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Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Report finds harsh CIA interrogations ineffective
Washington Post
Greg Miller
After a contentious closed-door vote, the Senate intelligence committee approved a long-awaited report Thursday concluding that harsh interrogation measures used by the CIA did not produce significant intelligence breakthroughs, officials said.
The 6,000-page document, which was not released to the public, was adopted by Democrats over the objections of most of the committee’s Republicans. The outcome reflects the level of partisan friction that continues to surround the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other severe interrogation techniques four years after they were banned.
The report is the most detailed independent examination to date of the agency’s efforts to “break” dozens of detainees through physical and psychological duress, a period of CIA history that has become a source of renewed controversy because of torture scenes in a forthcoming Hollywood film, “Zero Dark Thirty.”
Officials familiar with the report said it makes a detailed case that subjecting prisoners to “enhanced” interrogation techniques did not help the CIA find Osama bin Laden and often were counterproductive in the broader campaign against al-Qaeda.
The committee chairman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), declined to discuss specific findings but released a written statement describing decisions to allow the CIA to build a network of secret prisons and employ harsh interrogation measures as “terrible mistakes.”
“I also believe this report will settle the debate once and for all over whether our nation should ever employ coercive interrogation techniques,” Feinstein said.
That conclusion has been disputed by high-ranking officials from the George W. Bush administration, including former vice president Richard B. Cheney and former CIA director Michael V. Hayden. Both of them argued that the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other measures provided critical clues that helped track down bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in May 2011.
Largely because of those political battle lines, Republicans on the Senate intelligence committee refused to participate in the panel’s three-year investigation of the CIA interrogation program, and most opposed Thursday’s decision.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the committee’s ranking Republican, said in a statement that the report “contains a number of significant errors and omissions about the history and utility of CIA’s detention program.” He also noted that the review was done “without interviewing any of the people involved.”
The 9 to 6 vote indicates that at least one Republican backed the report, although committee officials declined to provide a breakdown.
Other GOP lawmakers voiced support for the report’s conclusions. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, issued a statement saying that the committee’s work shows that “cruel” treatment of prisoners “is not only wrong in principle and a stain on our country’s conscience, but also an ineffective and unreliable means of gathering intelligence.”
It could be months, if not years, before the public gets even a partial glimpse of the report or its 20 findings and conclusions. Feinstein said the committee will turn the voluminous document over to the Obama administration and the CIA to provide a chance for them to comment.
When that is completed, the committee will need to vote again on whether to release even a portion of the report, a move likely to face opposition from the CIA, which has fought to keep details of the interrogation program classified.
Even if it were released, the report would probably have little impact beyond providing new ammunition for a largely dormant interrogation debate.
The agency abandoned its harshest interrogation methods years before President Obama was elected, and the Justice Department began backing away from memos it had issued that had served as the legal basis for the program.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department closed investigations of alleged abuses, eliminating the prospect that CIA operatives who had gone beyond the approved methods would face criminal charges.
Civil liberties groups praised the report.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Leaked Audio: Fox News Offers to Run Petraeus for President
PRWEb
Mari Bottari
Kathleen T. McFarlandThe Washington Post's
Bob Woodward obtained an audio recording of a conversation between
David Petraeus, the general turned CIA Director who recently resigned in
the midst of a sex scandal, and Fox News contributor Kathleen T.
McFarland. The conversation took place in spring 2011 in Kabul, during
the time that Petraeus was the commander of U.S. and coalition forces
there. McFarland is a national security analyst for Fox News and has a
long resume working for GOP administrations going back to Reagan.McFarland stresses that she had spoken "directly" to the Fox News chairman. "First of all, is there anything Fox is doing right or wrong that you want to tell us to do differently?" she asks, a remarkable request from a reporter to a sitting general in command of U.S. troops. When the general says Fox can be against Obama, but should not be against "Obama's war," McFarland says "the headlines are easy to fix. The lady who does that sits next to me." Generals editing headlines about the war they are running, what could go wrong?
Secondly, McFarland states that the "advice to you from Roger Ailes is. ... He says that if you're offered [JCS] chairman, take it. If you're offered anything else, don't take it; resign in six months and run for president."
Petraeus makes it clear that he is not interested in running for president, but he is apparently impressed both with Ailes who he describes as "brilliant" and with his offer to "quit his job" and "bankroll the campaign."
