Where's the Outrage?

When the twin towers fell, the Pentagon was on fire as the fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania and the Bush administration had a huge problem on their hands. On one hand, they had to convince the American public that they weren’t asleep at the wheel. On the other hand, they had to convince America that they were on the job in keeping us safe. It is somewhat like that old Richard Pryor routine where he asks, “Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?” America could clearly see that the Bush administration failed to keep us safe. We could see the smoldering Pentagon and the 24/7 news coverage of the fallen twin towers. Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor, famously stated, “I don’t think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile.” Although these words are strong, seeing Condi Rice deliver these words are even more powerful.

Condoleezza Rice - No One would have thought [ 0:39 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On the surface, this seems reasonable. If you’re a guy who works on the assembly line and doesn’t follow the news extremely closely, this makes perfect sense. You can’t recall any time that someone was trying to use a passenger jet as a missile. This was a deliberate attempt to throw you and the American people off the trail. The goal is not for you and me to imagine this or that, the goal is for the Bush administration to use all the information at their disposal to try to prevent something catastrophic like 9/11.

In 1994, Algerian terrorists tried to fly a plane into the Eiffel Tower. The plot was foiled by a French SWAT team while the plane was being refueled in Marseille. The plane was getting three times as much fuel as it needed, which tipped authorities off to their real intent. The Bojinka Plot, which I mentioned yesterday, also included one of the 12 planes to fly into the Pentagon and another of the planes to fly into CIA headquarters in Langley. Abdul Hakim Murad trained at a flight school in Norman, Oklahoma. He became an informant when he was captured in Manila. He told police that the plan was to board an American aircraft as a passenger, hijack it and then fly the plane into CIA headquarters. He specifically said that it was a suicidal mission. Remember that this plot was foiled in 1995. In August 2001, US officials intercepted intelligence suggesting that terrorists wanted to bomb the US Embassy in Nairobi. They were either going to bomb the embassy using a plane or using the plane as a missile.

In light of this information, Condoleezza Rice’s statement seems less genuine. It seems more crafted to throw the American people off the scent of incompetence. Now, to be fair, the FBI and the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community together form a huge and unwieldy beast. The one thing that 9/11 has taught me is how difficult it is to get information to those who can really use it. Still, the Bush administration could’ve admitted to us that they were truly focused on Al Qaeda, bin Laden and terrorism. That kind of honesty, I would’ve respected.

9/11 has taught me that our government can be extremely deceptive. Before 9/11, I thought that our government basically gave us the straight scoop. Maybe I was naïve. Now, everything that comes out of our government I question. Basically I say, prove to me that you’re telling the truth. What are the lessons that you learned from 9/11?

A lot of the information from this post comes from the fabulous book, Intelligence Matters, written by Senator Bob Graham.

Tags: 9-11, National Intelligence by ecthompson md
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I’ve spent most of today reading and reflecting on my education over the last decade. I don’t remember the first time I heard the word Al Qaeda. I don’t remember the first time I ever heard the name Osama bin Laden. I do remember where I was on September 11, 2001. I had been up most of the night taking care of trauma patients and I was sleeping in the morning. The phone rang and it was my mother-in-law. She is and was the Sentinel. She was always scanning the news. She called to tell us to turn on the TV. She said something terrible happened in New York. I thought she was crazy and misunderstood what she had seen. I handed the phone to my wife as I grabbed the remote control and turned on the television.

I’m sure over the next several days that there’s going to be lots of blogs and television shows which are going to reflect on what has happened in the last 10 years. The New York Times is already started the series on 9/11. I just want to revisit some of the information and data that we’ve learned over the last 10 years. I’m not going to spend much time talking about the Patriot Act and how it has been abused over the last decade. I’m not going to talk about civil liberties and how Republicans have taken advantage of 9/11. I’m sure that these topics will be adequately covered by many others in the blogosphere.

