Dianne Feinstein Undermines John Cornyn’s Effort to Get Transparency on Targeted Killing

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As I noted a few weeks ago, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to prevent John Cornyn from adding an amendment to the FISA Amendments Act Extension. I will have to hunt down the language of his amendment tomorrow, but it would basically have required the Administration to share the memos authorizing the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki–with targeted killing addressed specifically–with the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. [Update: The Amendment is below.]

The Senate Intelligence Committee just passed the language that–DiFi promised–would address the issue. And it still leaves the Administration leeway to do what it has been doing for two years–withholding the actual memo from the committees that oversee it.

That’s because the legislation passed as part of the Intelligence Authorization allows the government to withhold opinions from people not read into covert programs.

(a) REQUIREMENT TO PROVIDE.—Except as provided in subsections (c) and (d), not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Attorney General, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, shall provide to the congressional intelligence committees a copy of every classified opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice that was provided to an element of the intelligence community on or after September 11, 2001.

[snip]

(c) EXCEPTION FOR COVERT ACTION.—If the President determines that it is essential to limit access to a covert action finding under section 503(c)(2) of the National Security Act (50 U.S.C. 413b(c)(2)), the President may limit access to information concerning such finding that is subject to disclosure under subsection (a) or (b) to those members of Congress who have been granted access to the relevant finding under such section 503(c)(2).

(d) EXCEPTION FOR INFORMATION SUBJECT TO EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE.—If the President determines that a particular opinion subject to disclosure under subsection  (a) or listing subject to disclosure under subsection (b) is subject to an executive privilege that protects against such disclosure, the Attorney General shall not be required to disclose such opinion or listing, if the Attorney General notifies the congressional intelligence committees, in writing, of the legal justification for such assertion of executive privilege prior to the date by which the opinion or listing is required to be disclosed.

This is, frankly, an outrage both specifically and generally.

First, nothing in this language guarantees the committees will get the memos in question. That’s because the Administration has long been withholding the information even from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee based on claims that it is too secret to share with those who oversee intelligence and the Constitution.

Furthermore, both the Bush and Obama Administrations have fairly routinely withheld OLC memos–particularly drafts–on the basis they’re deliberative and have nothing to do with the basis on which the Administration makes the final decision. The language on Executive Privilege here codifies that practice. Further, in the case of targeted killing, the government went out of its way to get ACLU to agree not to ask for the drafts of their opinions on targeted killing. And remember, before they finalized the memo we think was ostensibly used to authorize the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, they had already tried to kill him, at a time when FBI, at least, didn’t have evidence showing he was operational. The authorization they used for the earlier kill attempt–if it exists–almost certainly looks nothing like the authorization described in the government’s recent transparency theater.

And then there’s this: the 6 months it allows the government to sit on this. That gets the Administration beyond the election, but also beyond the time when, if Obama loses, he’ll leave office. So if there’s anything really embarrassing, he can use late Administration game playing to clean it up.

This is disgusting. Really, really pathetic, even for the serially pathetic Senate Intelligence Committee.

Update: Here’s Cornyn’s amendment. His amendment would have gotten just the targeted killing opinions, shared with just the oversight committees (I had forgotten it included the Armed Services committees, too). But it also would have gotten the opinions within a month (and therefore before the election).

Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall submit, in classified or unclassified form, all legal analysis in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act related to the President’s authority to target and kill United States citizens overseas to—

(1) the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate;

(2) the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate;

(3) the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate;

(4) the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives

(5) the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives; and

(6) the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

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Pakistan Press Reporting UK Lawmakers Wrote Letter Urging Obama to Stop Drone Strikes in Pakistan

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Virtually every press outlet I scan in Pakistan is reporting today that a group of at least twelve member of the House of Lords and House of Commons have written a letter variously reported as addressed to Barack Obama, the United States and to NATO, urging an end to US drone strikes in Pakistan. So far, however, I have seen no mention of the letter in the British or US press. [Update: Chris Woods of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism points out in comment number 1 below that the letter was sent to the London Times and provides a link to its full text.]

It appears that two major concerns are stated in the letter. First, it is claimed that the drone strikes put the UK and US at risk because the drone strikes provide justification for terrorist strikes. Second, the letter expresses concern for the killing of innocent people in the drone strikes. There is also concern that the strikes do damage to Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Here is the description from the Express Tribune:

A squad of UK parliamentarians have written to President Barack Obama to stop drone attacks in Pakistan, Radio Pakistan reported on Thursday.

