs to be removed from office.

McConnell says FISA debate will kill Americans

I saw this through Carpetbagger, and I'm just amazed at the audacity of this Bush administration. This is a transcript of a question and answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, regarding the changes in the FISA law. The original source is through The El Paso Times:

Q: Even if it's perception, how do you deal with that? You have to do public relations, I assume.

A: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. And you give them the facts the best you can. Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they're using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means and when they go to an alternative means, remember what I said, a significant portion of what we do, this is not just threats against the United States, this is war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Q. So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

A. That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it's a democratic process and sunshine's a good thing. We need to have the debate. The reason that the FISA law was passed in 1978 was an arrangement was worked out between the Congress and the administration, we did not want to allow this community to conduct surveillance, electronic surveillance, of Americans for foreign intelligence unless you had a warrant, so that was required. So there was no warrant required for a foreign target in a foreign land. And so we are trying to get back to what was the intention of '78. Now because of the claim, counterclaim, mistrust, suspicion, the only way you could make any progress was to have this debate in an open way.

This is just WOW! What McConnell has just said is that ANY sort of debate within Congress on the FISA law, and perhaps the entire Bush domestic spying program on Americans, will cause Americans to die at the hands of the terrorists. Let me repeat that again--A debate in Congress on the changes in the FISA law will cause Americans to die in terrorist attacks. How much more insanely crazed and stupid can this statement be--especially when it is said by the National Intelligence Director? So congressional oversight into this Bush administration's entire secret domestic spying program on American citizens will kill American citizens because then the terrorists will know that the Bush administration is secretly spying on them.

I'm getting a headache here.

What is so insane here, and Carpetbagger noted this as well, is that if I am a reasonably intelligent al Qaeda terrorist, I would expect to know that the U.S. is listening in on cell phone conversations, tapping phone lines, conducting data mining operations, and even looking at bank and financial transactions. But McConnell is assuming that the al Qaeda terrorists are stupid in that they don't know that the Bush administration is conducting this massive intelligence gathering operation, and that if we reveal the details of the domestic spying programs to the American public, then the terrorists will know and they will resort to "alternative means," of communication--however you define "alternative means." Or what is worst is that McConnell is assuming that the American public are so stupid into believing the al Qaeda boogyman is about to strike at any time, so the Bush administration needs to take away Americans' rights to privacy and illegal searches and seizures in order to protect them from the evil terrorists. And in order to keep this domestic spying program in place, the Bush White House is again using fear--in this case, the fear of a congressional debate on FISA will kill Americans. This is not about fighting terrorists, or gathering intelligence on al Qaeda operations. It is about the Bush administration keeping their extreme police powers, and eroding American civil and constitutional rights to the state. This is just another example of the Bush PR-spin of fear on the American public.

Congress rubber-stamps Bush wiretapping bill to spy on Americans

It is official. Congress has just given President Bush the legal authority to spy on Americans without any court order. The Senate passed the bill in a late-night session on August 3, 2007, by a vote of 60-28. The House passed the wiretapping bill Saturday August 4, 2007, by a vote of 227-183. President Bush signed the bill into law on Sunday, August 5, 2007.

Before I get into this topic, let's get into some background. According to The New York Times story on Bush's signing of the wiretapping law:

Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.

Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.

By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.

For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a warrant, as long as the N.S.A.’s target is the person in London.

Are you getting it now? The Bush administration has just made an end-run around the Fourth Amendment. By specifically declaring that the target of the NSA wiretapping is the person in London, the NSA can also listen into the conversation with the person in Indianapolis without going to the FISA court for a search warrant. This is a huge loophole here. The actual NSA target for this particular NY Times example may have been that person in Indianapolis, but because of the Fourth Amendment, that person was protected against unwarranted searches and seizures by the state. If the NSA wanted to listen in on that Indianapolis person's conversations, they had to get a search warrant. With this new law in place, the NSA can say on paper that they wanted to listen London person's conversations, when in reality, they were more interested in the Indianapolis person's conversations in this wiretapped call between Indianapolis and London. That is the real scare here. And what is more, who is still to say that the Bush administration is listening in on these calls for terrorism-fighting reasons, or for potential political reasons? Because with this law, the Bush administration can listen in on conversations from their political enemies without any warrants, simply because the NSA is supposedly targeting the foreign end of this wiretap.

It gets worst. According to the NY Times:

The legislation to change the surveillance act was rushed through both the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began.

The White House’s push for the change was driven in part by a still-classified ruling earlier this year by the special intelligence court, which said the government needed to seek court-approved warrants to monitor those international calls going through American switches.

The new law, which is intended as a stopgap and expires in six months, also represents a power shift in terms of the oversight and regulation of government surveillance.

The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court. The court’s only role will be to review and approve the procedures used by the government in the surveillance after it has been conducted. It will not scrutinize the cases of the individuals being monitored.

The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

You've got to love this. Instead of having the FISA court approve the NSA wiretappings, Congress gave that power to this nation's incredible Bastion of Truth--Alberto Gonzales! Yes, we're talking the same Alberto Gonzales, who has consistently lied to Congress on the U.S. attorney firings as a CYA to the Bush White House. Gonzales will now be given the power to approve those NSA wiretaps--not the court. Gonzales is also given the power to force the telecommunications companies to cooperate with the Bush White House in these spying operations. This is the powers of a dictator here.

