Once Again, Forgeries?

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Everyone’s buzzing about the revelation from Ron Suskind that a letter revealed in December 2003, alleging that Mohammed Atta trained in Iraq, was a CIA-created forgery.

According to Suskind, the administration had been in contact with the director of the Iraqi intelligence service in the last years of Hussein’s regime, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti.

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”

[snip]

Suskind writes in his new book that the order to create the letter was written on “creamy White House stationery.” The book suggests that the letter was subsequently created by the CIA and delivered to Iraq, but does not say how.

Here’s Con Coughlin, the reporter who first reported the letter, on MTP in 2003.

Coughlin: Well, this is an intriguing story, Tom. I mean, basically, when I was in Baghdad, I picked up a document that was given to me by a senior member of the Iraqi interim government. It’s an intelligence document written by the then-head of Iraqi intelligence, Habush to Saddam. It’s dated the 1st of July, 2001, and it’s basically a memo saying that Mohamed Atta has successfully completed a training course at the house of Abu Nidal, the infamous Palestinian terrorist, who, of course, was killed by Saddam a couple of months later. Now, this is the first really concrete proof that al-Qaeda was working with Saddam. I saw your interview with James Woolsey earlier and he was talking about the article in The Weekly Standard. And there is a lot of detail there. But this is a document, and I’ve had it authenticated. This is the handwriting of the head of Iraqi intelligence, Habush, is one of the few people still at large who is in the pack of cards. And it basically says that Atta was in Baghdad being trained under Saddam’s guidance prior to the 9/11 attack. It’s a very explosive development, Tom. [my emphasis]

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DNI McConnell to Intelligence Analysts: Go Talk to Juan Cole

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In a post on AJ Rossmiller’s Still Broken, I pointed out that bloggers probably knew more than Condi Rice leading up to the 2005 Iraqi elections because 1) we were reading Juan Cole, 2) we didn’t censor out news we didn’t like:

When AJ was asked how he got the 2005 election right, one of the things he pointed to, half-seriously, was the open source work of Juan Cole.

I began to write the explanation of our methodology, and I tried to resist the temptation to criticize other agencies while explaining how and why we did things differently. State, in particular, was very sensitive about their screwup, and I didn’t want to piss anybody off.

"Sir, can’t I just say that I copied and pasted Juan Cole?"

You see, those running the most powerful country in the world aren’t reading Juan Cole directly, or at least they weren’t. If they’re lucky, some analyst like AJ will read him and allow Cole’s expertise to influence his analysis. And if they’re lucky, that analysis might bubble up to decision-makers without being censored by the vetting process. But AJ’s book demonstrates that those are two very big "if’s."

Well, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell just conceded that AJ was right for reading Juan Cole.

In a new directive that challenges the insular culture of U.S. intelligence agencies, Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell has ordered analysts to cultivate relationships with outside experts “whenever possible” in order to improve the quality of intelligence analysis.

The DNI’s July 16 directive on “Analytic Outreach” (pdf) establishes procedures for implementing such outreach, including incentives and rewards for successful performance.

“Analytic outreach is the open, overt, and deliberate act of an IC [intelligence community] analyst engaging with an individual outside the IC to explore ideas and alternate perspectives, gain new insights, generate new knowledge, or obtain new information,” the directive states.

“Elements of the IC should use outside experts whenever possible to contribute to, critique, and challenge internal products and analysis….”

“Sound intelligence analysis requires that analysts… develop trusted relationships” with “experts in academia; think tanks; industry; non-governmental organizations; the scientific world; …and elsewhere.”

Golly. Almost seven years after 9/11 and the intelligence community might just catch up to us DFH bloggers!

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Another Spooked-Up BushCo Crony Dabbling in Kurdistan

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It was bad enough that PFIAB member and Bush uber-donor Ray Hunt was doing business in Kurdistan. That put one of the President’s top private advisors on intelligence, someone who has access to a great deal of classified intelligence, and someone whose privately held company evades all kinds of public scrutiny, setting up shop in Iraq and potentially contributing to its destabilization.

But now we learn that Richard Perle has joined Hunt in the oil rush in Kurdistan (h/t egregious).

Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.

It would involve a tract called K18, near the Kurdish city of Erbil, according to documents describing the plan.

It’s bad enough that the former Defense Policy Board Chair and one of the big champions of the war is looking to get rich off of Kurdistan’s oil. More troubling, though, is that he’s doing so via a company that seems to be the pure incarnation of the kinds of dubious Turkish ties that Sibel Edmonds has talked about.

