Does anyone remember this Seymour M. Hersh story, SELECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable?, from the May, 2003 issue of the New Yorker?
The director of the Special Plans operation is Abram Shulsky, a scholarly expert in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Shulsky has been quietly working on intelligence and foreign-policy issues for three decades; he was on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Com-mittee in the early nineteen-eighties and served in the Pentagon under Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle during the Reagan Administration, after which he joined the Rand Corporation. The Office of Special Plans is overseen by Under-Secretary of Defense William Luti, a retired Navy captain. Luti was an early advocate of military action against Iraq, and, as the Administration moved toward war and policymaking power shifted toward the civilians in the Pentagon, he took on increasingly important responsibilities.
W. Patrick Lang, the former chief of Middle East intelligence at the D.I.A., said, “The Pentagon has banded together to dominate the government’s foreign policy, and they’ve pulled it off. They’re running Chalabi. The D.I.A. has been intimidated and beaten to a pulp. And there’s no guts at all in the C.I.A.”
The hostility goes both ways. A Pentagon official who works for Luti told me, “I did a job when the intelligence community wasn’t doing theirs. We recognized the fact that they hadn’t done the analysis. We were providing information to Wolfowitz that he hadn’t seen before. The intelligence community is still looking for a mission like they had in the Cold War, when they spoon-fed the policymakers.”
A Pentagon adviser who has worked with Special Plans dismissed any criticism of the operation as little more than bureaucratic whining. “Shulsky and Luti won the policy debate,” the adviser said. “They beat ’em—they cleaned up against State and the C.I.A. There’s no mystery why they won—because they were more effective in making their argument. Luti is smarter than the opposition. Wolfowitz is smarter. They out-argued them. It was a fair fight. They persuaded the President of the need to make a new security policy. Those who lose are so good at trying to undercut those who won.” He added, “I’d love to be the historian who writes the story of how this small group of eight or nine people made the case and won.”
Now, let me ask you all a question. If Chalabi was working with the OSP ‘Cabal’, does the following make sense?
Chalabi’s nephew, codenamed Curveball, was handled by German intelligence, who fed his information to the Defense Intelligence Agency, which supplied the information to the Central Intelligence Agency. The DIA says it was only a conduit to the CIA, and it was not their responsibility to vet the credibility of the intelligence. Former DCI, George Tenet, says he was unaware of any concerns about Curveball’s veracity.
Do you see how this works?
If not, keep reading.
“Everyone in the chain of command knew exactly what was happening,” said Drumheller, who retired in November after 25 years at the CIA. He said he never met personally with Tenet, but “did talk to McLaughlin and everybody else.”
Drumheller scoffed at claims by Tenet and McLauglin that they were unaware of concerns about Curveball’s credibility. He said he was disappointed that the two former CIA leaders would resort to a “bureaucratic defense” that they never got a formal memo expressing doubts about the defector.
“They can say whatever they want,” Drumheller said. “They know what the truth is …. I did not lie.” Drumheller said the CIA had “lots of documentation” to show suspicions about Curveball were disseminated widely within the agency. He said they included warnings to McLaughlin’s office and to the Weapons Intelligence Non Proliferation and Arms Control Center, known as WINPAC, the group responsible for many of the flawed prewar assessments on Iraq.
“Believe me, there are literally inches and inches of documentation” including “dozens and dozens of e-mails and memos and things like that detailing meetings” where officials sharply questioned Curveball’s credibility, Drumheller said.
Los Angeles Times
The short answer: very.
Quick, look over there! A shark attack.
yeps…that says it all
It’s the old left-hand-didn’t-know-what-the-right-hand-was-doing defense. Except that they were firmly clasped together at the time…
Face it, Booman, it’s not that they think we’re stupid. It’s just that they know that there are only about 40,000 of us paying attention.
This entire “new” Curveball broohaha is obfuscating BULLSHIT … designed to take the press’s eye off the BALL(s) at the top.
Well, we all know that answer to the question, don’t we.
Now the question I’d like to ask them is why isn’t anyone accountable in this administration. Oh right, I almost forgot, it’s Clinton’s fault. 2006 is coming you morons. Be afraid, be very afraid.
people in the US who could associate the name “Chalabi” with Iraq (taking away the “Iraqi exile” community.