And the congressional Democrats just lied down, and let President Bush screw them! I really don't know what to say here. Were the congressional Democrats too afraid of this administration calling them "weak on terrorism?" Were the Democrats fearful of Republicans stirring up the fear-mongering of potential al Qaeda terrorist attacks that could take place in Washington DC, while the "lazy" Democrats were fiddling around on vacation, instead of giving President Bush more terrorist-fighting power? Or did the congressional Democrats really just wanted to say "Screw it," and give Bush whatever he wanted so that they could go on vacation? I really don't know what the answer is here. All I can say is that I'm disgusted with the Democrats capitulating to Bush. I can understand when the Democrats can't get legislation through Congress because of Republican obstructionism, or even a presidential veto. But here the congressional Democrats gave President Bush everything he wanted for spying on us without any oversight, without any fight.

Disgusting.

Scooter Libby cuts check for $250,000 fine

This image provided by the U.S. District Court, Washington, shows the check, and receipt, for the fine imposed on former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby in the CIA Leak trial, which was paid, Thursday, July 5, 2007. (AP Photo/U.S. District Court, Washington)

This is off MSNBC News:

WASHINGTON - Convicted former top White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has paid his fine of $250,400.

The U.S. District Court posted the canceled check on the docket this afternoon.

A source close to Libby tells NBC the "Scooter Libby Defense Trust," which has raised more than $5 million dollars in donations, is still paying out legal fees. The source emphasized that the fine imposed by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton was paid entirely from Libby's personal funds.

In commuting Libby's sentence, President Bush said that the former vice presidential aide had suffered enough and that the 30-month prison term ordered up by a federal judge was "excessive."

The president said he respects the jury verdict convicting Libby of four felony charges of perjury and obstruction of the CIA leak investigation.

And the White House still wanted Libby to pay a fine of $250,000 and a $400 special assessment. But now there is a question on whether he will have to serve two years of supervised probation imposed by the trial judge.

The federal judge who presided over the Libby trial said that with the commutation of the prison sentence, the probation period may be called into question.

Judge Walton, who was appointed by President Bush, said Tuesday that federal law "does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervised release without first completing a term of incarceration."

You can bet that Libby is not feeling any pain or hardship now. President Bush commuted Libby's sentence in exchange for Libby keeping his mouth shut on the White House cover-up in the Valerie Plame scandal. And now Libby cuts a single $250,000 check to pay his fine--you can bet your paycheck that the Scooter Libby Defense Fund paid Libby's fine with the $5 million they raised. What I would like to know now, is specifically who deposited the $250,000 into Bank of America to create this cashier's check, and where did that nameless individual get the money for Scooter Libby's fine? I want to know where did the money come from to pay Scooter Libby's fine? Because I'm just betting that the money came from the Scooter Libby Defense Fund, which tells me another thing. The politically connected in this corrupt administration is getting off scott free.

Disgusting.

Judge questions Libby's probation after Bush clemency

The Bush clemency of Libby's sentence just took a turn into the Twilight Zone here. I found this story through DKos user Pontificator. Pontificator reports that U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton is asking for legal clarification regarding President Bush's clemency of Scooter Libby's sentence, since Bush issued the clemency before Libby even served a single day in jail. And now because of this action by the president, it may be that Scooter Libby would not have to serve probation, since under federal law, probation can only follow a prison sentence. Pontificator includes the link to Judge Walton's court order here. Walton writes:

On July 2, 2007, the President of the United States commuted the term of incarceration imposed upon the defendant by the Court, "leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence." Grant of Executive Clemency at 1. It has been brought to the Court's attention that the United States Probation Office for the District Court of the District of Columbia intends to contact the defendant imminently to require him to begin his term of supervised release. Strictly construed, the statute authorizing the imposition of the supervised release indicates that such release should occur only after the defendant has already served a term of imprisonment....That is, despite the President's direction that the defendant's prison sentence be commuted and his term of supervised release remain intact....

President Bush issued a clemency on Libby's sentence before Libby even served a single day in jail. The U.S. Probation Office requires that a "supervised release" can only occur after a defendant has served a term of imprisonment. And yet, the Bush administration's clemency statement clearly states that President Bush is granting clemency on Libby's prison sentence, and not clemency on Libby's fine or probation:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

What a contradiction here!

CNN has also picked up on this story:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from prison, and his clemency order may wipe out Libby's 2-year probation as well, the trial judge told lawyers Tuesday.

Strictly interpreted, the statute authorizing probation indicates that supervised release "should occur only after the defendant has already served a term of imprisonment," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton wrote.

Walton ordered lawyers to weigh in with their arguments on the matter by Monday.

Walton had sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison for perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators probing the 2003 exposure of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Libby was prosecuted for actions during the investigation of the leak, not for the leak itself.

Bush commuted Libby's sentence Monday, calling the term too harsh.

I'm not sure if President Bush expected this little legal contradiction to occur, or if President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were both so worried about Scooter Libby singing to federal prosecutors on the Bush scandals, that they wanted to keep Libby completely out of jail, rather than have Libby serve a couple of days first before granting clemency. According to The New York Times, President Bush supposedly "spent weeks thinking about the case against Mr. Libby and consulting closely with senior officials, including Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff; Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel; and Dan Bartlett, Mr. Bush’s departing counselor." And yet, Bush did not consult the Justice Department, or perhaps even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the issue of Libby's clemency:

Pardons are typically reviewed by the Justice Department and sent to the president for a final determination. But a former administration official said that in this case the White House had sent a message of “we’re not going through the usual pardon scrub, we’re going through this one ourselves.”

President Bush never consulted with the Justice Department lawyers on this clemency, which the Justice Department lawyers could have quickly seen through this contradiction. Instead, the Bush White House wanted to do this one themselves, creating another legal confrontation, and a political scandal.

