The CIA: What Was It Up To?

I have to believe that most of America, and certainly the Intelligence Committees, would have been happy to authorize assassination squads for Al Qaeda leaders. We’re killing them with drones now.

It has to be spying, collecting intelligence, in the USA.

But of course since Nancy Pelosi is so shrill, it’s obvious that under no circumstances could there have been any effort to mislead her over interrogation tactics!

Thanks, KT, outstanding work. You rock. What is it about Republican administrations and literally keeping an eye on us? First Nixon’s secret enemies list, now this. Does Howard Hunt have family members working for the CIA now? KT, any word on if Joe the Plumber had taken up new “plumbing” jobs fixing “leaks” for Palin / McCain campaign? Don’t the R’s trust us? I’m relieved that Obama does.

[...] is the CIA “up to something“?  No.  Of course not.  Stop it.  How could you SUGGEST such [...]

Uhnm is it just me or doesn’t this seem oddly familiar. Like how false stories were pushed during the BushCo years so that they would become accepted conventional wisdom so that when the REAL story came out which was a lot worse than the “rumors” by that time people weren’t paying attention anymore? Remember how Abu Ghraib was no big deal. And warrantless wiretapping was only done to suspected terrorist who weren’t American citizens. I am calling bullsh*t. The people putting out all of this disinformation just so happen to all be republicans. Thats not a coincidence. Leon Panetta can’t shut down a problem in June that had already been shut down in 2004. And why would there need to be an assassination ring to kill al qaeda leaders when supposedly thats what our military was already doing? And who in the congress would have even objected to such a ring? Give me a damn break. I think we should wait a month or two to see what the REAL story is. And I have a funny feeling that some of this is tied into that CIA IG report that keeps getting pushed back too.

It definitely wasn’t a plan to take out al Qaeda leaders, we have proof.
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We once had the main leader(s) pinned down at Tora Bora, but the Bush Admin. knew that Osama bin Laden was more use to them alive (and scaring Americans) so the dogs were called off and the al Qaeda were allowed to escape.

“A third CIA official who is familiar with details of the program says it was deemed unworkable and cancelled in 2004.”
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Mid November 2004?

Edgar Hoover is rolling over in his grave.

If you have an administration that politicized everything they touched why would domestic spying on your political foes be considered a stretch?

what is most telling about the various stories and rumors going around about this program is how virtually every article is based on CIA sources. and consequently takes an extremely positive spin on the CIA’s institutional role.

There is a lot of weaseling going on right now … the phrase “not fully operational” is being bandied about as if it meant “nothing actually happened”, butr in all likelihood what it means is that the project was operational — but not every single aspect of the original proposal was implemented.

Its pretty obvious that whatever it is, it is illegal — but you won’t see KT and her peers telling us the truth about the criminal nature of the Bush regime on this subject. Instead, everything will be presented as if there was some question whether a crime has occurred. It has already, insofar as the briefings were not held. So why can’t KT use the word “illegal” when describing the a program that could not exist legally without Congress being briefed on it?

“What was the CIA up to?”

In what regard Charlie?

why would domestic spying on your political foes be considered a stretch

Because everyone knows that the Plame affair proves that the CIA is a hotbed of liberals!

The assassination theory doesn’t make any sense at all, especially not with the secrecy angle. I could see them protecting the details of an assassination operation but lets face it, all the high ranking Al-Qaeda types know they’re targets anyway. It’s not “do they want to kill me?” that’s on their minds but “how are they going to try?”

This has to be something illegal that would tick off most people if we knew about it. Domestic spying seems likely.

@plukasiak: isn’t “not fully operational” what the Empire said about the second Death Star?

Torturing and murdering the families of suspected al Qaeda members? I wouldn’t put it past a vicious creep like Cheney.

Wait, is this when everyone in the Beltway pretends to be shocked?

On a rare serious point, are some domestic activities simply in that twilight zone of neither explicitly legal nor illegal? An semi-OT but true example – pop quiz: name the other US state with legalized prostitution. It’s Rhode Island. Their laws explicitly ban outdoor streetwalking but NOT indoor hijinks. Nothing is cleared spelled out. They still can’t pass laws to close loophole (failed in this year’s budget stuff) and get all of the ins-and-outs straightened out. Solemnly amusing example there, but it’s not so funny with domestic spying.

No, Art, that was on Saturday when the story broke, from noon until five.

Now the proper response is to maintain that everyone knew that something like this was going on, that both parties are equally to blame, that it’s like ancient history and not really worth worrying about, and that the Democrats risk costing public and GOP support for the Obama agenda if they insist on partisan payback. It’s very savvy!

Has Joe K progressed to the point where he won’t explain that investigating this makes the Democratic party look weak?

What were they up to? I’m guessing they wanted to spy on the administration’s perceived domestic enemies. I’d include unfriendly press in that category.
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Oh, and political opponents as well.

KT – you realize, of course, that I have no reason to believe what Bobby Ghosh says, right?

“I have to believe that most of America, and certainly the Intelligence Committees, would have been happy to authorize assassination squads for Al Qaeda leaders.”

