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Monday, January 19, 2009
Panetta, Preservationists and Problems with U.S. Intelligence
by Steve Schippert
If you want to know what's wrong with the U.S. intelligence community (IC), just read Jeff Stein's latest at Congressional Quarterly's Spy Talk. Before recounting a very telling (and not uncommon) private conversation with a veteran U.S. intelligence professional, he nails it early on.
Word hasn't leaked yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if President-elect Barack Obama has already figured out that when he wants quick answers to what's going on in the world, the last person to ask is the head of U.S. intelligence.
The steady deterioration of personnel and standards of intelligence analysis, especially at the CIA, has been going on for decades, a number of former top intelligence officials I know say.The tip of the rot surfaces from time to time, such as with the 9/11 surprise and the gimcrackery reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The dogs howl and the caravan moves on. Nothing changes, many well placed former intelligence officials have been telling me. But the current, possibly fatal dangers we face demand the problems be fixed.
We've been spending too much time chattering about the operations side of intelligence lately, they say, in particular whether Leon Panetta, the former OMB head and chief of staff to President Clinton, is up to handling the spies and back-alley guys and gals.
But officials have been reminding me that it was the dismally poor analysis of intelligence that enabled President Bush to lead the nation into the disastrous invasion of Iraq — not faulty espionage (such as it was).And it's the analysis served up by the CIA and other spy agencies, they point out, that will guide President Obama's decisions on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea, among other front-burner emergencies.
Nailed. It's weak analysis based on incomplete information (it's intelligence after all, not history) too often communicated in career-safe language rather than with actual analytical conclusions. It's an abject fear of being wrong. Well, if you're afraid to be wrong, you lack the courage to be right. And if that's the milquetoast case, the product you are giving me is nearly worthless.
My colleague Michael Tanji is a former supervisory officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and he understands, painfully, the inner workings of the intelligence bureaucratic Behemoth. His insight is important to consider.
Jeff Stein drives home the point that this is what you get when:
You don't have the stones to do analysis
You don't have the brains to do analysis
You treat analysts like LEGO blocks
Contrary to the common expectation — for those that actually bother to read declassified NIEs and the like — intelligence analysis isn't telling people what they already know. 'Climate change can lead to instability . . .' No kidding? As a matter of fact, analysis in popular culture is more representative of what it should be behind closed doors because, once you suspend disbelief on how they get the information, it inevitably turns out to be exactly the right piece of information a decision-maker needs exactly when he needs it. Unfortunately in real life good information is rare and usually late, so decisions are made with what is lying around and delivered by people who communicate in such a way so as to never be wrong.
And, equally important, the communication is also couched in careful language for the writer (or presenter) to be able to likewise claim some degree of being right. It is too often about the preservation of a career rather than the actual service of intelligence. Intelligence is already an inexact science. It used to be, in fact, an art. Now? Not so much.
I've studied conflicts, regions and groups and written a fair amount of analysis over the years. Some of it has been well recieved, some of it not. Some of it proved on the mark, and again, some of it not so much. But that's OK — that's analysis. For me, one thing has always been constant; I have simply never been afraid to be wrong. I have, however, been very afraid of being still and unimaginative in my general analytical approach. What relatively little I have been able to produce — with limited resources in comparison to the professional intelligence community — I have always been open to being wrong and being criticized (with the latter being quite instructive). If I knew all the facts with unlimited data, I'd be performing the job of either a historian or Nostradamus.
But what good are all the resources in the world if the approach is dictated, consciously or unconsciously, by an instilled and institutionalized abject fear of being wrong? Intelligence analysis is about determining and communicating what we think we know about what we think we know. If it were dealing with known facts, it would be the New York Times (OK, very poor example) and not a National Intelligence Estimate.
Those who consume intelligence products — from the President's Daily Briefing, to National Intelligence Estimates, to on-demand regional/conflict/groups reports and analyses and (closed-door) congressional reports and testimonies — must acknowledge the inexact nature of intelligence and stop demanding perfection. They must understand — and acknowledge to the writers and presenters — that they are dealing with intelligence analysis and not historical record. This will go a long way toward improving the product put before them, which is used to make critical national security decisions.
And while Michael Tanji's experienced insght is important, his solutions to the problem at hand are also straightforward.
The Fix?
