The National Security Disaster That Is The Obama Administration

According to an article in the WSJ (available around the paywall here), the 2012 raid on the bin Laden compound in Pakistan netted the single greatest collection of intelligence materials since 9/11. At the time -- and since -- the Obama message was that al Qaeda was all but destroyed and that it was time to wind down the war on terror. As Obama said, when two years ago he asked Congress to repeal the Authorization For Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed in the wake of 9/11, this war on terror "must end."

However, the wealth of materials captured in the bin Laden raid told a different story. They told of a vastly expanding threat from al Qaeda, the Taliban and the ISIS, as well as complicity by Iran. Those facts contradicted the Obama administration's narrative, so not only were they kept from the public eye, but in what can only be seen as treasonous insanity, they were walled off from analysis by our intelligence community for at least a year, and have had only limited availability since. Yes, read that last line twice and let it sink in.

After a pitched bureaucratic battle [that lasted about a year], a small team of analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency and Centcom was given time-limited, read-only access to the documents. The DIA team began producing analyses reflecting what they were seeing in the documents.

At precisely the time Mr. Obama was campaigning on the imminent death of al Qaeda, those with access to the bin Laden documents were seeing, in bin Laden’s own words, that the opposite was true. Says Lt. Gen. Flynn: “By that time, they probably had grown by about—I’d say close to doubling by that time. And we knew that.”

This wasn’t what the Obama White House wanted to hear. So the administration cut off DIA access to the documents and instructed DIA officials to stop producing analyses based on them.

Even this limited glimpse into the broader set of documents revealed the problems with the administration’s claims about al Qaeda. Bin Laden had clear control of al Qaeda and was intimately involved in day-to-day management. More important, given the dramatic growth of the terror threat in the years since, the documents showed that bin Laden had expansion plans. . . .

The WSJ article goes on to argue for making all of the documents from the bin Laden raid publicly available. I'd be satisfied if they'd just make them available to our intel analysts. This incident highlights both how and why Obama's foreign policy has been a complete disaster for our national security. Obama's policies are completely out of touch with reality. Obama values ideology and political power more than he does our national security. And while our nation can recover from the economic disaster that the Obama regime has been, it is far less certain that we can recover from the damage Obama has done to our national security,

In 2008, I wrote a post supporting John McCain's presidential bid on the issue of national security. I argued that McCain could be expected to make national security decisions respecting "Iran, Iraq and terrorism" based on the long term interests of our country while Obama would make such decisions based on ideology and polls. I think history has proven my point with a terrible vengeance, but it is a hollow 'I told you so.' Even I never expected this degree of disaster. As Victor Davis Hanson recently stated, "Obama’s morally confused foreign policy is making the world more dangerous by the day."

To list --

- Obama squandered our victory in Iraq because he, and indeed, the entire left wanted history to consider our war there illegitimate. Iran now increasingly holds sway in Iraq and our true allies in Iraq, the Kurds, are in desperate straits.

- Obama's decision to unilateraly end our military engagement in Afghanistan threatens that country with the same fate as Iraq.

- Obama refused to intercede in Syria at the start of their civil war. While Obama fiddled, pro-Western forces in Syria were overcome by the Sunni radical groups. Syria is now a war for spoils between the Wahabbi radicals of ISIS and the mad mullahs of Iran.

- Obama's war in Libya against Qaddafi, who at least maintained the neutrality of that country, has opened up Libya for exploitation by ISIS and al Qaeda.

- Obama fully supported the Muslim Brotherhood administration of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt as they used authoritarian tactics to reshape that nation into a permanent theocracy. The Obama administration still maintains ties with the Muslim Brotherhood while having a very cool relationship with Egypt's secular leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who, it should be noted, is the only national leader, Islamic or otherwise, to call for a reform of Islam.

- Obama refuses to even acknowledge Islam's role in the Islamic terrorism that is reshaping our world. That refusal to engage in the war of ideas guarantees that Islamic terrorism, perhaps apocalyptic given the ever increasing likelihood of a WMD attack, will never be defeated.

- Obama's entire foreign policy, based on fantasy and, we now know, a simple refusal to acknowlede uncomfortable facts, has allowed for the rise of ISIS, an utterly animalistic group that has now have proclaimed a caliphate in the areas of Syria and Iraq where they hold sway. In addition, the ISIS now hold parts of Libya. The ISIS threatens to destabilize other Sunni countries in the already unstable Middle East.

- Obama, who named as one of his many insane, utopian goals, a world without nuclear weapons, has significantly reduced our nuclear arms capacity That nuclear capacity is what has kept the peace in Europe, the Pax Americana, of the past near seventy years.

- Obama unilaterally changed our national defense posture from being able to fight in two theaters of war simultaneously -- our defense posture since WWII -- to being able to fight in one. This was certainly not based on any threat assessment. It was based on his desire to use more of our nations wealth to fund his domestic programs.

- Obama has made "climate change" one of the top priorities of our nation's defense establishment, diverting significant resources from our nation's defense.

- Under Obama, defense spending has become our nation's lowest priority, and, according to a 2015 Heritage Foundation analysis, our military capabilities are significantly declining. Add to that is Obama's decision to use our military to advance the social policies of radical feminists by allowing women into the combat arms without even the pretense of a study to determine how this would effect, let alone enhance, our war fighting capability.

- Obama, who promised in his 2008 campaign and again in his 2012 campaign that he would stop Iran's nuclear program, has broken a sanctions regime that had finally brought the Iranian theocracy to its knees. Iran is the quintessential bad actor in the world. The mad mullahs of Iran have been at war with U.S. interests, and often times the U.S. itself, since almost the first day Iran's theocracy was proclaimed in 1979. The mad mullahs pose the single greatest threat to our and the world's long term security. Yet Obama appears on the cusp of cutting a deal with Iran to allow them to continue their nuclear enrichment - and thus their march towards a nuclear arsenal.

- Obama, by allowing Iran to continue its nuclear program, is igniting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia and other nations start their own nuclear programs for self defense. The only thing more frightening than Iran with nuclear weapons is Iran and the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons.

- Obama, when presented with a rare strategic opportunity during Iran's Green Revolution to perhaps topple or at least alter the trajectory of Iran's bloody and lawless theocracy, wholly ignored the opportunity until the mad mullahs had almost completely regained control.

- Russia has already invaded the Ukraine, and several NATO nations are concerned, probably not unreasonably, that Russia might invade and that NATO, led by the U.S., will not respond.