The 12 parliamentarians in a letter written to the United States said that the Britain and Western countries are under threat because drone attacks provide justification for future terrorist activities.

The letter also stated that innocent people are killed in drone strikes.

The parliamentarians said that the attacks are creating hatred for the US amongst Pakistanis and they are also harming a British allied country’s sovereignty.

Both Dawn and Pakistan Today list the same twelve MP’s (although in different order in their lists) as having signed the letter. From Dawn:

George Galway, Yasmin Qureshi, John Hemming, Jeraldko Famin, Paul Flain and Simon Disnek include members of House of Commons while Lord Nazir Ahmad, Lord Hussain, Lord Steel Acowood, Lord Jad, , Lord E Escadel and Lord Eubarry are from House of Lords who have signed the letter written to the US President.

This is a very interesting development, coming just on the heels of complaints from the left in Denmark:

Danish lawmakers are levelling unprecedented criticism at the US president, Barack Obama, for his use of remote-controlled attack drones in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Rasmus Helveg Petersen, Radikale foreign policy spokesperson, told Politiken newspaper that Obama’s actions mirror those of the terrorists he professes to be fighting against.

“It’s terrible,” said Petersen. “The United States has no right to carry out these types of executions of suspected political adversaries. It contravenes international law.”

Petersen added that executing political adversaries within another country’s borders was tantamount to terrorism.

But there is even more:

The comments came after Søren Pind, of the opposition party Venstre, in an interview with the magazine Ræson, likened the drone attacks to “assassination”.

“I criticised George Bush for allowing torture during his presidency,” Pind told Politiken. “But what he is doing is much worse and violates the principals of the Western world.”

Finally, the article quotes “Ole Wæver, who teaches political science at the University of Copenhagen” who points out that Obama has not lived up to the expectations of Danes and that he has “used up his goodwill account.”

With the opening ceremony of the London Olympics just hours away and the nonstop coverage of the Romney gaffe-orama, it will be very difficult for the drone letter to break into the British press, but if it does, it is hard to see how the Obama administration can avoid putting out a response of some sort.

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What Was the Evidence Supporting the First Strike on Anwar al-Awlaki?

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According to the William Webster report, the FBI’s understanding about Anwar al-Awlaki’s operational role developed only after the UndieBomb attack.

As of January 7 and June 16, 2009, the FBI knew anwar al-Aulaqi was an anti-American, radical Islamic cleric and the subject of a Tier <redacted> FBI counterterrorism investigation. San Diego believed [<redacted> that Aulaqi was [developing ambitions beyond radicalization] <redacted>. WFO viewed him at that time as merely inspirational. The FBI’s full understanding of Aulaqi’s operational ambitions developed only after the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009. [72; emphasis mine]

On December 24, 2009–the day before FBI began to understand Awlaki’s operational ambitions–a JSOC strike in Yemen missed Anwar al-Awlaki.

Dana Priest’s report revealing Awlaki was subsequently added to a JSOC kill list, published three days before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab started cooperating again with the FBI, claims Awlaki was not the target of that December 24, 2009 strike.

As part of the operations, Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC, military officials said. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operations. [my emphasis]

But Ali Abdullah Saleh, speaking with David Petraeus three weeks before Priest’s report, sure seemed to treat Awlaki as one of two targets of the strike.

Saleh praised the December 17 and 24 strikes against AQAP but said that “mistakes were made” in the killing of civilians in Abyan. The General responded that the only civilians killed were the wife and two children of an AQAP operative at the site, prompting Saleh to plunge into a lengthy and confusing aside with Deputy Prime Minister Alimi and Minister of Defense Ali regarding the number of terrorists versus civilians killed in the strike. (Comment: Saleh’s conversation on the civilian casualties suggests he has not been well briefed by his advisors on the strike in Abyan, a site that the ROYG has been unable to access to determine with any certainty the level of collateral damage. End Comment.) AQAP leader Nassr al-Wahishi and extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may still be alive, Saleh said, but the December strikes had already caused al-Qaeda operatives to turn themselves in to authorities and residents in affected areas to deny refuge to al-Qaeda. [my emphasis]

Given that we blamed Saleh for the strike, you have to assume he knew who the targets were. And he seems to suggest that both Wuhayshi and Awlaki were the intended targets.

