Category Archives: Obama administration

Seymour Hersh: Osama bin Laden was held hostage by Pakistan’s intelligence services from 2006 until he was killed

Seymour Hersh writes: It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.

The most blatant lie was that Pakistan’s two most senior military leaders – General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI – were never informed of the US mission. This remains the White House position despite an array of reports that have raised questions, including one by Carlotta Gall in the New York Times Magazine of 19 March 2014. Gall, who spent 12 years as the Times correspondent in Afghanistan, wrote that she’d been told by a ‘Pakistani official’ that Pasha had known before the raid that bin Laden was in Abbottabad. The story was denied by US and Pakistani officials, and went no further. In his book Pakistan: Before and after Osama (2012), Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies, a think tank in Islamabad, wrote that he’d spoken to four undercover intelligence officers who – reflecting a widely held local view – asserted that the Pakistani military must have had knowledge of the operation. The issue was raised again in February, when a retired general, Asad Durrani, who was head of the ISI in the early 1990s, told an al-Jazeera interviewer that it was ‘quite possible’ that the senior officers of the ISI did not know where bin Laden had been hiding, ‘but it was more probable that they did [know]. And the idea was that, at the right time, his location would be revealed. And the right time would have been when you can get the necessary quid pro quo – if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States.’

This spring I contacted Durrani and told him in detail what I had learned about the bin Laden assault from American sources: that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Kayani and Pasha knew of the raid in advance and had made sure that the two helicopters delivering the Seals to Abbottabad could cross Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms; that the CIA did not learn of bin Laden’s whereabouts by tracking his couriers, as the White House has claimed since May 2011, but from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer who betrayed the secret in return for much of the $25 million reward offered by the US, and that, while Obama did order the raid and the Seal team did carry it out, many other aspects of the administration’s account were false. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. military personnel have been convicted of $50 million worth of crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan

Center for Public Integrity: U.S. Army Specialist Stephanie Charboneau sat at the center of a complex trucking network in Forward Operating Base Fenty, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, that daily distributed tens of thousands of gallons of what soldiers called “liquid gold”: the refined petroleum that fueled the international coalition’s thirsty vehicles, planes, and generators.

A prominent sign in the base read: “The Army Won’t Go If The Fuel Don’t Flow.” But Charboneau, 31, a mother of two from Washington state, felt alienated after a supervisor’s harsh rebuke. Her work was a dreary routine of recording fuel deliveries in a computer and escorting trucks past a gate. But it was soon to take a dark turn into high-value crime.

She began an affair with a civilian, Jonathan Hightower, who worked for a Pentagon contractor that distributed fuel from Fenty, and one day in March 2010, he told her about “this thing going on” at other U.S. military bases around Afghanistan, she recalled in a recent telephone interview.

Soldiers were selling the U.S. military’s fuel to Afghan locals on the side, and pocketing the proceeds. When Hightower suggested they start doing the same, Charboneau said, she agreed.

In so doing, Charboneau contributed to thefts by U.S. military personnel of at least $15 million worth of fuel since the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. And eventually she became one of at least 115 enlisted personnel and military officers convicted since 2005 of committing theft, bribery, and contract rigging crimes valued at $52 million during their deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a comprehensive tally of court records by the Center for Public Integrity. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. needs to stop tiptoeing around the ‘killer robots’ threat

Mary Wareham writes: When it comes to banning “killer robots,” the United States is going to take some convincing. That was one major take-away from April’s multilateral meeting on the matter where a US delegation joined 90 other nations at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss what to do about the development of “lethal autonomous weapons systems.”

In November 2012, the US became the first nation to articulate a detailed policy on killer robots, citing a long list of concerns and obstacles that would have to be overcome before developing and acquiring them. It has been careful, however, to stress that Department of Defense Directive 3000.09 “neither encourages nor prohibits the development” of future autonomous weapons systems.

Indeed, it appears that of all nations, the US is the farthest along in moving toward fully autonomous weapons. Last November, The New York Times reviewed several examples of missile systems with various degrees and forms of human control under development or in use by the US, Israel, Norway, and the UK.

