It’s Time to Rethink Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan

It’s Time to Rethink Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan

(This piece was published on the Oped page of the Globe and Mail on July 22)

The Harper government has hunkered down on the issue of Afghanistan and is committed to keeping Canadian troops on the frontline there until at least 2011. The government has constructed its own sanitized version of events in Afghanistan while steadfastly ignoring reality. Tragically, Canadians continue to die in the conflict---88 soldiers to date with the latest a few days ago---earning us the dubious distinction of having the highest per capita death toll of any NATO member in the conflict, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

In January, in response to a request I filed under the Access to Information Act for records from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, I received documents that made clear what the Harper government wants Canadians to think about the mission in Afghanistan and exposed its strategy for managing the public relations campaign.

At what are called “message events” where journalists are updated on developments in Afghanistan, officials from DFAIT, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the Department of National Defence present the government line following “dry runs” to make sure the briefing motivates journalists to adopt what is called the “desired soundbite.” The soundbite includes a reference to the restoration of “the rule of law” in Afghanistan as a primary Canadian objective.

The “key messages” the government wants conveyed to Canadians via the media include the following:

· We are making steady progress on the ground.

· Afghanistan is Canada’s largest recipient of bilateral development assistance and we are among the top donors in the world with over $100 million in annual development assistance and a total pledge of $1.2 billion until 2011.

In the aftermath of the deadly bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul earlier this month, as well as other developments, Canadians need a reality check to counter Ottawa’s soothing message that steady progress is being made.

The Afghan government was quick to point the finger for the murderous assault on India’s embassy at Pakistan’s intelligence service. While the Afghan authorities did not name Pakistan directly, their not very subtle message was received in Islamabad where it was sharply denied by members of the Pakistani government.

The bombing calls our attention to Pakistan’s duplicitous role in the conflict. Although Pakistan is depicted as an ally of NATO in the war, Canadian soldiers in Kandahar are constantly being hit by new recruits or refitted Taliban units that can slip back and forth across the border. Although from time to time the Pakistani military undertakes missions against the Taliban on their side of the border, for the most part they leave the Taliban alone in the semi-autonomous regions next to Afghanistan. Moreover, both the Pakistani government and the Karzai government in Afghanistan have been negotiating with elements of the Taliban to reach their own peace settlements.

The truth is that the regime we are supporting in Kabul is not committed to a version of the rule of law that is remotely compatible with our own. The post-Taliban constitution of Afghanistan is based on Sharia law. Under the law, rejecting Islam is punishable by death. When to the theory of the Afghan regime is added the practice, the picture becomes much worse. The Kabul government is the author of repeated atrocities against prisoners who fall into its hands. It is riddled with corruption, and its officials have been repeatedly linked by reputable observers to the country’s poppy trade, the source of over ninety per cent of the world’s heroin. For instance, last month the respected Times of London referred to the repeated accusations that President Hamid Karzai’s half-brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, who is the head of the provincial council in Kandahar province, is involved in the narcotics business. While the brothers Karzai deny the allegations, they are constantly reiterated in Kandahar, and have even been the subject of humour on Afghan private television.

While Ottawa stresses the amount of aid Canada is providing to Afghanistan, the ratio of dollars spent on the military mission compared with aid is roughly ten to one. If Canada truly wanted to help educate girls, as Ottawa says it does, there are more direct ways to do this in many parts of the world than by waging war against an insurgency. And the government’s constant reiteration of the fact that we are members of a broad coalition in Afghanistan cannot conceal the fact that as of this week 83 per cent of the allied casualties have been suffered by the armed forces of only three countries: the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Contrary to the Harper government’s claim that the war in Afghanistan is going well, there have been repeated and authoritative assessments that reveal that the opposite is true. In February of this year, U.S. National Intelligence Director Vice-Admiral Mike McConnell told a U.S. Congressional Committee that the situation facing the U.S. and its allies is “deteriorating.” His assessment was that sixty per cent of Afghanistan was controlled by local warlords and that Taliban insurgents controlled about ten per cent of the country.

While Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, in their race for the White House, have been stressing the need for a greater emphasis on America’s so-called forgotten war in Afghanistan, there is every reason to believe that the fatigue of the American public with Iraq would quickly spread to Afghanistan if the U.S. military deployment was sharply increased there.

Although the Harper government has not yet leveled with Canadians on the situation in Afghanistan, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff General Walter Natynczyk did acknowledge this past weekend that Taliban attacks are increasing and that more troops are needed to counter the insurgency.

When a settlement does come in Afghanistan, and one is certainly possible between the Karzai government and elements of the Taliban, it will not create a country that is firmly on the road to democracy and a regime based on the rule of law and respect for the rights of women as the Harper government would have us believe.

Hasn’t the time come for us to end the bleeding of our soldiers in a conflict in which our vital interests are not at stake and the side on which we are fighting upholds values that are remote from our own?

3 Comments:

said...

Thankyou, that was the best reasoned position I've seen on our involvement in Afghanistan.

and great that it made the G&M

Anonymous said...

Also happy to learn this was published in the G&M, inelegant phrasing of the final sentence not withstanding.

Anonymous said...

Our losses may be severe, but like those in the Korean War, they aren't felt by the general population, despite its opposition to the war. Don't expect an Obama victory to bring relief. The war in Afghanistan is his idea of the Right War. He'll not let us off the hook. We'll be there until the Afghan government wants rid of us.

By the way, a recent article in the Independent revealed that Taliban leaders NATO is killing are the result of Taliban info. In other works, NATO is acting as a Taliban hit man. Whose interest this serves, Al Quaida's, Pakistan's, we'll never know.

WAR CRIMES DOSSIER: Over the Counter Intelligence

Over the Counter Intelligence
Posted by Philip Mattera on June 13th, 2008

Tim Shorrock, a veteran investigative journalist and a longtime subscriber to the Dirt Diggers Digest, has just come out with a book called Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing. Shorrock describes how an activity that used to be handled by spooks on the federal payroll has been steadily transformed into a $50 billion Intelligence-Industrial Complex. 

Thanks to the contracting scandals surrounding Halliburton and its former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, the public learned of the extent to which the Pentagon has turned over routine functions to private military companies. The outrageous behavior of Blackwater has highlighted the use of mercenaries to protect U.S. diplomats and other VIPs in Iraq.

Shorrock shines a light on another group of corporations that are carrying out a more sensitive function that most people have no idea is being handed over to the private sector. Careful readers of the revelations concerning abuses at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq would have learned that interrogators alleged to have abused detainees included civilians employed by a company called CACI. But that is only the tip of a lucrative iceberg, Shorrock shows.

For example, he writes, more than half the people working at the super-secret National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia are employees of companies such as Science Applications International Corporation ( SAIC ), BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin. The Center’s terrorist database is maintained by The Analysis Corporation, which subcontracted collection activities to CACI.

Since 9/11, Shorrock says, the Central Intelligence Agency has been spending 50-60 percent of its budget (or about $2.5 billion a year) on contractors—both individuals and companies. At the CIA and its sister spook agencies: “Tasks that are now outsourced include running spy networks out of embassies, intelligence analysis, signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection, covert operations, and the interrogation of enemy prisoners.”

Shorrock devotes an entire chapter to Booz Allen Hamilton, known to most people as a management consultant for large corporations but which pioneered the intelligence outsourcing industry (though it recently agreed to sell its federal business to the Carlyle Group). When Mike McConnell, a former Booz Allen executive, was named by President Bush as Director of National Intelligence, it was the first time, Shorrock notes, that a contractor was put in charge of the country’s entire spy apparatus.