In my opinion, the key to understanding the failure of 9/11 lies in the arrest and interrogation of Ramzi Yousef. Ramzi Yousef was the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Once he was captured, authorities began to see into the mind of a Muslim extremist. Ramzi Yousef was associated with Osama bin Laden. The uncle of Ramzi Yousef was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. After escaping the country in 1993, Ramzi Yousef attempted an assassination of Benazir Bhutto in the summer of 1993. He then attempted to bomb an Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. These attempts failed. Yousef, a Sunni Muslim, bombed a Shiite holy site in Iran in June of 1994. He then made his way to Malaysia, where he began to plot the Bojinka plan (also known as the Manila plot). He and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed planned to blow up 12 US airliners as they flew over the Pacific Ocean. As they were preparing their 12 bombs, a fire broke out in Yousef’s apartment. One thing led to another and authorities got a treasure’s trove of information from his apartment.

At the very least, authorities have an opportunity to see what one man was capable of doing around the world. The mistake that was made was that everyone assumed that this was just one man and not a movement. Only a few in the intelligence community understood that he was one of many. It wasn’t until 1998, the embassy bombings, that many in the United States began to take notice that this was a serious threat. For some, it took until 2000, the USS Cole bombing before they believed that Al Qaeda would stop at nothing.

Ramzi Yoursef is currently in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.

How did you first become aware of Al Qaeda or Bin Laden or the fact that we were a serious target? Where were you 10 years ago?

More tomorrow on 9/11 and Al Qaeda.

Tags: 9-11, Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, National Intelligence by ecthompson md
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As one conservative put it, “How did we find the Couriers? That info was gotten at Guantanamo Bay. Info that never would have been obtained had the detainees been treated as US criminals. This, in my view, vindicates the decision to sequester the detainees at Gitmo and ALL of their interrogation methods. It worked.” While there are many accounts of exactly what happened, some conservatives are focusing on the online magazine Slate. White House reporter John Dickerson wrote, “detainees being held at Guantánamo provided some of the strongest information about those who were trusted by bin Laden. They identified a courier and his brother who lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan, an affluent suburb where a lot of retired Pakistani military officers live.”

This single report goes much further than any other report with regards to the role of Guantánamo detainees in the assassination of Osama bin Laden. In a separate report by the Associated Press, they specifically point the finger at Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. I have a problem with this. It just doesn’t seem to make sense.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in 2003. According to reports, it was 2005 before the CIA began to get information about a courier that was working for Osama bin Laden. The dates don’t seem to match. Did the CIA sit on information for two years? Separate reports state that the CIA was given a pseudonym for the courier. The CIA needed to do more leg work in order to find out the courier’s real name and where the courier was located. Again, this doesn’t quite add up. If, for example, I tell you that Popeye the Sailor is a close confidant of Osama bin Laden I’m not sure that’s going to help you much. On the other hand, if I can give you a courier’s real name and where he actually lives in Pakistan, that would probably be helpful.

On the Last Word last night, Michael Isikoff, veteran reporter from Newsweek, mentions there are clearly some questions about whether these enhanced interrogations (torture) really gleaned valuable information. Watch the video:

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Marcy has more:

In other words, while the CIA may have learned the courier’s nickname earlier, they didn’t learn his true name until “four years ago”–so late 2006 at the earliest. And they didn’t learn where the courier operated until around 2009.

From these dates we can conclude that either KSM shielded the courier’s identity entirely until close to 2007, or he told his interrogators that there was a courier who might be protecting bin Laden early in his detention but they were never able to force him to give the courier’s true name or his location, at least not until three or four years after the waterboarding of KSM ended. That’s either a sign of the rank incompetence of KSM’s interrogators (that is, that they missed the significance of a courier protecting OBL), or a sign he was able to withstand whatever treatment they used with him.

With al-Libi, the connection between whatever torture he experienced and this intelligence is less clear (since he was first detained in 2005), but even with al-Libi, it appears clear he either never revealed the courier’s real name or only did so after he had been in custody for a year, and almost certainly until after he arrived in Gitmo.