Despite its investment in “semi-autonomous” weapons, the US has been one of the strongest supporters of international talks on questions relating to the emerging technology of lethal autonomous weapons systems held by the Convention on Conventional Weapons. The US participated actively in the meetings in May 2014 and April 2015. But the US’s eagerness to engage in talks about such weapons should fool no one into believing it supports a ban. At the discussions last month it was one of only two nations (the other was Israel) saying that the door should remain open for future development and acquisition of these weapons. [Continue reading…]

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The season for rapprochement with Iran

Robin Wright writes: In her title role on the CBS television drama “Madam Secretary,” Téa Leoni has achieved what Secretary of State John Kerry yearns for — a deal with Iran which eases the thirty-six years of tensions that have afflicted six Presidents. Leoni’s character, Elizabeth Faulkner McCord, goes to Tehran as part of the diplomatic process, and a fictional Iranian President visited Washington.

Neither is likely to occur offscreen anytime soon. But the United States and Iran, backed by five other world powers, are scheduled to begin nonstop negotiations this week for a prospective June 30th agreement that will prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t get it,” Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told me in New York last week. We spoke at the residence of Iran’s U.N. Ambassador, in the elegant second-floor parlor where Zarif had hosted Kerry two days earlier. That meeting had been a first; technically, Kerry was on Iranian soil.

Other officials involved in the talks have told me that diplomacy is further along than was indicated by the so-called blueprint for a deal, which was announced in Lausanne on April 2nd (and enumerated in a four-page U.S. fact sheet). What is more striking, after eighteen months of negotiations, is the changing climate, whether in popular culture, public opinion, or diplomacy. In the case of “Madam Secretary,” an American TV drama dared to build a whole season around rapprochement with Iran. It began with the Administration uncovering a rogue U.S. coup attempt, along the lines of what the C.I.A. and British intelligence carried out in Iran in 1953. The premise throughout the season was that Washington no longer supports regime change in Iran — which has been true of both the Bush and Obama Administrations but is still anathema to many in Congress. Rotten Tomatoes gives the “Madam Secretary” season an approval rating of eighty per cent among the public, a sign that its Iran plotline is considered realistic or acceptable. Several of the show’s episodes have drawn more than ten million viewers. The season ended last night, with Secretary McCord subpoenaed by a Senate investigation trying to discredit her and sabotage U.S. diplomacy for political gain. (Not in Washington!) But in the end she prevails, and wins a (fictional) poll showing that eighty-two per cent of the public supports her stand. [Continue reading…]

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$500-million program to train anti-ISIS fighters appears stalled

The Los Angeles Times reports: Eleven months after President Obama announced plans to arm opposition fighters to confront Islamic State militants in war-torn Syria, the $500-million program to train a proxy force has yet to begin, raising questions about its viability and effectiveness.

The lack of a reliable partner on the ground has restricted the U.S. ability to gather intelligence and to target airstrikes against Islamic State leaders in Syria. The Sunni Muslim extremist group continues to lure recruits, raise money and maintain strongholds despite the U.S.-led bombing effort that began in September.

Adding to the challenge, the four countries where the military training will take place — Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — sharply disagree with Washington on what the proposed proxy force should do. They want it to focus first on ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad, while the White House wants the fighters to target Islamic State.
Rebels in Aleppo, Syria
Rebel fighters battling Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces take position in the ruins of a building in Old Aleppo. (Salih Mahmud Leyla / Anadolu Agency)

The slow rollout and the competing objectives have caused friction between the U.S. and several key allies, and frustration for those in Syria who had hoped Obama’s plan would lead to more immediate U.S. assistance. [Continue reading…]

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Syria’s rebels on winning streak

The Daily Beast reports: The thumbs-up a top rebel commander flashes at me as he returns to this Turkish border town from the front-lines of northern Syria’s battlefields speaks volumes.

There has been little for Syrian insurgents to cheer about in recent months. Even a few weeks ago this man was downcast and appeared adrift and unable to imagine an end to a war that has claimed the lives of 6,000 of his men.

But a new Islamist alliance of brigades backed by al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra is moving ahead aggressively against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and the emboldened insurgents, fresh from two significant battlefield gains, say that the four-year-long civil war is entering a new and critical phase — one that didn’t appear likely, or even possible, as recently as February.

And as the gains pile up, talk is intensifying within Jabhat al Nusra, and especially among the group’s Syrian commanders and fighters, of breaking with al Qaeda — a move they hope might entice the West to support this offensive and impose a no-fly zone across northern Syria. [Continue reading…]

CNN reports: Analysts put this change in the dynamics down to both cooperation between rebel groups who once fought each other and also greater coordination between their Sunni and Gulf backers — Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Elias Hanna, a former Lebanese army general who now teaches at the American University of Beirut, said, “Two years ago they were fighting each other, now they are fighting together. Moreover there is a major shift in the regional issue in Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. I think they are preparing something and helping indirectly with weapons, training, and backing.”