Spies for Hire has much more to offer that cannot be adequately summarized here. I recommend that you read it in full. But let me let also note that profiles of some of the intelligence contractors discussed by Shorrock—such as CACI and ManTech International—can be found on the Crocodyl wiki to which I contribute. Also note that the updated edition of Jeremy Scahill’s valuable book Blackwater , recently issued in paperback, has a discussion (p.453 forward) on the mercenary company’s move into another form of privatized intelligence—a product called Total Intelligence Solutions that is designed to bring “CIA-style” services to Fortune 500 companies.

http://dirtdiggersdigest.org/archives/60

Dirt Diggers Digest is written by Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project, an affiliate of Good Jobs First.

See also feature articles by Tim Shorrock on CorpWatch.org:

Domestic Spying, Inc.

QinetiQ Goes Kinetic: Top Rumsfeld Aide Wins Contracts From Spy Office He Set Up 

Carlyle Group May Buy CIA Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton

WAR CRIMES DOSSIER: Salon article on WAR PROFITEERS (Hey! Follow the money!)

Former high-ranking Bush officials enjoy war profits

Now working inside America's "shadow" spy industry, George Tenet, Richard Armitage, Cofer Black and others are cashing in big on Iraq and the war on terror.

Editor's note: This article is adapted from Tim Shorrock's book, "Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing," published this month by Simon & Schuster and reprinted with permission.

terrorism, News, Iraq, CIA, Spies, Salon News, National Security Agency, Homeland Security, Outsourcing, Tim Shorrock

Salon composite

From bottom: Former Bush officials George Tenet, Richard Armitage and Cofer Black

May 29, 2008 | Richard L. Armitage, who served from 2001 to 2005 as Deputy Secretary of State, was a rarity in the Bush administration: an official who delighted in talking to the press. Reporters loved him for his withering criticism of the neoconservative zealots around President George W. Bush and in part because he fed them tidbits about the White House they could obtain nowhere else. His accidental disclosure to conservative columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson, was working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency remains one of the most notorious leaks of the Bush era.

But perhaps because of his cozy ties to the Washington press corps and the media's obsession with Plamegate, very little has been written about Armitage's extensive business dealings. In fact, Armitage is one of the most successful capitalists in Washington. He has successfully parlayed his experience in covert operations and secret diplomacy into a thriving career as a consultant and adviser to some of the biggest players in America's Intelligence Industrial Complex -- corporations that are working at the heart of U.S. national security and profiting handsomely from it.

Armitage, currently an adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, had once been Colin Powell's closest ally during the bitter disputes inside the Bush administration over the invasion and occupation of Iraq. According to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, Armitage advised Powell on more than one occasion to tell the neocons to "go fuck themselves," and, at one point, even refused to deliver a speech about Iraq drafted for him by Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Yet, three years after those epic battles, Armitage is enjoying life as a stakeholder in a dozen private companies that are making money directly from the war started by his former nemeses.

Over the past decade, contracting for America's spy agencies has grown into a $50 billion industry that eats up seven of every 10 dollars spent by the U.S. government on its intelligence services. Today, unbeknownst to most Americans, agencies once renowned for their prowess in analysis, covert operations, electronic surveillance and overhead reconnaissance outsource many of their core tasks to the private sector. The bulk of this market is serviced by about 100 companies, ranging in size from multibillion dollar defense behemoths to small technology shops funded by venture capitalists.

Nearly every one of them has sought out former high-ranking intelligence and national security officials as both managers and directors. Like Armitage, these are people who have served for decades in the upper echelons of national power. Their lives have been defined by secret briefings, classified documents, covert wars and sensitive intelligence missions. Many of them have kept their security clearances and maintain a hand in government by serving as advisers to high-level advisory bodies at the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the White House. Now, with their government careers behind them, they make their living by rendering strategic advice to the dozens of information technology vendors and intelligence contractors headquartered along the banks of the Potomac River and the byways of Washington's Beltway.

Ever since the 1950s, with the rise of America's modern military-industrial complex, high-level U.S. officials and military men have moved between the government and private sectors. But what we have today with the intelligence business is something far more systemic: senior officials leaving their national security and counterterrorism jobs for positions where they are basically doing the same jobs they once held at the CIA, the NSA and other agencies -- but for double or triple the salary, and for profit. It's a privatization of the highest order, in which our collective memory and experience in intelligence -- our crown jewels of spying, so to speak -- are owned by corporate America. Yet, there is essentially no government oversight of this private sector at the heart of our intelligence empire. And the lines between public and private have become so blurred as to be nonexistent.

Shortly after leaving government in 2005, Armitage was recruited to the board of directors of ManTech International, a $1.7 billion corporation that does extensive work for the National Security Agency and other intelligence collection agencies. He's also since advised two private equity funds with significant holdings in intelligence enterprises. Veritas Capital (V's note: here) where Armitage served as a senior adviser from 2005 to 2007, owns intelligence consultant McNeil Technologies Inc. and DynCorp International, an important security contractor in Iraq. For a time, Veritas also owned MZM, Inc., the CIA and defense intelligence contractor that was caught -- before the Veritas acquisition -- bribing former Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

In 2007, Armitage, along with several Veritas executives, moved over to DC Capital Partners, an intelligence-oriented buyout firm with some $200 million in assets. One of its first acquisitions after Armitage came on board was Omen Inc., a Maryland company that provides information technology and consulting services to the NSA. The fund has since combined Omen with two other intelligence contractors to form a new company called National Interests Security Company LLC, which has 850 employees, more than half of them holding top secret or higher security clearances.

Through his own eponymous consulting firm, Armitage has lobbied on behalf of L-3 Communications Inc., one of the nation's largest intelligence contractors, to help it sell anti-submarine surveillance systems to Taiwan. L-3, like ManTech, is also heavily involved in Iraq. (Further topping off Armitage's investment interests in the war: He sits on the board of directors of ConocoPhillips, which is aiming to become a major player in Iraq's energy industry through a joint venture with Russia's Lukoil.)

In these jobs, former high-level officials like Armitage continue to fight terrorist threats and protect the "homeland," as they once did while working in government. But by fusing their political careers with business, these former officials have brought money-making into the highest reaches of national security. They have created a new class of capitalist policy-makers that is bridging the gap between public policy and private business in ways that are unprecedented in American history.

Next page: With former CIA director George Tenet on the team, said one CEO, "a phone call gets us in to see whoever we want"

Take the case of George Tenet, who retired in 2004 from his service as President Bush's CIA director. As he was writing his memoirs and preparing for a new career as a professor at Georgetown University, Tenet quietly began cutting deals with companies that earn much of their revenues from contracts with the intelligence community. And, as I was the first to report a year ago in Salon, Tenet began to make big money off of the Iraq war. By the end of 2007, he had made nearly $3 million in directors' fees and other compensation from his service as a director and adviser to four companies that provide the U.S. government with technology, equipment and personnel used for the war in Iraq, as well as in the broader war on terror.

Those companies include L-1 Identity Solutions Inc., an intelligence and biometric conglomerate that holds a near-monopoly on software that identifies people by their fingerprints and facial characteristics; Guidance Software, a Pasadena, Calif., supplier of investigation and forensic software to the FBI and the Intelligence Community; and the Analysis Corp., a Fairfax, Va., intelligence contractor founded by Tenet's former chief of staff, John Brennan. Brennan himself went into the spy business after serving as chairman of the National Counterterrorism Center -- which is one of the Analysis Corp.'s biggest clients.