Cheney’s office, White House subpoenaed

This is off MSNBC News:

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush’s controversial eavesdropping program that operated warrant-free for five years.

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council. The four parties have until July 18 to comply, according to a statement by Leahy’s office.

The committee wants documents that might shed light on internal disputes within the administration over the legality of the program, which Bush put under court review earlier this year.

“Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection,” Leahy said in his cover letters for the subpoenas. “There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this committee.”

Echoing its response to previous congressional subpoenas to former administration officials Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor, the White House gave no indication that it would comply.

“We’re aware of the committee’s action and will respond appropriately,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. “It’s unfortunate that congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation.”

We've got another confrontation here. The Bush administration has been stalling every which way they can to avoid providing information on their illegal warrantless spying program for the past six years. And it doesn't surprise me that the Bush White House is blaming the congressional Democrats for their own confrontational approach to the congressional oversight into the Bush White House. If anything, this story really shows the contempt that the Bush administration, and especially Vice President Dick Cheney, have for both the rule of law and the system of oversight. This Bush White House will ignore this subpoena, inviting an even greater constitutional confrontation within the courts between the legislative and executive branches. President Bush probably believes this latest stare-down with the Democrats in Congress.

We'll find out on July 18th.

Panel of experts criticize Bush interrogation methods

This is off The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, May 29 — As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.

The psychologists and other specialists, commissioned by the Intelligence Science Board, make the case that more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has yet to create an elite corps of interrogators trained to glean secrets from terrorism suspects.

[....]

Some of the study participants argue that interrogation should be restructured using lessons from many fields, including the tricks of veteran homicide detectives, the persuasive techniques of sophisticated marketing and models from American history.

[....]

But in meetings with intelligence officials and in a 325-page initial report completed in December, the researchers have pressed a more practical critique: there is little evidence, they say, that harsh methods produce the best intelligence.

“There’s an assumption that often passes for common sense that the more pain imposed on someone, the more likely they are to comply,” said Randy Borum, a psychologist at the University of South Florida who, like several of the study’s contributors, is a consultant for the Defense Department.

The Bush administration is nearing completion of a long-delayed executive order that will set new rules for interrogations by the Central Intelligence Agency. The order is expected to ban the harshest techniques used in the past, including the simulated drowning tactic known as waterboarding, but to authorize some methods that go beyond those allowed in the military by the Army Field Manual.

President Bush has insisted that those secret “enhanced” techniques are crucial, and he is far from alone. The notion that turning up pressure and pain on a prisoner will produce valuable intelligence is a staple of popular culture from the television series “24” to the recent Republican presidential debate, where some candidates tried to outdo one another in vowing to get tough on captured terrorists. A 2005 Harvard study supported the selective use of “highly coercive” techniques.

But some of the experts involved in the interrogation review, called “Educing Information,” say that during World War II, German and Japanese prisoners were effectively questioned without coercion.

“It far outclassed what we’ve done,” said Steven M. Kleinman, a former Air Force interrogator and trainer, who has studied the World War II program of interrogating Germans. The questioners at Fort Hunt, Va., “had graduate degrees in law and philosophy, spoke the language flawlessly,” and prepared for four to six hours for each hour of questioning, said Mr. Kleinman, who wrote two chapters for the December report.

Mr. Kleinman, who worked as an interrogator in Iraq in 2003, called the post-Sept. 11 efforts “amateurish” by comparison to the World War II program, with inexperienced interrogators who worked through interpreters and had little familiarity with the prisoners’ culture.

The Intelligence Science Board study has a chapter on the long history of police interrogations, which it suggests may contain lessons on eliciting accurate confessions. And Mr. Borum, the psychologist, said modern marketing may be a source of relevant insights into how to influence a prisoner’s willingness to provide information.

“We have a whole social science literature on persuasion,” Mr. Borum said. “It’s mostly on how to get a person to buy a certain brand of toothpaste. But it certainly could be useful in improving interrogation.”

Robert F. Coulam, a research professor and attorney at Simmons College and a study participant, said that the government’s most vigorous work on interrogation to date has been in seeking legal justifications for harsh tactics. Even today, he said, “there’s nothing like the mobilization of effort and political energy that was put into relaxing the rules” governing interrogation.

It is interesting that this NY Times story came out pretty much on the same day as Andrew Sullivan's Verschärfte Vernehmung story showing disturbing similarities between the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" techniques, and the torture techniques used by Nazi Germany. I fear that we have entering a period where our fragile democracy is being systematically destroyed by men who crave only raw, totalitarian power, but then show themselves to be incompetent in solving this country's problems once they have achieved that power.

Fitzgerald: Scooter Libby deserves 2-3 years in prison

This is from The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has shown no remorse for corrupting the legal system and deserves to spend 2 1/2 to three years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said Friday.

In court documents, Fitzgerald rejected criticism from Libby's supporters who said the leak investigation had spun out of control. Fitzgerald denied the prosecution was politically motivated and said Libby brought his fate upon himself.

"The judicial system has not corruptly mistreated Mr. Libby," Fitzgerald wrote. "Mr. Libby has been found by a jury of his peers to have corrupted the judicial system."

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who has a reputation for handing down tough sentences, has broad discretion over Libby's fate. Walton faces two important questions: whether to send Libby to prison and, if so, whether to delay the sentence until his appeals have run out.

