Hmmm...

... 'A spokesperson for the spokesperson of the President stated that the President's spokesperson likely would have no comment, according to a source who likely will request anonymity, once the CIA time machine is fixed several years ago.'

Where did I hear that before before I didn't hear it?

~OGD~

I'd also like to point out that this NIE is probably the best-case report they could produced.

Filling ranks with Bush supporters will do this.

We had a similar case in the UK in the run up to the Iraq war with only bad stuff mainly making it in to intelligence reports, with the occasional caveat to hat-tip to those who dissented.

I'd like to see the worst-case NIE and compare. The truth will be somewhere in the middle,

Regs, Shaggy

Shaggy, You must mean this little tidbit here:

Anti-US and anti-globalization sentiment is on the rise and fueling other radical ideologies. This could prompt some leftist, nationalist, or separatist groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack US interests. The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely, and more anonymously in the Internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to pinpoint.

Not that there are NOT troublesome people out there in the big wide world, but why didn't they throw in the Martians while throwing in the kitchen sink?

~OGD~

I might suggest looking at some old, fully or almost fully declassified NIEs, perhaps from the Kennedy or Eisenhower administrations, and get an idea why it's unwise to do a blanket declassification. The executive summaries of NIEs are often unclassified, and are easier to release because they have been previously reviewed so they don't contain sources or methods, or things from which a professional can infer such.

NIEs get relatively wide distribution in government, and tend not to be super-classified. There should be no reason a member of Congress would not have access, possibly only in the Intelligence Committee offices if that Congressman or Senator doesn't have the appropriate safe and such in his office.

The other pages do not "obviously" leave out more damaging information. They may or may not. They also may have other information that is not in the true interest of the US to have released, as opposed to the political interests of the Administration.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Look at the wording carefully. Notice what it doesn't say.

It never says that our withdrawal from Iraq will create new terrorists or even that victory for the terrorists in Iraq will create new terrorists.

Rather it says success in Iraq will lead to fewer terrorists.

But then it defines success in very narrow terms.

Success comes only if both the Jihadists leaving Iraq and the outside world PERCEIVE them to have failed. Even if everything goes exactly our way, and we leave with a stable government in Iraq, will that really be perceived as a failure for the jihadists?

How much control do we have over the Middle East's perception of this situation, especially with Bush in charge?

Just like the Bushies, the terrorists will spin whatever happens in the most positive light just like Hezbollah did in Lebanon. The world now so completely mistrusts us that it will be near impossible to counter act their propoganda.

Democrats need to get the people who wrote this to testify at their hearing as to the exact meaning of this sentence.

Do they believe that withdrawal from Iraq according to a timetable would inspire more terrorists because of the victory. Or would it wind terrorism down because the motivation for people to join them and fight would be gone?

>

 The other pages do not "obviously" leave out more damaging information. They may or may not.

I think that statement is true and correct but I wish to propose a hypotheticall bet and ask a serious questin.

I would bet that there IS a fair amount more of politically damaging [to Bush] conclusions in the NIE that could be released without any further damage or danger to national security. You have to bet at least a thousand dollars if you want to bet against me but can bet as much as you want with confidence that you would collect if you won. Would you bet even money? If not, would you bet if you got two to one odds? What odds would it take to get you to take the bet? 100 to 1, 1000 to 1?

The contents of the NIE documents, or any other documents are not as compelling as the fact that SOMEONE leaked them.

Time after time over the past few years, these leaks have been occuring. It this not a matter for outrage and grave concern?

I will not argue over the merits (if any) the leaker(s) may have beleived they had. Devulging classified information is a criminal offense. Period!

Whether for political gain or from outright stupidity, people are getting away with destroying this country's ability to maintain control of classified information.

If a person feels the need to be a so-called "whistleblower', there are less damaging (to national security) channels that can be used. Running to a news outlet with a 'story' does not cut it.

These issues should be brought up by that person for discussion in the proper committees(s) that oversee them.

But then again, that would leave a trail that leads back to themselves when they did decide to leak the information.

"A coward plots in the dark while a hero stands in the light of day."

Yeah, Watergate never should of happened.

NOT.

If we are indeed losing the WoT, that is critical information needed by the citizens in order to be informed enough to elect representitives that will act in their best interests.

Stay the course may well NOT be in the best interests of this country, and in grave matters such as this, the people have a right to know. The rights to be an informed citizenry are compelling over most other rights. Certainly over the rights of any sitting administration.

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

I agree almost completely. Which is why Bush tieing Iraq into the War on Terror is so freakin dangerous. Not to mention the fact that no one seriously believes Hizbollah is the same type of threat as jihadists and Bush working so damn hard to make it a similar threat is also dangerous.

Is the report referring to foreign leftists like Chavez or home grown one's like Chomsky?

I wonder if conservatives will now use this report to crack down on subversives in the U.S.

It wouldn't surprise me considering that the Bush administration is constantly trying to link Democrats and liberals with aiding and abetting the terrorists. Didn't Cheney say it was a victory for terrorists that Lamont beat Lieberman?

Conservatives did the same thing with communism back in the 1950s and '60s? Anyone that disagreed with their distorted world view was a pinko.