McFarland: ... is that next time you go to New York you're going to stop by and see him?
Petraeus: I'd be happy. I would love to see him. I haven't seen him in a while, so ...
McFarland: I think he would very much appreciate the conversation.
Petraeus: I would love to see. ... Yeah. He's a brilliant guy.
McFarland: He is simply brilliant. I don't know if you've ever ...
Petraeus: He is. Tell him if I ever ran [laughs] but I won't ...
McFarland: Okay, I know. I know.
Petraeus: But if I ever ran, I'd take him up on his offer.
McFarland: Okay. All right.
Petraeus: He said he would quit Fox.
McFarland: I know. Look, he's not the only one.
Petraeus: And bankroll it.
McFarland: Bankroll it? [Laughs]
Petraeus: Or maybe I'm confusing that with Rupert. No. [Laughter]
McFarland: I know Roger, he's done okay, but ... no, I think the one who's bankrolling it is the big boss.
Petraeus: That might be it.
McFarland: Okay. The big boss is bankrolling it. Roger's going to run it. And the rest of us are going to be your in-house.
Roger AilesPetraeus: Yeah, right. Okay.McFarland: We're all set. ...
As for the Fox News chairman, Ailes says McFarland is a contributor, not staff, and that the whole thing was a joke.
Why are we not laughing?
The audio of this remarkable interview is here and the transcript is here.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Maryland Family Files Lawsuit Against Federal Government, Claims CIA was Responsible for the Death of Their Father and Lied About Its Involvement, Says Gilbert LLP
Herald Online
Gilbert LLP
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| Dr. Frank Olson |
Eric and Nils Olson, the victim's sons, claim that Dr. Olson had a crisis of conscience about continuing his research into the use of biological weapons and mind control techniques after witnessing extreme interrogations in which the CIA committed murder using the biological agents that he had helped to develop. Shortly afterwards, the lawsuit alleges, CIA officials drugged Dr. Olson with LSD and then took him to New York under the pretense of psychiatric treatment by a CIA doctor who turned out to be an allergist. Plaintiffs claim that Dr. Olson was given alcohol and sedatives, and then was thrown from the thirteenth floor of the New York hotel room he was sharing with his CIA colleague. Instead of apprehending those responsible and telling the Olson family the truth, the family says, the CIA closed ranks and dissembled, embarking on a multi-decade cover-up that continues to this day.
Dr. Olson plunged to his death from the window of a thirteenth floor hotel room in New York City on Thanksgiving weekend in 1953. The circumstances of Dr. Olson's death were substantially similar to the "contrived accident" described in detail as "the most effective ["secret assassination"] technique" in a covert CIA manual published that same year. Indeed, as Dr. Olson lay crumpled and dying on the street, his CIA colleague did not run down to his aid. Nor did he call the police. Instead, the complaint alleges, a person in Dr. Olson's room made a phone call. The hotel operator overheard one party say "Well, he's gone." The person on the other end responded simply "That's too bad."
Following Dr. Olson's death, the United States informed his widow and three children that Dr. Olson had died in a terrible accident and due to his disfigurement, they should not view the body. Both statements, the lawsuit alleges, were outright lies. In the ensuing years of question and doubt, the family suffered at every conceivable level. Mrs. Olson descended into chronic alcoholism and her sons were raised in part by their father's ex-CIA colleague, who repeatedly abused them sexually, the complaint says. Throughout, the government's cover-up and lies continued.
In 1975, after post-Watergate scrutiny of federal intelligence abuses, the United States was forced publicly to acknowledge having drugged Dr. Olson with LSD. Once again, instead of telling the truth and bringing Dr. Olson's murderers to justice, the government came up with a new explanation: Dr. Olson's death now was not an accident after all, but the result of an LSD-related suicide. The family's unanswered questions lingered, however, with repeated requests for full disclosure and the truth. In 1995, Eric and Nils Olson had their father's body exhumed and an autopsy performed. The autopsy found a previously undisclosed wound consistent with a blow to the head. The New York District Attorney's Office reopened its investigation into Dr. Olson's death, ultimately reclassifying the official cause of his death from "suicide" to "unknown."