A consortium founded by Turkish company AK Group International is seeking rights to drill there, the documents say. Potential backers include two Turkish companies as well as Kazakhstan, according to individuals involved.

AK’s chief executive is Aydan Kodaloglu, who, like Mr. Perle, has been involved with the American Turkish Council, an advocacy group in Washington. She didn’t respond to requests for comment. Phyllis Kaminsky, who identified herself as the U.S. contact for Ms. Kodaloglu, said she herself was aware of the drilling plan but referred questions about it to Mr. Perle.

"Richard would know the most," Ms. Kaminsky said. "He is involved, I know that."

Without going too deeply into Edmonds’ allegations, let me just say by far the best treatment I’ve seen of it is Chris Floyd’s piece seeing the murky relationships that Edmonds reported to be an outgrowth of (I’d say a reincarnation of) the amorphous networks of influence, money laundering, legally sanctioned covert ops, illegal ops, and arms deals normally referred to as BCCI. Read more →

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Pelosi Appoints Dusty Foggo and Jose Rodriguez’ Buddy to Ethics Committee

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Porter Goss’ tenure as Director of the CIA is noted for two things above all–and neither has to do with the collection and analysis of intelligence.

First, there’s his buddy, Dusty Foggo, whom Goss appointed to be Executive Director of the CIA. In that role, Foggo is alleged to have exploited the weaknesses of the earmark system–not to mention Duke Cunningham’s weakness for whores–to steer millions of dollars in contracts to the company of his childhood friend, Brent Wilkes. In addition, Foggo pulled strings to get his girlfriend hired at CIA.

Then, there’s Jose Rodriguez, whom Goss appointed to be director of the CIA’s Clandestine Services after Goss ousted Stephen Kappes because he wasn’t a political hack. Rodriguez is best known for ordering the torture tapes depicting Abu Zubaydah’s and al-Nashiri’s interrogation destroyed–in spite of the many court orders and outstanding requests from the 9/11 Commission and Congress for such evidence. Goss says he wasn’t involved, but Rodriguez faced no discipline for having the tapes destroyed–even in spite of the fact that then DNI John Negroponte warned Goss to make sure the tapes weren’t destroyed. Rodriguez also spiked the internal CIA investigation into why the folks who rendered Abu Omar out of Italy were so damned incompetent–leaving a cell phone trail right up to the CIA’s doors, not to mention thousands of dollars in hotel bills because spooks must have luxury, don’t you know.

In short, Porter Goss is known to be an incredible hack who oversaw great ethical (and legal) abuses that, at least so long as Goss was in charge, escaped all consequences.

Precisely the kind of guy you’d want in charge of Congress’ Ethics Review Board, right? Oh wait, I mean, precisely the kind of guy Nancy Pelosi would want in charge of Congress’ Ethics Review Board (h/t John Forde). You and I, of course, would think it an utterly ludicrous idea to put a guy like Goss, with huge ethical stains on his record, in charge of Congress’ ethics. But I guess the Speaker of the House doesn’t agree.

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Church Committee, The Bush II Version?

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Because it wouldn’t be a badly corrupt attempt to install a permanent Republican majority without a Church Committee to clean up afterwards…

Tim Shorrock, author of Spies for Hire, has a story in Salon describing a proposed second Church Committee.

Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s.

While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly.

[snip]

"If we know this much about torture, rendition, secret prisons and warrantless wiretapping despite the administration’s attempts to stonewall, then imagine what we don’t know," says a senior Democratic congressional aide who is familiar with the proposal and has been involved in several high-profile congressional investigations.

Notably, Shorrock describes discussions to investigate Bush’s surveillance programs–and their antecedents in the Clinton and Reagan Administration.

The article also provides names and dates that seem to corroborate the earlier Radar story on Main Core. Shorrock explains that William Hamilton, the President of Inslaw–the maker of PROMIS, a criminal investigations database–claiming that the Reagan Administration just gave PROMIS to NSA and CIA to use for intelligence purposes. Hamilton also describes being told by a US intelligence official in 1992 and an NSA official in 1995 that the government was using PROMIS to search the Main Core database–a database of all those perceived to be domestic threats to national security within the US.

This article still doesn’t clinch the case that the biggest problem with the illegal wiretap program is that it used the Main Core database–listing people perceived to be domestic enemies–to develop target lists for wiretapping. Nevertheless, it provides a lot more data points, while at the same time hinting that there might be will to actually investigate this mess.