Update: Putting the AP’s reporting here together with the DAB, it seems like al-Libi did give up the name, perhaps earlier than reported. Still no waterboarding.

Either these men didn’t know the true name of their protégé and assistant (which is highly unlikely), or they managed to withhold that information even under torture.

In fact, two people who normally would be crowing about the success of torture are not now doing it. Donald Rumsfeld suggests the discovery of OBL came from intelligence gained at Gitmo (therefore, not in Poland or Romania). And while Cheney assumes enhanced interrogation, aka torture, led to OBL, he admits he doesn’t know where the intelligence came from. That he was ordering up propaganda reports along the way to justify his torture program, yet can’t claim definitively that the intelligence came from it, is a pretty good tell that he can’t say it did.

If KSM and al-Libi revealed details about the courier (and al-Libi’s Gitmo file suggests he did; KSM’s, which is dated two years earlier, does not), they shielded the most important information about him for years.

Donald Rumsfeld, who I think is trying to stay out of jail, said,“The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”

One thing is clear. We need more information before declaring that Guantánamo Bay, enhanced interrogations, torture, forced renditions, black sites or any of that other Bush administration quasilegal stuff was effective, needed or proven. We need more data.

Tags: Bin Laden, National Intelligence, Obama administration, Pakistan, Torture by ecthompson md
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From DK:

Yesterday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder of Michigan expressed disgust at the tactics of one Peter Hoekstra, the blowhard congressman with aspirations of becoming the next Governor of Michigan. Hoekstra, as is now well known, responded to the near-miss terrorist attack last week in Detroit by making the incident the central theme in…of all things…a fundraising e-mail.

What will Rick Snyder say now that the political party to which he belongs has elected to follow Hoekstra’s lead?

The NRSC is the latest GOP group to use the failed bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound plane to rake in money.

In an email to supporters Wednesday, NRSC exec. dir. Rob Jesmer cites the attempted terrorism, along with health care legislation, in an effort to earn last-minute contributions.

The NRSC is the campaign wing for Senate Republicans, and the letter is aimed at gathering last-second contributions ahead of the December 31st year-end filing deadline.

One of the NRSC’s prime targets, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, also got hit with a Detroit-themed fundraising message, as leading GOP opponent Rob Simmons alluded to the attack as well in a fundraising missive.

What is more disappointing–that the GOP is trying to exploit fear for campaign cash, or that absolutely no one is surprised to see them do it?

Tags: Elections, National Intelligence, Terrorism by ecthompson md
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I have not really focused on Pete Hoekstra. I know that he is the House Intelligence Committee chair. I also know that every now and then he opens is mouth and gets his foot stuck in it. But who doesn’t. It is okay to do it every so often when you aren’t throwing out classified information.

From Politcal Animal: Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, confirmed to the Washington Post this week, on the record, that Nidal Malik Hasan had exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric. As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported Tuesday, it was a problematic revelation — that federal officials had kept secret for a reason.

According to the GOP staff on House Intelligence Committee, they “do not know” if Hoekstra released classified information, but they’re “guessing” his remarks weren’t a problem.

Marc Ambinder followed up today with senior intelligence officials who said “there are concerns” about Hoekstra’s loose lips. The Republican lawmaker, who is routinely briefed on some of the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets, appears to have tipped a radical cleric to surveillance efforts and inadvertently confirmed “a sensitive capability that the N.S.A. regularly employs to collect intelligence.”

A former intelligence official privy to details of the NSA’s programs said that it “would appear to be the case” that Hoekstra divulged too much information.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

I realize that leading members of the Intelligence Committees get a lot of information, and it’s no doubt challenging to recognize the difference between information that can be shared with the public and information that must be kept under wraps for national security purposes. People make honest mistakes sometimes. [Read more →]

Tags: House of Representatives, National Intelligence by ecthompson md
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Remember when everyone was raking Pelosi over the coals?  “She is lying…” was the mantra from the Right.

