Senator Bob Graham: Majority on Senate Intelligence Committee Supported Interrogation Oversight in 2002

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A couple of weeks ago, I noted that the CIA Memorandum for the Record from their February 4, 2003 briefing of Pat Roberts revealed that Bob Graham, Roberts’ predecessor as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had attempted to institute some oversight over the CIA’s interrogation program in November 2002. After CIA discouraged the idea in the briefing, Roberts immediately backed off the idea of doing any oversight.

Roberts’ [redacted; staffer?] asked me whether I had “taken up the line” the Committee’s, actually Senator Graham’s, late November request to undertake its own “assessment” of the enhanced interrogation. I [Stan Moskowitz, head of Congressional Affairs] explained to Senator Roberts the dialogue I had had with [redacted], and our responce [sic] that we would not support reading another staffer into the program nor allow any staffer to review the interrogations in real time or visit the clandestine site where the interrogations were taking place. Quickly, the Senator interjected that he saw no reason for the Committee to pursue such a request and could think of “ten reasons right off why it is a terrible idea” for the Committee to do any such thing as had been proposed. Turning to [redacted], he asked whether they thought otherwise and they indicated that they agreed with the Senator.

I wanted to know what kind of oversight Graham had had in mind, so I asked Senator Graham for an explanation of the reference. According to Graham, a majority of Committee members in November 2002–including a few Republicans–supported conducting oversight of the program. And it seems that CIA mischaracterized to Roberts what Graham had planned, perhaps in an effort to dissuade Roberts from conducting that oversight.

Graham reminded me (as I reported last May) that he was never briefed on the abusive techniques the CIA was using. So he didn’t decide to do more oversight of the program because of concerns about the techniques.

Rather, there was “a lot of smoke” that made it clear “something out of the norm was occurring.” There were “rumors that something was occurring out of the ordinary.” (I asked specifically whether he had heard any rumors about the November 2002 Salt Pit death, but he said he had not.)

But contrary to what the CIA represented to Roberts, Graham wasn’t asking to “review the interrogations in real time.” He was planning initial oversight of the interrogation program. He wanted to ask basic questions about what was going on:

  • What’s going on?
  • Who authorized the program?
  • What [intelligence] are we getting out of it?

Graham told me that “well over a majority” of the committee supported doing such oversight. When I asked, he said Jay Rockefeller, who replaced him as the Ranking Democrat on the Committee, supported the effort. Though Graham didn’t remember precisely who was on the Committee at the time (here’s the list), he named Richard Lugar and Mike DeWine as two of the Republicans who were probably in the majority supporting this kind of oversight over the program.

But between CIA’s apparent misrepresentations to Roberts and Roberts’ own disinterest in asking even the most basic questions about the CIA’s interrogation programs, those efforts ended when Graham left the committee and Roberts took over as Chair.

And that’s how Pat Roberts and CIA agreed to avoid asking or answering even the most basic questions about the Bush Administration’s torture program.

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Holder: Zazi's plot "one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11th, 2001"

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And all resolved using civilian law enforcement. From the DOJ press release:

The Justice Department announced that Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of New York to a three-count superseding information charging him with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction (explosive bombs) against persons or property in the United States, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to al-Qaeda. Among other things, Zazi admitted that he brought TATP [Triacetone Triperoxide] explosives to New York on Sept. 10, 2009, as part of plan to attack the New York subway system.

Zazi, 25, a resident of Aurora, Colo., and legal permanent resident of the United States from Afghanistan, entered his guilty plea today before Chief U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie. Zazi faces a maximum statutory sentence of life in prison for the first two counts of the superseding information and an additional 15 years in prison for the third count of the superseding information.