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Bush Doesn’t Want to Be Forbidden to Torture, Even If You Don’t Tell the Terrorists

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In yesterday’s chat about detainee treatment, I asked Carl Levin if he had suggestions for ways to improve intelligence oversight.

Which raises another good point.

Senator Levin, what can we do to improve intelligence oversight? Just before this chat started, Trent Franks proposed calling Speaker Pelosi and Jane Harman before HJC to testify about how they reacted in briefings on interrogation methods. There’s also the example of FISA.

What can we do to enable Administrations to present information to Congress in classified fashion–but make it possible for those Members of Congress on oversight positions to do something if they find the Administration policies are illegal?

Senator Levin responded:

Congress has three powers that can be used: they can pass a law, even in classified form as a classified annex to an unclassified bill (such as the intelligence authorization bill), second, the power of the purse which can be carried out in a classified or unclassified manner, and third there is of course our oversight power and responsibility. [my emphasis]

To which Jim White astutely asked this question:

What did you think of his mentioning of the ability of Congress to pass classified annex to the public versions of bills. Should we be hoping that there has been a little more oversight through this route? I haven’t heard much discussion on this front. He seems to be pointing us to the Intelligence Authorization Bill in this regard.

As it happens, Bush issued a veto threat of the House Intelligence Authorization Bill today. And look at one of Bush’s objections to the bill (h/t Steven Aftergood):

Secret Law. Section 317 would incorporate by reference all reporting requirements in the classified annex into the act, thereby making them a requirement in law. The Administration strongly opposes the imposition of reporting requirements in this opaque manner. Further, such a provision would remove the flexibility that Congress and the Executive branch would otherwise have to modify and adapt provisions in the classified annex to meet changing conditions and requirements without seeking a statutory change.

Now, I have no clue what it is in the annex that Bush is objecting to. Read more →

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John McCain, George Bush’s Bagman

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So I spent a day and a half, knowing full well that the Colombian rescue was done with the assistance of our intelligence services, wondering, still, why they timed the rescue to coincide with McCain’s visit to Colombia.

Leaders of the Colombian FARC rebel movement were paid millions of dollars to free Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages, Swiss radio said on Friday, quoting ‘a reliable source’.

The 15 hostages released on Wednesday by the Colombian army ‘were in reality ransomed for a high price, and the whole operation afterwards was a set-up,’ the radio’s French-language channel said.

Saying the United States, which had three of its citizens among those freed, was behind the deal, it put the price of the ransom at some $20 million.

[snip]

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the rescue ‘was conceived by the Colombians and executed by the Colombians with our full support,’ while implying that Washington had provided intelligence and even operational help.

Silly me! They didn’t need McCain there for a photo op! They needed a bagman.

Now I wonder how long it’ll be before we find out the ransom came from Bandar’s little slush fund? But don’t worry–McCain’s just aspiring to be like Saint Ronnie.

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Counter-Intelligence and Secret Service Officers as Inspectors General

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I’m reading Paul Alexander’s book, Machiavelli’s Shadow, in anticipation of Sunday’s Book Salon on it.

One of the little-mentioned details he reports in his book is that Bush loaded up the Inspectors General positions with former Secret Service Agents.

"The telltale sign of what the crowd was going to be like was the way Bush was appointing politicals early on.[" said Gordon Hamel, a career bureaucrat. "]He was putting tons of unqualified politicals into positions.  One of the things I noticed the most was the inspectors genera. He was filling all of the IG positions with former Secret Service agents. It had nothing to do with their skills. A Secret Service agent does two things: Protect the president and chase counterfeiters. Unless you were a manager, you were one of the geeks standing at the door talking into your sleeve. So how are you qualified to go from that into an executive position that requires manager and policy-making skills? But these Secret Service agents were the ones who had guarded Daddy Bush and Bush and Rove knew it. The agents were loyal Bushies."

Alexander goes on to suggest that Bush did this to limit the reporting of waste, fraud, and abuse from within his how government. And Alexander elaborates on Hamel’s story of being intimidated by one of these inspectors general.

Which is all I could think of when I read that Bush’s nominee to replace Cookie Krongard as the State Department’s IG is a counter-intelligence officer.

President Bush has nominated Thomas Betro, director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, to be State Department inspector general, a position roiled by controversy and turnover over the last year.