- North Korea is continuing to build and refine its nuclear arsenal. And its Dear Leader is beating the war drums, telling Army commanders this week to prepare for a Great War of Reunification against the U.S. and South Korea.

- China is rapidly expanding and modernizing its military capabilities far beyond that needed for regional defense. China is also becoming more bellicose and aggressive in its dealings with its neighbors.

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The world today is a far more dangerous place for America than it was in 2008, when Obama took office. We can't stop Obama's continued degradation of our national security between now and 2017, but let us hope we can slow it, at least in regards to Iran's march to a nuclear arsenal. Otherwise, our nation will not recover from the damage Obama has done and may yet do.

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This Is No Way To Run Intelligence

The news over the past week:

The mad al Qaeda muzzies are planning an imminent strike. That is important. We all need to know that.

Their most likely targets will be our embassies. Important. Need to know.

Their method of attack may well be by a suicide bomber with explosives surgically implanted in their body. Important. Need to know.

Then there was this from McClatchey on 4 Aug.:

An official who’d been briefed on the matter in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, told McClatchy that the embassy closings and travel advisory were the result of an intercepted communication between Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri in which Zawahiri gave “clear orders” to al-Wuhaysi, who was recently named al Qaida’s general manager, to carry out an attack.

Why do we need to know that? What does it do to change or add anything to what we need to know and have already been told?

What does that information do other than burn an intelligence source? Whatever means of communication these two animals were using - and evidently it was an electronic means that the NSA could tap - they will now no longer use. And what that means is that, while we might put the kabosh on this particular planned attack with our response, we won't be stopping the next one that we don't know about til the bombs go off.

This is hardly the first intelligence source our news media and / or the Obama Administration has burned. Sources and methods should be sacrosanct. This is just insane.

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Obama's Lawfare Insanity - The Capture & Planned Civilian Trial Of Suleiman Abu Ghaith

Here we go again. The far left is utterly determined to conflate warfare with criminal law. In this instance, the U.S., with the help of Turkey and Jordan, recently captured Suleiman Abu Ghaith, bin Laden's son in law and a man who took part in al Qaeda's war on the U.S. both before and after 9-11. Further, it is believed that Ghaith may have information about al Qaeda ties to Iran. And yet, Ghaith was taken in by the FBI, not the CIA, with preliminary indications being that the capture occurred in the past week. Eric Holder announced today that Ghaith is already in the U.S., that will be arraigned Friday in a NY District Court - where he will of course lawyer up - and that Ghaith will be tried in that court on federal criminal charges.

Ghaith is not an American citizen, nor was he captured in America. The violent acts in which he took part were not criminal acts, they were acts of war against our nation. He is a very high value target, likely of great intelligence value. We have an entire system set up for such individuals, or at least we used to have one.

Step one would be to take all the time necessary to interrogate this individual over a matter of weeks or months. Intelligence is the life blood of any war, and it is of particular importance to a shadow war against an amorphous enemy spread across numerous countries.

Step two, only to be taken when the individual is of no more intelligence value, would be to plant him in Gitmo and subject him to a military tribunal if and only if the government considers that he deserves punishment beyond holding him until the end of hostilities.

All of the arguments for NOT trying a foreign terrorist for acts of war in our civilian courts apply in full force to this act of treachery from Obama and his DOJ. One, this man should be being interrogated by the CIA for all he is worth, not discussing his case in comfort with his private attorney. Two, our Courts are not set up handle cases involving secret - and possibly top secret - evidence, nor are they set up to receive testimony from individuals whose identity must remain unknown. Three, conflating criminal law with the law of war sets a dangerous precedent. The laws that govern war are set out internationally and are based in part on recognition of the practical realities of war. Federal criminal law places much greater restraints on our government in recognition of our unique Constitutional protections. Ghaith has no claim whatsoever to rights based on our Constitution.

This is just insanity. Thankfully, the budget is coming up shortly. The House should defund the Justice Department until Ghaith is sent to Gitmo and his case transferred to the military tribunals.

Just a final note. The hypocrisy and false moralizing of the Obama regime on virtually everything to do with the war on terror is stomach turning. We can't do enhanced interrogations on terrorists, but Obama claims unilateral authority to assassinate such people. We can't try terrorists through the military tribunal system, even though using the civilian courts would pose dangers to our intelligence gathering. The only thread that ties these policies together is that they are the most politically palatable for Obama, not that they are in any sense what's best for our country.

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Clinton Takes Responsibility For Benghazi, But Leaves All Critical Questions Unanswered

Sec. of State Clinton said this last night about the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi:



What she said is insufficient. If she was truly taking responsibility, she would have accompanied her mea culpa with a letter of resignation, or the heads of the "security professionals" who, she would tell us, made criminally reckless decisions. Instead, what Clinton gave us yesterday was a whimsical "my bad, sorry." Or to use the vernacular of Whoopi Goldberg, it wasn't 'taking responsibility taking responsibility.' It states the obvious, leaving all of the important questions regarding security, intelligence and foreign policy unanswered, and holding no one accountable.

Yes, as Clinton stated, the specific manning decisions for security in Benghazi would be made at the State Dept. and would never reach the White House. That said, if the decision to underman security in Benghazi irrespective of the actual threat was made in consideration of a policy, then we need to know where that policy originated. who approved it and why. That is either Clinton and or Obama. Bob Woodward highlighted this exact point several days ago on Fox News:



And then, of course, there is the now the well publicized testimony of LTC Wood, commander of a security detachment in Benghazi who begged the State Dept. for more security months in advance of the attack - "[f]or me, the Taliban was on the inside of the building. . ."



Moreover, there is the claim that "fog of war" lasted for near two weeks, during which time Susan Rice, Obama, Clinton and others in the administration claimed that this was a 'spontaneous' protest over a video that got out of hand. State Dept. officials who were in Benghazi on 9-11-12 have given a first hand account of what occurred on that day. To say that our intelligence agencies were mystified for weeks, let alone 24 hours, by the "fog of war" is utterly beyond belief. Charles Krauthammer highlighted that on a Fox News panel:



So that raises the next series of questions, regarding our intelligence capabilities. Who in our intelligence community briefed the White House and what was the sum of that briefing? Either our intelligence community has degraded to the level of the keystone kops or someone is lying to America. And further, we have been told again and again that our nation had no "actionable intelligence" regarding the Benghazi attack. Why not? Are we seeing degraded intelligence capabilities because of the President's decision to deal with al Qaeda almost solely through drone strikes and not through capture and interrogation?