In Tenet's most prestigious position, he was the only American director of QinetiQ, the British defense research company that was privatized in 2003 and acquired by the well-connected Carlyle Group. Earlier this year, Tenet left QinetiQ's UK parent to join the board of QinetiQ North America, the company's U.S. subsidiary and one of the fastest-growing contractors in the U.S. intelligence market. There, Tenet is working with CEO Duane P. Andrews, a former assistant secretary of defense who was the chief intelligence adviser to Dick Cheney when he was Secretary of Defense in the early 1990s. (Prior to joining QinetiQ, Andrews would have had plenty of contact with Tenet, as Andrews was a senior executive with Science Applications International Corp., a major CIA and NSA contractor.

In January, QinetiQ North America expanded its intelligence network by hiring Stephen Cambone, who was the assistant secretary of defense for intelligence under Donald Rumsfeld, as its vice president for strategy. That appointment came just days after the company won a $30 million, five-year contract to provide unspecified "security services" to the Pentagon's Counter-Intelligence Field Activity office, a controversial domestic security agency that was created by Rumsfeld and Cambone in 2002 and later took heat from Congress for illegally spying on antiwar and religious activists.

One of the most spectacular transitions from intelligence to business took place at Blackwater USA, the security contractor infamous for its trigger-happy soldiers in Iraq. One of Blackwater's first major contracts, negotiated by founder Erik Prince, was a secret no-bid $5.4 million deal with the CIA signed shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Shortly thereafter, Blackwater hired as its vice chairman Cofer Black, the CIA's former top counterterrorism official who was dispatched by Tenet in the days after 9/11 to brief President Bush and his advisers on the CIA's plans for overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan. Rob Richer, the CIA's former Associate Deputy Director of Operations and, before that, head of its Near East division, became Blackwater's Vice President of Intelligence, and later went to work for a private intelligence company.

Appointments like this, observes intelligence expert Steven Aftergood, reflect the "incestuous" relationships that exist between former officials and private intelligence contractors. "It's unseemly, and what's worse is that it has become normal," he told me after the news broke about Stephen Cambone's move to QinetiQ. "The problem is not so much a conflict of interest as it is a coincidence of interests -- the Intelligence Community and the contractors are so tightly intertwined at the leadership level that their interests, practically speaking, are identical."

Former high-ranking officials bring tremendous value to a government contractor seeking new work or a private equity fund looking for companies to buy. "You understand the decision-making process inside the Beltway, and that is liquid gold," says Roger Cressey, who worked in President Clinton's National Security Council as deputy director of counterterrorism and is now a partner in Good Harbor Consulting, a company he founded with his former boss at the NSC, Richard Clarke. Cressey, who is a terrorism consultant for NBC News, adds that the influence of a retired official lasts only a limited period of time after he or she leaves office. "You have 18 to 24 months to translate your rolodex into real services," he says

But the value of a CIA director or national security official goes much further than a rolodex. Because high-ranking officials have been privy to classified and top-secret information for years -- and sometimes, in the cases of people like Armitage and Tenet, decades -- they have details about intelligence programs, classified operations and the internal affairs of other countries that few others can claim.

Armitage, who was a senior Pentagon official during the Reagan administration, was deeply involved in covert operations in Vietnam as a Navy officer and, shortly after September 11, flew to Pakistan on behalf of the Bush administration to deliver a stark message to its military president, Pervez Musharraf, that drastic measures would follow if Musharraf did not support the war on terror. He also led an influential group of U.S. officials who quietly pushed the Japanese government to adopt a more militaristic role in global affairs over the last seven years.

In all of these tasks, Armitage would have had access to the most classified intelligence available to U.S. officials, including telephone intercepts provided by the NSA. That kind of experience is extremely valuable to a company like ManTech, which sells and operates signals intelligence systems to the NSA and provides "cyber and physical security" for U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. According to ManTech CEO George J. Pedersen, who also employed Armitage as an adviser during the 1990s, Armitage was brought on as a director for his "enormous insight into our corporation's capabilities and operations." (Armitage did not respond to a written request for an interview.)

Tenet is even more connected: With the former CIA director on board, L-1's CEO Robert LaPenta told analysts last year, "a phone call gets us in to see whoever we want." Tenet, of course, has extensive knowledge about intelligence services in Saudi Arabia, the UK and Pakistan as well as secret operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. His insights have already helped L-1 in its acquisition strategies. Shortly after Tenet joined L-1's board, the company acquired one of the CIA's hottest contractors, SpecTal, which has 300 employees with top-secret security clearances who work extensively in Afghanistan. Months before, during a 2006 meeting with L-1 executives about SpecTal's potential business in that country, Tenet urged company executives to "call the SpecTal guys" because "they know everybody in every one of these ministries that you need to go talk to," according to LaPenta. L-1 not only called them; it bought them out, and has since combined SpecTal with its latest acquisition, Advanced Concepts Inc., a systems engineering firm holding contracts at the NSA. Tenet, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

Next page: As one former top spook put it, America's "shadow" intelligence community has "more former secretaries of this and directors of that" than the entire government

Power also flows out of a former high-ranking official's presence as a policy-maker. During the 1990s, when Armitage was building his reputation as a private consultant and defense industry adviser, he was a member of President Clinton's Defense Policy Board. Although Armitage, like any board member, was prohibited from divulging contents of meetings with his clients, the internal discussions and access to classified documents helped shape the advice he gave his clients. That's certainly the impression one gets from officials at CACI International, a key intelligence contractor where Armitage served on the board of directors during that time. During his tenure as a director in the 1990s, CACI officials wrote in 2001, Armitage provided "valuable guidance on CACI's strategic growth plans and the federal government and Defense Department markets."

The same can be said of many of Armitage's contemporaries in the defense and intelligence industries who advise their clients while holding positions in government advisory boards at the Pentagon, the CIA and the NSA. One of Armitage's fellow directors at ManTech, for example, is Retired Admiral David E. Jeremiah. He is a member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a paid adviser to the National Reconnaissance Office, the super-secret agency that manages the nation's spy satellites. A third ManTech director, Richard J. Kerr, a 32-year veteran of the CIA, led a 2005 study for the CIA into the agency's prewar assessments of Iraq and its weapons of mass destructionne of the most representative figures in America's new private intelligence elite is Joan A. Dempsey. She is currently a vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, where for the last three years she has worked alongside former CIA director Jim Woolsey and more than 1,000 other former intelligence officers. Dempsey, a steely-looking blonde, began her career as a naval technician listening to Soviet bomber and submarine traffic at Misawa Air Base in Japan, a key NSA listening post. Over the years, she slowly worked her way up the intelligence chain of command at the Pentagon, from Naval Intelligence to the Defense Intelligence Agency. In 1997, she was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and security in the Clinton administration, the highest civilian intelligence position in the Department of Defense at the time. There, she had responsibility over the NSA, the NGA and the NRO, the three national collection agencies controlled by the Pentagon, as well as the DoD's tactical command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) efforts.

