I certainly cannot answer the ultimate question.
Never assume, blah blah blah. Truth is we assume 90% of everything we encounter every day. Probably 98%. We could not get through the day without assuming.

Remember that idiot from Area 51? He could not prove that he worked there more than a week or two. Then again he could not demonstrate that he had an 'engineering degree'.

I know Plame was in the CIA because Cheney told me, or at least his operatives did.

Your post this morning is humorous and scary at the same time.

You know Sleepin, I was thinkin about that Tamm, from the FBI. Can you imagine what that guy could tell you in two or three hours over a bottle of scotch. He would have a lot of info on the CIA.

Either way, war crimes tribunals will sort out the who and whys? For what it's worth, the most vocal supporters of this torture policy, which included the torture of toddler's testicles, should all face some sort of jail time as well.

Enjoy.

There were renditions during the Clinton Administration. This has been established as fact.

Reuel Marc Gerecht bends the truth when he claims that renditions during the Clinton Administration was "policy". They were instead an exceptions to policy. Every instance of rendition during the Clinton Administration had to first be vetted with Clinton's National Security team, and select Congressional members. It was the Bush Administration that changed the exception to policy into acceptable policy. This change was reportedly summarized in a March 13, 2002, classified White House memo titled "The President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captive Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations." What Gerecht is deceptively attempting to imply is that the renditions which occurred during the Clinton Administration are equivalent to the policy of renditions which occurred during the Bush Administration. Simply, Gerecht is a liar.

CIA Director George J. Tenet, testifying earlier this year before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, said the agency participated in more than 70 renditions in the years before the attacks. In 1999 and 2000 alone, congressional testimony shows, the CIA and FBI participated in two dozen renditions.

Christopher Kojm, a former State Department intelligence official and a staff member of the commission, explained the rendition procedure at a recent hearing: "If a terrorist suspect is outside of the United States, the CIA helps to catch and send him to the United States or a third country," he testified. "Though the FBI is often part of the process, the CIA is usually the main player, building and defining the relationships with the foreign government intelligence agencies and internal security services."

Dana Priest and Joe Stephens, "Secret World of U.S. Interrogation", Washington Post, May 11, 2004

Michael Scheuer, a 22 year CIA veteran, and Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999, provided further information:

"The option of not doing something is extraordinarily dangerous to the American people," says Michael Scheuer, who until three months ago was a senior CIA official in the counterterrorist center. Scheuer created the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and helped set up the rendition program during the Clinton administration.

"Basically, the National Security Council gave us the mission, take down these cells, dismantle them and take people off the streets so they can't kill Americans," says Scheuer. "They just didn't give us anywhere to take the people after we captured."

So the CIA started taking suspects to Egypt and Jordan. Scheuer says renditions were authorized by Clinton's National Security Council and officials in Congress - and all understood what it meant to send suspects to those countries.

"CIA Flying Suspects To Torture?", CBS News 60 Minutes, Mar 6, 2005

Yeah, the Clinton Administration was involved in renditions, yet not only were they exceptions to policy, which required Presidential authorization with some Congressional disclosure for each individual case, there was also a great difference in how the rendered persons were treated. Several months after the CBS 60 Minutes show on renditions had aired, Michael Scheuer, who is an ardent supporter of renditions, offered his opinion about the Clinton Administration:

When we were going to capture Osama bin Laden, for example, the lawyers were more concerned with bin Laden‘s safety and his comfort than they were with the officers charged with capturing him. We had to build an ergonomically designed chair to put him in, special comfort in terms of how he was shackled into the chair. They even worried about what kind of tape to gag him with so it wouldn‘t irritate his beard. The lawyers are the bane of the intelligence community.

Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, August 19, 2005

On June 10, 2008, Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH 10th) introduced H.Res. 1258 on the House Floor, which were proposed articled of impeachment for GW Bush.

H.Res. 1258; Article XIX. Rendition; paragraph 5 (Congressional Daily Record Page H5202) states:

The administration has claimed that prior administrations have practiced extraordinary rendition, but, while this is technically true, earlier renditions were used only to capture people with outstanding arrest warrants or convictions who were outside in order to deliver them to stand trial or serve their sentences in the U.S.