Does anyone believe that we didn’t have a (probably DOD) program to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders?

Elvis: Sorry, I missed a news cycle.

So now I can harangue Pelosi for dwelling on the past?

Loathing mixed with a yet unsatisfied need for prosecution: The Cheney Administration

Untempered contempt: The dems and the media who either looked away or were outright complicit (& now clutch their f’ing pearls)

The rot in Denmark is so pervasive that if the tumor were extracted there’d be nothing left.

And spare me the skins’ defense of Pelosi. Greenwald from waaay back in May:

“One related point: I’m truly amazed to watch the eruption of “controversy” today over the fact that Nancy Pelosi was briefed in 2002 on various aspects of the CIA’s interrogation program, as though (a) this is some sort of new revelation and (b) it has any bearing on whether there should be investigations and prosecutions into Bush crimes. As many of us have long pointed out, the extent to which Democratic leaders in Congress were complicit in Bush lawbreaking — including torture — is a major issue that needs resolution, and is almost certainly a key reason why there have been no investigations thus far. There are real disputes still about what these Democrats were and were not told — how complete the briefings were, the extent to which they obfuscated rather than illuminated what the CIA was doing — though they were obviously told enough to have warranted further action on their part, to say the least.

But what’s the point of all of this? Secretly telling Nancy Pelosi that you’re committing crimes doesn’t mean that you have the right to do so. And the profound failures of the other institutions that are supposed to check executive lawbreaking during the Bush era — principally Congress and the “opposition party” — is a vital issue that demands serious examination. This dispute over what Pelosi (and Jay Rockefeller and others) knew highlights, rather than negates, the need for a meaningful investigation into what took place.”

KT, your “colleague” Matt Selman already solved this mystery over at NerdWorld: http://nerdworld.blogs.time.com/2009/07/12/a-real-american-hero/

For some perspective on Cheney:

“All Cheney’s talk about keeping America safe, and claiming that President Obama is endangering the US by abandoning the use of “the Cheney method of interrogation and torture” is nonsense, (former Chief of Staff for Sec of State Colin Powel, Lawrence) Wilkerson wrote, for a variety of generally sound reasons that can be gleaned from the post.

These, however, were the crucial passages:

[W]hat I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 — well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion — its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the US but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qaeda.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qaeda-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

As Bob Fertik noted on Democrats.com, this is extraordinarily important for three particular reasons: firstly, because of Wilkerson’s credibility — and his access to certain privileged information during the Bush years; secondly, because he states that “the desire to manufacture an Iraq-al-Qaeda link was the principal priority — not secondary to preventing another attack,” and thirdly because… Wilkerson stated that “the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 — well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion” “

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/05/14/lawrence-wilkerson-nails-cheney-on-use-of-torture-to-invade-iraq/

So I guess we have an idea why the Cheneys have been so vocal lately…

I tend to agree with SG, especially on this key point: “Leon Panetta can’t shut down a problem in June that had already been shut down in 2004.” Something is going on here. Who was in charge of this program from January 09 to June? Was anyone in charge?

I’m wondering if this was an assassination AND a surveillance program. Which was not supervised by any high-level member of the executive at least from January 09 onwards. If Panetta didn’t know, presumably Obama and Biden didn’t either. And obviously an unsupervised assassination and/or surveillance program is a serious scandal.

Rose — maybe it was Joe Scarborough, he claims to know everything going on over at CIA and he’s missing in action this morning – you think Leon shut him down?

In case anyone hasn’t read it yet, the Guardian story is interesting: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/13/cheney-cia-al-qaida-assassinations

“Dick Cheney, the former vice president, ordered a highly classified CIA operation hidden from Congress because it pushed the limits of legality by planning to assassinate al-Qaida operatives in friendly countries without the knowledge of their governments, according to former intelligence officials.

Former counter-terrorism officials who retain close links to the intelligence community say that the hidden operation involved plans by the CIA and the military to launch operations, similar to those by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, to hunt down and kill al-Qaida activists abroad without informing the governments concerned, even though some were regarded as friendly if unreliable.”
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“The official said he believes from conversations with serving members of the CIA that the area of real concern in Congress is that the planned operations may also have involved the covert surveillance of American citizens.”
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“Some former intelligence officials and Republicans have attempted to portray the programme as barely getting out of the planning stages but others in the intelligence community have said it is highly unlikely that the CIA would have kept such an operation going for eight years without advancing it.”

I wonder what “friendly if unreliable” means exactly.

re Pelosi, I’m just amused that the Beltway cognescenti were appalled at the suggestion that the CIA might ever be less than forthcoming. I mean, who could possibly have imagined this?

I don’t understand why the rumored CIA program necessarily has to be *one* of two –either assassinations or intel collection. The CIA has engaged in both practices, and it would be uncharacteristic of the Agency not to have considered doing so again in the post 9/11 environment. It would be perfectly feasible for both assassinations and intel collection to be part of a broader project that combines both.

Ian Allen.

I wonder what “friendly if unreliable” means exactly.

Smells like Pakistan.