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Judge Kollar-Kotelly Sees No Evil, Hears No Evil

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Yesterday, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly upheld the government’s right to withhold cables already released via WikiLeaks under FOIA (see my earlier posts on this FOIA here and here). Her logic seems to have a fatal flaw: she says the State Department has proven (and the ACLU has not rebutted the claim) that the US Government owns the cables.

The ACLU simply offers no rejoinder to the State Department’s affirmative showing that all the information at issue (1) was classified by an original classification authority, (2) is owned, produced, or controlled by the United States, and (3) falls within one or more of the eight relevant categories. [my emphasis]

But then she says (noting that ACLU made no mention that these cables had also been released via WikiLeaks and therefore pretending that they might be different) that the government has not officially acknowledged these cables are authentic.

No matter how extensive, the WikiLeaks disclosure is no substitute for an official acknowledgement and the ACLU has not shown that the Executive has officially acknowledged that the specific information at issue was a part of the WikiLeaks disclosure.

I guess they should let Bradley Manning go free, then, since the State Department isn’t prepared to say the cables he is accused of leaking were authentic?

But that’s not the most troubling part of this ruling. As I lay out below–and as Kollar-Kotelly presumably knows well–the cables are full of admissions of crime, including murder, torture, and kidnapping. Thus, had she reviewed them to see whether the government’s claims that they were properly classified are valid, she would have seen that–in addition to information properly classified to protect foreign relations–a lot of the original classification and the government’s refusal to officially release them (which would presumably make them admissible in a court) serve to hide confessions of criminal activity.

So Kollar-Kotelly chose not to review these cables in camera, choosing instead to rely on the State Department declaration that makes no mention of the criminal admissions included in the cables.

In this case, because the State Department’s declarations are sufficiently detailed and the Court is satisfied that no factual dispute remains, the Court declines to exercise its discretion to review the embassy cables in camera.

It was a cowardly ruling. But all the more cowardly, given that Kollar-Kotelly prevented herself from officially reviewing a bunch of evidence of criminal wrong-doing.

Here are details on the cables Kollar-Kotelly doesn’t want to read:

The famous meeting at which Ali Abdullah Saleh promised to lie about our strikes in Yemen

Kollar-Kotelly agreed to keep what has become perhaps the most famous cable ever, in which David Petraeus and Ali Abdullah Saleh discuss the missile strikes we conducted in Yemen in late 2009.

Mind you, the government likely has a very good legal reason to keep this cable secret. The cable makes it clear we were targeting Anwar al-Awlaki (as well as Nasir al-Wuhayshi) in those strikes. And releasing that would constitute official acknowledgement of the targeting of Awlaki that the government has tried so hard to avoid. Furthermore, as I’ll show in a follow-up post, it also shows that we targeted Awlaki for death before we had evidence implicating him in a crime.

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This Drone Assurance Brought to You By Northrop Grumman

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Dianne Feinstein gave a speech to the World Affairs Council yesterday. As part of it (after 9:10), she gave the following reassurances regarding the oversight of drone strikes.

We have a special effort on the CIA Predator program. The staff has made 28 visits to various facilities, attended intelligence gathering, we have looked at the intelligence. The key to these, to minimize collateral damage, to go for the targeted individuals, but to have intelligence which is just as good as it can be to be totally actionable. And so the collateral damage is really greatly reduced beyond what you may read in the press. I have asked, “please please please can I release these numbers?” And the answer is [laughs] “no, they’re classified.” So that’s about as far as I could go on that.

Ah, well, that’s about as far as you can go! If the CIA tells you it can’t release its claims about civilian casualties publicly so they can be reviewed by people on the ground, so people who aren’t getting all their information from the same people pressing the trigger double check those claims, I guess that’s as far as you can go then!

What I like best is the prominent role drone manufacturer Northrop Grumman (they don’t make the Predators used in CIA’s assassination program, but they do sell drones to the CIA) had in the talk. In his introduction of her, NG’s CEO Wes Bush hailed her “absolute integrity in addressing the facts.” (Though maybe Bush was talking about DiFi’s recent misrepresentations in support of the NSA’s hoovering of telecom communications, given that NG has a big chunk of the data storage contract.)

These convenient, unverifiable “facts” on drones delivered by someone proven to misrepresent such “facts” brought to you by the drone (and wiretap) industry.

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Targeted Killings: When John Cornyn Makes Better Sense than Democrats …

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Things got a little crazy when the Senate Judiciary Committee FISA Amendment Markup turned to targeted killing.