Firedog Lake has a great analysis on the back story of the Libby sentencing. Even more interesting is a post on Perrspectives, reporting the former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is helping Scooter Libby in his defense in the Valerie Plame scandal. Thompson's name is listed on the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust, and Thompson has been hosting fund raisers in which he has both stated Libby's innocence, and attacked the Fitzgerald investigation, claiming that Valerie Plame was not a covert CIA agent. So we will soon see just how much time Scooter Libby is going to be sitting in a jail cell.

NBC: CIA warned of risks of war in the Mideast

This is just amazing. I found this through Shakesville, with the original source at MSNBC. I'm going to quote at length here--the whole story is a must read:

In a move sure to raise even more questions about the decision to go to war with Iraq, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will on Friday release selected portions of pre-war intelligence in which the CIA warned the administration of the risk and consequences of a conflict in the Middle East.

Among other things, the 40-page Senate report reveals that two intelligence assessments before the war accurately predicted that toppling Saddam could lead to a dangerous period of internal violence and provide a boost to terrorists. But those warnings were seemingly ignored.

In January 2003, two months before the invasion, the intelligence community's think tank — the National Intelligence Council — issued an assessment warning that after Saddam was toppled, there was “a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict with each other and that rogue Saddam loyalists would wage guerilla warfare either by themselves or in alliance with terrorists.”

Do you understand what this means? The CIA got it right on the intelligence assessment of what would happen after the U.S. toppled Saddam's regime. The CIA predicted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq would result in the fracturing of Iraq between the three ethnic groups, the domestic violence and civil war currently taking place there, and the influx of al Qaeda terrorists to set up shop inside Iraq. And it gets worst here. Continuing with the MSNBC story:

It also warned that “many angry young recruits” would fuel the rank of Islamic extremists and "Iraqi political culture is so embued with mores (opposed) to the democratic experience … that it may resist the most rigorous and prolonged democratic tutorials."

None of those warnings were reflected in the administration's predictions about the war.

In fact, Vice President Cheney stated the day before the war, “Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

A second assessment weeks before the invasion warned that the war also could be “exploited by terrorists and extremists outside Iraq.”

The same assessment added, “Iraqi patience with an extended U.S. presence after an overwhelming victory would be short,” and said “humanitarian conditions in many parts of Iraq would probably not understand that the Coalition wartime logistic pipeline would require time to reorient its mission to humanitarian aid.”

Both assessments were given to the White House and to congressional intelligence committees.

And according to the Former CIA Director George Tenet’s new book, “At the Center of the Storm,” the reports to be released Friday were not the only ones out there.

One of Tenet’s clearest arguments regarding the administration's dismissal of all but the rosiest assessments of post-war Iraq comes in his description of a White House meeting in September 2002. There, a briefing book on the Iraq war was laid out for policy makers.

“Near the back of the book, Tab 'P', was a paper the CIA analysts had prepared three weeks earlier,” Tenet writes. “Dated August 13, 2002, it was titled, ‘The Perfect Storm: Planning for the Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq.’ It provided worse case scenarios:

“The United States will face negative consequences with Iraq, the region and beyond which would include:

* Anarchy and the territorial breakup of Iraq;
* Region-threatening instability in key Arab states;
* A surge of global terrorism against US interests fueled by (militant) Islamism;
* Major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic Alliance.”

“These should have been very sobering reports,” says Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings Institution. “The administration should have taken them very serious in preparing plans for a difficult post-Saddam period. And yet the administration did not do so.”

What is even more amazing here is that the Bush administration knew of these CIA reports, and ignored them. Tenet writes in his book that there was the September 2002 meeting on the Iraq invasion, where a briefing book was used which included a CIA policy paper spelling out the worst-case scenarios on the invasion. While I have not read Tenet's book, I can probably guess that the top Bush officials attended the meeting--including Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condi Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Tenet, and the president. I would love to know if Cheney attended that meeting, and if he even read the CIA's worst-case scenarios paper. Because if that is the case, then Cheney totally lied to the American people when he stated “Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” Because he knew it could have gotten even worst, as these CIA assessments have shown. Even more damaging, the Bush administration not only ignored these assessments, but they buried them in order to keep this information away from the American public. Instead of presenting these assessments for the American public to consider, the Bush administration decided to concentrate on falsified CIA intelligence reports showing Saddam in possession of non-existent nuclear weapons, with hyped-up fear-mongering of smoking guns becoming mushroom clouds in New York.

The incompetence, the callousness, and criminality of this administration is just incredible.

Update: I found this Associated Press story through Americablog. It is pretty much the same as the MSNBC story, but with a few more interesting details regarding the conclusions that the analysts found:

- Establishing a stable democracy in Iraq would be a long, steep and probably turbulent challenge. They said that contributions could be made by 4 million Iraqi exiles and Iraq's impoverished, underemployed middle class. But they noted that opposition parties would need sustained economic, political and military support.

- Al-Qaida would see the invasion as a chance to accelerate its attacks, and the lines between al-Qaida and other terrorist groups "could become blurred." In a weak spot in the analysis, one paper said that the risk of terror attacks would spike after the invasion and slow over the next three to five years. However, the State Department recently found that attacks last year alone rose sharply.

- Groups in Iraq's deeply divided society would become violent, unless stopped by the occupying force. "Score settling would occur throughout Iraq between those associated with Saddam's regime and those who have suffered most under it," one report stated.

- Iraq's neighbors would jockey for influence and Iranian leaders would try to shape the post-Saddam era to demonstrate Tehran's importance in the region. The less Tehran felt threatened by U.S. actions, the analysts said, "the better the chance that they could cooperate in the postwar period."