Joshua Landis, associate professor in the School of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said the change in regional postures was a result of the new King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, deciding that Iran was a more pressing challenge to his state than the House of Saud’s other long-term foe, the Muslim Brotherhood.

“This allows him to coordinate with Turkey and Qatar taking down Assad, even if it means arming Nusra and other Islamist forces,” he said. Landis said he believes the U.S. has “acquiesced” to this new position. [Continue reading…]

Al-Hayat reports: US administration would support military escalation in Syria, but it wants a clear political-military plan for the post-Assad stage, according to Western diplomatic sources

Western diplomatic sources confirmed to al-Hayat that “the US administration does not mind supporting a military escalation in Syria, but it wants a clear political-military plan for the next stage (following the departure of President Bashar al-Assad)”.


The diplomatic sources said President Barack Obama’s administration listened to proposals from Turkish and Arab officials to “establish a buffer zones”, or provide air cover for troops that are trained and equipped in cooperation with the Pentagon. The Obama administration showed “openness towards the proposals”, but requested a “complete political-military plan for the post-Assad stage”. The sources noted that Washington would be willing to support its allies if they presented a plan that deals with “Assad’s departure while maintaining the structure of the Syrian institutions, ensuring the rights and protection of minorities while providing a political solution that prevents a long-term militia war in Syria, as is the case in Libya”.

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What to keep secret in a secret war

Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor for the New York Times, writes: If you were reading the two sentences by themselves, you might be surprised they appeared in the same newspaper.

One suggested a news organization that is tough-minded, calling its own shots about acceding to government requests for secrecy. It appeared in an article about whether the C.I.A.’s drone-strike program is properly monitored by Congress. The story named the program’s architect, Michael D’Andrea.

“The C.I.A. asked that Mr. D’Andrea’s name and the names of some other top agency officials be withheld from this article,” it said, “but The New York Times is publishing them because they have leadership roles in one of the government’s most significant paramilitary programs and their roles are known to foreign governments and many others.”

The other sentence suggested, by contrast, a news organization that provides anonymous cover for government officials touting the merits of their underexamined war. It appeared in an article on the effectiveness of the drone program, based partly on interviews with American officials. One of them was quoted anonymously: “‘Core Al Qaeda is a rump of its former self,’ said an American counterterrorism official, in an assessment echoed by several European and Pakistani officials.”

As The Times covered the recent unintended deaths of two Western hostages in a drone strike, a split personality was on view.

In many ways, the coverage has been remarkable for straightforward truth-telling.

A front-page news analysis by Scott Shane, for example, included this memorable paragraph, not in a quote but in the author’s own voice: “Every independent investigation of the strikes has found far more civilian casualties than administration officials admit. Gradually, it has become clear that when operators in Nevada fire missiles into remote tribal territories on the other side of the world, they often do not know who they are killing, but are making an imperfect best guess.” (Mr. Shane’s knowledge comes in part from his book, due for September publication, on the 2011 drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born imam.)

But in other ways, drone coverage is still lacking in skepticism about government claims on classified killings — something I criticized in 2012. [Continue reading…]

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One-woman play explores the frightening future of the drone wars

Fred Kaplan writes: A new one-woman play, Grounded, by George Brant — now at New York’s Public Theater in a dazzling production directed by Julie Taymor — captures some of the weird dissonance of a drone pilot’s life. The Odyssey “would be a different book,” she muses at one point, “if Odysseus came home every day, every single day.”

The pilot (played by a convincing, even riveting Anne Hathaway) was once a real pilot, an F-16 fighter jock, psyched on “the speed … the ride … the respect … the danger” of hurling through the sky (“You are the blue”), raining missiles down on the desert, breaking minarets into particles of sand. Now she drives to war, “like it’s shift work,” and stares at a gray screen, watches the “silent gray boom” after she pushes a button, and hovers over the scene long after, watching the body parts fly, then the mourning and anguish of those who retrieve them — sights that she had never stayed around to witness before. She begins to see gray everywhere, melding her life that’s not quite a life with her combat that’s not quite combat, imagining the Nevada desert of her daily drive as the Iraqi desert of her daily surveillance, blurring a jihadi’s daughter that she’s killed with her own daughter, and gradually she goes haywire.