Is there anything to this?

On page three, the report states:

Should al-Zarqawi continue to evade capture and scale back attacks against Muslims, we assess he could broaden his popular appeal and present a global threat.

Although it was debated for awhile in the media, Zarqawi is dead -- he has been for a few months now. So why wouldn't this report make mention of that?

The 80-90% figure seems awfully high, but it may depend on the subject matter area. For example, diplomatic information easily can be embarrassing. There is a subtle distinction, however, between things that are simply embarrassing, and things where the embarrassment may have implications. Let me try a couple of examples. For many years, NSA had a huge intercept station in Asmara, then in Ethiopia and now the capital of Eritrea. There were gigantic antennas along a major road.

The Ethiopian government was extremely sensitive about overt cooperation with the US, and the personnel at the station were under strict orders never to admit to its existence. That included rather silly situations such as an American getting a ride in a native's car, and driving past an antenna system around a mile across. The standing orders, insisted upon by the Ethiopians, were that if the Ethiopian driver asked the American, "what's that in that field", the American had to answer "field? I don't see anything in that field."

This sort of thing may indeed be silly, but may be an issue of embarrassing a foreign government to its own people, and their granting help is conditional on it not being an embarrassment to them.

Scientific and technical information pertaining to defense -- not necessarily, say, pollution -- usually has fairly specific guides. Please trust me when I say compartments for specific nuclear technology, coupled with SECRET or TOP SECRET, plus RESTRICTED DATA and FORMERLY RESTRICTED DATA, are simple when compared to some of the compartmented intelligence systems. In fairness, the intelligence community recently did a lot of simplification of its compartmentation markings.

I've always liked a quote from G. Gordon Liddy, in which he described a program such that the first letter was classified SECRET, the code word itself was TOP SECRET, and the information it protected "could only be given by God the Father to the Holy Ghost on a need-to-know basis." For example, several histories of the Cuban Missile Crisis recount how the then-director of NSA called the White House National Security Assistant, McGeorge Bundy, and asked for a few hundred thousand for stationery, reprinting documents, making new rubber stamps, etc.

Bundy was shocked, until he was told that he had allowed himself to be in a news photograph of his holding an NSA document. Neither the title nor any contents were visible, but the classification stamp reading TOP SECRET DINAR could be seen. At the time, DINAR was a code word for the highest level of communications intelligence, and, again at the time, was itself TOP SECRET -- and protected material effectively above TOP SECRET. In WWII, the three COMINT levels were ULTRA, RABID and DEXTER. At least some time after DINAR, the top word was UMBRA and the lower level SPOKE.

For especially sensitive projects, there were compartments within compartments. One example, leaked by Jack Anderson, was that TOP SECRET/UMBRA/GAMA GUPY referred to a project where receivers in the US Moscow embassy were intercepting the Kremlin limousine-to-limousine radio. Top Soviet officials seemed to think it was secure, and gossiped a lot. While we learned some steamy things about a masseuse named Olga, apparently there were some very frank discussions of the health and status of Politburo members. I don't think that simply having a story justified leaking an example of a specific source, from which we were getting continuing data.

Mercifully, the various extra code words for communications intelligence have gone away, and now a document will be stamped TS/CCO: TOP SECRET. Handle through COMINT channels only. There are still a few additional compartments under CCO, the names of which now can be said but no idea of what kind of information is TS/CCO/ZARF or TS/CCO/VRK (well, that stands for Very Restricted Knowledge).

I don't see how military plans and equipment operating instructions are classified to protect against embarrassment in any way.

Where there is room for argument is the classification of option papers, staff discussions, etc. I happen to believe that while it has been abused, there is a valid case for executive privilege. Now, we happen to have the case of a president that doesn't seem to listen to his advisors, but I think it was wrong, regardless of administration, to ask Condi Rice, when she was National Security Assistant, about her private conversations with GWB -- certainly not in an open committee hearing.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The NIE is from April and therefore predates Al-Zarqawi's (early June?) death.

Ahem, back to LJ's original post, the State Dept.'s annual report on terrorism has been a thorn in the Bush administration's side precisely because it shows a pattern of increased terrorism since the invasion of Iraq.

The goal of fighting terrorists or terrorism should be to eliminate or at least drastically reduce terrorism/terrorist attacks. Thus, whether or not the NIE makes a definitive tie between Iraq and an increase in terrorist attacks, one thing is clear: The increase in terrorism under the Bush administration shows that our current policies are a dismal failure in accomplishing the only goal that matters: Keeping America and the world safer by eliminating or reducing terrorist attacks.