- Postwar Iraq would face significant economic challenges, having few resources beyond oil. Analysts predicted that Iraq's large petroleum resources would make economic reconstruction easier, but they didn't anticipate that continued fighting and sabotage would drag down oil production.

- Military action to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would not cause other governments in the region to give up such programs.

In addition, you can find the full intelligence report here.

Valerie Plame testifies before Congress

Former CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson appears at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington March 16, 2007. The hearing is on on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of Wilson. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

A new twist came about in the Valerie Plame intelligence scandal when the the former CIA officer herself went to Capitol Hill to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Here is the New York Times coverage on the Plame testimony, the Washington Post's coverage, and MSNBC's coverage is here.

There are a couple of interesting details in Plame's testimony. The first is that she said she was a covert agent for the CIA. According to the Washington Post:

Plame calmly but firmly knocked down longstanding claims by administration allies that the disclosure was not criminal because she had not worked in a covert capacity.

"I am here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency," Plame told House members, journalists and a smattering of antiwar activists. Her work, she said, "was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit."

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 16, 2007, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

Plame also gave more details regarding her involvement in sending her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, into Niger to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to purchase nuclear materials from that country. According to the WaPost:

Plame also provided the most detailed account to date of her role in a decision by the agency to dispatch her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, to Niger five years ago to assess reports that Iraq had sought to buy nuclear material from the African nation.

Rebutting an assertion by White House officials to reporters that she had sent her husband on the trip, Plame said one of her colleagues broached the idea after a call in early 2002 from Vice President Cheney's office seeking information about Iraqi activity in Niger. Plame said she "wasn't overjoyed" at the suggestion because a trip would leave her alone with their 2-year-old twins.

Still, she said, at the direction of her supervisor, she asked her husband whether he would come to CIA headquarters at Langley to discuss the possible trip and sent a quick e-mail about the prospect to the chief of the agency's counterproliferation division, where she worked.

"I did not suggest him," she said. "There was no nepotism involved. I didn't have the authority."

Now these details regarding the scandal have already been reported. But it is interesting to hear them from the former CIA agent's perspective. The information may not be new, but it does provide a unique historical context on this scandal. If there is any new information regarding this scandal that has yet to be revealed, it is probably in either Dick Cheney's office, or Karl Rove's office.

There are plenty of YouTube videos showing the Plame testimony. There is a three-part YouTube video showing the opening of Plame's testimony.

Here is Part One:



Here is Part Two:



And here is Part Three:



PoliticsTV has highlights of the Plame hearings here and here.

One final interesting note. This is off The New York Times:

The committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, tried at the beginning of the hearing to pre-emptively label the event as meaningless. As if to underscore his point, he was one of only two of the 17 Republicans on the committee who bothered to show up.

Mr. Davis said that the investigation by a special counsel ended without anybody being charged with knowingly leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer. The disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity, he said, was unintentional. (Mr. Libby was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the F.B.I.)

Friday’s episode, Mr. Davis added, was but a “media maelstrom,” an assessment no one quibbled with.

The Washington Post adds to Rep. Davis' snubbing of Plame with this quote:

The committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), sought to deflect blame from the administration. "This looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House problem," Davis said. The agency should have made sure that White House officials who inquired about Plame knew that her position was classified, he said.

You have got to love the Republicans here. Not only are they still clinging to their excuse that the CIA was at fault here for Plame's exposure, but of the 17 Republicans on the committee, only Davis and Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland were the only committee Republicans that attended the hearing.

Some thoughts on the Scooter Libby trial and verdict

I've been somewhat hesitant on writing about the Scooter Libby trial, watching and waiting as the events played out. Well, the verdict is finally out. Scooter Libby was found guilty of four counts of lying and obstructing a leak investigation into the Valerie Plame scandal. The coverage has been all over the news, with MSNBC, ABC News, BBC News, The New York Times, CNN, Time, International Herald Tribune, Slate, and The Washington Post.

And there is a lot of post-verdict coverage that has been going on for the past couple of days. The New York Times looks at the controversy of a presidential pardon for Libby, and even the changing relationship between the press and the government. The Washington Post has a couple of stories on how the White House operated, and an analysis of the Bush administration's accountability regarding the scandal. The WaPost also has a story timeline on both the Valerie Plame investigation and the Libby trial, and a graphical representation of the key players involved in the Libby trial. MSNBC/Newsweek also has a list of stories showing the timeline on the Libby trial, and a backstory on the entire case.

The biggest item that strikes me here is the fact that Scooter Libby has become the scapegoat for this Bush administration. Why did Scooter Libby lie to the grand jury and F.B.I agents regarding Valerie Plame? It is a simple question, but it is a question that really gets to the heart of this entire scandal. Because here you get to the question of whether Libby is protecting someone inside the administration--specifically Vice President Dick Cheney. The Scooter Libby conviction really brings Cheney's office into this scandal, and Dick Cheney's involvement into this scandal. What did Cheney really know about this scandal, and did Cheney lie to the grand jury and F.B.I. What did Karl Rove know, and Rove lie to the grand jury? The administration was playing fast and loose with intelligence information in order to achieve political goals--specifically squashing any dissent and criticism on the Iraq war.

There has been a lot of talk about a presidential pardon for Libby. The Right-wing propaganda machine is in overtime spin, practically demanding a presidential pardon for Libby. It will not surprise me if Libby gets a pardon from President Bush just before Bush leaves office in 2009. This is an administration that has no ethics, no morality. It is an administration that only believes in politics, and the accumulation of power for itself. This makes me wonder if Cheney or Rove offered a deal for Libby--play the scapegoat for the next two years, and Bush will pardon you. If Libby's lawyers can draw out the appeals process for the next two years, Libby might not even have to spend a single day jail--Libby has already established a defense fund to pay for his legal bills. I guess what disturbs me here is how the Bush administration continues to play politics as usual.