Most Americans are perfectly satisfied that plenty of Muslims are being killed, today Bush is givning a medal to a crusader who interrupted his construction of a torture chamber to murder 50 Iraqis in one exciting session.
They do not really have a great interest in the intricacies of operatives and collaborators, they just want high kill numbers, and they don’t want to look at pictures of wetwork.
MOST Americans are as indifferent as you say.
And I would suggest that MOST Kerry voters are aware of Chalabi’s existence, if not quite sure whether he is a tool of Richard Perle or a tool of the Iranian mullahs.
I think it is just a question of cultural and moral values, preferences.
Obviously, most Kerry voters agree with his position that he could administer the crusade more efficiently than Bush, but I think with all respect to you, that because you are extremely interested, and actively seek out information on the details of a variety of subjects, it is reasonable to suppose that you tend to seek the company of other individuals with a smiliar level of interest, curiosity, and skill in ferreting out information.
I don’t think most voters, regardless of political persuasion, for example, post on message boards, click around looking for more in-depth coverage of world events, or read dozens of newspapers from all over the world every day.
I would love to be wrong, though, and one of the reasons I enjoy the message boards is because it is good to see any Americans take an interest in current events!
talk needs to ride a balance between comedy, rhetorical bite, and hyperbole.
The American presence in Iraq may be misguided, it may be criminal according to international law, it may be a vast looting exercise of the American treasury, it may be causing untold human suffering for insufficient human benefit…
It may be a lot of things. But it is not a crusade.
Moreover, most Americans are not interested in killing Muslims, but are hoping against hope, that our enormous investment in Iraq will provide for our security and ultimately benefit Iraqis.
I say this in the interest of fairness.
Wanna tell General Boykin he’s not on a crusade? Didn’t Bush slip up once and call it a crusade?
I agree with you that “most” Americans don’t think about our Iraqi venture that way. But, there is definitely a minority who have that Onward Christian Soldier mentality. And let’s also admit that Freepers definitely get off on blowing up “ragheads.”
is a crusade, whether you call it a liberation, an unprecedented business opportunity, or merely an example of how God speaks through Bush.
This was true of the first crusades, and it is true of the present one.
I am confident that the day that Washington spends 200 odd million dollars on something that the American people do not want, you will see scenes like unto those in Caracas the day after the attempted coup.
The American people are not, in my opinion, either stupid, or sheep.
What do you suppose would happen if the White House announced that henceforth, all school girls aged 12-17 would be sent to mandatory nude exotic dance classes, paid for by taxpayer dollars?
Or if you find that extreme, how about if the announcement was that 200 billion dollars would be spent on food, housing, medical treatment and job training for every single mother in the US earning less than $50K?
How many hours do you suppose it would take before you saw Caracas on the Potomac on your TV screen?
As I mentioned in another thread the other day, either the US is a democracy whose military carries out the will of the American people, and the will of the American people is to not only kill, but rape, mutilate and torture Muslims, or they are helpless victims of a brutal regime who has taken their money and is using it to commit atrocities that the American people do NOT want, but are quite powerless to stop, in which case I would expect to hear more Americans calling for other nations to form a coalition to liberate them from these savage beasts and save their nation.
you see this war in such stark terms.
To me, a crusade indicates an intention to seize and hold holy ground PLUS an intention to forcibly convert the conquered.
Some justification can made for considering the war as an attempt to solidify Israeli control of Jerusalem…although that is far too simplistic…but there is no intent to convert Iraqis en masse to Christianity.
Therefore, I consider the use of the word ‘crusade’ to be inaccurate if meant literally.
Of course, there is a minority of Americans who would support an Inquisition in Baghdad…but there is a minority that would like to kill all the Jews as well.
Furthermore, we were told this war would cost a few billion dollars. We actually made a profit off the first Gulf War, so it didn’t seem so improbable until one looked into our lack of allies in this second incursion. The administration has successfully obfuscated the staggering costs of war, and once billions are spent, and lives are lost, it only encourages more spending to justify the initial investment.
Lastly, war crimes and interrogation techniques aside, no one thinks that our primary mission is to “not only kill, but rape, mutilate and torture Muslims.”
If we did think that, we would rise up en masse and demand regime change at home. Americans are fat, lazy, arrogant and uninformed…but we do not support anything of that kind.