Then there is the elephant in the room. If Obama was trying to deceive America about the nature of the Benghazi attack, why was he doing it? Others have answered that. Charles Krauthammer, in his column The Collapse of the Cairo Doctrine, points out that Salafism is resurgent in the Middle East, that Obama's "doctrinal premises were supremely naive" and that his policies have been "deeply corrosive to American influence." Laura Logan noted that Obama's deception runs deeper than just al Qaeda and the Benghazi attacks:

[O]ur government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”

And indeed, twelve hours before the attacks on 9-11-12, I penned the following:

{The US. is experiencing] a false sense of security for no, we are not safer today. For the past eleven years, our soldiers and intelligence services have performed brilliantly. They have done all that we have asked of them. And yet, the future in the Middle East and, more particularly, as regards the radical Islamists, looks far more threatening today than it did on September 10, 2001.

I followed that prescient observation by noting that we have failed to engage in the war of ideas, and thus al Qaeda will be constantly regenerating in some form or another. This is not a 'war' that will end in 2014 as we turn off the lights in Afghanistan. Because we are not engaging in the war of ideas, this will be a conflict that will last for decades.

At any rate, the answers to all of the questions raised above were not answered by Hillary Clinton's whimsical acceptance of responsibility with no consequences. This is not a "political" diversion; it goes to the heart of our national security and the wages of four years of policy decisions by the Obama administration. It so happens that they are all encapsulated in the answers to why the Benghazi attack happened, why it succeeded, and why the Obama administration lied about it to America. Those are questions the Obama administration wants to avoid like the plague until after the first Tuesday in November. Those are questions America deserves answers to today.

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It Explains So Much

A creative and intelligent mind is rarely a tidy thing

Bill Buckley

Nat Handoff

Einstein

That about says it all, don't you think.

(H/T Crusader Rabbit)

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Dems Trying To Give Terrorists Extra-Constitutional Rights & Gut Our Human Intel Capability

These Democrats are scurrilous and dumber than rocks. They are continuing their war on our intelligence capabilities and they will get people killed. Chief among them on the dumber than a rock list is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Sylvester Reyes, pictured above. When he took over the chairmanship in 2006, at the height of the Iraq War, this bozo did not know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims. His sole qualification for the Chairmanship was kissing Nancy Pelosi's very wrinkled ass. And now this mental midget has introduced a bill that would not only provide a new Constitutional right to terrorists, but it would actually give stronger protections to terrorists than that enjoyed by all American citizens under the Constitution. Moreover, it is so poorly written - so vague and ambiguous - that it would literally stop our intelligence agencies from conducting interrogations for fear of being put in jail. What an utterly idiotic, asinine, bottom feeding, incompetent, worthless S.O.B.

In the dead of night, Reyes using a procedural tool that allowed him to offer amendments to the Intelligence Bill that was to be voted on today - insuring that they would not be subject to hearing or debate, and he did so without any consultation with the CIA. His amendment, which you can find here beginning on page 33 of the pdf file, provides:

“Any officer or employee of the intelligence community who in the course of . . . [an] interrogation knowingly commits . . . an act of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than 15 years, or both.”

Note that the 8th Amendment to the Constitution provides a prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments.” The language of that Amendment has a long history of interpretation and, in his amendment, Reyes specified that he meant his new law to be read in light of the 8th Amendment. But the language of his amendment went beyond that. To “cruel,” Reyes has added “inhuman” and “degrading.” That is so ambiguous and so potentially far reaching that it goes far beyond any limitation found in our Constitution. Left wing lawyers and judges would have a field day with this. Does degrading treatment mean that the FBI can no longer keep trying to break the Undiebombers will by telling fat jokes about his mother – upon pain of 15 years in jail?

In giving examples of the things outlawed under this provision, Reyes cites to many examples of prohibited acts "including but not limited to . . . waterboarding, . . . depriving the individual of necessary food, water or sleep, . . . using force or threat of force to compel an individual to maintain a stress position . . . exposure to excessive cold, heat or cramped confinement . . . prolonged isolation . . . placing hoods or sacks over the heads of individuals," and many more.

So what is "prolonged isolation?" Reyes doesn't define it. So at what point does a CIA agent risk going to jail? Our jails use solitary confinement as a punishment. What about sleep deprivation. Does a CIA officer risk jail time if he does not stop an interrogation when a prisoner says he's tired and wants to go to bed? This is beyond ridiculous. And none of that even begins to plumb the depths of what could be considered "demeaning" treatment.

Only two months ago, polls show that a wide majority of Americans thought that the Christmas Day Undiebomber should have been in military custody getting waterboarded for all he is worth. And here we have Reyes attempting to slide in a law to give the Undiebomber more legal rights than an American citizen. These people are suicidal in the way Jim Jones was - he was quite willing to commit suicide but forced the rest of his followers to do the same.

Andy McCarthy has much more on this at NRO, including a discussion of how Reyes and the left are, by this amendment, attempting to equate waterboarding with "torture." God help Reyes and crew when the next explosive devise sent in underwear from Yemen explodes. A bill will come due, and these utterly scurrilous individuals have to be made to pay in full.

Update: Reyes has now withdrawn his managers amendment. This from Rep. Pete Hoeksta:

That Democrats would try to bury this provision deep in the bill, late at night, when they thought everyone’s attention would be focused on the health care summit is a testament to the shameful nature of what they were attempting. . . . Republicans brought this to the attention of the American people, who were rightly outraged that Democrats would try to target those we ask to serve in harm’s way and with a unified push we were successful in getting them to pull the bill.

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The Changing National Security Tune

Now, do [terrorists] deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not.

President Barack Obama, Interview With 60 Minutes, 23 March 2009

HOLDER: Yes, it seems to me this is an argument that is really consequential. One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people.

It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohammed Atta had survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not.

And yet, I understand what Secretary Powell is concerned about, and that is we're going to be fighting this war with people who are special forces, not people who are generally in uniform. And if unfortunately they somehow become detained, we would want them to be treated in an appropriate way consistent with the Geneva Convention.

ZAHN: So is the secretary of state walking a fine line here legally? He is not asking that the United States declare these men as prisoners of war right now. He's just saying let's abide by the Geneva Convention in the meantime.

HOLDER: Yes, and I think in a lot of ways that makes sense. I think they clearly do not fit within the prescriptions of the Geneva Convention. You have to remember that after World War II, as these protocols were being developed, there seemed to be widespread agreement that members of the French Resistance would not be considered prisoners of war if they had been captured. That being the case, it's hard for me to see how members of al Qaeda could be considered prisoners of war.