Brant’s play is reminiscent of, and must have been to some degree inspired by, Matthew Power’s 2013 article in GQ, “Confessions of a Drone Warrior,” in which his subject, Airman 1st Class Brandon Bryant, recounts the “zombie mode” and “fugue state” of his shifts in the joystick trailer, watching and killing from so near, yet so far: the dissonance of the godlike power and the gray silence. [Continue reading…]

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Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen used cluster bombs

Human Rights Watch: Credible evidence indicates that the Saudi-led coalition used banned cluster munitions supplied by the United States in airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said today. Cluster munitions pose long-term dangers to civilians and are prohibited by a 2008 treaty adopted by 116 countries, though not Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or the United States.

Photographs, video, and other evidence have emerged since mid-April 2015 indicating that cluster munitions have been used during recent weeks in coalition airstrikes in Yemen’s northern Saada governorate, the traditional Houthi stronghold bordering Saudi Arabia. Human Rights Watch has established through analysis of satellite imagery that the weapons appeared to land on a cultivated plateau, within 600 meters of several dozen buildings in four to six village clusters.

“Saudi-led cluster munition airstrikes have been hitting areas near villages, putting local people in danger,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “These weapons should never be used under any circumstances. Saudi Arabia and other coalition members – and the supplier, the US – are flouting the global standard that rejects cluster munitions because of their long-term threat to civilians.” [Continue reading…]

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Blurry covert lines limit chances of drone program changes

Huffington Post: After last week’s tragic news that an errant CIA drone strike had mistakenly taken out an American and an Italian hostage in Pakistan, critics of the spies’ program — who have long argued the targeted killings should strictly fall in the military’s wheelhouse — are rallying to finally take the drone trigger out of the agency’s hands.

But that effort to transition the program may not be as simple as critics think. After all, drone operations are a lot easier to run when you don’t have to follow all the rules.

The crux of the debate over who should control the drone program has watered down to that one core argument for years. The drone program itself splits off into two arms: the CIA runs a covert program governed by U.S. Title 50, and the military runs a program that can either be overt or clandestine under the military’s Title 10. And simply by virtue of the differences between overt and covert action, the White House has run into hefty roadblocks in its supposed crusade to end the CIA’s covert side of the program.

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Debate over war authorization in Congress fades with little result

The Washington Post reports: As lawmakers continue to spar with President Obama over his use of executive power on an Iran nuclear deal and a slew of domestic matters, most appear willing to let him have his way on at least one issue — the war against the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and potentially beyond.

It has been nearly three months since Obama, responding to congressional demands and his own pledge to seek legislative blessing, sent proposed war authorization language to Capitol Hill. Now, the subject appears to be dying a quiet death.

A feisty bipartisan minority is not prepared to let it go without a fight. Thirty House lawmakers from both parties Thursday signed a letter to Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) demanding that he force action on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, against the Islamic State.

If not, wrote its primary authors, Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), “this shirking of our duty will have lasting effects, serving to expand the scope of executive power at the expense of Congress.”

But Boehner and other GOP leaders, blaming the Democrats, have already effectively announced the demise of the AUMF. They say they see no way to bridge deep partisan disagreements over how much authority to give the president.

The AUMF saga is a twist on conventional Washington wisdom in more ways than one. Unlike virtually every other issue before lawmakers, it is the Democrats who have argued for narrowing Obama’s latitude. They worry that vague language in his proposal, including about the possibility of ground troops, would deprive Congress of its ability to check executive action and allow Obama or his successor unlimited expansion of global military actions. [Continue reading…]

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Proposal to arm Sunnis adds to Iraqi suspicions of the U.S.

The New York Times reports: Despite stepped-up military assistance to Iraq to fight Islamic State militants, and President Obama’s public commitment to keeping Iraq unified, Iraqis have long suspected a nefarious plot by the Americans to break up their country.

Their suspicions are intensified by a century of painful experience with Western intervention, much of it recent, and are embellished by a cultural fascination with conspiracies of all stripes. So when news came out this week that congressional Republicans were proposing to directly arm Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds without the involvement of the Shiite-led central government, it was immediately and widely taken as proof that the American plot against Iraq had entered a new phase.

The front page of one Iraqi newspaper on Thursday showed a map of the country, wrapped in a chain to symbolize the grip of the United States and divided into three nations: Shiastan, Sunnistan and Kurdistan. A headline in red declared, “Congress proposes to deal with Kurds and Sunnis as two states.”