For my part, I am trying to raise awareness of our crimes because I know Americans do not support them. If I thought they did support them, I wouldn’t bother.
The fight is to break through the propaganda. But we can’t do it by using hyperbole and reverse propaganda.
disappointed that this particular crusade is not generating additional revenues to as wide a sector as had been anticipated.
Those who were intended to make money, however, are making quite a lot of it, which should ameliorate any dashed fiscal hopes on the part of those whose names were unfortunately not on the beneficiary list this time.
There is something of an effort to convert Iraqis to Christianity, but in fairness, the primordial Grail has more to do with gold than gods, although the missionary effort is greatly appreciated by many Americans and plays an important role in maintaining support for defending Halliburton’s right to some very spectacular quarterlies, despite the previously mentioned disappointment that more Americans are not seeing their own bank balances grow along with the big boys’. One can only imagine the zeal with which crusade expansion would be greeted, even demanded, by a jubilant American populace if such were the case.
There is a distinct aversion in the US to calling things by their names, and I suppose it must be bewildering to many that the rest of the world does not share their national passion for the selective application of euphemistic nomenclature.
I have noted that the US media frequently refers to torture committed by any nation whose resources Washington wishes to seize as “torture,” while in the case of US “interrogation techniques” there are “some isolated reports of possible abuse.”
Not unlike those periods of calm in the Levant where only Palestinians are killed. I mean, of course, only Israelis are ever killed, or murdered. Palestinians are “reported to have died as a result of tank fire during a routine military operation in a refugee camp.”
Americans must be mindful that not everyone is capable of understanding these nuances.
Akeel provided several examples of religious desecration, including stories of men who had purified themselves in an Islamic absolution ritual only to be subsequently doused with beer and alcohol by captors. At one prison, plaintiffs told Akeel, captors hung a picture of a pig on the wall toward which prisoners faced to worship and told them, “Pray to your pig.” link
The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.
“Victory belongs to the Lord,” another young marine read.
Their chaplain, named Horne, told the worshippers they were stationed outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis “freedom from oppression, rape, torture and murder … We ask you God to bless us in that effort.”
The marines then lined up and their chaplain blessed them with holy oil to protect them.
“God’s people would be anointed with oil,” the chaplain said, as he lightly dabbed oil on the marines’ foreheads. link
It is, in my opinion, commendable that you do not whole-heartedly support US policies, and I can understand your reluctance to realize what a tiny minority that puts you in.
However, I would ask that you consider the two examples in my previous post, and reflect on them as they relate to the words of Bush, who repeated very clearly after his earpiece, you are with us, or with the terrorists, astonishing billions who until that moment had not realized they were terrorists.
The first step toward any progress is recognizing where you are.
Race and religion based prejudices are often used as proxies for jingoism in pumping up support for a war. The US is currently waring against islam. There’s really quite a lot of evidence for this now.
I don’t think the original crusades would qualify! The word just means a religious war. I assume there was more than a touch of good old fashioned greed and politics involved in the original crusades too.
I do. That’s a typical US foreign policy goal. Surely you don’t think that all the killings and torture and terrorism are just…. bad luck? Oops. Killed another quarter million people? Gosh never saw that one coming!
Iraq is being terrorised as an object lesson to other imperial colonies. Disobey us and you will get the same So far about two million Iraqis have been murdered. Don’t you think that’s a little excessive for an “accident”? Do you not think it is possible that these killings are policy?
Within Iraq it’s the same sort of policy (terrorism / genocide to deter disobedience). Falloojeh was bombed to pieces not because the US thought the Iraqi resistance were still there. Everyone knew they’d gone. No, the city was bombed to warn other cities what will happen to them if they allow the resistance to get a foothold with them.
This isn’t exactly rocket science. Didn’t the Nazis do this sort of stuff? Standard mobsterism. It’s like leaving a horse’s head in someone’s bed. This sort of analysis of US foreign policy has been around for a long time. When I was a kid Oxfam had a book out called, “Nicaragua; threat of a good example”. There is a value to US elites in deliberately murdering large numbers of people and terrorising and torturing them.
You are right in terms that the word is religious. Crus – cross. It comes from the Latin “cruz”. However Bush rimself used the term first – so I would say that it’s fair for the rest of us to use it.
except that Bush uses it to describe everything…the war on drugs, phonics in schools, the culture of life, finding a really good pickle.
