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Today's
Stories
August 3, 2004
Uri Avnery
The
Oligarchs
Jules Rabin
The Man Who Didn't Walk By
August 2, 2004
Robert Jensen
Kerry's
Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War
Joshua Frank
Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity
Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American
Police State"
Gary Leupp
Beyond
Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions
July 31 / Aug.
1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Kerry:
He's the (Any) One
Merlin Chowkwanyun
Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of
a Narrow Policy Spectrum"
David Lindorff
The Shame of the DNC
John Chuckman
The
Disturbing Words of John Edwards
Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility
Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face
of Compassionate Conservatism
Fred Gardner
A World of Pain
Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly
David Nally
Genocide in Darfur?
Joshua Frank
Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon
Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Diane Farsetta
The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the
Voting Booth
Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?
Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater
Lee Sustar
A New Model for the Labor Movement?
Ron Jacobs
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik
Poets Basement
Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Cross Cultural Poetics
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
July 30, 2004
Kolhatkar /
Ingalls
Shattering
Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not
Wanted
Dave Lindorff
Murder
Not So Foul?
Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Fidel Castro
The
Pathology of George W. Bush
Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist
Saul Landau
Bush
Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave
July 29, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Hail,
the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam
Frank Bardacke
What
Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11
Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan
Ron Jacobs
Kerry
and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture
Robert Fisk
The Unreported War
Lichtman /
Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)
William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure
CounterPunch
Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!
Website of
the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness
July 28, 2004
Robert Fisk
The
Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of
the Dead
Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine
Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root
Causes
United for
Peace & Justice
An
Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots
Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face
Impeachment Mvt."
Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter
Alexander Cockburn
Candidate
Kerry
Website of
the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War
July 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
the Democrats Deserve Nader
Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!
Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera
Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez
Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs
Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then
the Sweatshops
Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
The
9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine;
Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism
July 26, 2004
Todd Chretien
Green
Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin
Robert Fisk
Terror
by Video
Richard Forno
Security
Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing
Flaws at the Fleet Center
Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious
Richard Moreno
Rockers
for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian
Alexander Cockburn
Boston
Awaits a Dead Party
July
24 / 25, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions:
Part One
Dennis
Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush
Patrick
Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning
Josh
Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject
the Peace Movement
Justin
E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin
American Experience
Tariq
Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela
Fred
Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the
Antagonist
Mark
Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope
Ron
Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie
Fire Statement...35 Years On
July
23, 2004
Lee
Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years
On
Dave
Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters
0
Saul
Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush
Beats Reagan
Mike
Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No
One
Mickey
Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth
Jennings
Gary
Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming
War on Iran
July
22, 2004
M.
Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat
Brian
McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon
Jason
Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While
CEO of Halliburton
Chris
Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths
Uri
Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon
July
21, 2004
Paula
J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War:
Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage
Joshua
Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's
be Fair
Ron
Jacobs
American Exceptionalism
Reza
Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda
Amy
Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?
John
Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go
On and On
July
20, 2004
Stan
Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket
Chris
Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!
Forrest
Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular
Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Mark
Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the
Rest of California
Sam
Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door
George
Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb
John
Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush
John
L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.
Website
of the Day
This Land is Your Land
July
19, 2004
Uri
Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of
Paris
Col.
Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?
Mike
Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol
Karyn
Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage
Robert
Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad
David
Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition
to Iraq War
Jennifer
van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
July
17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything
Wrong with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
August
3, 2004
Fast
Track to What?
The
9/11 Commission Chimera
By
RAY McGOVERN
Former
CIA Analyst
There they go again, I thought to myself
while listening Friday to 9/11 Commission Chair, Gov. Tom Kean,
tell Senators for the umpteenth time, "I do not find today
anyone really in charge of the intelligence community."
Kean's colleagues have been singing from the same sheet of music.
Jamie Gorelick: "The authorities to act cohesively do not
exist."
Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton
shared with the Senators his frustration at the answer he got
when he kept asking intelligence community officials who is in
charge. "The President," they said. Hamilton branded
this "not a very satisfactory answer," adding, "no
one would say that the Director of Central Intelligence is in
charge."
It need not be so. During my
27-years at the Central Intelligence Agency I served under nine
directors and worked closely with four of them. They were in
charge.
One of them, Admiral Stansfield
Turner, came to the C.I.A. from his post as commander of the
6th Fleet with a keen appreciation of the need for the authority
necessary to carry out his responsibilities. Recognizing that
his authority over the intelligence community was largely ad
referendum to the president, he went to President Carter and
obtained what was needed. Writing in Sunday's Washington Post,
Turner recounted that Carter issued a presidential executive
order giving DCI Turner authority over all 15 intelligence agencies
"to reallocate funds and people among them and to set priorities
for both collecting and analyzing intelligence." Turner
notes, "This enabled a far greater degree of coordination
than we have today."
So if today "no one is
in charge," it does not have to be that way. Hamilton's
comment notwithstanding, it is a completely satisfactory answer
that the president is in charge, and that he need only empower
the DCI by executive order to enable him to get the job done.