I do not think that renditions, secret imprisonments, and torture should be lawful, nor should it be secret Presidential policy. However, I am willing to concede that there may in extraordinary circumstances be a valid reason to violate a nation's sovereignty, and covertly capture a person, but this should never be considered as a lawful action, just because the President ordered it. The President should act with foreknowledge that this act will be judged on its merits by the American people. Accepting the responsibilities of command will sometimes, because of exigency, force one to make an unpalatable command decision, and cause a lone walk out upon a limb. It is a price that comes with the territory. I also believe that the Clinton Administration used renditions more often than was necessary.

Still, Reuel Marc Gerecht is attempting to blur the lines between an exception to the rules in extraordinary conditions, and an official stated policy that has been the source of untold misery suffered by an unknown number of humans subjected to brutal tyranny unjustly. Gerecht is defending acts of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation. He proves himself to be a shameful example of an American in doing so.

Now for some backgrounder on Reuel Marc Gerecht. I noticed that you mentioned his pre 911 Atlantic Monthly article, where he clearly, and somewhat presciently points out that a significant source of al Qaida support and global terrorism was along the Afghanistan/Pakistan frontier.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, "The Counterterrorist Myth", Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2001 {1}

Gerecht deserves a bit of recognition for this, but you need be aware of just who and what he is. Some past positions Gerecht has held (note he held CIA and State Dept positions simultaneously):

• 1985-94 - Central Intelligence Agency, Middle Eastern specialist
• 1985-94 - U.S. Department of State, Political and consular officer
• 1994-01 - Freelance Writer
• 1999-00 - CBS News, Afghanistan Comsultant
• 1999-01 - Walsingham Inc., Risk assessment consultant (Middle East, Central Asia, and the former Soviet Union)
• The Project for the New American Century, Director, Middle East Initiative
• Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
• The Weekly Standard, contributing editor
• The Atlantic Monthly, correspondent

Even though he published this forceful statement about the Pak/Afghan frontier and global terrorism in 2001, Gerecht was a leading Neoconservative talking head proponent of the War in Iraq.

In the policy debates over the war on terrorism, both Cheney and Rumsfeld have relied heavily on the arguments of a group of neo-conservative staff and advisers with close ties to the right-wing Likud party in Israel.

They include, among others, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, Cheney's chief of staff I Lewis Libby and a number of policy mavens, especially the chairman of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB), Richard Perle, based at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a neo-conservative think tank that also includes Cheney's spouse, Lynne.

Perle and AEI's top Mideast-policy "scholars", former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Ledeen and Michael Rubin (just hired by the Pentagon to plan for a post-Saddam Hussein government in Baghdad), along with former CIA director James Woolsey, have been at the heart of a well-orchestrated campaign.

Visible mainly on the editorial and op-ed pages of the right-wing Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard, it lobbied to extend the war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban to virtually the entire Arab Middle East, first through a US invasion of Iraq (which the same group has insisted has ties to al-Qaeda and may have been behind last year's September 11 attacks on New York and Washington), and then through US-backed popular insurrections in Iran and Syria

Jim Lobe, "Hawks hit by a rhetorical ricochet", Asia Times, September 13, 2002 {2}

Gerecht is a pure-blooded Neoconservative, he cannot be trusted, because he is motivated by ideology, not truth, or even official government policy. He even rolled his former colleagues at the CIA, just as the Neoconservatives did on Team B during the Ford Administration, when they greatly exaggerated Soviet capabilities, and denounced the CIA's analysts, who were much closer to reality.

The hostility by the hard-liners against what they see as the CIA's myopia on Iraq at least matches any of those earlier fights. Perle, who said recently that the CIA's analysis of Iraq "isn't worth the paper it's written on," adds that the CIA is afraid of rocking the ark in the Middle East. "The CIA is status-quo oriented," he told me. "They don't want to take risks. They don't like the INC because they only like to work with people they can control."

According to informed sources, Perle, who's currently based at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has for the past several years sponsored the work of a former CIA clandestine operative, Reuel Marc Gerecht, helping him financially, lending him the use of his villa in France to write a book and getting him a fellowship at AEI. Gerecht, who spends much of his time living in Brussels, maintains close ties to the INC via its centers in London and Washington. According to a person familiar with the arrangement, Gerecht is privately working with the INC's intelligence people to help funnel information to Feith's office in the Pentagon.

Asked whether he is working as an unofficial intelligence handler for the INC, Gerecht demurs but doesn't deny it. "It's pretty overstated," he says. "I talk to the Iraqi opposition now and then, but there are a lot more people in Washington who talk to the Iraqi opposition. So I don't think that Pentagon requires my assistance ... in gathering information from Iraqi opposition." But Gerecht is quick to criticize the CIA over Iraq. "There is a great deal of hesitancy if not opposition to the war at the agency," he says. "I don't think [Rumsfeld] is terribly happy. The collective output that CIA puts out is usually pretty mushy. I think it's fair to say that the civilian leadership isn't terribly cracked up about the intelligence they receive from CIA."