By 1999, Dempsey had become George Tenet's representative to the rest of the Intelligence Community as the CIA's director of community management. In that position in 1999 she won the everlasting support of the Intelligence Community -- and its growing army of contractors -- when she led negotiations with the Republican-led Congress that added $1.2 billion to the intelligence budget. That figure still remains one of the largest single-year increases in the history of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. Five years later, partly in recognition of this feat, Dempsey was given the William O. Baker award for meritorious intelligence service by the Security Affairs Support Association (SASA), which from 1979 to 2005 represented the largest prime contractors at the NSA and the CIA. Her remarks at that ceremony serve as a kind of leitmotif for the outsourcing phenomenon in intelligence.

In her acceptance speech, Dempsey paid effusive praise to the corporations she had known over the years, many of whom had purchased tables for the event: General Dynamics, Essex Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation, AT&T Government Solutions, ManTech and Lockheed Martin. She thanked her "Pentagon friends" from L-3 Communications, with whom she had worked "on my favorite program of all time, the U-2" spy plane. She spoke of her pride in working with the Boeing Company on the Future Imagery Architecture, a $4 billion project by the NRO and the NGA to build and operate the next generation of imagery satellites (the project was cancelled in 2005). At the CIA, Dempsey said, she had "benefited enormously" from her work with Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC.

Then she went slightly off-script: "I like to call Booz Allen the shadow IC," she said, using the common acronym for the intelligence community, because it has "more former secretaries of this and directors of that" than the entire government. That must have caused some chuckles at the lead table, where Woolsey was sitting. But Dempsey, of course, got the last laugh. Fifteen months later, she joined the "shadow IC" herself as a vice president. In her job at Booz Allen, she "provides strategy consulting services to the US government, including the national security and civil sectors, as well as commercial industry," according to company spokesperson George Farrar. Then, in January 2007, Dempsey's joke came full circle when Mike McConnell, her boss at Booz Allen, was appointed Director of National Intelligence. In the space of a few years, Booz Allen had been transformed from a "shadow" intelligence community player into the real thing.

It was most intriguing, then, to hear what Dempsey is actually doing in her new job at Booz Allen. In the spring of 2006, Dempsey was invited to speak to a seminar on intelligence reform at Harvard University. In a remarkably candid speech, Dempsey disclosed that her office at Booz Allen was evaluating the entire decision-making process within the intelligence community. Under her supervision, she said, Booz Allen was "studying the implications of the many decisions that are being made on a daily basis right now all over the intelligence community," including by the staff of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "No one has thought through the implications of those decisions in a strategic or aggregate sense for the future," she added. So Booz Allen is helping out by "trying to forecast" what these decisions "mean for the intelligence community of the future -- what it's going to look like, how it's going to operate -- along a trend line."

It was a remarkable circumstance: Booz Allen was conducting a study for the DNI, a position that was about to be filled by one of the company's own -- Mike McConnell. The shadow IC was now helping the real IC prepare for an immediate future when the real IC would be led by the shadow IC. This was more than a revolving door: The private and the public sides of intelligence were now sharing the same room.

US National Security EMBRACING TORTURE, good links

NATIONAL SECURITY

Embracing Torture

Earlier this week, CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged for the first time publicly that the agency had used the tactic of waterboarding on at least three prisoners nearly five years ago. Waterboarding is an interrogation practice in which, "the victim's lungs fill with water until the procedure is stopped or the victim dies." As Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, told Congress, "

Waterboarding is a long-standing form of torture used by history's most brutal governments, including those of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, North Korea, Iraq, the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia."

Yesterday, "after years of dodging and dissembling, the Bush administration boldly embraced" its record of torture and said it would "definitely want to consider" using it again. "It will depend upon circumstances," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding that future acts of waterboarding would "need the president's approval," and the White House would notify "appropriate members of Congress."

LEGAL PARSING: In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. "Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago." Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge said in an interview this month, "There's just no doubt in my mind -- under any set of rules -- waterboarding is torture." But inside the Bush administration, such clarity has succumbed to legal parsing.

"I would feel" waterboarding was torture "if it were done to me,"

Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Congress recently. But Mukasey, who promised to lead a legal review of the practice before being confirmed, is now refusing to brief Congress on the legality of waterboarding. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told the New Yorker in January,

"Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture."

But this week, McConnell said his comments should not be interpreted to reflect an official administration position. When he said waterboarding was "torture," McConnell explained to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), he meant he just personally didn't like water up his nose.

FROM DENIAL TO OPEN ADVOCACY: For years, the White House had done its best to deny the obvious: that it had employed waterboarding against prisoners. When Vice President Dick Cheney told a conservative talk radio host in Oct. 2006 that it would be a "no-brainer" to "dunk" an individual in water if it would save lives, the White House tried to dispel any notion that Cheney was embracing waterboarding. Now the White House strategy has changed -- "the administration has apparently decided that this is a debate they can win out in the open." The switch comes as Congress is considering legislation that "if passed, would require all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to abide by the Army Field Manual's prohibition against waterboarding." The White House said yesterday it wants to retain the option to use waterboarding, even while President Bush has frequently claimed "we do not torture." "Torture is illegal," Fratto said yesterday after McConnell's testimony.

"We don't torture -- we maintain and as we have said many times that the programs have been reviewed, and the Department of Justice has determined them to be legal."

SPOTLIGHT ON THE SENATE: In December, the House passed an amendment that extends the current prohibitions in the Army Field Manual against torture to U.S. intelligence agencies and personnel. Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Christopher Bond (R-MO) has said he would lead an effort to remove that requirement when the legislation reaches the Senate floor. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who in the past has made a series of statements against the use of waterboarding, has placed a hold on the anti-waterboarding bill. A number of key Republican swing votes -- including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) -- will likely make the difference if the bill comes to a vote. McCain has previously called waterboarding a "horrible, odious" technique that "should never be condoned in the U.S."

Today's Torture gate News: WH - "We Definite Want to Consider" using Waterboarding Again

White House: We "Definitely Want To Consider" Using Waterboarding Again

Posted by Satyam Khanna, Think Progress at 1:10 PM on February 6, 2008.

Despite its hedging, the White House made clear today it very well may commit illegal torture again.

In congressional testimony yesterday, CIA director Michael Hayden confirmed that his agency used waterboarding on three al Qaeda suspects. In 2006, Hayden banned the use of waterboarding in CIA interrogations. The Pentagon also banned its employees from using it, and the FBI said its investigators do not use coercive tactics in interviewing terror suspects.

But in today's gaggle, White House said that it may approve the use of waterboarding again "depend[ing] upon circumstances":

"It will depend upon circumstances," spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding "the belief that an attack might be imminent, that could be a circumstance that you would definitely want to consider."

Later, in a press briefing, Fratto tried to distance himself from these remarks, claiming that he only was talking about "the process" of approving waterboarding. "I'm not speculating," he declared.

Fratto said this morning that if used again, waterboarding would "need the president's approval" and would notify "appropriate members of Congress."

Last week, Attorney General Michael Mukasey repeatedly refused to declare the practice illegal. Yesterday, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden "left open the option of reinstating it."

Despite its hedging, the White House made clear today it very well may commit illegal torture again.

Transcript:

QUESTION: Earlier, you suggested that it would not be ruled out for possible use in the future.

FRATTO: Again, I think I'd refer you to the testimony yesterday where the intelligence chiefs didn't rule anything out.

What I did talk about was the process whereby the administration would consider any enhanced interrogation techniques.