And yet, I understand Secretary Powell's concerns. We want to make sure that our forces, if captured in this or some other conflict, are treated in a humane way. And I think ultimately that's really the decisive factor here. How are people, who are in our custody, going to be treated? And those in Europe and other places who are concerned about the treatment of al Qaeda members should come to Camp X-ray and see how the people are, in fact, being treated.

ZAHN: The administration this morning playing down any discord among its team, but if you could, help us understand how you reconcile this.

HOLDER: . . . I can understand the tensions that exist, but I think the way to resolve it is, in fact, the way Secretary Powell has proposed, which is to say these are not people who are prisoners of war as that has been defined, but who are entitled to, in our own interests, entitled to be treated in a very humane way and almost consistent with all of the dictates of the Geneva Convention.

ZAHN: Final question for you, moving onto the issue of John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban. How much pressure should they put on this man to get information out of him as they interrogate him?

HOLDER: Well, I mean, it's hard to interrogate him at this point now that he has a lawyer and now that he is here in the United States. But to the extent that we can get information from him, I think we should. . . .

Eric Holder, Interview with CNN, 28 January 2002

From the quotes above, we have Obama saying that we should not be treating terrorists as criminals. We have Eric Holder, now and for the moment our Attorney General, not merely acknowledging that giving a terrorist a lawyer and Constitutional rights significantly constrains our ability to interrogate that person, but arguing that "enemy combatants" shouldn't be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention because that too would substantially constrain our ability to interrogate them for vital intelligence. How we get from those statements to today, where Holder and Obama are treating the Christmas Day Undiebomber, Abdullahmuttalab ,as a common criminal, is literally the story of how the far left demagogued and politicized our national security over the past six years.

Intelligence is time sensitive. Information on locations and practices that are true today will be changed tomorrow if the enemy has reason to believe that either has been compromised. Thus, when the Obama administration decided to treat the Christmas Undiebomber as common criminal and give him a lawyer after less than an hour of interrogation, they voluntarily squandered an intelligence asset with information vital to protecting American lives. Abdulmutallab thereafter remained silent for five weeks until he began to answer questions again. While Abdullmutalab may be providing high value intelligence today, it is an utter certainty that, with a five week delay, the value of the intelligence Abdullmutalab can convey is significantly lessened.

Yet the Obama and Holder are trying to defend their indefensible decision to treat Abdullmutulab as a common criminal for purely political reasons. The administration is in full spin mode now - thus the BS meter at the top of this post is pegging.

The administration called a press briefing Tuesday to publicly announce that, after weeks of silence, the FBI had finally induced Abdulmutallab to begin providing intelligence again, apparently involving his family in the process. The purpose of the announcement was "to let Americans 'know that we're doing everything possible to keep the American people safe." and to condemn Republicans for "politicizing" the issue. Amazing. And as an aside, no one has yet asked the question if there are any additional plea agreements that had to be first agreed to by the government before Abdulmutallab agreed now to answer questions. You can bet your life's savings that ink met paper before his lawyer allowed him to say word one, whether his parents were there or not.

The administration followed up the news conference with a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to House Minority Leader Mitch McConnel in which Holder attempts to justify treating Abdulmutallab as a common criminal rather than an enemy combatant. The main reason he gives for not holding Abdulmutallab:

Some have argued that had Abdulmutallab been declared an enemy combatant, the government could have held him indefinitely without providing him access to an attorney. But the government’s legal authority to do so is far from clear. In fact, when the Bush administration attempted to deny Jose Padilla access to an attorney, a federal judge in New York rejected that position, ruling that Padilla must be allowed to meet with his lawyer. Notably, the judge in that case was Michael Mukasey, my predecessor. . . .

Give me a break. As a threshold matter, Padilla was allowed to see a lawyer to challenge his designation as an enemy combatant - not because he was a criminal defendant with a right not to answer questions during the period in which he was being interrogated for intelligence. And if Holder switched on PBS News last night, he would have been treated to Michael Mukasey arguing that Abdullumutalab is an enemy combatant who should have been put in the military system without benefit of a lawyer or a Constitutional right not to answer questions.

More importantly, the "legal authority" to hold Abdulmutallab as an enemy combatant without Constitutional rights could not be more clear. We are a nation at war against those elements that carried out or otherwise assisted in the Sept. 11 attack. This war was formally authorized in 2001 by Congress in the Authorization For Use Of Military Force (AUMF). What the Undiebomber did in attempting to blow up a plane was an act of war that falls specifically within the ambit of the AUMF. Thus we have every right to hold him in our military system. Even the left wing of the Supreme Court never questioned that right. To the contrary, taking prisoners in war and holding them within the military system until hostilities cease is, to quote the left wing of the Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, "so fundamental and accepted an incident to war as to be an exercise of the ‘necessary and appropriate force."

Indeed, so utterly groundless is Holder's claims that even Jan Crawford of CBS News isn't buying it.

. . . Aware of needed damage control, the White House and Attorney General are now taking the position that, legally, it was “highly questionable” whether they could have detained the terror suspect and continued to question him without a lawyer, even if they wanted to. Holder, in his letter to the Senators, said that legal authority “is far from clear.”

Many legal experts, however, agree the law is, in fact, pretty clear: It’s not that highly questionable at all. Under existing law, the Obama Administration had the authority to detain and question Abdulmutallab more extensively. And it chose not to.

If the Obama Administration wants to make a policy decision to treat al Qaeda operatives as common criminals and not as enemy combatants, that’s a position it could take—and some advocate they should. They’ve argued that giving rights to these terrorists, for example, will enhance our standing in the world and deter future terrorist acts.

But those are policy arguments and policy decisions, and they have consequences. They should stand or fall on the merits. They aren’t required by law.
To argue, instead, that the law essentially tied has their hands—that the law all but required this course of action in Detroit--ignores the cases that have been decided.

And there’s a danger in that. Whether or not the Obama Administration made the right call on Christmas Day, it’s a problem to see top officials now make incomplete or misleading legal arguments to justify their decision after the fact.

Holder also makes a laughable pragmatic argument that using the criminal law system is somehow the equal of - if not superior to - interrogations without constitutional rights and a lawyer under the law of war. The Volokh Conspiracy responds to that argument:

Do we think that maybe using the model of ordinary criminal justice questioning and plea bargaining and lawyer negotiation is such a smart idea at a moment in which we have to wonder whether, yes indeed, maybe this guy really does know something crucial? Talk about maximum hold-up value ...