Do it right and forget what the commentariat and pure-play politicians think. People who know intelligence know the difference between bad analysis and bad information. Lay blame where it belongs, not on the easy target. Most "intelligence" problems are information problems, or more precisely the lack thereof. Politicians: Don't hold a witch-hunt for collectors who do their jobs. Analysts: fill out your reporting eval forms; meet your collection manager and craft good requirements.
There is no fixing the newbies save for time on task. You could jump-start things by making it attractive to mid-careerists to return to the fold. Read any book on why employees leave (hint: it's not about the money) and it applies to the IC. Fix those things and watch the Lorax come back.
A while ago, while Porter Goss was at the CIA, Michael wrote a report titled simply "Why Intelligence Reform Matters". If you are concerned about or interested in the ailments of the American intelligence community, it's recommended reading.
With all of this, the question being bounced around today is whether or not Leon Panetta is the man for the job. As Eli Lake's report today makes clear, he comes with significant hurdles. Most notably questioned is his role in the extraordinary-rendition policy of the Clinton administration, as a man coming into the Obama administration vocally opposed to such practices. Ironically, the same incoming administration is already seeking to close Guantanamo Bay, the one detention facility under our own auspices (outside the continental United States) expressly for terrorists captured alive.
I remain unconvinced that Panetta is capable of, or even inclined towards, bringing about the needed reforms in the CIA, to say nothing of the myriad other alphabet soup agencies. I am, however, convinced at this point that such reforms can likely only be brought about by a talented and uniquely qualified individual from outside the established ranks of the intelligence community. Leon Panetta just doesn't strike me as "that guy."
The challenges ahead for American intelligence are clearly significant. Optimism, unfortunately, is a scarce commodity.
Timothy Geithner’s vs. Bernard Kerik’s ‘Hiccup’ – Whose is Worse?
by Anthony K. Modafferi III, Esq.
As an attorney and personal friend of Bernard Kerik, the former New York City Police Commissioner, the recent spectacle surrounding Obama’s nomination for Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner, illustrates the overwhelming press bias in favor of Democrat appointees and politicians.
The President-elect nominated Timothy Geithner as the Treasury Secretary who, surprisingly, failed to pay a significant sum in taxes to the IRS for a number of years. Furthermore, while neglecting to pay these taxes, Geithner accepted compensation from his employer, the International Monetary Fund, intending to offset the taxes he had not paid. Geithner’s explanation – that he was not aware of these problems until November 2008 when his nomination to the Obama cabinet was imminent - is implausible.
Geithner also appears to have employed a domestic servant that at some point became out of status – in other words, an illegal alien. According to press and media reports, Mr. Geithner also took taxable deductions for his children’s summer camp which, allegedly, he was told was inappropriate.
So here’s my issue: as the Treasury Secretary nominee, it is without doubt that Mr. Geithner’s knowledge and understanding of the federal tax laws is far more comprehensive than Mr. Kerik’s, a career police officer. That being said, will Mr. Geithner be held to a higher standard of accountability regarding his failure to pay taxes that by all accounts, he knew he owed?
Contrast this with the Kerik situation. Kerik was charged criminally with several tax-related counts that experts in the accounting field, including both active and retired IRS agents, have deemed preposterous. The indictment alleges that in 2002, Kerik failed to account for income in the amount of $20,000 and should have paid taxes on that amount. Keep in mind this was a year in which it was reported that Kerik paid more than $300,000 in taxes alone. The IRS would never prosecute such a case criminally.
The press is biased against Mr. Kerik and his former boss, Rudy Giuliani. In Mr. Kerik’s case, the New York Times spent five days from sun up to sun down attempting to locate and interview Kerik’s nanny. This time, unlike the Kerik nomination, Mr. Geithner is the “favored boy” and we can be sure that the press will do everything in its power to protect him from the same scrutiny that Mr. Kerik endured during his own nomination process. That scrutiny ultimately resulted in Mr. Kerik’s indictment for conduct stemming from a prior plea, ignoring the Justice Department’s own policy of refusing to charge conduct related to a prior state action because it implicates the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution. The ridiculous nanny-tax charge which, while killing the prospects for Kimba Wood’s own attempt to become Attorney General during the Clinton years, did not stop her appointment as a federal judge in the same court now trying to criminalize Kerik.