And that process includes the director of the Central Intelligence Agency bringing the proposal to the attorney general, where a review would be conducted to determine if the plan would be legal and effective. At that point, the proposal would go to the president. The president would listen to the determinations of his advisers and make a decision.

If he made a decision to authorize a specific interrogation technique, part of that process also involves going to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the chairmen and ranking members of the Judiciary Committees and to inform them that a change in the program has taken place.

QUESTION: But the fact that the process exists suggests that it could be used again? You're not ruling it out.

FRATTO: I'm not speculating at all on what circumstances in the future would cause the director of the CIA to make a proposal in that way. That's something for Director Hayden to address.

What we do know is that they're taking -- they take the interrogation program very seriously. They understand that it must be done with safeguards and under the rule of law.

Every interrogation technique used in this program was brought to the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice made a determination as to its lawfulness. And that allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to move forward with their program.

Any change would follow the process that I just outlined.

Tagged as: bush administration, torture, mukasey, mcconnell, waterboarding, fratto

Satyam Khanna is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.

Torturegate: McConnell, When I said ...

McConnell: When I Said Waterboarding Is ‘Torture,’ I Meant I Personally Don’t Like ‘Water Up My Nose’

In an interview with the New Yorker last month, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell admitted that if it were done to him, waterboarding “would be torture.” “If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful,” said McConnell. “Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.”

During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today, McConnell backed away from his previous statement, claiming that he had been taken “out of context.” McConnell said that he made his comment during a discussion about “being a water safety instructor” and how “some people” — like himself — “have difficulty putting their head under water”:

MCCONNELL: The discussion was about something entirely different. It was a personal discussion about when I grew up and what I was doing as a youngster. And the discussion was framed around being a water-safety instructor. Some people, and I’m one of them, have difficulty putting their head under water. If your head goes under water, I ingest water in my nose.

So what I was having a discussion with a journalist it was about being a water safety instructor and teaching people to swim. He said, “what about when water goes up your nose?” I said, “that’d be torturous. It’d be very painful for me.” Then it turned into a discussion of waterboarding. Maam, I made no statement or judgment regarding the legality of waterboarding.

Watch it:

McConnell said that after his interview for the New Yorker, he spoke to the journalist who wrote the article, Lawrence Wright, and asked him “not to put that in the article.” McConnell said he argued with Wright for ninety minutes in his effort to have the “torture” quote removed.

Last week, Attorney General Michael Mukasey admitted that he “would feel that” waterboarding “was” torture “if it were done to” him.

UPDATE: McConnell confirmed that waterboarding has been used on “only three detainees.”

UPDATE: TPMmuckraker has the entire New Yorker passage about waterboarding and water-safety instruction.

Filed under: Torture, Congress

Posted by Matt at 3:37 pm

Permalink | Comment (62)

Sort Comments By: Top Rated | Date

1. “I know I said it. But I didn’t mean it.”

   Comment by bobcat_grad — February 5, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
   

   
   

2. Hmmmm, somebody got called on the carpet. And peed on it…

   Comment by RUCerious — February 5, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
   

   
   

3. …In a debate last September, (Hillary) Clinton was asked if she would support torture if she knew a prisoner in U.S. custody had intelligence that could stop an imminent terrorist attack on the United States.

   “There is very little evidence that it works,” Clinton said.

   “These hypotheticals are very dangerous,” she added, “because they open up a great big hole in what should be an attitude that our country and our president take toward the appropriate treatment of everyone and I think it’s dangerous to go down this path.”

   ** Is that a NO ???

   http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/05/6851/

   Comment by 2MillionLightYearsToAndromeda — February 5, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
   

   
   

4. McConnell confirmed that waterboarding has been used on “only three detainees.”

   
   Oh , I guess that makes it okay then…………..You moron

   1st off , I don’t believe 1 goddamn word that emerges from the lying mouths of anyone in this totally dishonest administration .

   2nd How about if the “only 3 detainees” the US people wanted waterboarded , were you , your wife and one of your children , to get you to talk about all the criminal activities of this garbage administration ; does that justify it ?

   What a jerkoff……………..

   Comment by MCMetal — February 5, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
   

   
   

5. McConnell confirmed that waterboarding has been used on “only three detainees.”

   Ok, if he has confirmed that waterboarding has been used on detainees, it is time for Bush to be arrested. Waterboarding is torture and against the law. Our own government has prosecuted people for torturing prisoners using waterboarding. How did it magically become legal under Bush?

   Comment by bilbobaggins — February 5, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
   

   
   

6. lol this is more and more hilarious jeesh~

   Comment by Guido OBGYN Lover — February 5, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
   

   
   

7. May I suggest the next three be McConnel, Darth and chympie?

   Comment by RUCerious — February 5, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
   

   
   

8. What a bunch of cowardly morons! Are these idiots really so afraid of Dick Cheney and David Addington that they would rather ruin their reputations rather than acknowledge simple common sense?

   It reminds me of when the tobacco company CEOs all lied to Congress, but at least they were getting paid big money. These pathetic idiots are whoring themselves out for scraps.

   Comment by BillinChicago — February 5, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
   

   
   

9. Are Mike & Mitch related, perhaps?

   Maybe they just rode the short bus together, but why do we have professional liars being paid to lie daily to America?

   If Americans were paid a nickel a lie by Bushlickers, we’d have no debt.

   Comment by Zimzone — February 5, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
   

   
   

10. “If it ain’t me, it ain’t torture!”

    - Devoted Bush trimmer

    Comment by McWars — February 5, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
    

    
    

11. McConnell: When I Said Waterboarding Is ‘Torture,’ I Meant I Personally Don’t Like ‘Water Up My Nose’

    Well, I don’t like milk through my nose, either, but that’s exactly what happened just now as I read your ridiculous rebuttal!

    Listen, MCMetal hit the head of the nail square on. If water boarding is just “water up the nose”, then I assume it’s proper to use in day care for misbehaving children? thumb suckers? bed wetters? pathological liars (you’re friends)?

    Comment by DRxJ — February 5, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
    

    
    

12. UPDATE: McConnell confirmed that waterboarding has been used on “only three detainees.”

    fuc*king liar.

    Comment by Fan of Man — February 5, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
    

    
    

13. Guess what, I don’t like water up my nose either. Who does? That should be the question to ask this Bush criminal enabler.

    Comment by Cats r Flyfishn — February 5, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
    

    
    

14. McMetal - would you mind turning off the “bold” in your comments? It makes it difficult to read and I’m really interested in reading your comments. Thanks.

    Comment by Cats r Flyfishn — February 5, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
    

    
    

15. McConnell: When I Said Waterboarding Is ‘Torture,’ I Meant I Personally Don’t Like ‘Water Up My Nose’

    Great , now the idiot McConnell is channeling Kit Bond’s genius in equating waterboarding to swimming ; next they’ll claim that sleep deprivation is just like insomnia…………

    Comment by MCMetal — February 5, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
    

    
    

16. Okay, imagine if you will, during the start of this gawd forsaken occupation (2003), if there had been video of the Iraqi National Guard, “water boarding” three of our soldiers. Do you think this administration would consider it “a little water up their noses”?
    HELL NO!!!
    They would be screaming (and justifiably) bloody murder!

    When they do it: Barbaric torture!
    When we do it: Acceptable interrogation!
    BULL$HIT!!!!!

    I have never, been so ashamed, of any administration, as this current one.
    You on the right, have your “Clinton got a blow job, he’s got to go”, but remain silent during Bush’s “We break the law and torture”

    SHAME ON YOU! EACH AND EVERY ONE WHO CONTINUES TO SUPPORT SUCH ACTIONS!