I’m all in favor of such criminal justice rights for our ordinary criminals — and am not silly enough to believe that people like me want them because they will cause people to talk. It’s in order that in our ordinary criminal justice system, people will know they don’t have to and, frankly, won’t without advice from an attorney. I like that for ordinary criminal suspects, but that’s because it’s a limitation. AG Holder makes it sound as though it’s a great way to get them to talk. If it were, I’d think there was something wrong with our existing criminal justice system. It’s a feature of our ordinary criminal justice system; a bug if we think it’s supposed to produce actionable intelligence quickly. DOJ seems to think it’s a feature all the way around; this is unlikely at best.

We Mirandized him ... because otherwise we’d be depriving ourselves of an important tool for gaining actionable intelligence? By urging him not to talk? Really? That appears to be the AG’s argument, on this as on the general point about using the criminal justice system. If we don’t use a tool that is mostly, by comparison to our other possibilities, about limiting our access to him, we are somehow hurting ourselves by not using our full repertoire.

Well, it’s an argument, I suppose. An admirable example, I also suppose, of how to make a legal silk purse from a sow’s ear. I sure hope whoever got stuck writing it at DOJ doesn’t take it too seriously. The whole letter sounds as though it were cut and pasted from some human rights advocacy report, I’m afraid.

Obama and Holder, prior to taking power, had it right. Abdulmutallab should be treated as an enemy combatant. That is what our national security demands and the law allows. It is only politics that is driving Holder and Obama to do otherwise at the moment. If they think that they can keep this up, they had better be hoping and praying to a benevolent God that al Qaeda does not successfully conduct a mass casualty attack in America on their watch. If and when it happens, the public will be demanding their blood.

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These Aren't Leaders & They Will Get Americans Killed

The attempted Christmas bombing by al Qaeda linked Omar Abdulmutallab successfully bypassed all of the security precautions put in place since 9-11. This is a failure on Obama's watch. But as much as I think that Obama has unforgivably decimated our intelligence capabilities - something that will inevitably lead to future terrorist attacks for which he will be fully responsible - it is not apparent to me that this particular failure to stop this bombing before it came to the point of fruition is Obama's failure. The intelligence was there. It is beyond question that the individuals that should have connected the dots didn't. And it appears that airport security failed catastrophically in Amsterdam.

The appropriate response for Obama to this turn of events should have been simple - take responsibility, instruct his staff to identify the how and why of this failure and make recommendations to plug the holes. Once satisfied, he should then report to the American people. Instead, the Obama administration initially sent Janet Napolitano sent out to run defense, insanely claiming the "system worked." And now the White House is showing more of an inclination to treat this failure as a partisan political issue than to take responsibility and patch the security holes. This from the American Spectator is utterly unreal:

. . . senior Obama White House aides, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and new White House counsel Robert Bauer, ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns -- if any -- from the Bush Administration.

"The idea was that we'd show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could," says a staffer in the counsel's office. "We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we'd declassify it if necessary."

The White House, according to the source, is in full defensive spin mode. Other administration sources also say a flurry of memos were generated on December 26th, 27th, and 28th, which developed talking points about how Obama's decision to effectively shut down the Homeland Security Council (it was merged earlier this year into the National Security Council, run by National Security Adviser James Jones) had nothing to do with what Obama called a "catastrophic" failure on Christmas Day.

"This White House doesn't view the Northwest [Airlines] failure as one of national security, it's a political issue," says the White House source. "That's why Axelrod and Emanuel are driving the issue." . . .

The article goes on to note that Obama has Axelrod even sit in on national security briefings. Everything is politicized with these stooges - though that said, our far left crossed a bright red line in our political landscape when they politicized national security beginning in 2006, all in an effort to attain political power. These people aren't fit to lead a girl scout troupe.

The unforgivable aspect of the instant case is that Obama has treated Abdulmutallab as a criminal, giving him constitutional protection and allowing him to lawyer up rather than treating him as an enemy combatant subject to permanent detention and interrogation. Indeed, this is blatantly obvious to a vast majority of Americans. As Rassmusen reports:

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day. . . .

Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters think the attempt by the Nigerian Muslim to blow up the airliner as it landed in Detroit should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act. Only 22% say it should be handled by civilian authorities as a criminal act, . . .

No kidding. Yet Obama, with his vacuous moral preening and unbounded intellectual arrogance, has elevated his personal beliefs over his Constitutional and moral duty to the protect our nation. All of the intelligence that our would be jihadist could give us on the al Qaeda cell that threatens America is no longer available because the three stooges pictured above want to, as Cheney so accurately said yesterday, pretend that we are no longer in a war on terror. So how has the Obama approach worked? This from Powerline, quoting varoious itterations of a WaPo article on the issue:

The Washington Post reports that the would-be Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, remains in a Detroit prison where, after initial debriefings by the FBI, he has "restricted his cooperation." The "restriction" occurred after he obtained a defense attorney. . . .

An earlier version of the Post's story included this statement: "Authorities are holding out hope that [Abdulmutallab] will change his mind and cooperate with the probe, the officials said." The Post removed the passage. Whether it did so out of embarrassment for the "officials" or for the newspaper itself is unclear. . . .

This is a travesty and American blood will be spilled because of it. Damn these people.

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Intel & Politics In The Dem's Congress

Nancy Pelosi may be clinically insane - an opinion I have had for a long time - but she knows how to choose people that are loyal. Congressman Sylvester Reyes is a case in point. Pelosi elevated this man to the post of Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. It was certainly not because he was the sharpest knife in the box - to the contrary, at the time of his appointment, he did not know whether al Qaeda was a Sunni or Shia organization. One might consider that show of confusion on the most basic of points a disqualifier for an aspiring Intel chief during time of war. But what Reyes lacks in even the most basic of understanding of intelligence, he more than makes up for in loyalty to his mentor, Pelosi. And he is now leading the charge to discredit the CIA and to insure that the truth never comes out about Pelosi's claim that she was not briefed on waterboarding.

Democrats are claiming it a scandal that our CIA might have floated a program to conduct targeted assassinations of al Qaeda operatives without briefing Congress. They further claim that the decision not to brief Congress was made by the font of all evil in the world, Dick Cheney, Their goal is to hold this situation up as proof that the CIA regularly misleads Congress, and that, as such, no further proof on the Pelosi matter is warranted. As to the program itself, one has to wonder why such a plan was not operational on 9-12. Beyond that, there is this from Congressman Pete Hoekstra writing in the NY Post:

CIA Director Panetta refused to back the allegation that Cheney gave such an order. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden flatly denied that he'd ever been instructed not to brief Congress. Now Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has also distanced himself from these over-the-top allegations by House Democrats.

