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By Keith Gessen
$16.47
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In a new memoir, former CIA Director George Tenet accepts some responsibility for his intelligence assessment of Iraq in the buildup to war, but he also blames the Bush administration for its ill-founded determination to invade. He takes particular issue with Vice President Dick Cheney for citing Tenet’s “slam dunk” statement as justification for war: “I remember watching and thinking: ‘As if you needed me to say “slam dunk” to convince you to go to war with Iraq.’ ”
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By Amy Goodman — A terrorist lives in Miami. He is not in hiding, or part of some sleeper cell. He’s an escaped convict, wanted internationally for blowing up a jetliner. His name is Luis Posada Carriles. As the nation was focused on the Virginia Tech shooting, the Bush administration quietly allowed Posada’s release from a federal immigration detention center.
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Months before 9/11, French intelligence warned the CIA that al-Qaida was planning an attack involving airplanes, according to classified documents and former French intelligence officials. The information was vague and possibly misleading, but it speaks to the intelligence community’s inability to coalesce fragmentary warnings into something concrete and comprehensive.
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Did the CIA torture an Iranian diplomat? The Red Cross head in Tehran says he saw wounds on Jalal Sharafi’s body—and after the Bush administration’s defense of torture, anything is possible.
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A South Korean newspaper has quoted CIA Director Michael Hayden as saying “the United States does not recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. ... It’s because the nuclear test last year was a failure.” Hayden reportedly made the comment while speaking with a South Korean defense official. The administration has said in the past it was uncertain of the test’s success.
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On Friday’s “Real Time,” Bill Maher eviscerated the Bush administration for outing Valerie Plame. There are no revelations here, but Maher’s hard-hitting analysis of the scandal will satisfy even the most Plame-exhausted viewer. Warning: HBO language.
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Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer and contributors James Harris and Josh Scheer celebrate the dignity and tenacity of Truthdigger of the Week Valerie Plame Wilson.
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Truthdig tips its hat this week to Valerie Plame Wilson, who packed quite a punch Friday during her first public testimony since her 2003 outing as a covert CIA operative. The ex-agent proved she was no slouch when it comes to speaking truth to power with her strong words about the Bush administration’s role in leaking her identity in 2003.
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beachblogger.net
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I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was found guilty on four of the five counts of perjury and obstruction for which he was standing trial. Media Matters anticipates the misinformation talking points likely to circulate in the mainstream media.
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Newsweek
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Variety reported Friday that Warner Bros. has bought the “life rights” (a somewhat alarming term) of former CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and plans to make a movie about their lives. In addition to using secondhand accounts of Plame’s outing by big players in the Bush administration, WB scribes may pull from her memoir, “if the CIA permits her to publish it.”
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dw-world.de
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The Washington Post has an inside look at “black sites,” the secret detention centers operated by the CIA that hold abducted terror suspects, one of whom describes a world of interrogation, torture and misery.
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A State Department official said the U.S. will not extradite 26 suspected CIA agents to Italy, where they are accused of carrying out “extraordinary rendition.” Legal adviser John Bellinger added a veiled threat, saying further legal action in Europe would hamper “intelligence cooperation.”
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An Italian judge has decided to go forward with the first criminal trial of extraordinary rendition. Twenty-six Americans and five Italians—including the former head of military intelligence—have been indicted and ordered to stand trial for the abduction of an Egyptian cleric who was detained and allegedly tortured in Cairo.
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spyflight.co.uk
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The European Parliament has condemned 14 member states for either ignoring or assisting the U.S. policy of “extraordinary rendition.” The report, which won approval by a wide margin, says the CIA carried out 1,245 flights of abducted suspects, sometimes to nations where the detainees could expect torture.
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Testifying about his involvement with the “Scooter” Libby CIA leak case, Tim Russert was very different from his familiar image as a bombastic Sunday morning talk show host.
Posted on Feb 8, 2007
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There can be no doubt after multiple witnesses and now audio recordings from Libby himself that the White House was hopping mad about Joe Wilson’s assertion that the administration cherry-picked intelligence to make the case for war. On the tapes, Libby describes the vice president as “upset” and “disturbed” over what he considered a political assault.