To call Gerecht a hard-liner on Iraq would be an understatement. For him and for many of his allies -- Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith and others -- an attack on Iraq is a strategic necessity, not because Saddam Hussein is a threat but because America needs to display an overwhelming show of force to keep unruly Arabs and Muslims all over the world in line. "If we really intend to extinguish the hope that has fueled the rise of al-Qaeda and violent anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East, we have no choice but to re-instill in our foes and friends the fear and respect that attaches to any great power," he wrote in The Wall Street Journal last December. "Only a war against Saddam Hussein will decisively restore the awe that protects American interests abroad and citizens at home. We've been running from this fight for 10 years."

Robert Dreyfuss, "The Pentagon Muzzles the CIA-Devising bad intelligence to promote bad policy", The American Prospect, December 16, 2002 {3}

Gerecht was also a part of secret meetings between Neoconservatives and Iranian Gunrunner, Iran/Contra major player and habitual liar, Manucher Ghorbanifar in late 2001, early 2002. These meetings violated State Department protocols, because the local American Embassy was not informed of them, and anyone who was employed by the government at that time was violating their own Departmental regulations too. Others involved in these meets include Larry Franklin, DoD employee convicted of providing AIPAC with classified documents, Michael Ledeen, Douglas Feith, and Harold Rhode. The first Ghorbanifar meeting was in Rome, December 2001, and Gerecht was not reported as being present. He was however reported to be a part of a later Ghobanifar meeting in Paris:

Other sources briefed on the case, however, said another meeting occurred in Paris in June 2002 when Rhode "accidentally" bumped into Ghorbanifar, a meeting attended by Franklin, Rhode and Ruel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operative, now a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, and an assistant to Richard Perle, a former senior Defense Department official during the Reagan administration.

Sources close to the case also said that the meeting "was prearranged" and involved representatives of the Mujahedin al-Kahlq, an Iranian group of exiles, to discuss assistance to the MEK for the purpose of destabilizing the current government of Iran.

"According to a congressional investigative memo, these meetings were arranged by Gerecht and Ledeen. Ledeen denies this.

"The only meeting I knew about was the December meeting," he said. "I don't know about the others, if they in fact existed."

Ledeen denounced the Franklin case as "total bullshit and lies."

Gerecht did not return phone calls.

One source with close knowledge of the case said that the Franklin-Rhode- Gerecht meetings with the MEK, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations was "served to undermine (Secretary of State) Colin Powell's effort to sustain dialogue with moderate elements within the Iranian government."

The MEK is still listed on the State Department's list of terrorist groups because they have killed American officials, according to a State Department official.

Richard Sale-UPI Intelligence Correspondent, "DOD spy's arrest imminent", Washington Times, August 30, 2004 (Original URL no longer active)

Although never properly investigated by Congress, I believe there is a connection between the Nigerian Yellowcake forgeries, and these meetings. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, Gerecht pimped the Neoconniving hypocrisy that it was imperative to show an overwhelming force when attacking Iraq, and then they would welcome the American "liberators", and happily embrace westernized democratization. It was the PNAC version of "White Man's Burden", and just as ignorant as had been the British Empire in believing it.

The Wilsonian rationale, which takes its name from former president Woodrow Wilson - ironically a champion of international law whose aim in World War I was to "make the world safe for democracy" - has been championed almost since last year's September 11 terrorist attacks by a small group of neo-conservatives with close ties to the right-wing Likud Party in Israel.

The group, which is concentrated at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a major think tank whose ranks include, among others, Cheney's wife Lynne and the chairman of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, has long argued for extending the war on terrorism far beyond Afghanistan and al-Qaeda to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestine Authority of Yasser Arafat and even Washington's long-time ally, Saudi Arabia.

"What [the Bush administration] has in mind is a broad vision," says Meyrav Wurmser, who directs Mideast policy at the Hudson Institute but works closely with Perle, "which really involves changing the character of the Middle East."