[snip]

As Zazi admitted during today’s guilty plea allocution and as reflected in previous government filings, he and others agreed to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and fight against United States and allied forces. In furtherance of their plans, they flew from Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., to Peshawar, Pakistan at the end of August 2008. Although Zazi and others initially intended to fight on behalf of the Taliban, they were recruited by al-Qaeda shortly after arriving in Peshawar. Al-Qaeda personnel transported Zazi and others to the Waziristan region of Pakistan and trained them on several different kinds of weapons. During the training, al-Qaeda leaders asked Zazi and others to return to the United States and conduct suicide operations. They agreed.

[snip]

“This was one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11th, 2001, and were it not for the combined efforts of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, it could have been devastating,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “This attempted attack on our homeland was real, it was in motion, and it would have been deadly. We were able to thwart this plot because of careful analysis by our intelligence agents and prompt actions by law enforcement. They deserve our thanks and praise.”

Note how the superseding information includes conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country (but not such a conspiracy here in the US). I guess that’s a signal that from this plea deal DOJ expects to get a lot more on the people in Pakistan Zazi was working with.

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UK Relations with Israel "in the Deep Freeze" over Dubai Assassination

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Those JSOC guys doing America’s assassinating better make sure they don’t get caught using British passports. Because if the Brits’ claimed anger at Israel for giving its Mossad killers UK passports is any indication, it would not help relations.

Britain fired the first shot last night in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in the country’s ambassador to explain the use of fake British passports by a hit squad who targeted Mabhouh in Dubai last month.

The Israeli ambassador was at the Foreign Office this morning for a brief meeting to “share information” about the assassins’ use of identities stolen from six British citizens living in Israel, as part of the meticulously orchestrated assassination of Mabhouh.

“After receiving an invitation last night, I met with Sir Peter Ricketts, deputy-general of the British foreign minister,” Ron Prosor said after the meeting. “Despite my willingness to co-operate with his request, I could not shed new light on the said matters.”

Britain has stopped short of accusing Israel of involvement, but to signal its displeasure the Foreign Office ignored an Israeli plea to keep the summons secret. “Relations were in the freezer before this. They are in the deep freeze now,” an official told the Guardian.

Of course, the UK is pissed about the passports, not necessarily about the assassination of a top Hamas figure more generally. So maybe Britain is okay with our assassinations squads, too.

But the very public response to the Mahmoud al-Mabhouh killing, as well as certain details like the involvement of the Palestinian Authority, is sure to bring some interesting scrutiny on our own practices (as a number of you have pointed out in comments).

And WTF? Did the clowns who botched the Abu Omar rendition in Italy teach this Mossad squad tradecraft? Or did they just misjudge Dubai’s willingness to play host to assassinations?

Update: Reader cw notes this Robert Fisk story, suggesting that the UAE is getting pissed that countries like the UK haven’t alerted Interpol to the use of these passports.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) suspect — only suspect, mark you — that Europe’s ‘security collaboration’ with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other EU nations) can be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel’s enemies.At 3.49pm yesterday (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source — impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi — to say that “the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?”

[snip]

My source is both angry and insistent. “We have sent out details of the 11 named people to Interpol. Interpol has circulated them to 188 countries — but why hasn’t Britain warned foreign nations that these people are using passports in these names?”

Which is sort of what I meant when I referred to “the Brits’ claimed anger.”

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WaPo Retracts Report that Anwar al-Awlaki on CIA Kill List

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As Steven Aftergood reports, the WaPo has issued a correction to Dana Priest’s article claiming that Anwar al-Awlaki was added to the CIA’s assassination list.

The article referred incorrectly to the presence of U.S. citizens on a CIA list of people the agency seeks to kill or capture. After The Post’s report was published, a source said that a statement the source made about the CIA list was misunderstood. Additional reporting produced no independent confirmation of the original report, and a CIA spokesman said that The Post’s account of the list was incorrect. The military’s Joint Special Operations Command maintains a target list that includes several Americans. In recent weeks, U.S. officials have said that the government is prepared to kill U.S. citizens who are believed to be involved in terrorist activities that threaten Americans.

Mind you, no one is disputing that al-Awlaki is on the JSOC list. Just that he’s on the CIA list.