    Comment by DRxJ — February 5, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
    

    
    

17. If this slime admits to three incidents, you can bet the real number is more like thirty. In any case, he has admitted that torture has been employed at least three times, and that is at least three criminal acts for everyone involved.

    It won’t be long before some troll says something about breaking eggs to make an omelette, or the price of freedom, or our women wearing burkas, or something else equally ludicrous.

    Comment by VerbalKint — February 5, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
    

    
    

18. Comment by VerbalKint — February 5, 2008 @ 4:00 pm

    Freedom isn’t free!

    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

    Love,

    Blackwater

    Comment by McWars — February 5, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
    

    
    

19. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists, but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
    

    
    

20. McConnell confirmed that waterboarding has been used on “only three detainees.”

    The rest were just captives, insurgents, and dissenters.

    Comment by Lupeyg2 — February 5, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
    

    
    

21. SHAME ON YOU! EACH AND EVERY ONE WHO CONTINUES TO SUPPORT SUCH ACTIONS!

    Comment by DRxJ

    DR, they have no shame…..this is newt, wolfie, rummy, powell, ari, lieberman, et al……they could care less what we want. They have inadvertantly been given great power and by god they intend to use it.

    Comment by Fred — February 5, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
    

    
    

22. I`ts legal as long as KING GEORGE is in charge.I keep thinking he was supposed to uphold the constitution,but i keep forgetting who is in the white house.Please remember the three C`s of BUSHCO crime inc, cronyism,coruption and contradiction!!!!!!

    Comment by christopher wiwi — February 5, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
    

    
    

23. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists, but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

    
    In case you hadn’t noticed , and judging by your ignorance and stupidity in continuing to back this garbage administration and the moronic GOP , you sure as hell haven’t , torture is ILLEGAL ………..

    Comment by MCMetal — February 5, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
    

    
    

24. goon_golly, is their barbarism justification for our nation to torture?

    Comment by Lupeyg2 — February 5, 2008 @ 4:07 pm
    

    
    

25. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists, but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly

    This is the same argument that we have used for the last 50 years to execute innocent people in the US.

    Comment by Fred — February 5, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
    

    
    

26. Personally Don’t Like ‘Water Up My Nose’

    Yeah, well I don’t like Smoke Blowing Up My Arse Either, and you Rat Bastards have been doing this since Jan 2001

    Comment by Brain From Planet Arous — February 5, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
    

    
    

27. you know gg, I call you a scumbag but at least I have some evidence that it is true…..

    Comment by Fred — February 5, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
    

    
    

28. I SMELL fall guy.

    Pardon forthcoming?

    Comment by CitiDC — February 5, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
    

    
    

29. Good golly, Good_golly. So now we’re suppose to care more about the terrorists than what our own country is doing in our name. Amazing. And I thought you loved America. Instead, it appears all you want us to do is wallow in the mud with the “evil” ones and become just like them.

    Since my government (that democracy W keeps shilling about, but keeps trying to overthrow) is one of the People, by the People, and for the People, I care more about what it’s doing that

    Comment by po — February 5, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
    

    
    

30. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists, but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

    Both are Evil, Hideous Acts of Depraved Minds.

    The Medieval Inquisitors thought that all witches were in league with the devil, and tortured them to death. How many were simply innocent of just being ergot eaters, herbalists, midwives, nudists, and psychic?

    Comment by Brain From Planet Arous — February 5, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
    

    
    

31. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists, but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

    Shorter good_golly: Two wrongs make a right

    Comment by VerbalKint — February 5, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
    

    
    

32. Waterboarding isn’t torture to these guys, it’s porn.

    Comment by Bobwurst — February 5, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
    

    
    

33. but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_googly moogly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

    Ahhh, it didn’t take long for a troll to rear it’s ugly head to derail this thread.
    Listen, junior, beheading is not a form of torture to gain information. It’s a terrorist act, plain and simple. Dead bodies don’t talk.
    But this thread is about torture. We now know (snark) that we do it. What was once forbidden (ie WWII) is now condoned. And yet, you see nothing wrong.
    SHAME ON YOU!

    Comment by DRxJ — February 5, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
    

    
    

34. good golly = diversion.

    Comment by Juan C. — February 5, 2008 @ 4:21 pm
    

    
    

35. none of these people were accused of beheading anyone……they were never accused of a god damned thing….that is the point.

    Comment by Fred — February 5, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
    

    
    

36. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists, but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly

    Maybe it’s because everyone agrees that beheading someone is wrong. If I’m mistaken, and you support beheading people, then by all means, lay out the neocon position that supports beheading. If not, then shut up, or defend torturing people. And there is no evidence that those who were tortured were “scumbag terrorists. idiot.

    Comment by Bobwurst — February 5, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
    

    
    

37. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists
    Comment by good_goony — February 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

    Interesting choice of words there! How do you know that they were terrorists? and scumbags, to boot? Could they have just been normal Afghans, being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and have nothing to do with the Taliban or Al Qaeda?
    Lawd, I hope you children are never “water boarded”!
    But, at least you’ll sleep well at night knowing that they weren’t “tortured”

    Comment by DRxJ — February 5, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
    

    
    

38. but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

    Oddly enough, I don’t approve of beheadings either.

    One subject, if he is saying only 3 detainees have been waterboardeded, multiple the number by at least 10.

    Comment by Krazny — February 5, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
    

    
    

39. no one believes that bush or his torturers…….I wonder who they are. know anything for sure about the people they are toruring…..we have no reason whatsoever to believe anything they say about anything.

    Comment by Fred — February 5, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
    

    
    

40. Drxj

    in gigi’s world they’re guilty because they were tortured. If they were’nt guilty then they would not have been tortured. And, everyone iraqi that dies at the hands, or guns, or bombs, of the USA is a high level Al Queda operative, most likely the no 2 man in Iraq. Otherwise he or she would not have died. Life is much simpler when you don’t have to think.

    Comment by Bobwurst — February 5, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
    

    
    

41. Excellent point DRxJ!

    I wanna be on your team.

    I think Mr. Moogly has left the scene.

    Comment by natisman — February 5, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
    

    
    

42. Comment by Bobwurst — February 5, 2008 @ 4:25 pm

    Sounds similar to checking to see if someone is a witch. Chuck em in a lake if they drown then they weren’t a witch. If they swim then they are a witch.

    Comment by Krazny — February 5, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
    

    
    

43. Please allow me to clarify.

    I personally am against waterboarding, except in the most extreme of circumstances, the likes of which we probably haven’t seen and hopefully will never see (e.g. a 24 Hours scenario).

    TP on the other hand only writes about the torture of 3 scumbag terrorists, and doesn’t appear to give a damn about what the terrorists do to their innocent victims. If you are going to report over and over and over and over again, beating a dead horse about 3 isolated incidents of waterboarding, at least occasionally mention the hundreds of barbarous acts of the enemy, including acts of torture, amputations and beheadings. Unless, of course, you share the view that the terrorists are the good guys and America is the enemy.

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
    

    
    

44. It’s interesting that TP posts about 5 stories per week about the waterboarding of 3 scumbag terrorists, but never says a word about the terrorists barborous be-headings of their innocent victims.