NIE Report: Iraq is still a basket case

Would you look at this? The Bush administration publicized a summary of a new National Intelligence Estimate. This is off The Washington Post:

A new National Intelligence Estimate depicts an Iraq involved in a multi-faceted struggle among religious groups and sects and says that without a sharp reversal in the violence and changes among the Shiite, Sunni and Kurd leadership, the situation could further deteriorate.

The estimate, which represents the views of all elements of the intelligence community, presents a much grimmer picture of the situation in Iraq than the Bush administration has acknowledged in the past.

Here is the PDF file of the NIE summary.

The NIE report is rather devastating for the Bush White House. Here is the first key point in the summary:

Iraqi society’s growing polarization, the persistent weakness of the security forces and the state in general, and all sides’ ready recourse to violence are collectively driving an increase in communal and insurgent violence and political extremism. Unless efforts to reverse these conditions show measurable progress during the term of this Estimate, the coming 12 to 18 months, we assess that the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to the latter part of 2006.

In other words, Iraq is pretty much screwed. The polarization between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are continuing. The Iraqi government is powerless to stop the ethnic violence. And in the next 12 to 18 months, "the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to the latter part of 2006." The violence will continue to increase, the war will continue grinding on, and young Americans will continue to come home in flag-draped coffins as the 2008 presidential primaries begin. The report claims that efforts must take place to reverse these conditions--specifically that the Iraqi Security Forces should become more loyal to the government, and Coalition forces "able to reduce levels of violence and establish more effective security for Iraq’s population, Iraqi leaders could have an opportunity to begin them process of political compromise necessary for longer term stability, political progress, and economic recovery." This certainly plays into the Bush troop surge plan. For without the troop surge, the Bush administration will claim that the Iraqi Security Forces will not be able to reduce the sectarian violence, resulting in the continued deterioration of the war. Even better, the Bush White House will link the coming Senate debate on the resolution opposing the troop surge as to increasing the deterioration of the war.

Of course, the NIE report goes downhill for the Bush administration. The devil is in the details. According to the NIE report:

Decades of subordination to Sunni political, social, and economic domination have made the Shia deeply insecure about their hold on power. This insecurity leads the Shia to mistrust US efforts to reconcile Iraqi sects and reinforces their unwillingness to engage with the Sunnis on a variety of issues, including adjusting the structure of Iraq’s federal system, reining in Shia militias, and easing de-Bathification.

Many Sunni Arabs remain unwilling to accept their minority status, believe the central government is illegitimate and incompetent, and are convinced that Shia dominance will increase Iranian influence over Iraq, in ways that erode the state’s Arab character and increase Sunni repression.

The absence of unifying leaders among the Arab Sunni or Shia with the capacity to speak for or exert control over their confessional groups limits prospects for reconciliation. The Kurds remain willing to participate in Iraqi state building but reluctant to surrender any of the gains in autonomy they have achieved.

The Kurds are moving systematically to increase their control of Kirkuk to guarantee annexation of all or most of the city and province into the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) after the constitutionally mandated referendum scheduled to occur no later than 31 December 2007. Arab groups in Kirkuk continue to resist violently what they see as Kurdish encroachment.

Nobody trusts anyone here. The Shiites don't trust either the Sunnis or the U.S., the Sunnis reject their minority status in Iraq, and the Kurds are taking over Kirkuk to control the oil reserves within the region. There is almost no way for the Bush White House or the Malaki government to get these three ethnic groups to reconcile. A Bush administration surge of 21,500 troops will not improve or reduce the security situation in Iraq--not with these three ethnic groups fighting each other for land, resources, ethnic cleansing, or against the Iraqi government and the U.S. occupation.

We've got some more fun with this NIE report:

The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethnosectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

Iraq is not in a state of "civil war." Iraq is in a state of something more complex than a "civil war." What could be a more accurate description of the state of something more complex than a "civil war" that Iraq is currently in? Anarchy? Chaos? Screwed?

And finally, this little paragraph is the most damaging to the Bush administration:

Iraq’s neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq’s internal sectarian dynamics.

In other words, Iran is not a major factor that is driving the ethnic violence taking place in Iraq. This completely contradicts the Bush administration's insistence that Iran is aiding the terrorists in Iraq. Remember President Bush's troop surge speech?

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.

In that speech, President Bush accused Iran of supporting terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and practically declared war on Iran. President Bush authorized an attack on an Iranian consulate in Northern Iraq, arresting five Iranians in the process. President Bush has ordered a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf. He has authorized that U.S. troops can kill suspected Iranian operatives in Iraq. And there have been several reports of the Bush administration planning for war with Iran. And while all this Bush White House war planning against Iran is taking place, the NIE report contradicts everything the Bush administration has accused of Iran of aiding the Iraqi insurgents. There is no diplomatic, foreign, or a security reason for the U.S. to go to war with Iran. There are, however, plenty of political reasons for the Bush administration to go to war with Iran--with the main reason being to shift American attention away from the disaster of Iraq to Iran, to continue American imperialism in the Middle East, or perhaps even to salvage President Bush's legacy as the father of the Global War on Terror. Take your pick. The NIE report continues to show Iraq as a complete disaster--a basket case. And this Bush administration has no clue as to how to resolve this war.