If Saddam can be overthrown in an overwhelming show of force, the argument goes, then all of the autocracies that have dominated the Arab world, resisting democratic reform and peace with Israel, will themselves totter and collapse to popular pressures, creating a domino effect from Iran in the east, clear across North Africa as far as Libya.
[. . .]
What makes this ambition and line of reasoning so interesting is not only its origin among outspoken "Likudniks" who have long opposed not only the Oslo accords but the whole "land for peace" formula that has formed the basis of US Mideast policy since 1967. It is also the contrast between the hopes expressed on behalf of the Arabs and Muslims who are supposed to benefit from this policy and the contempt in which the same beneficiaries are held by their self-described champions.

Another AEI scholar, former CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht, who takes the same line on democratization, has repeatedly argued that power and force are the only language understood in the Muslim world. Months ago, for example, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon moved to re-occupy West Bank towns and cities, Gerecht exulted, "The tougher Sharon becomes, the stronger our image will be in the Middle East."

Jim Lobe, "Bush shoots his Weapon of Mass Democracy" {4}

After the invasion, but before the insurgency had found its legs, Gerecht was saying that Iran was primed for a democratic revolution, simply because of the American military's presence in Iraq:

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and Ledeen's AEI colleague, argued last August in the neo-conservative Weekly Standard that the mere presence of US troops in Iraq would bring about revolution next door.

"Popular discontent in Iran tends to heat up when US soldiers get close to the Islamic Republic," he wrote. "An American invasion could possibly provoke riots in Iran - simultaneous uprisings in major cities that would simply be beyond the scope of regime-loyal specialized riot-control units."

Jim Lobe, "Neo-cons move quickly on Iran", Asia Times, May 28, 2003 {5}

By the end of 2003, Gerecht was calling for a quick Iraqi election, enabling the rising of The Shia Dawn.

If the Bush administration is wise, it will change its provisional-government plans and allow for direct elections as soon as feasible. If it refuses to change, and Sistani and the Shiites force it to abort the plan later, we will be left weaker than if we change now. We ought not dissipate our strength so profligately. There will undoubtedly be moments where we will need to intimidate. Dealing with Muslim clerics has, understandably, never been an American strong suit. Though many in the CPA and the administration may want to wish Sistani away, fortunately they can't. He is America's most powerful democratic weapon in Iraq, even if we don't know how to wield him. If President Bush is reelected in 2004, however, Grand Ayatollah Sistani will have certainly done his part.

Reuel Marc Gerecht-Weekly Standard, "A Difficult Marriage", American Enterprise Institute, December 15, 2003 {6}

Even with all of this idioillogical drivel, the truth notwithstanding, Reuel Marc Gerecht had not yet hit his full stride as a propagandizing equivocator, fully exposing his rat-bastard inner self. That became apparent after the Senate Hearing into the abuses of Abu Ghraib. Major General Antonio Taguba's redacted Abu Ghraib report was made public in Senate hearings early May, 2004. Among many others, The Taguba report made the following findings:

the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

• b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
• c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
• c. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
• e. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
• i. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
• j. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
• k. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;

In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses:

• c. Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
• d. Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
• e. Threatening male detainees with rape;
• g. Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

Gerecht trivialized this reprehensible and inhumane physical abuse of persons who were held under the color of authority imparted by the American Flag, my flag, god-damn it!, with the following muse:

Have the chances of democracy in the Middle East really been set back because sexually sensitive Muslims are so revolted that they won't embrace representative government?

Reuel Marc Gerecht , "Who's Afraid of Abu Ghraib? The scandal won't determine the fate of democracy in the Middle East", The Weekly Standard, May 24, 2004 {7}

Clearly, Gerecht is desperately in need of having an Official Abu Ghraib Interrogators' Model, Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment ®, properly inserted with an authorization of shock and awe force, to provide illumination for his mind's eye, where it resides in the darkness.

Notes
{1} http:⁄⁄www.theatlantic.com⁄doc⁄200107⁄gerecht
{2} http:⁄⁄atimes.com⁄atimes⁄Middle_East⁄DI13Ak01.html
{3} http:⁄⁄www.prospect.org⁄cs⁄articles?articleId=6636
{4} http:⁄⁄www.atimes.com⁄atimes⁄Middle_East⁄DI28Ak02.html
{5} http:⁄⁄www.atimes.com⁄atimes⁄Middle_East⁄EE28Ak01.html
{6} http:⁄⁄38.100.43.46⁄publications⁄pubID.19628,filter.social⁄pub_detail.asp
{7} http:⁄⁄www.weeklystandard.com⁄Content⁄Public⁄Articles⁄000⁄000⁄004⁄096uutti.asp?pg=2