John Cornyn used the opportunity of this must-pass intelligence bill to propose an amendment to require the Administration to share its authorization for targeting killing. Cornyn rather modestly said that “I think all of troubled w/o further explanation” for the authority. [All quotes in this post are my inexact transcription] Chuck Grassley went further, saying something to the effect of “We [the Administration] has got a license to kill, and we don’t know about that license and we won’t get it until we legislate it.”

But Democrats prevented Cornyn and Grassley from attaching legislation mandating the Administration share the authorization with Congress.

Now, Cornyn claimed (incorrectly, given his inaction on Bush’s torture and wiretapping) that he wasn’t pushing for legislation on this just because the President is a Democrat; he would have done so if the President were a Republican too. To which Dick Durbin reminded him of all the times he refused to back legislation requiring oversight and transparency under Bush.

Which was Dick Durbin’s opportunity to call for writing a letter on this issue rather than legislating. Pat Leahy suggested he could just use his letter, which was already sent and ignored. Then Grassley reminded he has sent a letter on this subject too, and been ignored.

It was a bunch of Senators recounting the number of letters demanding oversight into the President’s unchecked authority to kill, including American citizens, only to be blown off. America, fuck yeah!

Again, John Cornyn came off sounding like the adult. “We’re not mere supplicants of the Executive Branch. It is insufficient to say, “Pretty please, Mr President, please tell us about the legal authorization.”

Nevertheless, that didn’t prevent Dianne Feinstein from promising that the Senate Intelligence Committee would include language about this in their authorization, and insisting that they let SSCI, not SJC, impose requirements. She suggested (though did not make explicit) that such a requirement belongs in SSCI because targeted killing is a covert program. Which is how the entire effort got tabled, leaving everyone to write more letters.

Cornyn had one more measure, requiring the President provide notice to the Gang of Eight. Dianne Feinstein, as she has repeatedly, assured her colleagues that she and Saxby Chambliss provide all the oversight on this front that is needed. To which Cornyn asked, “Is notice of targeted killing given before or after killing?” DiFi responded, “Sometimes before, sometimes during, sometimes just after.” Cornyn replied, “I don’t think Congress should delegate all authority to one or two members. Make sure not just you, but bicameral gang of eight.”

Curiously, DiFI had no response to that, leaving the impression that the Obama Administration, even on the matter of targeted killing of US citizens, has continued the Bush Administration violation of the National Security Act by briefing just the Gang of Four, not the Gang of Eight (which would add Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell to the Intelligence Committee heads being briefed).

But again, Democrats voted to table that amendment on a party line vote.

This is a problem. Not only is it taking legislation to even get the Senate Intelligence Committee adequately briefed on this topic, but Democrats are using partisan obstruction to prevent the Judiciary Committee from learning enough to assess for themselves whether the targeted killing of a US citizen violates the Constitution.

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Will the Government Finally Use a Lawsuit as an Opportunity to Explain the Anwar al-Awlaki Killing?

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When the ACLU and CCR represented Nasser al-Awlaki in a suit to prevent the government from killing Nasser’s son Anwar unless the government could prove he was an imminent threat, Judge John Bates threw the case out on standing grounds. The civil rights groups think they’ll face no such problem on the suit alleging wrongful death they just filed suing Leon Panetta, David Petraeus, SOCOM Commander William McRaven, and JSOC Commander Joseph Votel. That’s because Nasser al-Awlaki–suing on behalf of both his son and grandson, Abdulrahman–and Sarah Khan–suing on behalf of her son Samir, who was killed in the strike on Anwar–represent the estates of the dead men, so they should clearly have standing.

If that’s right, the courts will have to find some other way to punt on this issue. Alternately, for the first time, the government will have to provide evidence to a court to judge whether or not it wrongly killed three American citizens.

That’s one of the big issues behind this suit–an issue which I hope to follow up on later. As the Director of ACLU’s National Security Project, Hina Shamsi, noted, while the facts alleged against Anwar (though not against his son or Samir Khan) are very serious, none of them have been attested in court yet (the government submitted some of the facts in the Abulmutallab sentencing, but only after the trial was over).

We don’t want to minimize the seriousness of the allegations [against Anwar al-Awlaki]. It is the role of the courts to distinguish between actual evidence and mere allegations.

She describes this as an opportunity for the government. If the government has evidence Awlaki presented an imminent threat, this case is an opportunity to present the evidence so it can be tested.