There's also been a flurry of bizarre letters from House Intelligence Committee members about this matter suggesting that Democrats are no longer interested in bipartisan oversight of intelligence. One was slipped under a Republican staff member's door after business hours. I first learned about it from the news media.

Another letter signed by seven Democratic House intelligence-committee members did not use House Intelligence committee stationery, apparently to ensure that Republicans didn't get a copy. Two Democratic House Intelligence Committee members refused to sign this letter because they thought it was too political.

These new allegations, letters and calls for investigations are part of a strategy by Democrats to attack intelligence personnel and agencies. Why? To protect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- who is in hot water over her May 14 comments that the CIA "lies all the time" and misled her about enhanced interrogation of terrorist suspects.

A major consequence of this Democratic effort to politicize intelligence is that the House Intelligence Committee has essentially stopped doing meaningful work. The 2010 intelligence-authorization bill was so poorly drafted (and loaded with language to protect Pelosi) that President Obama threatened a veto, forcing Democratic leaders to pull the bill from consideration this month.

. . . Disarray by House Democrats on intelligence oversight is seriously damaging the morale of US intelligence officers and their ability to do their jobs. How can Democrats claim they are serious about national security when they are exploiting intelligence and attacking intelligence professionals for political advantage?

I have emphasized that the intelligence community must be accountable when it does not tell Congress what it is doing. But when Congress is told and approves, Congress needs to be held accountable.

Pelosi's claim that the CIA lied to her about enhanced interrogations and recent Democratic claims that the CIA misled them about another program ignore the point that Democrats were repeatedly briefed on and approved the CIA's tough counterterrorism programs from the outset.

. . . The incredible amount of partisanship Democrats have introduced into intelligence matters is demoralizing the US intelligence community, causing sensitive information to be disclosed and encouraging our enemies. For the good of our nation, Democrats need to start acting like adults and begin conducting responsible and bipartisan intelligence oversight. These attacks on our intelligence community need to stop now.

Partisan political games have no place when it comes to national security.

That last sentence from Congressman Hoekstra is purely aspirational. Democrats have been politicizing intelligence since they decided that the Vietnam War that they led us into was unpopular. Democrats have been politicizing and hamstringing our intelligence capabilities in an unbroken line since the Church Commission at the conclusion of the Vietnam War. It has worked for them, so why stop now.

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Hypocrisy, History & The Sleep Of The Righteous

Intelligence is the key to stopping terrorist plots. Ask the 9-11 Commission to describe 9-11 in three words and they would no doubt be "an intelligence failure." Ask Dick Cheney, Michael Hayden, George Tenet or Mike McConnel what has kept us safe these past eight years, and their answer would no doubt be "actionable intelligence." In the shadow war we are in - one which could conceivably at some point involve nuclear or biological attacks on the U.S. - to forego opportunities to collect and act on intelligence would be a grotesque dereliction of duty.

Thus it is troubling indeed to learn today from the NYT that the CIA, limited as it is to non-coercive means of interrogation and no longer able to run holding facilities for terrorists, both thanks to the January executive order of President Obama, is now outsourcing virtually all interrogations of captured al Qaeda members to other countries. The only benefit of this that I can tell is that it allows President Obama to maintain his illusory position atop the moral highground, his conscience pristine. Meanwhile, we have lost control of intelligence sources, and the job of breaking them now falls to nations whose historical methods of interrogation have been coercive indeed. It is then up to those nations to decide what intelligence to share with us.

When it comes to waterboarding and other evils, necessary though they may be to keeping us safe, we are told by Obama that these things are immoral and must not be done - by us at least. It is a measure of the boundless hypocrisy of President Obama that he presents himself as the supreme moral being and will take no position that will sully his utopian self, but then he allows captured al Qaeda operatives to be interrogated by other countries for whom waterboarding would, historically at least, be viewed as mild.

What is the price we must pay so that Obama and the far left can sleep each eve with pristine conscience, secure in the knowledge of their own superior self-righteousness? For if the bill comes due, the price will be in the blood of innocent Americans.

For those who buy into Obama's vacuous utopian moralizing, know that the harsh realities of history paint a very different picture. One example I find incredibly grating is Obama's oft repeated claim that we won World War II because we "stayed true to our values."

In making that claim, Obama never defines the "values" to which he refers, though it is implicit that he defines them as the values du jour that he is pumping in his speech that day. Nor does he explain the nuance of our supposed fidelity to such values in the context of such things as interring all Japanese Americans for the duration of the War, the fire bombing of Dresden, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, nor the execution of German spies. And neither does he explain the seeming dichotomy in how our fidelity to his value du jour that he would have us believe caused us to win over Germany did not conversely cause the Soviet Union to lose to Germany, given that the Soviet's values in terms of civil liberties, torture, etc. were antithetical to ours.

At any rate, I will go to sleep tonight with a small worry deep in the back of my head over the safety of my family and my country. Obama will go to sleep tonight apparently untroubled, his conscience pristine. Are not those roles dangerously reversed?

Update: And do see the 'better late than never' Dafydd ab Hugh's take on this at Big Lizards. As he notes, even this turn of events is not enough to satisfy the hard left base of Obama who are "hoping to achieve their life goal of completely disarming the United States in the midst of an existential war."

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Special Interests, Obama, Pelosi and National Security

Mike McConnell, who served both the Clinton Administration and now the Bush Administration, has stated flatly that we need civilian cooperation to conduct our intelligence operations and that failure to pass the FISA reform bill will harm our ability to collect intelligence. On what possible basis than could a minority in the Senate, including Barack Obama, and the House Democratic leadership be seeking to torpedo this bill? The answer lies in one of the many special interests that hold sway over the Democrats - class action lawyers who see a gold mine in suing telecommunications companies for their cooperation with our intelligence community.

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This today from Robert Novack, explaining why Democrats are willing to degrade our national security:

A closed-door caucus of House Democrats last Wednesday took a risky political course. By 4 to 1, they instructed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call President Bush's bluff on extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to continue eavesdropping on suspected foreign terrorists. Rather than passing the bill with a minority of the House's Democratic majority, Pelosi obeyed her caucus and left town for a week-long recess without renewing the government's eroding intelligence capability.