In a nutshell, for more than four years now, state and federal prosecutors have been on a reckless crusade to keep Kerik under permanent indictment. In their zeal to destroy the man – and more so his former friend and colleague Rudy Giuliani – they have stretched the laws, bent the rules, violated attorney/client privilege, deceived a judge and illegally leaked privileged information to the press and media. A prosecutor in the state case even went so far as to order a subordinate to lie under oath before the Bronx Grand Jury in an attempt to secure a conviction against Kerik. Why hasn’t the press investigated Michael Caruso’s claims in a pending federal case that the New York Department of Investigation, headed up by partisan Democrat Rose Gill Hearn, demanded that he lie to the Grand Jury investigating Kerik?
But we know the answer to why Kerik was set-up. Kerik was, and is, a scapegoat for the anger of those who couldn’t stand Giuliani and were fearful that he would be the Republican nominee for President. It was Kerik’s loyalty to Giuliani and his reputation as a no-nonsense manager who stepped on toes to get things done. It was his outspoken and unbending support for President Bush, the invasion of Iraq and the war against terror.
Unfortunately for Mr. Kerik and for our country, Kerik’s “hiccup” is our loss.
Obama Eligibility battle rages on 3 fronts
By Bob Unruh
Court, Congress and college challenged on constitutionality
Officials at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Calif., have been served with a demand to produce records concerning Barack Obama's attendance there during the 1980s because they could document whether he was attending as a foreign national – in one of three fronts now established by those contesting the president-elect's constitutional eligibility for the Oval Office.
The Supreme Court and Congress also both are being challenged to address the worries that Obama doesn't meet the requirements of the U.S. Constitution that the president be a "natural born" citizen.
WND has reported on a long list of legal cases raising questions over the issue, and several of those have reached the U.S. Supreme Court already. Justices have so far declined to give any of the cases full hearings on their merits, but another conference remains on the Supreme Court docket for Jan. 23 on the issue.
"If Obama is sworn in as president, we will file a Petition for Writ of 'Quo Warranto,' a case that will challenge Obama as being ineligible to serve as president because he is 'not qualified,'" said Philip J. Berg, a lawyer who has brought several cases to court. Berg, whose information is on his ObamaCrimes.com website, indicated the issue isn't going away.
Orly Taitz, a California lawyer whose dispute remains pending before the high court, agreed, noting that one of the hearings already is scheduled for the days following Obama's inaugural on Tuesday.
Taitz said her arguments rest on precedents from both the California Supreme Court, which years ago removed a candidate for president from the ballot because he was only 34, and the U.S. Supreme Court's affirmation of that ruling. The Constitution requires a president to be 35.
In one of the latest developments, Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation petitioned Occidental College with a demand for its records concerning Obama.
"The gravamen of the petition is the question as to whether United States Senator Barack Hussein Obama, of Illinois, is eligible to serve as president of the United States pursuant to the requirements for that office in the United States Constitution," he wrote. "The records sought may provide documentary evidence, and/or admissions by said defendant, as to said eligibility or lack thereof."
College officials confirmed they had gotten the notice, but had not decided how to respond, a decision that may be removed from their hands because of the team of lawyers Obama has engaged to prevent such inquiries into his past.
"Senator Obama has filed responsive pleadings in this matter and is represented by counsel, and has the opportunity to object to this production, should he so desire," the affidavit from Kreep said.
"Good cause exists for this production under Subpoena Duces Tecum, in that testimony will be elicited from the original records obtained through the witness named herein, and there is no other process available to secure said testimony," he wrote.
The lawsuits allege in various ways Obama does not meet the "natural born citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
Some allege his birth took place in Kenya, and his mother was a minor at the time of his birth – too young to confer American citizenship. They argue Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan citizen subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time and would have handed down British citizenship.
There also are questions raised about Obama's move to Indonesia when he was a child and his attendance at school there when only Indonesian citizens were allowed and his travel to Pakistan in the '80s when such travel was forbidden to American citizens.
The lawsuit on which USJF is working was filed on behalf of presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others, and describes the potential damage an ineligible president could create.
"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void," argues a case brought on behalf of Ambassador Alan Keyes, also a presidential candidate. "Americans will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal."
On his ObamaCrimes.com website, Berg sent his message directly to the U.S. Congress.
He's asking in an open letter to members of Congress for congressional hearings "to determine the truth regarding qualifications of Barry Soetoro, otherwise known as Barack Hussein Obama…"
"As you must be aware, there are many unresolved questions concerning Soetoro/Obama's status or lack thereof, as a 'natural born' American citizen, as required by 'our' U.S. Constitution," he wrote.