Under the United States Constitution, the President (and members of the Executive branch) is bound to faithfully execute the law, which includes treaty law and customary international law. See, e.g., U.S. Const., art. II, Sec. 3; Paust, International Law as Law of the United States 169-73 (2ed. 2003), and cases and materials cited. Thus, the Plan to violate the Geneva Conventions is not only illegal but is also unconstitutional.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/paust2.php

The United States Constitution expressly incorporates international treaties as "the supreme law of the land." Article 6 of the United States Constitution states: The Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

All executive and judicial officers and members of Congress are bound by oath to support the Constitution, including Article 6. The term "treaties" includes those signed by the President and ratified by the Senate, as well as those not ratified or simply part of "customary international law" -- meaning those principles which are recognized by most nations. 2 The Geneva and Hague Conventions were signed and ratified by the United States in 1956. They have a long history. They were developed through many wars, starting in 1864. Their present versions arose out of the depredations of World War II. As the Geneva Convention requires, the United States codified their enforcement in the U.S. Code. 3

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/072503D.shtml

Simple questions:

1. Can the full Congress do its jobs competently without these intelligence community evalutions? 

Seems to me that voting on moneyand programs, and conducting oversight require smarts. Why should Congress fly blind when there is information/analysis to enlighten them.

2. Can the American citizens do their job of evaluating candidates, decisions and actions without some kinds of government information/analysis?

Seems to me that we pay for the intelligence agencies so  should have some direct benefit (besides knowing that our government officials are given alot more than citizens).  I don't see the intelligence/analysis as a political issue per se. The community NIE says what is. From that the parties and government officials should interpret and formulate their positions.

I am not so naiive that I don't understand that there are levels of what can be read by whom. But in the world we face today nothing doesn't work. We should be dependent on a media report that forces the Administration's hand.

Let's see, Yrntwrthit (Oh, I get it: your message to us all is --> You're not worth it!)  how clever!

Well, I guess we agree on one point; that it was a criminal offense to leak the name of Valerie Plame, since her CIA status was shot afterwards.  Of course THAT leak was NOT whistleblowing.  That was political crimes disguised as dirty tricks, disguised as blaming it on her husband!

But I digress...if not for whistleblowers, what other defence does this country have against the relentless assault on its Constitution?  What avenue is there when no one in the media has asked a meaningful question, complete with back-up for 6 years?  When the way to get a high-paying job in Iraq has nothing to do with your qualifications, but everything to do with your views on Roe vs Wade -- what is a country to do?

If a person feels the need to be a so-called "whistleblower', there are less damaging (to national security) channels that can be used. Running to a news outlet with a 'story' does not cut it.

And your answer to the question of what to do with truthful information is this?

These issues should be brought up by that person for discussion in the proper committees(s) that oversee them.

 Right.  That'll take care of the problem alright!  You can't even SEE the president give a speech unless you declare loyalty to him.  You can't even have on a t-shirt that says a negative word in HIS presence and not get hassled by the secret police force!

But if a person sees malfeasance in government; if a report shows that the war (that Bush says is intricately allied to the fake war on terror) is actually making more terrorists and fomenting more terror , or if a citizen has documents that prove that these people are lying-------------------->

That person should go to a committee.  Pardon me if I seem a little passionate here, but Yrntwrthit, your name speaks volumes about you.

Jan Knaus

Great points! Now, I want to see this latest NIE (which Bush will not declassify before the elections) -- it is in "draft" form, and will stay that way until it is safe; election-wise to put it out and then thumb their noses at all of us again.

I don't know about anyone else, but I am so glad that RFK Jr's article is getting some "legs!" I just hope we can have an honest election this time. Pretty pathetic to even say that, huh?

Jan Knaus

Classification fever is one of those things that is hard to shake. The amount of black program budget items is pretty large and growing, as I understand it. I suppose fiscal facts will eventually force some of it into the open.

This NIE, saying what everyone has known all along (whether they can afford to admit it or not), only serves to remind me of one of the multiple reasons I opposed the invasion. It was likely to saddle future administrations, and the people, with another political war, that we can't lose and can't win.

Another reaction is "Duh!"

My point was not to decalssify the one from April completely; I was referring to a more recent one, still in "draft" form, which is more updated than the last.

Jan Knaus

One of the problems that has to be managed is that legislators frequently want to discuss things with staff or outside advisors.

Think of what this means. All sorts of federal non-elected employees have access to various forms of classified materials. When it comes to legislators they cannot be held to and adhere to the standards of the nonelected?

The current solution of not giving the legislators much that is classified means that legislators are dependent upon the leaks of federal employees to the media and out in the public to know what is going on. Very slow and dangerous when the public revelation hurts the national interest.

Leaking classified information should only be done in the most extraordinary situations and where the leaker sees it in the national interest. When it has become a fairly regular thing of recent time we have to ask if we have lots of extraordinary situations or if the bar is much lower and political advantage is a reason in addition to national interest.

I appreciate the leaks when it reveals the lousy policies of the the Administration with which I disagree. We the opposition public are becoming used to, maybe even addicted to, the steady drip that we will abhor when a new Administration takes over. 

It seems like I must be missing something. The issue of what should be classified and what shouldn't be doesn't seem all that complicated. National security has to mean something more than avoiding political embarrassment.

Obviously, the identities, locations and assignments of our spies should be classified. So should battle plans, weapon schematics, troop deployments, and things that would immediately jeopardize national security in some way.

The Bush Administration has taken this to ridiculous extremes. Even refusing to answer a question one way or the other would validate the existence of an embarrasing question, and confirm  our level of discomfort to the enemy. Therefore, even our refusal to comment must remain classified.

-- All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. (John Kenneth Galbraith) --