What is behind all this hide and seek?

Waterboarding techniques were not what made 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad confess. He had already started to talk before the "enhanced interrogation" started. And actually at one point, Dick Cheney ‘fessesd up' that rapport, not torture, got intelligence. Following the most recent revelations about Cheney's larger role in the Bush administration's s0-called "war on terror, he is no longer "fessing up" to anything. He is again hiding at an undisclosed location. His daughter, Liz seems to now be his official spokesperson.

Well before Cheney stopped talking this question for Cheney occurred to a blogger: "How come no attacks after the torture stopped?" Here is another question: Why did the CIA hide Dick Cheney’s role in briefing Congress? As it turns out, former Vice President Cheney's campaign to make sure that interrogations could continue as before, to keep lawmakers in line on torture, started midway in the Bush administration .

So, as we are now finding out, the Vice President, not the President, was apparently in the lead of the administration's efforts to run secret operations that were more often than not, outside of the rule of law. For example the May 10, 2005 Justice Department opinions on combined torture techniques were retrospective, designed to give legal cover to something that has already happened. The effect of a related NYT story that misrepresents James Comey's e-mails, claiming that he approved torture, amounted to a pre-emptive strike on the OPR Report that will come out at some point.

The Geneva Convention failed to assure that U.S. detainees received humane treatment. At an international conference in Italy a few weeks ago, Georgetown lawyers from the Center on National Security and the Law were planning to urge a new Geneva Convention for terrorism. Common article 3, they feel is too vague to guide the government of how to protect the security of the United States while also upholding our basic values about justice. UN Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, last month called for for transparency and accountability as he presented his report on U.S. policies that have led to unlawful deaths and other abuses.

The case of tortured U.S. citizen, Naji Hamdan tested the Obama Administration on human rights. Did they stand silent, as the man who was himself tortured, went on trial in the UAE? With this and far too many other examples, the Obama administration finds itself "between a rock and a hard place." Rightly focusing on the economy, reforming health care, and tackling other issues is still front and center. Over and over again, to "put this behind us," the President or the Justice Department took the same legal position as the former administration. When it comes to how to come under the rule of law both in fact and in spirit they failed to step up and do the right thing immediately. Opting for secrecy, turning a blind eye, and assigning a low priority to accountability, are no longer working however.

Dragged kicking and screaming, Congress and the administration are being forced little by little to look back, in spite to their most commendable and forward looking policy changes and needed reforms. In some kind of magical way, the current Senate focus on confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court reminds us all once again that we are a nation of laws, not men. . . or (thank goodness) women. We will get back into balance with time, and because of how our founders set up the system. We must believe this.

[Post date - July 15, 2009]

My all-in-one Home Page of websites where I post regularly: Carol Gee - Online Universe

Technorati tags: news news and politics rule of law national security

The Big Tug of War --

News items about national security are emerging more rapidly in recent weeks. Despite the stated preference for "not looking back," the stories have emerged that lead to a buildup of momentum. According to The New York Times, former Vice President Cheney is linked to the concealment of a highly classified CIA program, until it was recently revealed to Congress by CIA Director Leon Panetta. To quote:

Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the C.I.A. interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities. They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.

President Obama is increasingly under pressure to change his mind about investigating the Bush administration's security programs, despite the political risks. Sunday talk shows saw leading Democrats demanding to find out how a highly classified counter terrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney. The New York Times published a subsequent news analysis that lays out where the investigative push is, and from whom. To quote:

. . . Mr. Obama said this weekend that he had asked his staff members to review the mass killing of prisoners in Afghanistan by local forces allied with the United States as it toppled the Taliban regime there.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is also close to assigning a prosecutor to look into whether prisoners in the campaign against terrorism were tortured, officials disclosed on Saturday.

And after a report from five inspectors general about the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping said on Friday that there had been a number of undisclosed surveillance programs during the Bush years, Democrats sought more information.

. . . That makes four fronts on which the intelligence apparatus is under siege. It is just the kind of distraction from Mr. Obama’s domestic priorities — repairing the economy, revamping the health care system, and addressing the long-term problems of energy and climate — that the White House wanted to avoid.

Revelations about the CIA and torture, deliberate deception of Congressional Intelligence committees, and emerging Inspectors General reports seem to heading towards formal investigations that the Obama administration, including the Attorney General, and Congress may not be able to resist. Glenn Greenwald's post yesterday provides one of the best overviews of the current climate, along with what others who stay on top of these issues are saying. It seems that this tug of war is far from over. The weight of the law will somehow have its way, if we remain vigilant and have a bit of luck along the way.

[Post date - July 13, 2009]

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Blogs: My general purpose/southwest focus blog is at Southwest Progressive. My creative website is at Making Good Mondays. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: news news and politics national security torture rule of law

The old "He-said/She-said" again, huh?

The feud between Congress and the CIA is back in the news. Today the House will take up an intelligence authorization bill that would do away with the administration's right to dictate the terms of how Congress is briefed on intelligence matters. Predictably, President Obama has threatened to veto a bill in that form.

Panetta vs. Congressional Oversight of Intel Community -- On June 24, CIA Director Leon Panetta testified before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX). According to CQ Politics (7/9/09), a couple of days later 7 Democrats on the Committee wrote a letter to Panetta asking him to " “correct” his statement from May 15 that “it is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress.” The article quoted a CIA spokesman who said "Panetta stood by his May remarks and believes Congress must be kept fully informed."

Dems vs Repubs -- Rep. Reyes wrote a letter on Wednesday to the Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), telling him, to quote Politico (7/8/09):

. . . that he had obtained information that there were serious problems with the CIA’s briefing of lawmakers and that the CIA “affirmatively lied to” lawmakers.