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EU Parliament Rejects Interim SWIFT Deal

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The EU Parliament voted today–by big margins–to end the temporary deal allowing the US access to data from SWIFT.

The European Parliament on Thursday broadly rejected an agreement with the United States on sharing information on bank transfers that was aimed at tracking suspected terrorists through their finances.The vote in Strasbourg, France, underlined differences between the United States and the European Union over how to balance guarantees of personal privacy with concerns about national and international security.

A resolution to reject the deal passed 378-196, with 31 abstentions. The vote means that the agreement, which provisionally went into force at the beginning of February, cannot be used as planned.

The agreement would have freed the United States from having to seek bank data on a country-by-country basis. But Washington still could press for access to the data through such avenues.

Remember, this deal would have given European citizens more protections than Americans currently get from their banks (because it would have allowed them to check whether their data had been accessed).

This rejection also comes just as the Administration, following yesterday’s release of language concerning the treatment of Binyam Mohamed, is making a show of complaining about information sharing.

On Wednesday, the White House said, “We’re deeply disappointed with the court’s judgment today, because we shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations.”

Dennis Blair, U.S. director of national intelligence, condemned the release of the information.

“The protection of confidential information is essential to strong, effective security and intelligence cooperation among allies,” he said. “The decision by a United Kingdom court to release classified information provided by the United States is not helpful, and we deeply regret it.”

Obviously, particularly following the Undie Bomber attempt, the Administration is going to do anything it can to continue sharing information, both on detainees and data analysis. But it’s going to have to start playing well with others to do so.

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Kit Bond's Politico Projections

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Before Kit Bond went on MSNBC this morning to call for John Brennan’s resignation, he planted the same attack in what was one of the most ridiculous Politico articles I’ve seen since its last Dick Cheney blowjob.

For example, you know the rule that says anonymous sources often appear, giving on-the-record quotes, elsewhere in the same article? This article, entirely focused on Kit Bond’s baseless attack against Brennan (though mentioning that Crazy Pete Hoekstra also made baseless accusations against Brennan) ends with this:

“There is tension between the intelligence community and Brennan,” a Republican member of Congress who has long worked on intelligence issues told POLITICO. “They just feel that he is trying to micromanage, and also playing somewhat of a political role.”

Hmm. “Republican member of Congress who has long worked on intelligence issues” would be a prominent intelligence committee member. Such as Crazy Pete. Or … Kit Bond! Way to hide your tracks Bond, um, Kit Bond.

Then there’s this line, in which Bond tries to associate Brennan with Rahm.

Others with ties to the intelligence community think Brennan—who works in closer proximity to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel than any other intelligence official—is behind the push to fight back against political attacks on White House counterterrorism policy.

But here’s the fundamental problem with Kit Bond’s attack. As the article even notes (though doesn’t explain, but then it’s Politico), Brennan is pushing back against baseless politicized attacks on no-nonsense policies. Those baseless attacks were coming from … Kit Bond!!!
So essentially, the Politico has granted Kit Bond anonymity and an otherwise unobstructed soap box to wail that John Brennan pointed out that Bond’s–and other Republicans’–attacks were completely nonsensical given the briefings they received, not to mention the rule of law.

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Republicans Trashing Law Enforcement because It Polls Well

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The best explanation for why, after having been briefed that underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody (and therefore, anyone who watches TV would know, mirandized), Republicans more recently started attacking the Obama Administration for having mirandized Abdulmutallab is this:

Republicans discovered the renewed power of terrorism in last month’s special Senate election in Massachusetts. Neil Newhouse, the pollster for the Republican victor, Scott Brown, said voters responded to the way Mr. Brown framed the issue, supporting him 63 percent to 26 percent when told he favored charging suspected terrorists as enemy combatants in a military tribunal while his Democratic opponent would give them constitutional rights and a civilian trial.

“This moved voters more than the health care issue did,” Mr. Newhouse said. “The terrorism stuff resonated, and it wasn’t just from the advertising we did.”