Pelosi could have exercised leadership prerogatives and called up the FISA bill to pass with unanimous Republican support. Instead, she refused to bring to the floor a bill approved overwhelmingly by the Senate. House Democratic opposition included left-wing members typified by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, but they were only a small faction of those opposed. The true reason for blocking the bill was Senate-passed retroactive immunity to protect from lawsuits private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation's torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.

The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party's most important financial base, would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving individuals' personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant. Mike McConnell, the nonpartisan director of national intelligence, says delay in congressional action deters cooperation in detecting terrorism.

Big money is involved. Amanda Carpenter, a Townhall.com columnist, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in the telecommunications suits have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic senators and causes. Of the 29 Democratic senators who voted against the FISA bill last Tuesday, 24 took money from the trial lawyers (as did two absent senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama). Eric A. Isaacson of San Diego, one of the telecommunications plaintiffs' lawyers, contributed to the recent unsuccessful presidential campaign of Sen. Chris Dodd, who led the Senate fight against the bill containing immunity.

The bill passed the Senate 68 to 29, with 19 Democrats voting aye. They included intelligence committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and three senators who defeated Republican incumbents in the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress: Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jim Webb of Virginia and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

. . . Nothing will be done until the House formally returns Feb. 25, and the adjournment resolution was constructed so that Bush cannot summon Congress back into session. Last Friday morning, debating two backbench Republicans on a nearly deserted House floor, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said there was no danger in letting the FISA legislation lapse temporarily. Democrats hope that will be the reaction of voters, as Republicans attack what happened last week.

Read the entire article. For his part, Bill Kristol is urging Democrats to read Rudyard Kipling, author of such non-politically correct prose as "The White Man's Burden:"

. . . Orwell offers a highly qualified appreciation of the then (and still) politically incorrect Kipling. He insists that one must admit that Kipling is “morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.” Still, he says, Kipling “survives while the refined people who have sniggered at him seem to wear so badly.” One reason for this is that Kipling “identified himself with the ruling power and not with the opposition.”

“In a gifted writer,” Orwell remarks, “this seems to us strange and even disgusting, but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality.” Kipling “at least tried to imagine what action and responsibility are like.” For, Orwell explains, “The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.” Furthermore, “where it is a permanent and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought deteriorates accordingly.”

If I may vulgarize the implications of Orwell’s argument a bit: substitute Republicans for Kipling and Democrats for the opposition, and you have a good synopsis of the current state of American politics.

Having controlled the executive branch for 28 of the last 40 years, Republicans tend to think of themselves as the governing party — with some of the arrogance and narrowness that implies, but also with a sense of real-world responsibility. Many Democrats, on the other hand, no longer even try to imagine what action and responsibility are like. They do, however, enjoy the support of many refined people who snigger at the sometimes inept and ungraceful ways of the Republicans. (And, if I may say so, the quality of thought of the Democrats’ academic and media supporters — a permanent and, as it were, pensioned opposition — seems to me to have deteriorated as Orwell would have predicted.)

The Democrats won control of Congress in November 2006, thanks in large part to President Bush’s failures in Iraq. Then they spent the next year seeking to ensure that he couldn’t turn those failures around. Democrats were “against” the war and the surge. That was the sum and substance of their policy. They refused to acknowledge changing facts on the ground, or to debate the real consequences of withdrawal and defeat. It was, they apparently thought, the Bush administration, not America, that would lose. The 2007 Congressional Democrats showed what it means to be an opposition party that takes no responsibility for the consequences of the choices involved in governing.

So it continues in 2008. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Hayden, the director of national intelligence, the retired Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, and the attorney general, the former federal judge Michael Mukasey, are highly respected and nonpolitical officials with little in the way of partisanship or ideology in their backgrounds. They have all testified, under oath, that in their judgments, certain legal arrangements regarding surveillance abilities are important to our national security.

Not all Democrats have refused to listen. In the Senate, Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, took seriously the job of updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in light of technological changes and court decisions. His committee produced an impressive report, and, by a vote of 13 to 2, sent legislation to the floor that would have preserved the government’s ability to listen to foreign phone calls and read foreign e-mail that passed through switching points in the United States. The full Senate passed the legislation easily — with a majority of Democrats voting against, and Senators Obama and Clinton indicating their opposition from the campaign trail.

But the Democratic House leadership balked — particularly at the notion of protecting from lawsuits companies that had cooperated with the government in surveillance efforts after Sept. 11. Director McConnell repeatedly explained that such private-sector cooperation is critical to antiterror efforts, in surveillance and other areas, and that it requires the assurance of immunity. “Your country is at risk if we can’t get the private sector to help us, and that is atrophying all the time,” he said. But for the House Democrats, sticking it to the phone companies — and to the Bush administration — seemed to outweigh erring on the side of safety in defending the country. . . .

Read the article.

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President Bush Addresses The House's Failure To Vote On The FISA Reform Bill

The Senate, passed a bill that combined FISA reform and retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that voluntarilly cooperated with our intelligence community in the wake of 9-11. With authorization for the FISA reform expiring at midnight last night, the House, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, refused to vote on the bill and instead disbanded for a ten day vacation. This was the topic of President Bush's weekly radio address.

On the day of President Bush's State of the Union speech, the Senate rescheduled their vote on the "Protect America Act" because they were concerned with whether or not it would pass, and if it did not, they did not want Bush beating them over the head with it in the State of the Union speech. Subsequently, the measure passed the Senate with a bipartisan and filibuster proof majority that beat off an attempt by Chris Dodd - supported by Barack Obama - to strip the retroactive immunity provision. The bill has sufficient support in the House to pass as is. But that has not stopped Nancy Pelosi - pandering to special interests - from refusing to schedule a vote.

This today from President Bush:

Good morning. At the stroke of midnight tonight, a vital intelligence law that is helping protect our nation will expire. Congress had the power to prevent this from happening, but chose not to.

The Senate passed a good bill that would have given our intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep us safe. But leaders in the House of Representatives blocked a House vote on the Senate bill, and then left on a 10-day recess.

Some congressional leaders claim that this will not affect our security. They are wrong. Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them -- and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.

In addition, Congress has put intelligence activities at risk even when the terrorists don't change tactics. By failing to act, Congress has created a question about whether private sector companies who assist in our efforts to defend you from the terrorists could be sued for doing the right thing. Now, these companies will be increasingly reluctant to provide this vital cooperation, because of their uncertainty about the law and fear of being sued by class-action trial lawyers.