We're still walking over the cliff.

White House Refuses Release of Full NIE Intelligence Report

It appears that while the Bush administration is so willing to release the conclusions of the NIE report, they refuse to release the entire report. This is from The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House refused Wednesday to release the rest of a secret intelligence assessment that depicts a growing terrorist threat, as the Bush administration tried to quell election-season criticism that its anti-terror policies are seriously off track.

Press secretary Tony Snow said releasing the full report, portions of which President Bush declassified on Tuesday, would jeopardize the lives of agents who gathered the information.

It would also risk the nation's ability to work with foreign governments and to keep secret its U.S. intelligence-gathering methods, Snow said, and "compromise the independence of people doing intelligence analysis."

"If they think their work is constantly going to be released to the public they are going to pull their punches," Snow said.

You've got to love the PR-spin here--we can't release the report because it will jeopardize the lives of the agents making this report. And even worst, if the agents realize that their work is released for public scrutiny, then they will only write analysis that is "politically correct." Where have we heard this lame excuse before--how about where the Bush administration can't reveal the secret evidence they have on the Gitmo detainees, or the secret prisons, or the use of torture, or just about every scandal and disaster they wish to keep hidden from the American public? Now the Bush administration refuses to release the entire NIE report. The Bush administration knows that if they release the full report, it is going to add more fuel to this controversy--President Bush has added plenty of fuel to this controversy by releasing the four pages of NIE conclusions just one month before the midterm elections. The conclusions are just about as damaging to the Bush White House as ever--you'v got to wonder what is in the rest of the report here.

But there is more excuses here. How about this one:

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, warned, however, that releasing more of the intelligence assessment could aid terrorists. "We are very cautious and very restrained about the kind of information we want to give al-Qaida," Hoekstra said.

This is not about releasing information to al Qaeda--This is about releasing information to the American public! It is amazing at how these excuses keep coming up about revealing any details of the Bush administration's scandals and disasters of the war in Iraq, their Great War on Terror, secret prisons, Gitmo, use of torture--they don't want the American public to understand the true nature of not only this administration incompetence, but also the criminal nature the Bush administration has become. All of these excuses are major CYAs.

Release the full frickin' report!

Bush released part of NIE report

US President George W. Bush gestures as he answers questions from the media during a press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. The Iraq war has become a "cause celebre" for global terrorists, fuelling recruitment and hostility to the United States in the Muslim world, according to declassified intelligence findings.(AFP/Jim Watson)

It appears that President Bush released a part of the NIE report. This is off The Washington Post:

The Bush administration yesterday released portions of a classified intelligence estimate that says the globaljihadist movement is growing and being fueled by the war in Iraq even as it becomes more decentralized, making it harder to identify potential terrorists and prevent attacks.

The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and drawing new adherents to the movement, the assessment says. The growth in the number of potential terrorists is also being fed by corruption, slow-moving political reform in many Muslim countries and "pervasive"anti-American sentiment, according to the report.

The jihadist movement is potentially limited by its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam and could be slowed by democratic reforms in the Muslim world, says the document, which reflects the collective judgment of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies. In addition, it asserts that ifjihadists are perceived to be defeated in Iraq, "fewer fighters would be inspired to carry on the fight."

A whole four pages of this 30-page report can be downloaded here.

Iraq has become "cause celebre" for jihadists. That is a pretty sobering analysis of just how bad the situation has become in Iraq. We're not just losing the war in Iraq, but we've also created a breeding ground for new terrorists. The longer we stay in Iraq, the stronger and more experienced this anti-American jihadist movement becomes in the Middle East.

The big question I would ask here is why did President Bush release the conclusion of this report? The conclusions of this report actually refute everything the president and his administration has said about Iraq and how we aresupposedly winning the war. Continuing with the Post story:

President Bush took the extraordinary step of releasing portions of the classified report, which was completed in April, to counter assertions made after information from the document was leaked to media outlets over the weekend. Articles based on those leaks said the report blames the war in Iraq for worsening the global terrorist threat -- an interpretation that the administration calls a distortion of its contents.

Speaking at a White House news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bush angrily called the leak a political act intended to affect the upcoming midterm elections. "Somebody has taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes," he said.

The president added that it is naive to think that terrorism would be any less pervasive if the United States had not invaded Iraq, repeating his oft-made point that extremists attacked U.S. interests around the world long before the start of the war.

"My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions," Bush said. "They kill in order to achieve their objectives."

Bush said he reluctantly ordered the release of the National Intelligence Estimate so people can form their own conclusions about it. "You can read it for yourself," he said. "We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy."

It is just amazing. Even after publishing the conclusions of this report, Bush continues to claim that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was necessary to stop the terrorists--this time it is the terrorists who have ambitions to kill people and find excuses to conduct their terror attacks elsewhere. So we must invade and occupy Iraq in order to bring the terrorists into Iraq so that the terrorists will not achieve their terrorist ambitions to kill people in other parts of the world? The absurdity is simply amazing becauseNIE report concludes that the U.S. war in Iraq is actually fueling a rise in jihadist and anti-American extremism, which could then spill over to global terrorism--thus showing the complete failure of the Bush administration's argument that we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here or in the rest of the world. It is absurd.