He had no idea that the word meant anything more than, “we are going to try hard”.
It’s been blown all out of proportion.
Well it’s obvious that he doesn’t know what it meant – unless he was planning on getting a papal sanction – in part due to the word being used way to much and for too many things by a lot of people – that it has become common usage. It was a rather shocking thing to hear him use it in context with the Middle East so that at the very least it would be fair to say “Bushes crusade”.
It’s criminal according to laws of all the signatories of the UN charter (ie UN members).
I agree that probably most people dont have the time or inclination to really follow the news. Actively aware people, such as many who read blogs and news sites incessantly 😉 know who Chalabi and so on are, and his relevance to both the original plan and current one.
Maybe we need to look at new ways of getting information to people, as the old ways are no longer working. There are reports out lately on kids and their much shortened attention spans, up from a decade ago. Can imagine the same applies to adults.
Maybe… Iraq, the reality show. Or a “Clue” type game, with major players and connections as well as decisions made, and ramifications and so on. or something. Am not trying to be flip or anything… just thinking. I believe we need a way to reach the average people on many topics, in ways that they will pay attention to (for at least a short time) and retain information.
is that this story is simply bullshit, and it is being reported by the MSM as a plausible scenario.
If the OSP was handling Chalabi, then the following holds true:
We used German intelligence to handle Chalabi’s nephew, in order to create plausible deniability when it turned out his information was concocted.
We pretended that this fellow ‘Curveball’ was some random Iraqi source and not Chalabi’s nephew.
The CIA in Europe knew he was a bullshit source and told Langley as much repeatedly.
Meanwhile German intelligence passed the info to the DIA, who passed it on to CIA as if it were legitimate.
When people at Langley were faced with this blatant fabrication being forced on them by the OSP through this bogus chain of intelligence, they hit a brick wall when they raised it with Tenet and McGloughlin. Why?
Because Cheney and Tenet had coordinated the whole thing, after having the deputies (Wolfowitz and Feith) set it up.
It’s clear as day what happened. So, why does the MSM report this horseshit?
That’s why we are here, to call horseshit.
Well, Germany is also apparently saying that they gave many warnings that the info wasn’t credible.
It’s to the MSM’s advantage to report this story, as is, because of their own failure to report anything resembling it before the war. CIA “anonymous sources” were leaking like mad before the invasion, in a CYA move most likely, that much if not most of the information being bandied about in the media was most likely false. But except for a few print publications, in small articles, who heard much about that? (Would actually be interesting to track some of those leaks down, but I think we’d need something like lexis nexis).
They (the media) are as complicit as Cheney and Tenet, et al. And the last thing they want is to highlight that fact. Which is why they often say, blank slate-like, that “we were all wrong”, and don’t refer to the people who were doing everything but setting themselves on fire to point out beforehand that everything was wrong.
We should do Jay Leno-type “people on the street” interviews, and see.
One in Wal-Mart, one in Target.
I do think Booman has a point that voters who consider themselves “liberals” are more likely to have a higher level of awareness, but just not sure it would go as far as being able to identify names like “Chalabi,” “Sistani,” “Hakim,” “Rubaiye,” etc. or match them to faces.
I would also like to see a comparison on left-right regarding how many of each can name their senate and congress representatives 🙂
Maybe not stupid, but they (know) we are impotent.
Just coincidentally, “Curveball”, was saying what the administration wanted to hear. Any information that wasn’t what they wanted got ignored, and the source got targeted for reprisal.
I personally don’t believe there was a “Curveball”. I think that the information giver was uncle “curveball”.
There is no “stupid”, just arrogance. The buck starts here, and is getting sent up the chain whether they believe it or not. We live in what to them is an alternative reality, to us, they’ve simply taken too much bad acid.
Not much else would explain a demogogue hallucinating about “god’s word”, his roly-poly sidekick with blinders on, his prime diplomat with glazed eyes and barely concealed puppet strings. From here the mad hatter’s party looks like rational discourse.
Then again, if you’ve read the Custer/Battles articles, anyone can sue to recover fraud and waste, and get 30% of the take in the bargain. WTF, go for the money. At least they seem to understand that part.