He noted the failure by Congress to challenge Obama's eligibility during the process through which the Electoral College vote was adopted.
"Because of your failure to 'question' the eligibility of Soetoro/Obama, we are headed for a 'Constitutional Crisis.' Yes, a 'Constitutional Crisis' because Soetoro/Obama who appears not to be a 'natural born' U.S. citizen is 'ineligible' under 'our' U.S. Constitution to serve as president," he said.
He cited the document published on the Internet by Obama's campaign, the "Certification of Live Birth," as no more than an effort to "quash" questions. Other critics have noted the state of Hawaii granted such certifications to parents of children not born in the state at the time.
"Without truthful information concerning Soetoro/Obama's eligibility to serve as President, 'We the People' have been injured," he wrote.
Taitz took a different route, submitting to the U.S. Supreme Court a motion "to declare that by default, the president elect respondent Barack Obama has failed to qualify under [the] U.S. Constitution."
"Does the burden of proof lie with the petitioner to prove standing and evidence lack of qualification by a candidate/president elect, where election officers rely on a candidate's declaration? OR does the [Constitution] place the burden of proof on the president-elect to provide objective government certified witnessed proofs, with election officers under oath to challenge, examine and declare that the president elect has or has not qualified, enforceable by petition for redress of grievances?"
Not only has the respondent, Obama, "failed to submit proofs … for any of the qualifications," she wrote. "Respondent has hindered discovery."
She argued that having Obama declared ineligible until he would provide documentation would "cause far less political trauma" than allowing his inauguration because it would uphold the constitution.
She also raised the issue of the concealment of Obama's records.
"Obama has refused to submit certified copies of any of his original long form 'vault' birth certificates in Hawaii to any public officer or to any Petitioner. Relevant records in Kenya have also been officially restricted," she said. "Obama has sealed all educational records which might reveal his stated citizenship. These include Punahou High School, Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School."
Her letter included a warning, too.
"Thirty-three democracies descended into tyranny during the 20th century by failing to uphold constitutional protections," she said. "Petitioner humbly prays this Court evaluate the Petitioner's case in context of how best to enforce restrictive qualifications for president to preserve the Constitution and Republic from tyranny."
WND twice has organized opportunities for readers to send FedEx letters to the Supreme Court, asking for consideration of the issue on its merits.
The most recent campaign generated 12,096 messages, following the earlier effort that resulted in 60,128 letters.
Obama has claimed in his autobiography and elsewhere that he was born in Hawaii in 1961 to parents Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan national, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a minor. But details about which hospital handled the birth and other details provided on the complete birth certificate have been withheld by Obama despite lawsuits and public demands for release.
WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi went to both Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
Obama selects a Muslim with ties to Hamas to pray at the inauguration
In "Hamas Inauguration," the featured article at FrontPageMagazine.com today, I explain why Barack Obama's choice of Ingrid Mattson of ISNA to offer a prayer at his inauguration festivities is so unwise -- or worse:
Barack Obama isn’t wasting any time making an impression: he has selected the leader of a group that has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case to present a prayer during his inauguration festivities. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), will offer a prayer at the National Cathedral Tuesday.Superficially, Obama’s choice is understandable: Ingrid Mattson is a Canadian convert to Islam who has carefully cultivated the image of a moderate spokesperson. Yet her organization’s record is not entirely clean. Federal prosecutors last summer rejected claims that ISNA was unfairly named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. And ISNA has even admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, complaining only that the government’s evidence for those ties came from old documents, but offering no proof that the organization had reversed course. In a memorandum on the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy in the United States, a Muslim Brotherhood operative named ISNA as an allied organization in what it called “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
What’s more, in a CNN chat room on October 18, 2001, Mattson offered a subtle defense of Osama bin Laden. She avowed that “only a small number of Muslims throughout the world would support Osama bin Laden’s tactics.” (Emphasis added.) Tactics alone? Is that the only problem with Osama? Does she, then, hold to his goals? Mattson even suggested that “a larger number” of Muslims share bin Laden’s grievances, and that he was popular because the leaders of Islamic countries had failed their people: Muslims, she said, “turned to Osama bin Laden as a spokesperson…because they feel that no one else, including their own leaders, has spoken for them.” This disquietingly echoes the jihadist critique of secular regimes in Muslim countries such as Egypt and Pakistan: jihadists label such regimes illegitimate and apostate because they do not implement Islamic law in its fullness.