In fact, Mitch McConnell all but admitted that he was hitting the Administration on civilian court issues because of Scott Brown’s election in response to a question he was asked on February 3.

“If this approach of putting these people in U.S. courts doesn’t sell in Massachusetts, I don’t know where it sells,” he told a questioner.

He added: “You can campaign on these issues anywhere in America.”

That is, Republicans are attacking law enforcement–even as they have succeeded in getting Abdulmutallab’s cooperation quicker than it took the torturers to get false information out of KSM–because it polls well, because Scott Brown won on a pro-waterboarding platform.

Here’s the timeline:

December 25, 2009: Abdulmutallab attempts to bomb plane; after refusing to talk, FBI reads Miranda warning; John Brennan briefs Republican leadership that Abdulmutallab in FBI custody; FBI tells intelligence partners it will charge Abdulmutallab criminally, to no objections

December 26, 2009: FBI again tells intelligence partners it will charge Abdulmutallab criminally, to no objections

January 1, 2010: Two FBI agents fly to Nigeria to seek help from Abdulmutallab’s family

January 4, 2010: Scott Brown embraces water-boarding, advocates trying Abdulmutallab in military commission

January 5, 2010: Administration considers, but rejects, possibility of treating Abdulmutallab as enemy combatant

January 7, 2010: Obama Administration releases report of what went wrong on terror attack

January 8-10. 2010: 57% surveyed prefer military commission to civilian trial

January 17, 2010: Two Abdulmutallab family members fly back to Detroit to convince him to cooperate

January 19, 2010: Scott Brown wins special election

January 20, 2010: Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins hold hearing on Christmas bombing; Collins complains about information sharing, not Miranda warning; Blair says not consulted before Miranda read, says new interrogation team should have made decision though it is not yet functional

Several days after his family arrives: Abdulmutallab begins to cooperate

January 25, 2010: Lieberman and Collins write letter attacking FBI for giving Miranda warning

January 27, 2010: Mitch McConnell and others write Holder complaining about Miranda warning

January 30, 2010: Susan Collins attacks Obama for Miranda warning in weekly radio address

February 2, 2010: Mueller tells SSCI Abdulmutallab is cooperating

February 3, 2010: Holder responds to Republican critics; Mitch McConnell attacks “law enforcement” approach and later admits it works in campaigns, mentioning Brown’s victory

February 7, 2010: John Brennan reveals that Republican leaders briefed on FBI custody for Abdulmutallab, made no objections

February 9, 2010: John Brennan writes op-ed, “We need no lectures.”

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And Now They're Disclaiming Responsibility for their Briefings

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Surprise, surprise. Just days after Crazy Pete Hoekstra did what Crazy Pete Hoekstra attacked Nancy Pelosi for last year–accused the CIA of lying–he’s now caught in another position he has criticized Pelosi for–not objecting in a briefing to an Administration policy he subsequently claimed to be vehemently opposed to. On Meet the Press this morning, John Brennan revealed that he briefed the Republican members of the Gang of Eight about the treatment of underwear bomber Umar Farouk Adbulmutallab (this is already an improvement on Bush policy, since they usually only briefed the Gang of Four). And they didn’t raise any objections to the planned treatment of him.

The Obama administration briefed four senior Republican congressional leaders on Christmas about the attempted terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound flight.

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) did not raise any objections to bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab being held in FBI custody.

“They knew that in FBI custody there is a process that you follow. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at this point,” Brennan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They were very appreciative of the information.”

The Republicans are, predictably, claiming they didn’t know that normal FBI procedure includes mirandizing suspects, claiming that it wasn’t a real briefing–anything to sustain their efforts to politicize national security.

Meanwhile, I’m not holding my breath waiting for the press to call these Republicans on their excuses about the briefing or, more importantly, on their raging hypocrisy. After all, last year the press was able to sustain itself for several months over Crazy Pete’s attack on Nancy Pelosi for this (even while Crazy Pete’s attack was factually wrong). But somehow they seem to lose interest when someone like Crazy Pete gets exposed, for the second time in a week, as a raging hypocrite.