Watch the video:

From AmericaBlog:  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of lying to Congress, and she was mercilessly attacked by the pundits, including MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. A couple of months ago, Morning Joe said “everyone” knew that the Speaker was”lying.” He also said that she needed to “shut up.” Now Joe Scarborough, in the wake of CIA Director Leon Panetta’s admission that the CIA did, in fact, lie to Congress, calls Pelosi his good friend. And he’s concerned about the grief she caught. Grief that he helped pile on.

Watch the Video (Thanks to Media Matters):

Marcy Wheeler took the time to actually read everybody’s statements.  (I posted that here.)  She concluded that the statements from Pelosi, Porter Gross and Leon Panetta were all consisent. She was right!

Tags: Media, National Intelligence, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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Paul Krugman had an outstanding column which posted on Thursday.  He discussed the engine that may be driving all of this violent extremism which has resulted in the shooting at the Holocaust Museum and the cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller.  Krugman said, “Conservatives were outraged (at the Department of Homeland security report).  The chairman of the Republican national committee denounced the report as an attempt to ‘segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration’ and label them as terrorists.”  He went on to say, “Today, as in the early days of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.”  Krugman hit the nail on the head.

One of the tactics that the conservatives use is what I’ll call the Diana Ross Doctrine — Upside Down.  Hopefully, some you are old enough to remember Diana Ross’ hit single Upside Down.  It is a nice tune in which she describes being disoriented by her lover.  She is in fact turned — upside down.  Conservatives have taken what is obviously a right wing extremist and applied the Diana Ross doctrine.  Now, magically we’re supposed to believe that a white supremacist who hated Jews and Blacks was a left-wing extremist.  I thought left-wing extremists were like ecoterrorists?

What the hell is going on in Iran?  Both sides have claimed victory.  Extremely confusing.

Great Healthcare summary here.  BTW, the Swine Flu is still here and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  There are now over 17,000 cases and 45 deaths.  The World Health Organization has declared a pandemic and the MSM yawned.

EmptyWheel has an excellent post on the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence.  Both she and I shared a skepticism over Senator Dianne Feinstein‘s ability to truly investigate torture.  She seemed to be somewhat of a Bush administration cheerleader.  Yet, it appears that she is slowly but surely performing a thorough investigation.  In a separate post Marcy, who loves lists, sets out the chronology that led up to the May 10, 2005 memos on torture.  Marcy is incredibly detail oriented.  She compiles information that can’t be found almost anywhere else.  (By the way, why is Senator Dianne Feinstein chairman of the Senate select committee on intelligence?  Why isn’t Senator Rockefeller?  What happened?  I’m just asking.)

I saw a snippet of the report that President Obama had fired the Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service (whatever that is).  Well, Talking Points Memo has the background story.  It appears that the Inspector General, Gerald Walpin, was doggedly pursuing Kevin Johnson, a big Obama supporter, who is also the mayor of Sacramento, for misappropriation of funds through a charity that he runs called St. Hope Academy.  The whole story is rather intricate, but it appears that the US Attorney General thought there was no case, yet Gerald Walpin continued to pursue Johnson.

Glenn Greenwald has had a series of posts which relate to one of the basic tenants of conservatism, at least conservatism as it is practiced in the United States.  Conservatives like to say that their ideals are being prosecuted.  They like to protect themselves as a persecuted minority instead of the most prosperous and privileged among us.  Glenn has more.

Finally, there’s some good criticism about President Obama’s economic plans.  As in any democracy, there is supposed to be and give-and-take.  At the beginning of the economic stimulus discussion there seem to be a lot of excellent ideas on spending.  These would have been long-term investments into our infrastructure.  Many of these great ideas, including high-speed rail, which in my opinion would have paid dividends down the line, were tossed out in the sake of fiscal responsibility, party unity or whatever. Von of Obsidian Wings has a great post on how we are missing our economic targets.  I fear that we may be looking at another jobless recovery.  The jobless rate for new graduates is ridiculously high.  We have to figure out a way to produce jobs or Obama will be a one-term president.