In 2002 she even asserted that in countries that were not functioning democracies, “‘extremism’ might seem to be the only rational choice, because extreme actions are the only actions that seem to have an effect.” This again gives the impression that bin Laden’s goals were laudable, and that he was driven by desperation to illegitimate actions in pursuit of a legitimate goal.
Mattson explained during the CNN chat that “Islam allows force to be used by legitimate authorities, to protect people, and to protect Muslim states, just as all nation states in the world permit themselves to use force to protect their security and interests. Again, the problem of individual Muslims taking up arms, becoming vigilantes, in a way, is related to their frustration with the lack of leadership on the part of their own government.” This implies that if the governments of Muslim countries had been waging jihad to protect Muslim states, Osama bin Laden wouldn’t have had to do so. Here again she implies that bin Laden’s goals are sound, only his means are questionable.
Mattson again reinforced the impression that she endorsed al-Qaeda’s goals, if not its means, when she referred (also in the CNN chat) to the “overthrowing of the caliphate” in the 1920s as “a plan of European powers for many years,” and claimed that “this deprived the Muslim world of a stable and centralized authority, and much of the chaos that we’re living in today is the result of that.” This does appear to be an endorsement of the jihadist goal of reestablishing the caliphate and uniting Muslims under its authority in a supranational state which could then, according to Islamic law, legitimately wage offensive jihad warfare against non-Muslim states.
Mattson also excused the virulent and violent Wahhabi movement in Islam, terming it “a reform movement that began 200 years ago to rid Islamic societies of cultural practices and rigid interpretation that had acquired over the centuries.” Mattson thus suggests that Wahhabism was a legitimate reform within Islam, asserting that “it really was analogous to the European Protestant Reformation” and noting that “the Saudi scholars who are Wahhabi have denounced terrorism and denounced in particular the acts of September 11” – but never mentioning the abundant evidence that high-placed Saudis have continued to support and finance global jihad terrorism.
Yet while curiously silent about the excesses and violence of Wahhabism, Mattson blamed the decline of the Islamic world on the West: “Well, the decline began with the colonization of the Muslim world by European powers. One of the first things the colonialists did was to dismantle the institutions of what we could call civil society. The Muslim world has until now not recovered from that dismemberment of its society.”
In reality, the colonial period did not begin until the 18th and 19th centuries, and would not have been able to begin at all had the Islamic world not already been in a period of steep cultural and military decline. Historian Philip K. Hitti describes the decline of Islamic thought as beginning far earlier than the era of European colonialism, saying that “the whole Arab world had by the beginning of the thirteenth century lost the intellectual hegemony it had maintained since the eighth.”
Mattson has also tried to set Jews and Christians against once another. Speaking at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in March 2007, Mattson said: “Right-wing Christians are very risky allies for American Jews, because they [the Christians] are really anti-Semitic. They do not like Jews.” Yet Mattson would be hard-pressed to produce any anti-Semitic statement from Christians who support Israel – any statement, in other words, comparable to an article posted at IslamOnline, “Jews as Depicted In the Qur’an,” which concludes:
After this clear explanation, we would like to note that these are but some of the most famous traits of the Jews as described in the Qur’an. They have revolted against the Divine ordinances, distorted what has been revealed to them and invented new teachings which, they claimed, were much more better than what has been recorded in the Torah. It was for these traits that they found no warm reception in all countries where they tried to reside. Rather, they would either be driven out or live in isolation. It was Almighty Allah who placed on them His Wrath and made them den of humiliation due to their transgression. Almighty Allah told us that He’d send to them people who’d pour on them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection. All this gives us glad tidings of the coming victory of Muslims over them once Muslims stick to strong faith and belief in Allah and adopt the modern means of technology.What is Mattson doing to combat these attitudes within the Islamic community? She never addresses them.
If Ingrid Mattson truly intends to be a voice for reform and moderation within the Islamic community in North America, and to reassure those who are justifiably alarmed by Obama’s invitation to her, she should explain her troublesome statements – especially those that apparently portray Osama bin Laden in a favorable light. She should also explain ISNA’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and confront honestly the elements of Islamic teaching that jihadists use to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims. Unless and until she does these things and others that would conclusively demonstrate her moderation, non-Muslims are justified in being appalled at Obama’s choice.