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Germany has issued arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents for their roles in the “extraordinary rendition” of Khaled al-Masri. Meanwhile, as public outrage in Europe over the abduction and torture of terror suspects grows more intense, court proceedings in Italy could lead to the indictment of 25 alleged CIA agents.
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nytimes.com
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The aspiring novelist who would ultimately be known for his central role in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and the botched Watergate burglary died in Miami on Tuesday at the age of 88.
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msnbc.com
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A damning report making its way through the European Union Parliament says a number of EU countries knew of CIA abductions and operations in Europe related to the practice of extraordinary rendition, including more than 1,000 covert flights over European airspace. The report also says the UK, Italy and Poland resisted the investigation.
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CIA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden told the House Intelligence Committee that President Bush has ordered him to “pay more attention” to Hugo Chavez. According to former intelligence czar John Negroponte, U.S. intelligence already pays a great deal of attention to Chavez, leaving one to wonder exactly what kind of action has been authorized, particularly for an agency with a long history of meddling in Latin America.
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President Bush has authorized the CIA to take covert action in Lebanon against Hezbollah, according to a secret presidential finding obtained by The Daily Telegraph. As part of the policy, the CIA and other intelligence groups will subvert Hezbollah’s influence by funding activists who are supportive of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government.
(h/t: Largest Minority)
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This quick, brutally ironic movie reminds us that America was for Saddam long before we were against him. What’s more, we were apparently for his invasion of Kuwait before we were against it.
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stanfordalumni.org
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A court in Italy will decide whether to charge 25 alleged CIA agents for participating in an act of “extraordinary rendition.” The trial, should it go ahead, will be the first to address the heinous tactic, by which the United States or its allies kidnap terror suspects in order to remove them to torture-friendly nations.
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From the BBC: “Many EU nations were aware that the CIA used their territory for the transfer or detention of terror suspects, a draft European parliament report says.”
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The Central Intelligence Agency is using a tongue-in-cheek personality test to attract applicants. “You don’t have to know karate or look good in a tuxedo to work at the CIA,” the personality quiz says.
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The CIA has found no hard evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, The New Yorker’s Sy Hersh reports.
Also, Hersh reports that Cheney has vowed to circumvent Congress and pursue military options against Tehran.
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Seymour Hersh says the White House is channeling intelligence related to Iran’s nuclear program, a la Iraq, preventing the CIA from scrutinizing “evidence” attributed to a secret Israeli source inside Iran. According to Hersh, the CIA maintains Iran has “no secret program of significant bomb making.”
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Huffington Post
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Read an excerpt of the explosive new book “Triple Cross,” which tells the story of Ali Abdel Saoud Mohamed, Osama bin Laden’s most trusted security adviser, who infiltrated the U.S. Army Special Forces and served as an FBI informant—all the while overseeing some of the most infamous Al Qaeda terror strikes of the last decade. (Excerpt, and more info).
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The CIA has argued that allowing detainees to publicly describe interrogation techniques used against them would endanger national security.
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In the latest installment of the Truthdig Podcast, Robert Scheer offers his take on Condoleezza’s lies, Foley’s fiasco, American fascism and more.
Posted on Oct 5, 2006
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NPR/Patrick Kovarik
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In an interview with NPR’s “Morning Edition,” former President Bill Clinton vigorously argued against Bush’s torture plans, citing both moral and practical reasons: “We have a system of laws here where nobody should be above the law, and you don’t need blanket advanced approval for blanket torture.”
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By Robert Scheer — A day before Bush paid lip service to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in his U.N. address, a Canadian government commission accused the U.S. of “rendering” a Canadian to Syria for almost a year of torture.
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Courtesy MHP Books
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By Onnesha Roychoudhuri — The authors of the new book “Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA?s Rendition Flights” tell Truthdig guest interviewer Onnesha Roychoudhuri how they pieced together the first comprehensive look at the largest covert CIA operation since the Cold War—a program run not only by shadowy government contractors in the darkest corners of Afghanistan, but also by unassuming America family lawyers in places like Dedham, Mass.