Did the commission fail to
solicit Admiral Turner's views during its long investigation?--or
fail to take them into account? It is difficult to believe that
it is a totally new concept to the commission that, as Turner
puts it, "the recommended position of National Intelligence
Director (NID) already exists--It is the Director of Central
Intelligence created by the National Security Act of 1947, with
responsibility for coordinating the nation's 15 intelligence
agencies."
Did commission staff miss Turner's
thoughtful op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor of May 28,
2002, in which he emphasized that "With a stroke of the
pen tomorrow, the president could make the Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI) responsible for ensuring coordination and
give him/her the authority to do so--and thus move a good distance
toward rectifying the failure last summer to deduce what would
happen on Sept. 11." Turner was quick to add, "Without
the president's personal intervention and exercise of decisive
leadership," one cannot ensure that future performance will
be better.
Fast Track--to
???
Instead, President George W.
Bush chose yesterday to go with the political flow and endorse
the commission's recommendation for a National Intelligence Director""but
without the teeth of budgetary authority over the intelligence
community. This won't get anywhere and, arguably, that is just
as well.
Admiral Turner's article on
Sunday reiterated what so many others have been saying""and
with good reason; i. e., the last thing we need is a new layer
of bureaucracy. This truism, which should be self-evident, was
spoken first by one who ought to know, Tom Ridge, head of the
recently created Department of Homeland Security. I was struck
by his very quick""and somewhat cryptic""comment
on the proposal for a National Intelligence Director: "I
don't think you need a czar," Ridge said on Fox News Channel.
"We already have one level of bureaucracy that we don't
need," said the czar of Homeland Security, who reportedly
has decided to quit at the end of the year.
When the commission report
was released on July 22, I ran into 9/11 Commissioner Slade Gorton
at the BBC TV studio in Washington where we were each being interviewed.
I used the opportunity to voice my skepticism regarding whether
the proposed post of NID is really necessary, noting that the
DCI can already discharge most of the tasks in the portfolio
of the proposed NID.
Gorton gave a wince/smile and
then whispered in my ear, "Yes, but he didn't use those
authorities." He was then called in for his live interview,
so I was unable to ask the obvious follow-up question: If the
main problem is a dearth of courage or competence, or a "lack
of imagination," how is adding another bureaucratic level
going to fix that?
My brief encounter with Gorton
came to mind as I read a short piece in Sunday's Washington Post
by William Odom, the highly respected former Director of the
National Security Agency:
"No organizational design
will compensate for incompetent incumbents--When we ask how to
improve the intelligence community's performance, we must recognize
that it cannot be much better than the performance of the policymakers
and commanders who own it."
I am certain that the 9/11
commissioners mean well. How they came up with the NID proposal
may be explained by the hubris that often clings to senior folks
with "former ___" titles, even when they wander far
from their area of expertise and experience. The discussion of
the NID proposal makes it clear that the commissioners lack a
basic understanding of the intelligence community""indeed,
of how things work in the executive branch of government.
This naivete shines through
with equal clarity in their proposal to give a National Intelligence
Director unprecedentedly wide budgetary authority. The past few
decades are littered with abortive proposals to give the Director
of Central Intelligence authority over the Pentagon's intelligence
budget. This, quite simply, will never happen, and there is a
reasonable argument that it never should.
If naivete sounds harsh, I
make no apology. Much is at stake; there has been enough pontificating;
it is time for plain speaking""the more so, inasmuch
as so many influential people, who cannot be depended upon to
take the time to study the commission's recommendations, are
already fawning over them as a deus ex machina.
All ten of the commissioners
are either politicians or lawyers; some are both. Not one has
worked in the intelligence community; only two have a modicum
of experience in the executive branch of the federal government
(John Lehman, who was Secretary of the Navy for six years under
President Ronald Reagan and Jamie Gorelick, who was Deputy Attorney
General for three years under President Bill Clinton). Philip
Zelikow, executive director of the commission also lacks executive
experience in the federal government. It was Zelikow who told
an interviewer that the commission's recommendations are "not
a panacea. We may not have the right answers." He got that
right.
"Wacky"
The unseemly, "fast-track"
haste to judgment is, in the well-chosen adjective used by former
State Department intelligence director, Phyllis Oakley, "wacky."
But as the election approaches, no candidate can risk appearing
soft on terrorism by raising the necessary questions regarding
how a reconfigured intelligence structure would really work.
Even before hearing testimony at Friday's first hearing by the
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Chairwoman Susan Collins
of Maine and Vice Chairman Joe Lieberman of Connecticut expressed
support for creating the post of national intelligence director.
Committee members proceeded to fawn over Kean and Hamilton, upon
whom they are relying for expertise on intelligence community
issues that are as complicated as they are important.
Mischievous
Commissions
Warning: Intelligence reform
proposals and politics are a noxious mix. And experience has
proved that congressionally mandated commissions often do more
harm""serious harm""than good.
In 1996, for example, the Aspin-Brown
"Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United
States Intelligence Community" recommended transferring
to the Defense Department the Director of Central Intelligence's
responsibility for processing and disseminating satellite imagery.