There is more here. Now we come to President Bush's reason for releasing the report. First Bush is angry that this report has been leaked out--it pretty much destroys all the feel-good Bush PR-spin about how we're winning the war in Iraq, just before the
congressional midterm elections. And yes, this report could affect the midterm elections--resulting in losses to the Republicans. President Bush ordered the release of theNIE conclusions so that the American people could draw their own conclusions from the report. "You can read it for yourself," he said. "We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy." This Bush statement is interesting. It is obvious that President Bush wants to limit the political damage thisNIE report is generating before the midterm elections. The Bush administration is probably hoping that by releasing the conclusion of this report, the controversy will die down by next week, and the Republicans can continue spinning their Iraq-war fears to the American public. In one sense, this release of theNIE conclusion actually plays into the Republican pro-war claims--where the possible rise of jihadist extremism requires the U.S. to remain in Iraq to complete its mission and contain this extremism in Iraq, rather than adopting the Democratic plan of cutting and running which would continue fueling the rise of suchjihadist extremism throughout the world.

But there is this last Bush statement, "[S]omebody [is] trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy." My question here is who is trying to confuse the American people about the nature of the enemy? The NIE report pretty much lays down the conclusions of who the enemy is, and their growing strength and numbers. For five years, the American people were never given a true reason as to why we had to invade Iraq, who our enemy in Iraq was, how we are going to fight our enemy in Iraq, and what exactly will be the criteria for determining a success or victory in Iraq. Instead, this Bush administration has continued to give us lies and political spin, designed to frighten and confuse the American people about the true nature of our enemies. It is President Bush and his PNAC neoconservatives that has consistently confused the American people in defining the nature of the enemy in their Great War on Terrorism, shifting our attention away fromOsama bin Laden and al Qaida, to focus on their PNAC dream of creating a Pax
American of American military imperialism in Iraq and the Middle East, while also controlling Iraqi oil production. And in confusing the American people about the true nature of our enemy,al Qaeda, jihadist extremism, or even anti-American extremism, President Bush has ignored and allowed this dangerous enemy to become even more powerful and more difficult to fight against because of the Bush administration's desire for itsPNAC war in Iraq.

We will pay the price of this disaster in American blood and American treasure for decades to come.

White House considers declassifying NIE report

Well, this is certainly interesting. The Bush White House is now considering declassifying the leaked NIE report. This is from The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Tuesday it may declassify an intelligence report in order to respond to Democrats who say the
document shows the Iraq war has been a distraction from the war on terrorism.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said officials were "giving serious consideration" to releasing the National Intelligence Estimate on the U.S. terrorism threat to demonstrate that the section being seized on by Democrats is only one part of the overall picture.

The report, part of which was leaked to the media, has become an issue in the runup to November 7 mid-term elections when control of both houses of Congress is at stake.

Part of the report said U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded the Iraq war has made the worldwide threat from Islamist extremists more dangerous.

It has inspired their growing militant movement and created a ready source
of anti-American rhetoric, current and former intelligence officials familiar with the document say.

Perino said one paragraph in the lengthy report was "wildly taken out of context" and that some officials believe the whole document, provided to the U.S. Congress in
April, should be released to put that paragraph in context.

This is going to be another ongoing problem for the Bush White House. The Bush administration is trying to downplay this report, saying the Democrats are taking the report's conclusions out of context because they are only reading one paragraph from a few pages of the entire report--the report actually supports the Bush administration's rational for the Iraq war andGWOT . The problem here is that if the Bush administration releases the entire report, who knows what the conclusions, firestorm or criticisms would be once the Democrats get the full picture of this fullNIE report? We don't know what else is in that report--or if there is more damning evidence against the failed Bush policies on global terrorism and Iraq. By
releasing thisNIE report, the Bush White House could be adding more gasoline to this firestorm of controversy. But at the same time, if the Bush White House doesn't release the entire report, this controversy will continue to boil in the last weeks before the midterm elections, possibly hurting the Republican chances of maintaining control of Congress. The Bush administration may feel that releasing theNIE report
will quickly dampen this controversy before the midterm elections. It is certainly an interesting problem for President Bush.

My personal take--I'd love to see what is in that NIE report.

Keith Olbermann rips into Bush again

Keith Olbermann had another Special Commentary in his MSNBC news show Countdown with Keith Olbermann. He rips into President Bush and the neocon's--and especially Fox News'--desire to blame President Clinton for the September 11th terrorist attacks. Another devastating commentary.

Crooks and Liars has the video stream of Olbermann's Special Commentary here.

And here is YouTube's link:



I'm just going to post this special commentary in its entirety here:

And finally tonight, a Special Comment about President Clinton’s interview. The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.

It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.

It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”

Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit.

Nonetheless. The headline is this:

Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.

He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.

"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."

Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.

The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.

The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."

The Bush Administration did not try.

Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!

President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs—some of them, 17 years old—before Pearl Harbor.

President Hoover was correctly blamed for—if not the Great Depression itself—then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.

Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War—though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.

But not this president.

To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.

That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.

But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.

Except for this.

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.

Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.

Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.

The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.

It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted:

Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.

And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for “e-mailing” you the question.

Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.

He told the great truth untold about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.

He was brave.

Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.

The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.

Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company’s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush’s new and improved history.

The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.

The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.

Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?

That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."

Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment.

Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general—echoed Coats.

Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.

And of course, were it true Clinton had been “distracted” by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?

Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?

Who corrupted the political media?

Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?

Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time”?

Who distracted whom?

This is, of course, where—as is inevitable—Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.

The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.

But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.

The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.

Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.

Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:

You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.

Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.

To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.

That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.”

The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power...

"Power is not a means; it is an end.

"One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power."

Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.

"We must disenthrall ourselves."

Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence.

He might well have.

"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."

And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.

The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.

You did not act to prevent 9/11.

We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.

You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.

You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.

And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

And there it is, Mr. Bush:

Are yours the actions of a true American?