I wonder if there’s a third option we haven’t thought about, beyond the “assassinate al-Qaeda leaders” and “domestic spying” choices.

Friendly if unreliable is actually an extremely wide net. It includes such places as Italy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/world/europe/21italy.html

The CIA: What Was It Up To?

That’s easy: No Good.

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions (h/t) Atrios.

Am I the only one who remembers those heady days of yesteryear when the CIA was considered too Liberal, due to their insistence of keeping a toe in the ‘reality based community’?

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005686

Just what was Cheney trying to breed?

LOL. And perhaps Mika is the one who found out and told Panetta…

That’s pretty much what I was thinking.

The question of course is who exactly was defining “friendly if unreliable.” And this would of course have significant domestic political implications for the specific countries involved; presumably they were unaware of the program. If any nationals of especially “friendly” countries was targeted that would be a huge issue. Not in Pakistan – Pakistanis expect this – but in any EU country it would provoke a lot of public opposition.

Aha!. To get blue (or whatever) links, in Firefox go to Tools>>> Options>>> Content>>> Under “Fonts & Colors” click on “Colors” and uncheck the box “Allow pages to choose their own colors, rather than mine above.”

The links still aren’t underlined, but they are distinguishable, even between visited and unvisited links.

“I don’t understand why the rumored CIA program necessarily has to be *one* of two –either assassinations or intel collection.”

It’s either because our public discourse is led by a bunch of dim-witted lemmings or for the same reason we keep wondering wide-eyed whether the anyone at the CIA would ever, ever (insert your own nefarious and probably illegal treason here). Or possibly both or they’re the same thing. Any way you shake it our never-learned journos are all acting like they know something because one or two professional liars told them (says one official) that they knew something.

[...] Karen Tumulty in Swampland Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)No TitleMenstruating from the BenchEurope and China: More Fuel on the Fire? [...]

He wasn’t breeding anything. He found a large stash of Adamantium, and he’s gone Col. Stryker on us. Look out, mutants…

[...] this light, consider the following post from Time magazine’s Swampland blog: But two former ranking CIA officials have told TIME that there’s another equally plausible [...]

I wonder how much all this has to do with this:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/nsa-program-too-secret.ars

[...] from Congress, the existence of a secret CIA counter-terrorism program.  Time apparently has a few sources that are able to confidently comment on the varying possibilities of the nature of the program.  [...]

[...] the Angels in Anaheim. (I was due for a bad baseball analogy.) TIME magazine has a few sources that make a case that’s a bit more believable. read on here>> It is the biggest mystery in Washington at the moment. Here’s what our [...]

[...] Ghosh at TIME has some different information: But two former ranking CIA officials have told TIME that there’s another equally plausible [...]

It means “Pakistan”.

I’m thinking domestic spying.

Rove + Cheney = ?

What’s great about this is that it is all – ALL speculation. A program that was never initiated – or parts of its may have been – to catch and kill Al-Qaeda leaders (oh my G-d, don’t do that!) which need not have been reported to Congress precisely because it was not operational and eventually scrapped, with allegations – ALLEGATIONS unsubstantiated by unconfirmed sources (all former CIA types who would never lie or make erroneous implications to spare the agency embarassment) that it was ordered, supervised, and watched by VP Cheney. I suppose to the geniuses at TIME and many other credible commentators to this article, they might have missed the fact that the Vice President has no authority to authorize such a program, that only the President does. In other words, Bush ordered the program because he is the only one who could, NOT Cheney. But of course, Cheney is the bogeyman, it’s not that such programs are controversial it’s that a man like him must be evil and everything he does or is implicated in is evil. It is amazing how one could distrust the media to inform the public just as much as the public officials, who are known to lie, mislead, or give half truths anyway.

It’s pretty obvious what this is about – Pelosi, plain and simple and Obama is unfortunately being dragged back into this nonsense because of the ego and sanctimony of our particularly foolish Speaker of the House. Pannetta is part of it, unwillingly it seems, because he’s an Obama and Democratic appointee, and doesn’t have much choice since Pelosi is embattled (b/c of the CIA business and interestingly Murtha’s ethics hearings) and she is needed to deliver the House of Rep’s for key legislation.

Let’s keep the spin machine going … remember everything is Cheny’s fault

Because Cheney would never overstep his authority. Riiiiiiight….

“…to catch and kill Al-Qaeda leaders…”

Well, now given that it is speculation, how is it that you didn’t just indulge in a little yourself?

As for whether he had power or not, he directed them not to tell Congress. A distinction without a difference.

And as far as misleading, lying and half truths, remember, we are talking about people who routinely did just that.

As far as I’m concerned, a domestic spying program is equally likely, given that, as you say, at this point, it’s all speculation.

Like i said, Rove + Cheney = ??

“…all former CIA types who would never lie or make erroneous implications to spare the agency embarassment…”

Hmmm. Aside from the fact that there may be speculation, the fact that they are all “former CIA types” might just indicate something else:

Just a wild guess here, but maybe that something else might be knowledge?

Of course, the idea that people who were in the CIA might know what they are talking about should immediately and summarily dismissed as wild, unfounded speculation!

Over to you…