Tuesday 26th of November 2024
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a diminishing state .....

a diminishing state .....

Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a blistering report that documented a secret drug interdiction program in Peru that was responsible for the death of an American missionary and her infant daughter in 2001. The report provided a detailed study of the efforts of senior CIA leaders, including Deputy Director John McLaughlin and Deputy Executive Director John Brennan, to cover up Agency malfeasance, stonewalling the White House, the Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the flaws of the interdiction program. Brennan, who was President Obama's original choice to be CIA director until the report complicated the confirmation process, is currently the deputy director of the National Security Council (NSC).

McLaughlin was the "villain" in the politicization of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay. Few people remember that it was McLaughlin who actually delivered the "slam-dunk" briefing to the president in January 2003. Nevertheless, the Obama administration named McLaughlin to lead the internal investigation of the CIA's intelligence failures in the attempted bombing of a commercial airliner and the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

The detailed report on Peru documents a culture of corruption and deceit at the highest levels of the CIA as well as the interventions of CIA lawyers to stop the DOJ from pursuing prosecutions in the case. The CIA office of general counsel's aggressive campaign to prevent a criminal prosecution of the agency officers culminated with Deputy Director McLaughlin's letter to the assistant attorney general that promised "significant disciplinary action" if CIA officers "lied or made knowingly misleading statements" to the Congress, DOJ, the NSC or office of inspectors general (OIG) investigators. The report carefully documents the lies and the stonewalling, but no "significant disciplinary action" has ever been taken.

The unwillingness to pursue failures and to hold senior officials accountable have been part of a larger pattern of corruption over the past three decades. There were a series of phony intelligence assessments prepared by the CIA in the 1980s, including a tailored report linking the Soviet Union to the attempted assassination of the pope in 1981, for which there was no accountability. (The leader of this campaign to politicize intelligence on the Soviet Union currently serves as President Obama's secretary of defense.) There were specious documents prepared in 2002 and 2003 to pave the way for the use of force in Iraq, including a National Intelligence Estimate and an unclassified white paper, once again without accountability. In fact, the authors of these reports had their careers advanced, while occasional critics were marginalized.

Sadly, President Obama has totally abandoned his campaign commitment to accountability. He has refused to take any action on accountability for torture and abuse, and his administration has refused to pursue legal action against the CIA for the destruction of the tapes that documented the sadistic behavior of CIA employees and contractors. The CIA officer most responsible for the destruction of the tapes, Jose Rodriquez Jr., said that it would be less damaging to destroy the tapes than to allow them to be seen. Rodriquez, who successfully fought a subpoena to testify before the House intelligence committee, could not have been more right.

Clearly, President Obama is following in the footsteps of many of his predecessors, who simply hoped to control controversy at the CIA by failing to address problems directly. His early admonition that he would look forward and not backward has certainly been applied to the CIA. This approach has not worked well in the past and will fail in the end. As a constitutional lawyer, President Obama must realize that the stature of international law is diminished when a nation violates it with impunity and that the stature of a nation is diminished when it commits crimes against humanity.

CIA and the Culture of Corruption

 

why weren't they...

"The unwillingness to pursue failures and to hold senior officials accountable"...(from above)...

Easy. They were not prosecuted for their mistakes, for the simple reason that the trial (or rejection of their "expertise") would have exposed the "secret" request from the White House to doctor the evidence and to slant it towards the fake existence of weapons of mass destruction... Where their little game falls flat on its face is actually starting the war on Saddam. I will reiterate it here:

From http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/11219#comments

 

... When the first rumours of invasion of Iraq came up in 2001-2, we knew it was a crock because contrary to what Blair, Bush and Rattus were lying about we ALSO HAD strong evidence to the contrary (see this site for those)... We knew via many sources that the CIA and other "intelligence" organisation in the UK and the USA were collecting (fabricating) "evidence" that did not stack up.

And best of all, as J. C Masterman, Master of Spies, tells us:

..If the word "Military Intelligence " are flung at me, I respond immediately with "Valmy". Though only a canonade and not a battle, Valmy was a turning point in the history of Europe. The Duke of Brunswick, invading Revolutionary France, turned back—"he did not know what was on the other side of the hill."

   There is the classic example of the failure of military intelligence—the failure to know... ...the function of an intelligence service is to "know"—to know what are the intentions of the enemy, to know his plans and resources, the disposition of his troops and their morale.

(J. C. Masterman was the leader of the Double-Cross System in England during WWII.)

The SHEER FACT that the US were telling us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but did not know where these were, TELLS US either Saddam was a formidable enemy that it would be very foolish to attack the way the US did OR that the commanders and the US government knew that Saddam had zip and was going to be a pushover... We knew — and Johnnee, Blair and Bush would have been silly fools not to know either — which it was: Saddam had ZIP.

Blair, Bush and Howard LIED big time and used a compliant public and private media to promote their lies.

Of course, the foot-soldiers were not in on the scam, though their generals had to be in on it...

The foot soldiers would have been shitting themselves at the prospect of nerve gas, chemical and bacterial warfare, without realising that they — with their depleted uranium bullets and white phosphorus bombs — were the agents of a chemical and dirty-nuke war.

The alarm in the ranks of our brave SAS should have started to ring LOUD AND CLEAR when in their bravest fortnight BEFORE the invasion, they were sent on a dangerous mission to sabotage "fixed weapon of mass destruction factories" and the only one they got was a cement-making outfit.

According to one military report (citation to come), this cement factory was "heavily-guarded" behind a fortified wall (Saddam did not trust some element of the Iraqi population) and our brave (way outnumbered!!!) SAS soldiers decided to call for US airforce reinforment. But NO BOMBING was ordered (that would have been too overt and bloody BEFORE the war), only a smart LOW flyover of the factory, to give the "illusion of bombing" with the strong double "BOOM" typical of flying beyond the speed of sound... By then, everyone was panic-striken and got out of the fortified compound. The SAS disarmed the soldiers and send them on their way into the desert. They did not have "facilities" nor the orders to "make prisoners"... No-one was hurt... When the SAS entered the compound they discovered it was a typical cement-making factory. NOTHING ELSE.

At this stage, even this late late stage, this incident should have awaken the soldiers that their "military intelligence" was CRAP. PURE CRAP!... In the same vein as the crap "intelligence" that was fed to Hans Bix and his weapons inspectors...

At that stage though, had Saddam got weapons of mass destruction, and the "allies" were still unable to find them before an invasion, it would have been extremely foolish to attack. The first official "attack" by the US was to bomb a restaurant in Bagdad...

The Liars!!!!!!!

Andrew Wilkie was the only intelligence officer IN THE WORLD brave enough to sink his career by spilling the beans on this dubious "intelligence" about Iraq. ALL THE OTHERS "intelligence officers" ARE LIARS. THEY LIED (did not tell the truth) conveniently for governmental porkied purposes...

Bush, Blair and Howard should be facing a war crime tribunal.