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Only last week, the president drew a line in the sand over his proposed interrogation rules, threatening to cancel the CIA interrogation program altogether if a trio of rebellious Republicans refused to pass his version. In a total reversal, the Bush administration has reestablished talks with the defiant senators, hoping to work out a deal and pass the stalled legislation.
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left two: Think Progress/right: senate.gov
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The Republican senators who broke ranks with the administration to oppose Bush’s interrogation policy have indicated the possibility of a compromise. On Friday the president showed no willingness to adjust his proposals, but Stephen J. Hadley, his national security advisor, hinted at the prospect during a television appearance Sunday.
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From the Washington Post
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Columnist Robert Novak and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage can’t agree on what Armitage’s intentions were when he told Novak about Valerie Plame’s employment by the CIA. Novak claims it was a deliberate leak; Armitage says it was much more casual.
As a DailyKos poster points out, however, this is the fourth time that Novak has changed his tune on this.
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NBC host Matt Lauer confronts President Bush on a fundamental apparent inconsistency in his interrogation policy: If it’s legal, why are we doing it in secret CIA prisons abroad? Cornered, Bush doesn’t answer straight. Watch the fireworks.
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Illustration by Peter Scheer
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In 2002 Abu Zubaydah, a captured Bin Laden henchman, experienced two radically different kinds of interrogation as the FBI and the CIA secretly engaged in a debate that continues today. As one official put it: ?When you rough these guys up, all you do is fulfill their fantasies about what to expect from us.?
Posted on Sep 9, 2006
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Legislation put forward by the Bush administration this week would legalize the same torture techniques recently banned by the Army. By selectively interpreting the Geneva Conventions, the legislation would allow CIA operatives and even the Army, should it decide to revert to previous rules, to conduct interrogations using unsavory methods.
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europa.eu
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Members of the European Union?s parliament have been fuming over the existence of secret European prisons, following Bush?s recent admission about the facilities. In response to the discovery and to previous denials by European leaders who may have played host to the detention centers, one lawmaker said: ?Bush exposes not only his own previous lies. He also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition.?
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The AP is reporting that the president is transferring 14 key terrorist leaders, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, above, from secret CIA custody to the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be prepared for eventual trials. The prisoners will apparently be afforded some rights consistent with the Geneva conventions.
Yeah, well, Bush also signed a bill in December outlawing the torture of detainees, and then made a “signing statement” announcing his intention to flout that law. So excuse us for being cynical about the president’s motives and intentions here.
UPDATE: Former DOJ lawyer and law prof Marty Lederman says Bush’s new bill actually authorizes “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
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From MSN
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The woman at the center of the CIA leak case “was no analyst or paper-pusher;” rather, she was chief of operations on the CIA’s clandestine Joint Task Force on Iraq, which was heading up the CIA’s intelligence hunt for Saddam’s WMD. Thus, her outing by Bush administration officials was a serious breach of national security—not to mention a career-killer.
The Nation’s David Corn has the scoop in his new book, “Hubris.”
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Richard Armitage, Bush’s former deputy secretary of state, has confirmed through a lawyer that he was the original source in the CIA leak case. But he says he had no malicious intent. He was just gossiping with reporters.
How does this fit in with the theory that the Bush White House leaked Valerie Plame’s name as a revenge ploy against her husband? (Jump to find out.)
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The Water Torture--Facsimile of a woodcut in J. Damhoudre's "Praxis Rerum Criminalium:"
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Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, was fired when she posted a blog entry to the agency’s closed network stating her opposition to torture. The post started like this: “Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong.” Such a sad confirmation of our government’s dismal human rights policies that so obvious a statement qualifies as grounds for termination.
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Columnist Robert Novak revealed for the first time, in a column to be released Wednesday, that both Karl Rove and former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had confirmed Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA agent. He said that this occurred only after another administration official first supplied him with the info.
This is not a huge deal, relatively speaking, but certainly of interest to Plamegate junkies….
Posted on Jul 11, 2006
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Members of the decade-old unit at the spy agency have been reassigned within the CIA, an indication that, according to some, “reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was” or, according to detractors, “reflect[s] a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.”
Posted on Jul 4, 2006
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