Of course, the government has had that opportunity three times before: in the earlier Nasser al-Awlaki suit, the Abdulmutallab trial, and the FOIA response. The government’s efforts to avoid using that opportunity have gotten more and more ridiculous. But since they appear to have no shame on this point, I’m betting they find a way to avoid doing so now.

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“Killing Is a Part of War, and Torture Isn’t”

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I wasn’t crazy about the way that Tom Junod framed his first piece on Obama’s Lethal Presidency; but it’s getting a lot of people to think about the issues, so while I didn’t comment on it I was happy to have it.

But I am rather interested in where the debate has gone, now that Andrew Sullivan got involved. At issue is whether Obama’s targeted killing–done because, having made detention an unpalatable option (except in the giant black hole of Bagram), it’s all that left–is morally better or worse than torture.

Sully says it’s much better, Junod says it’s not much different. But both make an assumption that gets to one heart of the issue.

Yes, killing is a part of war, and torture isn’t. But what if the the kind of militant who was captured and tortured under Bush is the kind of militant who is simply being killed under President Obama?

Torture is not a part of war? Then why do we put our servicemen and women through SERE training to make sure they’ll be able to withstand torture if we don’t expect, based on historical experience, that they might be subjected to it?

Torture is illegal. But it is, very much, a part of war (and sometimes power generally, as Ayman al-Zawahiri learned in Nasser’s Egypt). Intentionally targeting civilians is also illegal, but part of war. Given that we now seem to be defining “civilian” more narrowly than international law does, we can’t very easily distinguish between torture and killing in this way.

The point is important because this debate is actually talking about at least four different things: reality, morality, legality, and efficacy. The legal argument doesn’t get you very far in this debate, because it puts you on John Yoo’s ground of proclaiming, correctly, that our adversaries don’t abide by international law–they’ve clearly both tortured and killed civilians–and that therefore, incorrectly IMO, we can and should invent new categories to cover both them and their detention.

But the question of morality is equally slippery, as it allows Sully this squishy defense of Obama.

First and foremost, there is an end to the torture program. For many of us, that was the first non-negotiable deal-breaker from the Bush administration. To bungle two wars, as Bush and Cheney did, is one thing. To throw away the invaluable tradition of decency in wartime was unforgivable. Torture is not, as Bunch would have it, a “difficult issue”. It is an easy one. We don’t do it or condone it and we bring to justice anyone caught doing it. Obama’s failing is in the latter part – but it pales in comparison with Cheney’s lawless barbarism. And the end of torture has immensely improved intelligence and brought some moral credibility back to the West. Are some terror suspects being treated horribly in allied countries? There’s much evidence that this is true. And the Obama administration should be extremely careful not to exploit or use any intelligence garnered from torture or abuse. But there is an obvious difference between the injustices perpetrated by regimes in developing countries and the standards we set for ourselves.

For Sully, this is about civilization and barbarism, which comes packed with unexamined assumptions.

This might be an interesting time to note how, within al Qaeda and its affiliates, a similar debate is and has long gone on. Not only have we seen debates about when Islamic law allows the killing of civilians, both non-Muslim and Muslim. We’ve seen Osama bin Laden’s recognition that killing Muslim civilians–and fighting the battle against the US on Muslim grounds–ruined the brand of his movement. But we’ve also seen, in al Qaeda’s now apparently failed attempt to rebrand as Ansar al-Sharia, al Qaeda also trying to “win” the “war” by providing services, by turning on the electricity.

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Lamar Smith’s Futile Leak Investigation

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Lamar Smtih has come up with a list of 7 national security personnel he wants to question in his own leak investigation. (h/t Kevin Gosztola)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, told President Obama Thursday he’d like to interview seven current and former administration officials who may know something about a spate of national security leaks.

[snip]

The administration officials include National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, Director for Counterterrorism Audrey Tomason and National Security Advisor to the Vice President Antony Blinken.

Of course the effort is sure to be futile–if Smith’s goal is to figure out who leaked to the media (though it’ll serve its purpose of creating a political shitstorm just fine)–for two reasons.

First, only Clapper serves in a role that Congress has an unquestioned authority to subpoena (and even there, I can see the Intelligence Committees getting snippy about their turf–it’s their job to provide impotent oversight over intelligence, not the Judiciary Committees).

As for members of the National Security Council (Tom Donilon, John Brennan, Denis McDonough, Audrey Tomason, and Antony Blinken) and figures, like Bill Daley, who aren’t congressionally approved? That’s a bit dicier. (Which is part of the reason it’s so dangerous to have our drone targeting done in NSC where it eludes easy congressional oversight.)