Oh, by the way, a new painting by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered… sort of.  The painting appears to be a copy of the long-lost original which many have been based on a nude Mona Lisa.

Updates: I forgot that the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup yesterday. I’m sorry. I grew up in Dallas. I still don’t get hockey and I have this problem with Pittsburgh. Still.

The shuttle was scheduled to takeoff today (Saturday), but there appears to be a hydrogen leak. This is a problem.

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Iran, National Intelligence, Obama administration, Party Politics, Terrorism, Torture by ecthompson md
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President Barack Obama went to Langley, Virginia today and addressed the CIA.  He does an excellent job at explaining his decision to release the torture memos.  He also expresses his support for their tough mission. (I would like to add just a small note congratulating Marcy Wheeler for scooping everyone else. I think that she was the first one to note that KSM was waterboarded over 150 times. NYT has the story this AM.)

From WaPo:

Days after releasing top-secret memos that detailed the CIA’s use of simulated drowning while interrogating terror suspects, President Barack Obama went to the spy agency’s Virginia headquarters on Monday to defend his decision and bolster the morale of its employees.

“I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos, particularly the fact that so much of the information was public,” Obama said.

Last week, Obama’s Justice Department published previously classified memos that described the Bush administration’s legal justification for CIA interrogation techniques that included methods criticized as torture. Republican lawmakers and former CIA chiefs have criticized the release of the memos, contending that revealing the limits of interrogation techniques will hamper the effectiveness of interrogators.

The memos detailed the use of waterboarding _ a form of simulated drowning that Attorney General Eric Holder has denounced as torture _ as well as sleep deprivation, isolation and physical violence. (more… )

Tags: Al Qaeda, Domestic Issues, National Intelligence, Obama administration, Torture by ecthompson md
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There’s been a lot of handwringing and consternation over Barack Obama’s choice of Leon Panetta to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Dianne Feinstein (Democrat-California) issued a terse statement on Monday afternoon letting everyone know that she wasn’t consulted and she did not approve. Remember that I was reserved in my comments. Now that the dust has settled, I think it is clearer that Barack Obama has probably made the right decision. Leon Panetta will not be someone easily pushed around and isolated from the White House by any of the senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Instead, known as an excellent manager, Leon Panetta should be able to organize that agency.

I don’t think that this was a slap in the face. Instead, I think that it was an announcement that things are really going to be different. This will not be business as usual. After renditions, torture, illegal wiretaps and the like, I think that this strong signal that things are going to be different and different is a very good thing. Finally, I would add that the Obama team didn’t leak Panetta’s name. It was leaked by someone on the Hill who wasn’t happy. (Feinstein or Rockerfeller’s offices..? I’m just guessing but I bet that I’m close.)

From WaPo:

President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he has selected a “top-notch intelligence team” that would provide the “unvarnished” information his administration needs, rather than “what they think the president wants to hear.”

But current and former intelligence officials expressed sharp resentment over Obama’s choice of Leon E. Panetta as CIA director and suggested that the agency suffers from incompetent leadership and low morale. “People who suggest morale is low don’t have a clue about what’s going on now,” said CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield, citing recent personnel reforms under Director Michael V. Hayden.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were still stewing over Obama not consulting them on the choice before it was leaked Monday and continued to question Panetta’s intelligence experience. Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. acknowledged that the transition team had made a “mistake” in not consulting or even notifying congressional leaders, and Obama telephoned committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and her predecessor, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), yesterday to apologize. (more… )

Tags: National Intelligence, Obama administration by ecthompson md
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Last Night’s Roundup (a day late)

*I was really tired last night after being on call for the last week. The good news is I really voted yesterday.  It felt very good to vote for somebody I truly believe in. Anyway, there were some good stories yesterday so, here’s what I wanted to post last night –

*Neo-Nazis had plotted to kill Barack Obama. The plot was discovered and two people were arrested. There are a lot of great people in this country, full of love and kindness.  On the other hand, there are a lot of knuckleheads who were full of hatred, envy and loathing.