“These notifications have led me to conclude this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to,” Reyes wrote in his letter.

. . . Later, Reyes issued a more conciliatory statement that framed Panetta's alleged admission as an attempt to reform the agency, beginning:

“I appreciate Director Panetta’s recent efforts to bring issues to the Committee’s attention that, for some reason, had not been previously conveyed, and to make certain that the Committee is fully and currently briefed on all intelligence activities. I understand his direction to be that the Agency does not and will not lie to Congress, and he has set a high standard for truth in reporting to Congress."

The authorization bill that expands its oversight of the intelligence community, including the National Security Agency and the ODNI, was reported out of committee on June 18. Certain lesser officials would be subject to Senate confirmation, and would require videotaping of arrested detainees. According to the Washington Post (6/20/09), to quote:

The bill also would end the statutory authority of the executive branch to limit briefings on classified, covert action to the "Gang of Eight," the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the House and Senate senior leadership.

Together these measures, Democrats say, represent an attempt to make the intelligence agencies more accountable to Congress. In recent years, controversies including disclosures of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program and the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques have led to calls for greater oversight.

Bonus Backgrounders:

• "2010 Intelligence Authorization Pending," is by Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News (6/18/09).


• "Ending the Gang of Eight," is by emptywheel (6/15/09).
  


• "Congressional Access to National Security Information," is by Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News (6/10/09).


• "The Hill's Campfire Games on Intelligence Briefings," is by emptywheel (6/5/09).


• "CIA: Congress shouldn't get records of our crimes," is by emptywheel (5/31/09).


• "What Pelosi, Rockefeller & Harman Could have done," is by bmaz at emptywheel (5/27/09).


• "CIA Briefers regularly mislead Hill intelligence panels, ex-spy charges," is by Jeff Stein at Spy Talk-CQ Politics (5/26/09).


• "The terrorism intelligence and briefing schedule," is by emptywheel (5/16/09). Timeline period covered by documents/details: 9/21/01 -- 3/19/03.

Stay tuned, folks, because there will certainly be a lot more conversation about these separation of powers questions.

[Post date - July 9, 2009]

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Blogs: My general purpose/southwest focus blog is at Southwest Progressive. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics congress cia national intelligence

Entourages in Italy for G8 Summit

Heads of eight nations are meeting in Italy discussing a variety of issues. Yesterday, my post discussed the nuclear disarmament deal made by President Obama while in Russia enroute to the Summit. Later on down the line the story may lead with this headline, "Obama May Bypass Senate to Implement New START Treaty," which is from CQ POlitics (7/6/09). The Obama administration is thinking about a plan that would make it possible to use an executive order for the key inspection provisions, and then submit the treaty to the Senate in 2010. To quote:

President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Monday signed a framework for further nuclear weapon cuts that increases the likelihood their nations can finalize an accord to replace the Strategic Arms limitation treaty that expires on Dec. 5.

But the tight timetable could prompt the Obama administration to take the highly unusual step of bypassing the Senate and not seek the chamber's formal ratification before enforcing key portions the pact.

. . . Monday's agreement instructs negotiators to cut the number of deployed nuclear warheads on each side to 1,500 to 1,675 from levels above 2,200. But there are disagreements over what to count, complicated by lingering friction over U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States maintains the system is intended to deter threats from North Korea and Iran, not from Russia's arsenal. But Medvedev and other Russian leaders believe any such system cannot be purely defensive in nature and will fundamentally alter the balance of power, if installed.

The primary issue for both Russia and the United States is to avoid letting the START treaty lapse at the end of the year. So there might be time for Congress to act. And Congressional votes go mostly President Obama's way, as it turns out, reports CQ Politics. So this is probably not a huge worry for the administration. To quote:

. . . his success score of 95.2 percent, if it continues for the rest of the year, would be the highest for any president since Congressional Quarterly began this measurement in 1953. That’s true not only for the first year of a presidency, but also for any year.

. . .Democrats in both chambers are far more supportive of Obama than they have been for a president of either party in half a century. Senate Democrats are voting with him 92 percent of the time on average, and House Democrats are supporting him 89 percent of the time.

Senate and House Republicans aren’t consistent with each other in their support for Obama. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that members of the House GOP are voting with Obama just 36 percent of the time — compared with their average support score of 39 percent for Clinton in his first year and 42 percent for Democrat Jimmy Carter in his first year. But Senate Republicans have so far supported Obama 56 percent of the time. That’s the second-highest Senate GOP support score for any Democratic president — just shy of the 60 percent they gave Clinton in 1997.

Reference: From Congressional Quarterly - Behind the Lines by David C. Morrison, I quote the section on nuclear issues:

Know nukes: “No previous American president has set out a step-by-step agenda for the eventual elimination of nuclear arms,” notes a New York Times profile tracing the evolution of President Obama’s stance — while The Washington Post has him inking a nuke reduction accord in Moscow yesterday. The U.N. nuclear watchdog will help Serbia ship tons of spent nuclear fuel to Russia and decommission its research reactor, “removing it from a list of countries which could be targeted by nuclear terrorism,” Reuters reports — and see The Boston Globe’s inside look at the U.S. role in the just-completed withdrawal of all enriched uranium from Romania. World Politics Review, meantime, ponders Cuba becoming the 54th state to accede to the Nuclear Terrorism Convention, so as “to burnish the island nation’s counter terrorist credentials.”

President Obama is good at this kind of thing. His approach is markedly different than that of his predecessor, and it will take the other leaders a bit of time to adjust to the new guy in town. He will do just fine.

[Post date - July 8, 2009]

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Blogs: My general purpose/southwest focus blog is at Southwest Progressive. My creative website is at Making Good Mondays. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: news foreign policy nuclear treaty obama russia leadership