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Archive for the ‘cia’ Category

CIA Identity Politics

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

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Kinder Gentler Torture

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

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The Book on Tenet

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

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CIA Célèbre

Sunday, October 1st, 2006

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Parts of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq were leaked to the New York Times last Sunday.  The leaks attracted  attention:

"The Iraq conflict has become the "cause célèbre" for jihadists,
breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and
cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."

Bush countered by declassifying a 3 page summary of the report (Read the declassified NIE report (.pdf)) : 

"Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves,
and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be
inspired to carry on the fight."

In the end it's a zero sum report.  Daniel Henninger thinks we're still not getting our billions worth from from spooks:

After the White House released the
NIE summary late Tuesday afternoon, reporters reading it for the first
time on the Web undoubtedly kept hitting the Page Down button on their
PCs. This is it!? Three crummy pages that anyone could have boiled down
from a Foreign Affairs "Wither Iraq?" symposium.

Keeping America safe from Lawyers

Monday, September 18th, 2006

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The government is providing insurance to CIA agents to protect them from possible future lawsuits arising from their interrogations of terrorists.

Goss Out

Thursday, May 11th, 2006

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The CIA has difficulty with change.  The spooks traded in the enemy they know, the KGB, for the one they hate, GWB. 

Bush countered by trying to penetrate the agency, making Porter Goss Director. The mission failed and Bush had to eliminate his asset.

Follow the leaks

Friday, November 18th, 2005

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Bob Woodward learned about Valerie Plame, International Woman of Mystery, over 2 years ago from a top administration official who was not Scooter Libby. The famed Watergate sleuth protected his source and kept the information to himself. After all, that's what he's famous for. But silence is a sin in media ethics these days and sources must be confessed to Inquisitor Fitzgerald.

Judging by Father Fitzgerald's busy confessional, the Plame name seems to have gotten around quite a bit among members of the Washington Media Church.

Family Outing

Tuesday, November 1st, 2005

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How serious was International Woman of Mystery, Valerie Plame, about protecting her secret spy status when her husband was spilling his guts in the New York Times regarding his CIA sponsored mission in Niger to expose Bush's lies?  If anything this compromised the vast majority of Times op ed writers whose spouses are not spies.

Christopher Hitchins makes the point in Monday's Wall Street Journal"what was to inhibit an employee of the Bush administration from calling attention to these facts, and letting reporters decide for themselves?  The CIA had proven itself untrustworthy or incompetent on numerous occasions before, during and after the crisis of Sept. 11, 2001.  Why should it be the only agency of the government that can invoke the law, broken or (as in this case) unbroken, to protect itself from leaks while protecting its own leakers?"