*In spite of hard economic times, the wealth of our congressmen grew by 13% in 2007. Did you know that over 60% of our senators are millionaires? When you consider what it takes to run a campaign, it becomes clear why no one but a millionaire can afford to take that kind of time off from work. Of course they are millionaires.

*National security experts have stated that the next president will be tested, no matter who the next president is. Didn’t Al Qaeda test Bush and Clinton early in their presidency? This only makes sense. Somehow, though, we need to be ready.

*Sadly, McCain seems to be running a campaign against himself. On one hand he has touted his closeness to President Bush and his policies. On the other hand, he has tried to distance himself from President Bush and his policies.  It’s all rather confusing. See the RMS video below.

*Call center workers have walked off the job rather than read an inflammatory script that bashes Barack Obama. Good for them!

*More newspapers are jumping on Barack Obama’s bandwagon. The Charlotte Observer and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram are only two of the latest papers to endorse Obama. Even the little paper in Wasilla, Alaska, hometown of Sarah Palin, has endorsed Barack Obama.

Tags: Economy, Election 2008, National Intelligence by ecthompson md
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Tuesday evening news Roundup

• I am not sure what we did by giving Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson $700 billion to spend. The stock market isn’t happy. The stock market fell approximately 5% today. So far in 2008, the stock market has lost 32% of its value. This is the worst loss in value since 1937. Want more dire warnings?  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has hinted that the Fed may lower interest rates. I thought that low interest rates were one of the reasons we got into this problem!
• Hedge funds, on average, lost over 4% in September. Early trading in Asian markets looks like the bad news is going to continue.
• With the Food and Drug Administration looming over their heads, the pharmaceutical companies that make pediatric cough and cold remedies have voluntarily agreed to want that their products should not be used for children under four. Recent studies have suggested these remedies do not help young children.
• More bad news for the John McCain camp. New intelligence estimates suggest that sectarian violence could break out at any time in Iraq. In spite of John McCain’s proclamation that we have won, the national intelligence estimate states that “victory” is not certain. Of course, this should be obvious to anyone who’s paid any attention over the last five years.
• 17 Chinese born Muslims that have been detained in Guantánamo Bay for over six years have been ordered to be released by a US federal judge.
• One of the best heavyweight bouts is not being shown on HBO.  Wells Fargo and Citibank are battling over Wachovia. Towards the end of last week, Citigroup had stepped in to buy Wachovia Bank. From out of nowhere, Wells Fargo came up with a different and possibly better offer. An announcement was made that Wachovia would be sold to Wells Fargo.  Citibank filed an injunction. The battle is continuing behind closed doors. By the way, did you notice that Bank of America, the bank that bought Merrill Lynch and Countrywide, reported a 68% drop in their revenues compared to last year’s third quarter?

Tags: Economy, Iraq, National Intelligence Estimate by ecthompson md
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I’ll try and be more consistent with my news roundups. Sometimes my day job can be overwhelming.

• The National Football League’s most valuable player, Tom Brady, is done for the year. This is almost the exact same type of play that caused Carson Palmer to have major surgery 18 months ago. I’m not Tom Brady fan. I am a football fan. This is a sad day for the NFL.
• Roger Federer and Andy Murray of Great Britain are playing the U.S. Open finals championship as I type this. He is currently trailing two sets to none.
• A story that came out last week suggested that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had mishandled top-secret information by taking the information home without following protocol. And here you thought the Bush administration was supposed to be good at this national security stuff.
• A nuclear agreement with Russia has been pulled from Congressional consideration by the Bush administration. Just in case anyone was wondering what message the Bush administration was sending, Vice President Dick Cheney made it clear this weekend. The Vice President said,”Russia’s actions are an affront to civilized standards and are completely unacceptable.”
• The federal bailout for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is somewhat confusing to say the least. It seems to me that the message is that if you become “indispensable” then you can be as reckless as you want and the US taxpayers will rescued you. It seems to be the wrong signal if you ask me.
• Senator Hillary Clinton is campaigning in Florida for Obama.
• MSNBC will change its election coverage. It appears that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews were too “liberal” so David Gregory will be injected into the show as a ringmaster. Conservatives were PO’ed. So, I wonder if Fox News is going to change their line up to be more liberal?