    Comment by good_golly

    I haven’t kept up. Is there conclusive evidence that any of these three fellows actually beheaded anyone? Just asking as like I said I haven’t kept up. If they have aren’t their legal mechanisms for dealing with this or are you just trying to link these folks with a bigger scary terrorist scumbag alliance?

    Comment by dbadass — February 5, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
    

    
    

45. yea, that’s it:
    “the terrorists are the good guys and America is the enemy.”

    idiot.

    Comment by katy — February 5, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
    

    
    

46. gg thinks the terrerists are coming here to behead us……..she doen’t understand the land mass thing and the large body of water we have crossed to be where we should not be.

    that’s ok gg…..mental health care is coming soon, even for you

    Comment by Fred — February 5, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
    

    
    

47. TP on the other hand only writes about the torture of 3 scumbag terrorists, and doesn’t appear to give a damn about what the terrorists do to their innocent victims. If you are going to report over and over and over and over again, beating a dead horse about 3 isolated incidents of waterboarding, at least occasionally mention the hundreds of barbarous acts of the enemy, including acts of torture, amputations and beheadings. Unless, of course, you share the view that the terrorists are the good guys and America is the enemy.

    Comment by goon_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:27 pm

    TP reports on behavior being done in our name. Unless you happen to be a member of a terrorist cell, the beheadings you refer to are not done in your name and you are not in a position to stop them.

    As far as I know, no one in our government is recommending or approving beheading. Maybe you know something about that that the rest of us have missed.

    Comment by gummitch — February 5, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
    

    
    

48. Please define “the terrorists”

    Comment by dbadass — February 5, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
    

    
    

49. For an administration that derides Democrats for flip-flopping, they sure to flip flop a heckuva lot, don’t they?

    Isn’t there a word for that… oh yeah.. hypocrisy

    Comment by raynman — February 5, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
    

    
    

50. dumb troll also doesn’t seem to get that we don’t care what she thinks……I’m pretty sure TP doesn’t either….

    gg should go find some of those many right leaning vets she knows…..bet they would agree with her.

    Comment by Fred — February 5, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
    

    
    

51. Unless, of course, you share the view that the terrorists are the good guys and America is the enemy.
    Comment by good_golly

    See? Life is really easy when you are a complete a-hole.

    Comment by Juan C. — February 5, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
    

    
    

52. If you are going to report over and over and over and over again, beating a dead horse about 3 isolated incidents of waterboarding
    Comment by good_goofy — February 5, 2008 @ 4:27 pm

    Oddly enough, it’s only just been confirmed…TODAY!

    How do you beat a dead horse over and over and over and over again, when it’s only been just confirmed?

    Oh yeah… WHEN IT’S ILLEGAL!!!

    What the hell is wrong with you???

    Comment by DRxJ — February 5, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
    

    
    

53. eating a dead horse about 3 isolated incidents of waterboarding (sic)

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:27 pm

    I have sincere doubts that this was 3 isolated events. Given the overall track record of the Bush administration, they tend to lie easier then a con man greasing a mark.

    Comment by Krazny — February 5, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
    

    
    

54. What the hell is wrong with you???
    Comment by DRxJ

    There were no books around him when he was a child…only Reader’s Digest.

    Comment by Juan C. — February 5, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
    

    
    

55. Unless, of course, you share the view that the terrorists are the good guys and America is the enemy.

    Comment by good_golly — February 5, 2008 @ 4:27 pm

    Now you’re talking! We are the invaders, the murderers, the war criminals. We had no right or reason to go into Iraq, and the millions that we have killed, injured and made homeless are quite clear on who the “bad guys” are: the USA. Adding torture to the mix just proves how low we have sunk into the Republican shit.

    I’m glad you share that view, gg.

    Comment by Lefty Patriot — February 5, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
    

    
    

56. I don’t like lame excuses shoved up my ass.

    Comment by Clumberfeet — February 5, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
    

    
    

57. Good_golly is nothing but scum and proves that the rule of law no longer exists in this country. It is time that people like good_golly are treated as Nazi war criminals, taken out and hung.

    Comment by JMOHR — February 5, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
    

    
    

58. Sweet snapping ass cheeks, this g_g troll is obnoxious.

    This isn’t about 3 water boardings, or terrorist beheadings.

    It’s about the moral underpinnings of the country, how OUR behavior defines the US to ourselves and the rest of the world, and the cowardice of our leaders when it comes time to stand up and declare their positions.

    Comment by The Republic of Stupidity — February 5, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
    

    
    

59. It’s about the moral underpinnings of the country, how OUR behavior defines the US to ourselves and the rest of the world, and the cowardice of our leaders when it comes time to stand up and declare their positions.

    Comment by The Republic of Stupidity

    Gigi’s problem is that it doesn’t have any moral underpinning. It is capable only of thinking “bush good! liberal bad!” It doesn’t care if brown smelly people get hurt. Even it it’s attempt at reasonableness

    “I personally am against waterboarding, except in the most extreme of circumstances, the likes of which we probably haven’t seen and hopefully will never see (e.g. a 24 Hours scenario).”

    gigi misses the point that 1-torture doesn’t work so using it like they do in the right-wing porn show 24 won’t give us anything we can use, and 2-It’s WRONG. These people are supposed to be morally superior, so christian, and yet they take a perverse glee in harming other people.

    Comment by Bobwurst — February 5, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
    

    
    

60. Ah, didn’t we put a Japanese officer in prison for 15 yrs after WW II for waterboarding?

    Comment by The Republic of Stupidity — February 5, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
    

    
    

61. gg - weird thinking my friend - how would we know if we have a “24 Hour” scenario? Should we torture ALL just in case . . . ?

    And didn’t Nuremberg settle “torture is a crime as a national policy” awhile back? Following illegal orders is not a defense in ANY court . . . . yea, I know, Clinton got a . . .

    Comment by Jess Wonderin — February 5, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
    

    
    

62. McConnell confirmed that waterboarding has been used on “only three detainees.”

    Doesn’t this confirm that this administration are WAR CRIMINALS?

    Just the fact that congress is going to do nothing about this makes them also accomplices to the crime, does it not?

    I hate Bush and his administration with all my heart, if there were actually a hell I surely wish that they would burn there for eternity, but since there isn’t life in prison will do. Sorry, I don’t believe in the death penalty, two wrongs don’t make a right.

    Buck Fush

    Comment by Buckie Boy — February 5, 2008 @ 5:15 pm

U.S. Finds That Iran Halted Nuclear Arms Bid in 2003 MORE WAR CRIMES

Boys and Girls,

Today's news shows us what happens when someone, someone as yet unnamed gets frightened of The People. The polls are showing 90% favor for IMPEACHMENT. The forces are gathering, and CONgress is scared, that is for sure. Someone's whistling blowing on why the subpoenas weren't followed on the NIE on IRAN .. and now, we have the black on white on Iran.

Only it doesn't stop with the issuance of this item, it CONTINUES . it actually raises more speculation as to what NOW! They are still war criminals, they aren't absolved of what they did, someone just made sure it didn't get any worse than it already is. And we will never know why, though there will misinfo, disinfo, spin and historical speculation; many will take credit, but it is the you and I that made the difference. I surely would not want the upcoming impeachment demo on TV during the Rosebowl parade if I was sucking defense money up like water on a hot summer's day. But perhaps there is even more than that at work here.

But let's see, what's NEXT (we're all conditioned to think that way now, what IS Next ..??)