For six months, I urged Congress to take action to ensure this dangerous situation did not come to pass. I even signed a two-week extension of the existing law, because members of Congress said they would use that time to work out their differences. The Senate used this time productively -- and passed a good bill with a strong, bipartisan super-majority of 68 votes. Republicans and Democrats came together on legislation to ensure that we could effectively monitor those seeking to harm our people. And they voted to provide fair and just liability protection for companies that assisted in efforts to protect America after the attacks of 9/11.

The Senate sent this bill to the House for its approval. It was clear that if given a vote, the bill would have passed the House with a bipartisan majority. I made every effort to work with the House to secure passage of this law. I even offered to delay my trip to Africa if we could come together and enact a good bill. But House leaders refused to let the bill come to a vote. Instead, the House held partisan votes that do nothing to keep our country safer. House leaders chose politics over protecting the country -- and our country is at greater risk as a result.

House leaders have no excuse for this failure. . . .

Read the entire address here.

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Krauthammer on Iran, the NIE, Iraq and North Korea

Charles Krauthammer takes stock of our record on the Axis of Evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Krauthammer's scorecard: Iraq we've won, Iran we've lost to an internal coup, and North Korea is a draw:

. . . Iran. Bush has thrown in the towel on Iran's nuclear program because the intelligence bureaucracy, in a spectacularly successful coup, seized control of the policy with a National Intelligence Estimate that very misleadingly trumpeted the claim that Iran had halted its nuclear program. In fact, Iran halted only the least important component of its nuclear program, namely weaponization.

The hard part is the production of nuclear fuel. Iran continues enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges at work in open defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Once you have the necessary fuel, you can make the bomb in only a few months.

Thus to even speak of the Iranian program as having been stopped while enrichment continues is absurd. And that is true even if you discount recent dissidents' reports that the weaponization program, suspended in 2003, in fact resumed the following year -- contrary to the current NIE finding, offered with only "moderate confidence," that it has never been restarted.

The administration had to immediately release and accept the NIE's sensational conclusions because the report would have been leaked and the administration then accused of covering up good news to justify going to war, the assumption being that George Bush and Dick Cheney have a Patton-like lust for the smell of battle.

The administration understands that the NIE's distorted message that Iran has given up pursuing nukes has not only taken any military option off the table but also jeopardized any further sanctions against Iran. Making the best of the lost cause, Bush will now go through the motions until the end of his term, leaving the Iranian bomb to his successor.

North Korea. We did get Kim Jong Il to disable his plutonium-producing program. The next step is for Pyongyang to disclose all nuclear activities.

. . . Disabling the plutonium reactor is an achievement, and we do gain badly needed intelligence by simply being there on the ground to inspect. There is, however, no hope of North Korea giving up its existing nuclear weapons stockpile and little assurance that we will find, let alone disable, any clandestine programs. But lacking sticks, we take what we can.

Iraq is a different story. Whatever our subsequent difficulties, our initial success definitively rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his monstrous sons. The Hussein dynasty will not -- as it would have, absent the U.S. invasion -- rebuild, rearm and threaten the world.

. . . It took Bush three years to find his general (as it did Lincoln) and turn a losing war into a winnable one. Baghdad and Washington are currently discussing a long-term basing agreement that could give the United States a permanent military presence in the region and a close cooperative relationship with the most important country in the Middle East heartland -- a major strategic achievement. . . .

Read the entire article. Unfortunately, the true existential threat is Iran. And in this game, we cannot afford to lose one out of three.

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Mahmoud the Truth-Teller

Mahmoud Ahemedinejad, the Iranian theocracy's Mouth in Chief, hits the nail on the head today with his characterization of our intelligence communitiies' NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program issued last week. As he puts it, the NIE is Washington's "declaration of surrender" to Iran. And any objective reader of the NIE, which contains policy recommendations to talk with Iran and deligitimizes the use or threat of use of force, would have to agree. It is the penultimate proof that our intelligence agencies are out of control and now running their own foreign policy.

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Reauthorization of the Protect America Act

Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, appeals from the pages of the NYT for support to reauthorize the Protect America Act that corrects provisions in FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA, a law originally passed in 1978 in the era before modern communications, today produces the anomaly of requiring warrants for our intelligence personnel to spy on communications between two foreign parties, both on foreign soil. This should be a no-brainer, but for the list of the usual suspects:

THE Protect America Act, enacted in August, has lived up to its name and objective: making the country safer while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. Under this new law, we now have the speed and agility necessary to detect terrorist and other evolving national security threats. Information obtained under this law has helped us develop a greater understanding of international Qaeda networks, and the law has allowed us to obtain significant insight into terrorist planning.

Congress needs to act again. The Protect America Act expires in less than two months, on Feb. 1. We must be able to continue effectively obtaining the information gained through this law if we are to stay ahead of terrorists who are determined to attack the United States.

Before the Protect America Act was enacted, to monitor the communications of foreign intelligence targets outside the United States, in some cases we had to operate under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, a law that had not kept pace with changes in technology. In a significant number of these cases, FISA required us to obtain a court order. This requirement slowed — and sometimes prevented — our ability to collect timely foreign intelligence.

Our experts were diverted from tracking foreign threats to writing lengthy justifications to collect information from a person in a foreign country, simply to satisfy an outdated statute that did not reflect the ways our adversaries communicate. The judicial process intended to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans was applied instead to foreign intelligence targets in foreign countries. This made little sense, and the Protect America Act eliminated this problem. . .

Second, the intelligence community needs an efficient means to obtain a FISA court order to conduct surveillance in the United States for foreign intelligence purposes.
Finally, it is critical for the intelligence community to have liability protection for private parties that are sued only because they are believed to have assisted us after Sept. 11, 2001. Although the Protect America Act provided such necessary protection for those complying with requests made after its enactment, it did not include protection for those that reportedly complied earlier.

The intelligence community cannot go it alone. Those in the private sector who stand by us in times of national security emergencies deserve thanks, not lawsuits. I share the view of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which, after a year of study, concluded that “without retroactive immunity, the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future,” and warned that “the possible reduction in intelligence that might result from this delay is simply unacceptable for the safety of our nation.” . .

I served for almost 30 years as an intelligence officer before spending some time in the private sector. When I returned to government last winter, it became clear to me that our foreign intelligence collection capacity was being degraded. I was very troubled to discover that FISA had not been updated to reflect new technology and was preventing us from collecting foreign intelligence needed to uncover threats to Americans.

The Protect America Act fixed this problem, and we are safer for it. I would be gravely concerned if we took a step backward into this world of uncertainty; America would be a less safe place.

Read the entire article.

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