If confirmed, Betro would fill the slot of Howard Krongard, who resigned under fire in December, and take over for acting State IG Harold Geisel.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Unlike those secret service agents installed to be thugs, it appears that Betro has executive experience in the kind of task that IG’s perform. He seems qualified for the position.

Still, at a time when the State Department’s primary IG complaint is reeling in Blackwater, and a soon-to-be secondary complaint may be the assistance, on the part of the Ambassador to Albania, of weapons fraud, not to mention the always-dominant complaints about the Iraqi Embassy and its related intelligence fun, I find it notable that Bush chose a counter-intelligence officer to take over as State’s IG.

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Does Jerry Doe Know Anything about Merlin?

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In this post, I described that Jerry Doe, a former CIA operative who claims he was fired from the CIA in retaliation for reporting intelligence the CIA didn’t like, now claims that some of that intelligence pertains to Iran. The timing of the allegations of his complaint that may pertain to Iran–2000, not (as the NIE cites) 2003–got me thinking about James Risen.

You see, we know of another operation from 2000 involving Iran that the CIA is still touchy about–the Merlin operation that Risen describes in his book, State of War.

In case you’ve forgotten, in February 2000, the CIA had a Russian nuclear scientist pass blueprints for a nuclear weapon to Iran. The blueprints were erroneous in key ways, so they wouldn’t lead to a nuclear weapon–at least, they wouldn’t have if the Russian hadn’t alerted the Iranians to the faults in the blueprints, which he did. But the CIA was willing to pursue such a crazy plan, Risen reported, because they hoped Iran would follow the blueprints and spend years pursuing a faulty warhead.

Here’s Risen’s description about why CPD tried something as crazy as Merlin.

The Counterproliferation Division within the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, the agency’s clandestine espionage arm, came up with MERLIN and other clandestine operations as creative, if unorthodox, ways to try to penetrate Tehran’s nuclear development program. In some cases, the CIA had worked jointly with Israeli intelligence on such operations, according to people familiar with the covert program.

Now, if his complaint and Warrick’s report on it is true, Jerry Doe was busy penetrating Tehran’s nuclear development program in 2000, at precisely the same time when–purportedly out of frustration with their inability to penetrate Tehran’s nuclear development program using traditional means–the CIA dumped nuclear blueprints into the Iranians’ laps. Though, as Risen notes, the CIA was careful to hide the fact that it was the source of the blueprints.

What better way for the CIA to hide its involvement in this operation than to have a veteran of Arzamas [Russia’s equivalent of Los Alamos] personally hand over the Russian nuclear designs?

Now look at the passage from Doe’s complaint that appears to pertain to Iranian nukes:

Plaintiff was first subjected to a demand that he alter his intelligence reporting in 2000, [2 lines redacted]. Read more →

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Jerry Doe “Proved Fucking Right”

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[That’s a Judy Miller quote, btw, not me actually, um, swearing.]

Joby Warrick reports that Jerry Doe, a former CIA operative who warned that Iraq had no active nuclear program but was told to bury that warning, also warned that Iran had set aside its own program.

A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.

Now, he’s trying to get key paragraphs from his complaint against the CIA for wrongful dismissal unredacted so he can prove that the intelligence he was directed to bury turned out to be correct.

There are a few interesting details about this revelation. As Warrick notes, we have known for years that Doe claimed to have warned the CIA that Iraq had stopped its nuclear program. Doe reported, among other things, that there were Iraqi centrifuge parts available in the arms market. But Doe is now claiming that some of the intelligence he provided pertained to Iran, as well. (He refers to one more country in his complaint: Doe is a fluent Arabic and Farsi speaker, so I invite you to place your bets on whether the third country is Syria, Libya, or Pakistan, accordingly. I’m putting $5 on Syria, with a side bet of $2 on Pakistan.)

But there’s another interesting bit, if you put together Warrick’s story and the motion to have key paragraphs from his complaint unredacted.

Warrick quotes Doe’s lawyer, Roy Krieger, as saying that key paragraphs in Doe’s complaint should no longer remain sealed because what those paragraphs reveal was declassified in last year’s Iran NIE.

The consensus view on Iran’s nuclear program shifted dramatically last December with the release of a landmark intelligence report that concluded that Iran halted work on nuclear weapons design in 2003. The publication of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran undermined the CIA’s rationale for censoring the former officer’s lawsuit, said his attorney, Roy Krieger. [my emphasis]

And Friday’s motion lists the actual paragraphs that–extrapolating from Krieger’s claim–may pertain to Iran. Read more →

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