The firestorm of Iraqi outrage at the proposal, part of the Republican version of a defense authorization bill, has sent American diplomats scrambling to assure Iraqis that the United States is still committed to a unified Iraq under a national government. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. allies in Middle East ramping up support for rebel forces in Syria

The Washington Post reports: U.S. allies in the Middle East have ramped up their support for rebels fighting against Syrian forces in recent months, potentially widening a gulf over strategy between the Obama administration and its regional partners.

The partners have grown increasingly impatient with the administration’s slow march toward training and equipping a viable Syrian opposition force, and its insistence that those fighters focus on the Islamic State, according to officials in the region. To facilitate their primary goal of removing President Bashar al-Assad from power, the allies have moved ahead with their own plans.

The delivery of additional weapons and financial aid from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have facilitated recent advances against government forces in northwest Syria by the Army of Conquest, a newly formed umbrella of diverse rebel groups, including al-Qaeda’s affiliate and other Islamist groups, along with “moderate” fighters.

Regional officials insist that the aid, including U.S.-made TOW missiles, is not going to the Islamists. Instead, they said, it is enabling moderates to enhance their stature among opposition fighters after years of being outgunned and out-financed by more militant groups.

The initiative comes amid a growing sense in the region that the United States is preoccupied with its nuclear negotiations with Iran and the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq. In the meantime, regional officials and experts said, the Obama administration has failed to come up with a comprehensive strategy that addresses the more immediate concerns of its allies. [Continue reading…]

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Why Iran’s foreign minister is bullish on a nuclear pact

Barbara Slavin reports: With the final deadline just two months away, negotiators from Iran and six world powers get back around the table in New York on Thursday to begin drafting a comprehensive nuclear agreement. And as the parameters of that deal come into clearer focus, Iran’s foreign minister sounds confident about getting a deal done — and implementing it within a couple of weeks of signing.

“We have general agreement on the concepts … the parameters of an agreement,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a large crowd at New York University on Wednesday. But he said the current text contains brackets on “almost everything,” and the sides still need to resolve differences — which he declined to specify — on wording.

Still, Zarif asserted that all of those differences are surmountable. “I believe it can be done, I believe it should be done and this is an opportunity that should not be missed,” he said. Drafting the final accord will begin on the sidelines of a U.N. nuclear treaty review conference, and will continue next week in Europe. [Continue reading…]

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Predator drone strikes: A cure worse than the disease

Bruce Fein writes: Something is rotten in President Barack Obama’s classified, programmatic use of predator drones to target suspected international terrorists for death anywhere on the planet.

The targeting intelligence is suspect.

The program is secret, lawless, and unaccountable to Congress, the Supreme Court, and the American people.

The killings pivot on a principle that will haunt the United States in the future as predator drone capability spreads to China, Russia or otherwise.

And the program is compounding rather than diminishing the international terrorist threat against the United States by creating more revenge-motivated terrorists than are being killing; and, by serving as a calling card for international terrorist recruitment. That explains why high level military and intelligence officials in the Obama administration concede that 14 years after 9/11 the United States is more imperiled by international terrorism than ever before.

Depend upon it. If the predator drone program were suspended for six months on a trial basis, international terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia aimed at the United States would contract. The foundation would be laid for terminating the entire program and making the United States safer. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. now sees Russia directing Ukraine’s rebels

The Associated Press: The United States now sees the Ukrainian rebels as a Russian force.

American officials briefed on intelligence from the region say Russia has significantly deepened its command and control of the militants in eastern Ukraine in recent months, leading the U.S. to quietly introduce a new term: “combined Russian-separatist forces.” The State Department used the expression three times in a single statement last week, lambasting Moscow and the insurgents for a series of cease-fire violations in Ukraine.

The shift in U.S. perceptions could have wide-ranging ramifications, even if the Obama administration has cited close linkages between the pro-Russian separatists and President Vladimir Putin’s government in Moscow since violence flared up in Ukraine a year ago.

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Why Russia and China may fear the nuclear deal with Iran

Melik Kaylan writes: Today’s news that Iran’s navy impounded a Western ship illustrates the severe impediments to a nuke deal. With so much going against it, the most powerful argument for completing the agreement still hasn’t been uttered by anyone. Astonishing, you might think. Not really. The central figure on whose shoulders falls the task of selling it to Americans — President Obama — will not tell you. Arguably, he cannot. Meanwhile, his initiative has to survive incessant media barracking about centrifuge numbers, breakout thresholds, regional proliferation, threats to Israel, plausible monitoring and much else.