A pity Republicans made such a stink over the HJC subpoenaing Karl Rove and David Addington and backed Bush’s efforts to prevent Condi Rice from testifying, huh?

The other problem is that Smith’s list, by design, won’t reveal who leaked the stories he’s investigating. He says he wants to investigate 7 leaks.

Smith said the committee intends to focus on seven national security leaks to the media. They include information about the Iran-targeted Stuxnet and Flame virus attacks, the administration’s targeted killings of terrorism suspects and the raid which killed Usama bin Laden.

Smith wants to know how details about the operations of SEAL Team Six, which executed the bin Laden raid in Pakistan, wound up in the hands of film producers making a film for the president’s re-election. Also on the docket is the identity of the doctor who performed DNA tests which helped lead the U.S. to bin Laden’s hideout.

But his list doesn’t include everyone who is a likely or even certain leaker.

Take StuxNet and Flame. Not only has Smith forgotten about the programmers (alleged to be Israeli) who let StuxNet into the wild in the first place–once that happened, everything else was confirmation of things David Sanger and security researchers were able to come up with on their own–but he doesn’t ask to speak to the Israeli spooks demanding more credit for the virus.

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Is Ambassador Feierstein Drawing Up the Kill Lists in Yemen?

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The question of why John Brennan seized control of drone targeting continues to gnaw on me. Which is why I find this attack piece on the US Ambassador to Yemen, Gerald Feierstein, to be so interesting.

You’ll recall that one effect of the Brennan power grab was to have State consult directly with Brennan about who should be on the kill list, rather than have State work through DOD’s teleconferences.

The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan’s staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, making a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists.

[snip]

Under the old Pentagon-run review, the first step was to gather evidence on a potential target. That person’s case would be discussed over an interagency secure video teleconference, involving the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department, among other agencies.

The article on Feierstein describes him being so central to decisions about how the country will be governed, Yemen has become a trusteeship.

The extent of American meddling was further highlighted by the publication on local and foreign websites of leaked letters from the US ambassador to Yemeni Interior Minister Abdul Qadir Qahtan, instructing him to make certain security personnel changes, which he described as necessary to helping bring civil peace to the country. This leaves no room for doubt that Feierstein has assumed a de facto governing role in Yemen, pushing for progress but only in the manner that he deems appropriate, and which does not, of course, conflict with broader US policy in Yemen.

[snip]

Analyst Qaderi Ahmad Haidar says the country has indeed fallen under effective US trusteeship, and blames the Gulf Initiative and the mechanisms that were agreed to implement it. “It is a deplorable and lamentable picture we see today,” he told Al-Akhbar. “We didn’t expect the pure revolution of the Yemeni youth to end in this.”

The US ambassador’s pronouncements are incessant, and oblivious to the basic diplomatic norms that govern relations between two states. He is constantly making media appearances to discuss, explain and clarify aspects of Yemen’s daily affairs, as though he were the country’s undeclared president.

During the course of one recent appearance he said: “We are now in the second phase of the Gulf Initiative… I met with the president yesterday… We believe everyone should take part in the National Dialogue… President Obama has issued an executive order which enables us to punish individuals or groups who obstruct the implementation of the agreement (the Gulf Initiative)… We are working to restructure the army and security forces… We are pleased with what has been achieved so far… We are on the right track.” The ambassador’s use of the first person when discussing Yemeni affairs strikes Muhammad Ayesh, editor of the independent newspaper al-Awwali, as telling. It serves to cast him not just as Yemen’s “governor,” but as a leader propelled by a transformative revolution into the country’s top position.

At least from several Yemeni perspectives, Feierstein is the one making all the decisions for the Yemenis. (He’s also reportedly pushing the Pentagon to sell armored vehicles to the Yemenis.) Couple that with the reports of Hillary’s centralization of CT funding under State.

In Yemen, in particular, some commando officers look upon the State Department’s expanding shadow-war powers as a bureaucratic intrusion on what should be military territory. A source tells Danger Room that in Yemen State has effectively hijacked all U.S. counter-terrorism funding, requiring a labyrinthine approval process for even small expenditures.

It’s clear State–whether Feierstein or Hillary or both–are driving a lot of what is happening in Yemen.

I’m just wondering whether that explains why NSC seized control of our drone war in April, to put it squarely in the hands of our “diplomats?”

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