Now all await the BUSHISTAS efforts to blame the loss of the Irak "engagement" on CONgress, which MADE them all "rush" into Iraq and forcing them to beleagure the threat of WWWIII to help us win the war - with OUR enemies. Nothing to do with them.

We are all to blame for the defeat of American forces, too, for we did not support them. Every little demo, every petition, every blog was TO BLAME for the lack of moral and the will to "win" that little 3-day "exurcusion," the shock and awe campaign from HELL. We killed ALL those troops and all those Iraqis.

We are the ones who demanded attacks on Iran, not THEM.

You and CONgress and I are to blame that Osama is still at large (remember a tape is to be released this week ..)

Why do we need a missile defense shield if Iran and North Korea are now neutralized? Or are we to blame for that expensive boondoggle, too? WE insisted on it! Not THEM! We got the kickbacks from the defense contractors, right? We ran the budget into ruin.

Can you say DELUSIONAL? Can you see this PROVES it ? ?

Do you see what I am driving at? Can you?

And remember what I said, weeks back, ENTER JAY ROCKEFELLER! WOW! HERO!

It was time for the CIA to trot him soon. And here he IS!!

So be SURE To watch this administration spin, spin, spin --- see the CBS article after the WaPo article.

First one to bitch about my analyses, someone who thinks I don't get The Game, pays for my ISP for a year .. I am RIGHT, you'll see.

Again, the IRAN debacle is yet another war crime, folks, it really is. They KNEW for a year it was all lies, yet they lied about Iran, they treated the President of Iran in a despicable way when he visited the United States after issuing him a visa, they scared the Iranian people and all of us nearly to distraction. Sigh, when does it END??

This mess, this nightmare is far from over; as this definitely proves how intelligence "gets" manipulated to serve the President's and the Vice President's end; the buck stops with them.

And the media has had a hand in all this. Mark my words, or as I say, WATCH. People are going to be very angry seeing how they were duped in the media.

One LAST note: Mike McConnell is the freak bringing you telecom surveillance, nice, real nice.

Veeger

They now need a new enemy and YOU and I are IT.

By Dafna Linzer and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; Page A01

If Iran were to proceed with a weapons effort, it would not be carried out at known facilities, the officials said, adding that they do not believe Iran is enriching uranium at an undeclared facility.

Congressional leaders of both parties had been pressing the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, for the report for months, and some had worried that the delay was the result of the administration's efforts to influence the final result. Those concerns appeared to dissipate yesterday, when the report contradicted not only the administration's views but also the intelligence community's previous assessments -- evidence, to many observers, of the intelligence agencies' new willingness to question assumptions and assert their independence from policymakers.

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"The key judgments show that the intelligence community has learned its lessons from the Iraq debacle," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate intelligence committee. He was referring to long-standing Democratic allegations that intelligence on Iraq was skewed to help promote the administration's desire for war.

In this case, Rockefeller said,

"it has issued judgments that break sharply with its own previous assessments, and they reflect a real difference from the views espoused by top administration officials."

While concluding that Iran's weapons program is now halted, the NIE presents a mixed view of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. It portrays Iran's ruling clerics as susceptible to international pressure, having abandoned an extensive and costly covert nuclear program in the face of threatened economic sanctions and global censure.

But the report also depicts Iran as cleverly preserving its options, by making steady strides toward a civilian nuclear energy capability that both complies with international law and puts the country on a course that will allow it to easily develop nuclear arms if it so chooses.

The report also states more confidently than in previous assessments that Iran's military had been actively seeking to build a bomb. Iranian armed forces were "working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons" until the fall of 2003, it says.

The assessment, under preparation for more than 18 months, was completed on Tuesday and President Bush and Vice President Cheney were briefed on Wednesday, intelligence officials said. Hadley said Bush first learned in August or September about intelligence indicating Iran had halted its weapons program and was advised it would take time to evaluate.

Several participants said there was strong debate among analysts during the process, but in the end they agreed on nearly every judgment. A majority of the intelligence agencies assessed, with high confidence, that the closure of the military program marks the end of the weapons effort. The Energy Department and the National Intelligence Council said gaps in what they know make them conclude only with "moderate confidence" that efforts remain on hold.

The State Department's bureau of intelligence and research judged Iran to be slightly further away from producing enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb.

Last year, Congress required that key judgments from the NIE be declassified. McConnell said in November that he had no plans to issue an unclassified version, but officials said the dramatic shift in the assessment convinced him otherwise.

Since our understanding of Iran's nuclear capabilities has changed, we felt it was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate presentation is available,

Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence, said in a statement.

Staff writers Walter Pincus, Peter Baker and Robin Wright and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Why Was The NIE Released?

By Kevin Drum

Dec 3, 2007

---

(Political Animal) WHY WAS THE NIE RELEASED?....A couple of random thoughts on the newly released NIE concluding that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003:

• This NIE was apparently finished a year ago, and its basic parameters were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House well before that. This means that all the leaks, all the World War III stuff, all the blustering about the IAEA — all of it was approved for public consumption after Cheney/Bush/Rice/etc. knew perfectly well it was mostly baseless.
  
  
• Why were the key judgments finally released? Cheney didn't want them released, Bush surely didn't want them released, and DNI Mike McConnell told Congress a few weeks ago that he didn't want them released. So who did?
  

All I've got is speculation on the second question, but here it is: it was congressional pressure. Democratic members of the various intelligence committees saw the NIE (or a summary or a verbal report or something) and went ballistic. Footnotes and dissents are one thing, but withholding a report whose primary conclusion is 180 degrees contrary to years of administration innuendo produced a rebellion. Somebody who got briefed must has threatened something pretty serious if the NIE didn't see the light of day.

Like I said, just a guess. But who else has the clout to force Bush, Cheney, and McConnell to change course?

By the way, Stephen Hadley will be on TV furiously providing the Bush administration's spin on all this at 3:15 Eastern time. Should be good for some laughs.

Related

NIE Estimate on Iranian Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities (pdf)

Statement by the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (pdf)

Special Report: Radiating Danger

Comparing Two Intelligence Estimates on Iran

More on washingtonpost.com

Iran Welcomes Report, Says Atomic Plans Peaceful

ANALYSIS: A Blow to President Bush's Tehran Policy

Like Iraq, US Intel on Iran Faulty

US: Iran Halted Weapons Program in 2003

Progress Made Toward UN-Iran Resolution

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Mike McConnell

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Retired Admiral John Michael "Mike" McConnell was confirmed February 6, 2007, by the U.S. Senate as Director of National Intelligence (DNI).^[1]

On February 20, 2007, McConnell was sworn in to office.^[2]

Prior to his nomination^[3] by President George W. Bush, he was a Vice President and Director of Booz Allen Hamilton's Infrastructure Assurance Center of Excellence.^[4]

McConnell served as director of the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996. He was Intelligence Officer (J-2) for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS-J2) during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Operation DESERT STORM under former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.^[5]

"During his tenure at the Pentagon and as director of the National Security Agency, Admiral McConnell worked closely" with now Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates "during Mr. Gates’s time as deputy national security adviser and as director of central intelligence, and with Dick Cheney while he was defense secretary during the first Persian Gulf war."^[6]

At Booz Allen Hamilton, McConnell supported the National Communications Systems, a joint industry and federal agency group that focuses on telecommunications, national security and emergency procedures issues.^[7]

McConnell is a former Chairman of the Board at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), of which Booz Allen Hamilton is a founding member.^[8]