Tags: Bush Administration, Congress, Election 2008, Foreign Affairs, National Intelligence by ecthompson md
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Keith Olbermann’s Bushed segment reminds all of us of the many, many, many scandals of the Bush Administration. There seems to be a new one every week.

CIA torture tapes – seems another CIA detainee states that he was taped

Jose Padilla – the dirty bomber. The Bush Administration wanted life. They didn’t get anywhere close. I don’t know if Padilla desired to get life or not. I do know that the judge that sentenced him to 17 years criticized the government’s handling of the case.  I was kinda surprised that Glenn Greenwald didn’t have something on this.  I’m sure that he will today.
Gonzo-Gate – Alberto Gonzales is the gift that keeps on giving. The House and Senate ethics committees are looking into whether congressional republicans tampered with witnesses who were preparing to testify before Congress.

Bushed - CIA recordings, jose padilla and Gonzo [ 1:25 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Countdown, National Intelligence, US Attorneys by ecthompson md
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So, a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is released. Rumors that the VP’s office has tried to suppress this document for over a year. Bush takes the Sargent Schultz (Hogan’s Heroes) defense. We speak with Faiz Shakir from the Center for American Progress and the blog, Think Progress, about the NIE and the Bush administration. We cover this and other topics. Enjoy!!

Remember I’m on iTunes and several other podcasting services.

The Errington Thompson Show 12-08-07 [ 50:09 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, National Intelligence Estimate, Podcasts by ecthompson md
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As usual, we only get half of the story.  Waterboarding worked.  We got information which disrupted several plots.  On the other hand, Brian Ross of ABC News didn’t really ask about false information that sent federal agents on wild goose chases.  He didn’t mention that Abu Zabayduh was mentally disturbed from a head injury that he suffered years earlier.  He also didn’t mention that James Risen reported that the FBI was getting good information out of Zabayduh without torture.

Why did this CIA operative speak out now?  Do you smell a book deal in the air?

——–

From ABC News:

A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.  (more…)

ABC News interview [ 4:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Al Qaeda, National Intelligence, Torture by ecthompson md
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The White House is either stupid or lying. Keith Olbermann points out that these are the only 2 options for anyone who has followed politics.

Special Comment - NIE and the truth [ 8:32 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Countdown, National Intelligence Estimate by ecthompson md
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First, I applaud NBC Nightly News for trying to place the newest National Intelligence Estimate into context. I have spliced yesterday’s Nightly News together with tonight’s.  I think that the picture of what’s going begins to come into focus.

Secondly, so, what happened?  How did this happen?  Didn’t we hear World War III rhetoric just recently?  I find it very interesting that the intelligence community put this report out.  You know that the Bush administration had to have fought to keep it under wraps.

I would like to add since Hillary Clinton was getting beaten up in an NPR debate that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is a terrorist organization.  We have known this for more than 10 years (Read Richard Clarke’s book Against All Enemies.)  So, that isn’t the question.  The question is why do we label this organization now.  It is fact that the IRG has supported several terrorist groups in the region.  Why does the Senate in concert with the White House vote on this now?  If it isn’t to support Bush’s case for “strong, aggressive” action then what was the purpose?

Finally, it is time to pull in the reigns on the Bush administration.   Yes, there are problems in Iran.  Yes, they have a leader who is crazy and playing to his base (the Iranian leader…who did you think that I was talking about).  We, the American people, has an opportunity to get our foreign policy right.  I think that the Intelligence Community has no desire to be the scapegoat again.  This is why they forced the issue and wouldn’t cave under pressure.