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"The president himself does not have to sign off on kill orders."

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That’s the most striking line from the most recent post from Mark Hosenball, in which he tries to understand the process by which US citizens are placed on a list to be assassinated. Here’s Hosenball’s fuller explanation.

…strikes specifically targeting Americans must first be approved by a secret committee made up of senior intel officials and members of the president’s cabinet (it’s not known which ones). The president himself does not have to sign off on kill orders.

It’s handy, isn’t it, the way the President gets to retain plausible deniability for the killing of a US citizen? And the way Obama has conveniently wrapped himself in the same plausible deniability that Bush (or, more likely, Cheney) created? That way you can kill US citizens without ever worrying about the President going to jail for it. And if you’re really good at hiding the identities of those who do sign off on the killings, then no one can sue!

Also note that Hosenball seems to be looking closely at the same loophole that I have been thinking about: the ability to knowingly kill Americans so long as the purported target of that assassination is the guy sitting next to the American in the car that’s about to blow up.

The sources say that committee approval is required only if the specific target of the assassination is an American—not if an American happens to be in the vicinity of a foreign target at the time of the strike. At least once, U.S. forces have killed an American this way. In November 2002 a missile attack targeting a Yemeni terrorist also killed Kamal Derwish, an American citizen associated with an alleged terrorist cell in Lackawanna, N.Y. U.S. forces almost did it again last Christmas Eve, with an airstrike against another Yemeni terrorist; he was believed to be hiding with Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical cleric who advised both the suspected Fort Hood shooter and the alleged Christmas Day bomber. Al-Awlaki is believed to have escaped.

It would add another convenient level of plausible deniability, of course. “Oh, we weren’t actually targeting Kamal Derwish! We were targeting Harithi, even at precisely the time we targeted him, we had the guy who did what we claim he did in custody.”

I can’t wait until this gets to the courts.

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ZOMG! A Congressperson Accuses CIA of Lying to Congress

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Picture 189Just take a look at these traitorous accusations a certain Congressperson made about the CIA yesterday:

misleading and some might say lying to Congress by the intel community

The [intelligence] community covered it up,

this committee can’t do its job if you don’t share information with us

What is the community unwilling to share with this committee? What policies can’t pass public scrutiny or pass the scrutiny of this committee?

ZOMG! Congressperson, you just accused the CIA of lying to Congress!! You can’t do that!! Remember what Crazy Pete Hoekstra said about such disloyal accusations when beating up on Nancy Pelosi this spring!

She made some outrageous accusations last week where she said that the CIA lied to her and lied systematically over a period of years. That is a very, very serious charge.

It is downright outrageous that a Congressperson would make such brash accusations. Last spring, Crazy Pete even suggested that making such outrageous accusations might require the Congressperson making such claims resign.

Crazy Pete? Will you please tell Crazy Pete that he should stop making such accusations about CIA lying to Congress?

Or better yet, perhaps you can just admit that CIA has systematically lied to Congress, both about the CIA shoot-down of a missionary plane in Peru, and about torture.

HOEKSTRA:Then just kind of speak for a couple of minutes. I want to kind of change the tone a little bit. And I want to talk about accountability.

I want to talk about the inability of the community to hold itself accountable for its performance. And what I see an increasing — from my perspective, an increasing demonstration that this community is unwilling to be held accountable by — by Congress and this committee.

How do I come to this conclusion?

You know we are coming to a — to a close on a very painful chapter in the intel community, the shoot down of Americans, the death of a mother and a daughter in Peru almost nine years ago. The accountability board has recently finished its work. But if there’s ever an example of justice delayed, justice denied, this is it.

The justice — or the accountability board was impaneled to investigate the wrongful deaths of these two Americans, misleading and some might say lying to Congress by the intel community. Read more →

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