Understandably, the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed serious
misgivings at this evisceration of the DCI's charter for all-source
analysis but in the end acquiesced and the legislation passed.
The practical result? Today
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has imagery interpretation
under his aegis. I believe that this goes a long way toward explaining
why our extremely sophisticated satellites and imagery analysts
were unable to check and disprove the spurious reporting served
up by imaginative Iraqi defectors regarding weapons of mass destruction.
Ceding imagery analysis to the Pentagon was clearly an egregious
mistake with profound implications for the objectivity of intelligence
collection and analysis. But this seems to have escaped the attention
of the 9/11 commission""and our lethargic mainstream
press.
Now think back to 1998 when
the congressionally mandated "Commission to Assess the Ballistic
Missile Threat to the United States" led by Donald Rumsfeld
succeeded in revising a 1995 intelligence community estimate
in order to exaggerate the strategic threat from countries like
North Korea. Key conclusions""since proven wrong""embodied
in the Rumsfeld-revised estimate met his immediate need quite
nicely by greasing the skids for early deployment of a multi-billion
dollar, unproven anti-ballistic missile system.
That whole exercise wreaked
havoc on morale among honest analysts""the more so
as they watched the analyst who chaired the revised estimate
go on to bigger and better things. A man who gets the desired
results, he was later handpicked to chair the infamous""and
equally wrong""estimate of October 1, 2002 on Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction.
Ironically, Congress never
adopted the prescient recommendations of the Hart-Rudman "United
States Commission on National Security/21st Century." Had
those recommendations been given appropriate attention, there
might have been no 9/11.
9/11 Families
What really rankles is the
fraud being perpetrated on the families of the victims of 9/11,
unintentional though it may be. The families pressed heroically
for a non-partisan, independent investigation. What they got
was a bipolar panel, thoroughly partisan at each pole, who nonetheless
grew to like one another and decided to settle for the lowest
common denominator and--worse still--to hold no one accountable.
Many of the families evidenced
a deep need for some reason to hope that, if they were tenacious
enough, some good could be extracted from the experience of that
horrible day; that there was some reason to hope that by following
up on their terrible loss they might contribute in some way to
preventing similar tragedies in the future.
To what can all this be compared?
It is as though their van broke down on the New Jersey turnpike.
Another van with ten well meaning senior executives stops to
help. Only two of the ten have any experience with motor vehicles:
one spent three years at an auto manufacturer's corporate headquarters;
the other devoted six years to running a trucking enterprise.
None had taken Automechanics-101. No matter. They fall to the
task of diagnosing the van's problem anyway and come up with
recommended solutions that are as good as their expertise in
auto mechanics.
Hope?
There is always hope. I have
the highest respect for the leaders of the 9/11 families. Gradually
they will see that:
* Treating merely the symptoms
of terrorism is quixotic;
* The soil and roots of terrorism
must be dug and uncovered;
* As the 9/11 report acknowledges
in a very subdued way, it is Washington's strong bias toward
Israel and its invasion of Iraq that produce the long lines at
al-Qaeda recruiting stations and brings on code-orange alerts;
* That our current approach
to defeating terrorism by trying to kill all the terrorists is
akin to trying to eradicate malaria by shooting all the mosquitoes.
No, we have to drain the swamp
where the terrorists breed.
It is important to remember
that without the courage of the families there would have been
no 9/11 commission. They continue to merit and enjoy credibility
and clout that politicians lack on this important issue. But
there is a danger that they could jeopardize this by letting
themselves become political pawns over the next three months.
Rather than being co-opted by the commissioners into lobbying
for dubious proposals, the families may wish to consider taking
a well-deserved break from that and turn their attention instead
to the key question of which of the candidates for president
would be most likely to prevent another 9/11.
Why the
Rush?
Think about it. If there is
substance behind the heightened alerts to terrorist attack before
the election, a middle-schooler could conclude that this is precisely
the wrong time to be implementing serious reforms of the kind
recommended. These would inevitably be disruptive in the extreme.
This alone would strongly suggest applying the brakes and letting
the new Congress examine the whole problem afresh.
Meanwhile, there is a quick
fix for one key issue. As former DCI Stansfield Turner has indicated,
President Bush could immediately sign an executive order giving
the Acting DCI the authority that Turner enjoyed to force better
coordination among the various intelligence agencies. Odd that
this did not occur to the commission.
Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, is co-founder
of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and a
contributor to CounterPunch's unsparing new history of the Afghanistan/Iraq
wars, Imperial
Crusades. McGovern can be reached at: RRMcGovern@aol.com
This article first appeared
on TomPaine.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for July 31 / August 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Kerry:
He's the (Any) One
Merlin Chowkwanyun
Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of
a Narrow Policy Spectrum"
David Lindorff
The Shame of the DNC
John Chuckman
The
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Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility
Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face
of Compassionate Conservatism
Fred Gardner
A World of Pain
Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly
David Nally
Genocide in Darfur?
Joshua Frank
Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon
Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Diane Farsetta
The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the
Voting Booth
Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?
Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater
Lee Sustar
A New Model for the Labor Movement?
Ron Jacobs
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik
Poets Basement
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Website of
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