Update:  There are those on the other side of the political spectrum who claim that Progressives are dancing in the streets.  Stating that Progressives believe that Iran poses no threat to the region or to anyone.  Wrong.  There are those that hear whatever they want to hear.  The key is we need diplomacy.  Real diplomacy to get Iran to open its borders so that we can see what’s inside.  With the crazy man at the helm we have to assume that he means some of what he is saying.  Hopefully, through engagement we can convince Iran that being a rouge nation is only fun on TV.

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From WaPo:

President Bush asserted today that Iran’s nuclear program remains a danger to international security despite an assessment in a new U.S. intelligence report that the Tehran government stopped work four years ago on a suspected effort to build nuclear weapons.

In a White House news conference, Bush argued that Iran continues to develop the capability to enrich uranium and that this know-how ultimately could be transferred to a new clandestine weapons program.

“Look, Iran was dangerous,” Bush said. “Iran is dangerous. And Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”  (more…)

Iran and our NIE [ 5:22 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, National Intelligence, National Intelligence Estimate by ecthompson md
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Valerie Plame’s new book is out today.

Plame said – “There is no doubt that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.”  This is true.  We have known that for over 10 years.

Q&A with Keith Olbermann

Did George Tenet know about the leak before he referred the case to Justice?  She didn’t know.

Did the media, who published so much information surrounding the leak, did they get any of it right?  Many stories were right.  The Libby trial revealed the relationship between the media and the administration.  There was no confirmation of stories that the White House feed the media.

A lot of her book was redacted.  Ms. Plame believes that the CIA will not acknowledge that she worked at the CIA before 2003.  She believes that it is an ongoing effort to diminish her importance.

This is a very good interview.  It is 1000% better than the Katie Couric thing.

Countdown - Valerie Plame [ 8:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, National Intelligence by ecthompson md
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Most informed Americans understand that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA operative. She was outed by Robert Novak because he wasn’t too bright. Yes, the Bush administration had feed her name to him (Richard Armitage didn’t really feed him her name but that’s a very long story). He had several warnings that intelligence reporters would have known what was up. Novak didn’t.

Anyway, so Valerie’s name is released. We all know the aftermath. She and her husband are smeared by the Right Wing. She does testify before Congress and clearly states that she was covert at the time of her outing. What I didn’t know what that Al Qaeda wanted to kill her. Larry Johnson, an ex-CIA agent, posted a story last night that Al Qaeda wanted to kill Valerie.

From Larry Johnson – In 2004 the FBI received intelligence that Al Qaeda hit teams were enroute to the United States to kill Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Valerie Plame. The FBI informed Valerie of this threat. This was just more “good” news piled on the fact that her intelligence career was in shambles, that intelligence assets she had recruited/managed were destroyed, and that she was unable to rebut publicly false and malicious smears of her character and reputation by a bunch of partisan Republican hacks. As the mother of two pre-school children, her first thoughts were about protecting her kids. She took the threat seriously and asked for help.

When the White House learned of these threats they sprung into action. They beefed up Secret Service protection for Vice President Cheney and provided security protection to Karl Rove. But they declined to do anything for Valerie. That was a CIA problem.

Johnson went on to note that the CIA didn’t do squat. Whatever happened to we protect our own? Oh, that’s the Army. What about we will not leave anyone behind? That’s the Marines. Shouldn’t the CIA have something similar? The Brad blog has some further information here. Still, I find this whole thing amazing.

Tags: Bush Administration, National Intelligence, Valerie Plame by ecthompson md
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No duh. The National Intelligence Estimate told us this a while ago. The British have figured out that we need to change direction or lose the War on Terror. I’m wondering if President Bush will read this report.

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From Yahoo.com:

Six years after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the “war on terror” is failing and instead fueling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements, a British think-tank said on Monday.

A report by the Oxford Research Group (ORG) said a “fundamental re-think is required” if the global terrorist network is to be rendered ineffective.

“If the al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut,” said Paul Rogers, the report’s author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England. (more…)

Do we torture? [ 1:42 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: National Intelligence Estimate, War on Terror by ecthompson md
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