Even George W. Bush came out of obscurity this weekend to lend his threadbare authority to the naysaying chorus. He added, for good measure, that withdrawing from Iraq was a strategic mistake. It didn’t take long for the Twitterverse to respond that invading in the first place was the greater mistake. We won’t get into that here. Suffice to say that on George W.’s watch, Putin invaded Georgia, China became a global superpower, and Venezuela’s Chavez got a guarantee of security from the US in exchange for uninterrupted oil supplies. Obama’s soft approach to world affairs hasn’t righted things. But the proposed nuclear framework agreement with Iran may be his first big venture to do just that.

The clue — overwhelmingly conspicuous yet everyone ignores it — comes in the form of Russia and China’s reaction. I know something about this having published a book in September entitled “The Russia-China Axis.” When the preliminary stage of talks concluded positively, Moscow immediately announced an agreement to build 50 more nuclear power stations for Iran. This time around, they announced the sale of S-300 missiles.

As for China, here’s a statement by Iran’s official news agency about Beijing ramping up massive investments in Iranian oilfield development and the like. Subtract the propaganda and hyperbole and you still get a clear enough picture. China never abided by the sanctions, becoming Teheran’s main trading partner in recent years. In essence, the sanctions gave China exclusive access to cheap Iranian oil. Iran was among the first nations to join the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. And now as a possible lifting of sanctions looms, the Chinese are piling it on. [Continue reading…]

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How candidate of hope and change became president of kill lists, drone strikes, and immunity for torturers

Gregory D. Johnsen writes: Shortly before 9 a.m. on March 11, 2014, Dianne Feinstein, the 80-year-old chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, walked into the Senate chamber with a thick stack of papers and a glass of water. The Senate had just finished a rare all-night session a few minutes earlier, and only a handful of staffers were left in the room. Feinstein had given thousands of speeches over her career, but none quite like this.

“Let me say up front that I come to the Senate floor reluctantly,” she said, as she poked at the corners of her notes. The last two months had been an exhausting mix of meetings and legal wrangling, all in an attempt to avoid this exact moment. But none of it had worked. And now Feinstein was ready to go public and tell the country what she knew: The CIA had broken the law and violated the Constitution. It had spied on the Senate.

“This is a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community,” Feinstein said nearly 40 minutes later, as she drew to a close. This will show whether the Senate “can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee.”

Two hours later and a few miles away at a Council on Foreign Relations event near downtown Washington, the CIA responded. “As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into Senate computers,” CIA Director John Brennan told Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, shaking his head and rolling his eyes to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the charges, “nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn’t do that.”

Brennan was 58, but that morning he looked much older. He’d hobbled into the room on a cane following yet another hip fracture, and after some brief remarks he eased himself into a chair with obvious discomfort. Two years earlier in a commencement address at Fordham University, his alma mater, Brennan had rattled off a litany of injuries and ailments: In addition to his hip problems, he’d also had major knee, back, and shoulder surgeries as well as “a bout of cancer.” Years of desk work had resulted in extra weight and the sort of bureaucrat’s body that caused his suits to slope down and out toward his belt. “I referred the matter myself to the CIA inspector general to make sure that he was able to look honestly and objectively at what the CIA did there,” Brennan said. “And, you know, when the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.”

Mitchell, who had already asked him two questions about the allegations, pressed again. “If it is proved that the CIA did do this, would you feel that you had to step down?”

Brennan chuckled and stuttered as he tried to form an answer. Two weeks earlier, he had told a dinner at the University of Oklahoma that “intelligence work had gotten in my blood.” The CIA wasn’t just what he did; it was his “identity.” He had worked too hard to become director to give up without a fight. “If I did something wrong,” Brennan eventually told Mitchell, “I will go to the president, and I will explain to him exactly what I did, and what the findings were. And he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.”

But Obama was never going to ask for his resignation. Not then, and not months later when the CIA inspector general’s report came back, showing that the agency had done what Feinstein claimed. Brennan was Obama’s man. His conscience on national security, and the CIA director he’d wanted from the very beginning. Not even a chorus of pleas from Democratic senators, members of Obama’s own party, made any difference. John Brennan would stay, the untouchable head of America’s most powerful intelligence agency. [Continue reading…]

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