In spite of repeated attempts by Dr. Olson's family to obtain a full accounting from the CIA of its responsibility for his murder, the lawsuit alleges, the CIA has compounded their grief by failing to disclose all information related to his death – an omission confirmed by former CIA Director William Colby in a message to one of Dr. Olson's sons several years before Colby's own death under suspicious circumstances. The decades-long cover-up allegedly extended to high-ranking White House officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, at the time chief of staff to President Gerald Ford, and, Dick Cheney, his deputy chief of staff.
As recently as February 2011, the CIA refused to produce files that the Olson family requested. The agency continues to claim that it has given the family "a complete and accurate presentation of what happened to Dr. Olson." "That is just not the case," said Eric Olson. "The evidence shows that our father was killed in their custody. They have lied to us ever since, withholding documents and information, and changing their story when convenient. We were just little boys and they took away our lives – the CIA didn't kill only our father, they killed our entire family again and again and again." he stated.
"It's unfathomable that our own government could stand by as its agents, operating on United States soil, killed an American citizen in cold blood, destroyed his family, and then allowed those directly responsible to walk away without so much as a blemish on their personnel files. Instead of putting its energy and resources into doing what is right, the United States – including this Administration – has sought to bury this and hide the truth from Dr. Olson's only surviving relatives and from the American people." said Scott Gilbert, lead counsel and founder of Gilbert LLP.
"We need to put an end to this story of murder and deceit; it is time to do what is right. And our job is to ensure that happens." he added.
About Gilbert LLP
Gilbert LLP is a Washington, DC-based law firm focused on strategic risk and litigation consulting and on insurance recovery. The firm's clients include business entities, debtors and creditors in bankruptcy matters, trusts and committees formed in such cases, law firms, accounting firms and other professional organizations, non-profits and individuals. Gilbert LLP also has a very robust public service practice. For more information about Gilbert LLP, visit www.gotofirm.com.
A lawsuit filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeks to hold the CIA accountable for its involvement in the death of Dr. Frank Olson, a bio-weapons scientist and covert CIA officer who worked at the United States Army's "Special Operations" laboratory at Camp Detrick, Maryland in the early 1950s.A lawsuit filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeks to hold the CIA accountable for its involvement in the death of Dr. Frank Olson, a bio-weapons scientist and covert CIA officer who worked at the United States Army's "Special Operations" laboratory at Camp Detrick, Maryland in the early 1950s.
A lawsuit filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeks to hold the CIA accountable for its involvement in the death of Dr. Frank Olson, a bio-weapons scientist and covert CIA officer who worked at the United States Army's "Special Operations" laboratory at Camp Detrick, Maryland in the early 1950s.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Both Benghazi And The Petraeus Scandal Suggest US Media Is Way Too Cozy With The State
Geoffrey Ingersoll
Immediately following the Benghazi crisis, U.S. gersollmedia did its due diligence and flexed its sources, anonymous and otherwise, to uncover the truth about the attack — but then they purposely failed to report the details because of requests from the CIA and the Obama administration.
Michael Calderon of The Huffington Post reports that the AP, The New York Times and The Washington Post all withheld information at the behest of the CIA. Calderon also details how other news outlets failed to mention the true ties of CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
From his report:
ABC News, for example, reported that Doherty had been working to "round up dangerous weapons" in the country. One national security reporter told The Huffington Post that it was an "open secret" in national security circles that the former SEALs were working for the CIA.
The AP even went so far as to edit a Sept. 21 story it wrote, which revealed the employment status of Woods and Doherty; ensuring the edited version made no mention of Woods and Doherty's employment the CIA.
A statement written to HuffPo from AP spokesman Paul Colford:
"We omitted mention of the two former SEALs' CIA connection in subsequent versions of the story after CIA officials insisted that other lives would be endangered."
Another statement, from the New York Times, echoed this sentiment: "[We] agreed to withhold locations and details of these operations at the request of Obama administration officials, who said that disclosing such information could jeopardize future sensitive government activities and put at risk American personnel working in dangerous settings."
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Petraeus Switches Up His Story on the Benghazi Attacks
Wired
Spencer Ackerman
 |
| Former Gen. David Petraeus at a Fourth of July ceremony in Kabul, 2010 |
aeus knew all along that the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi was attacked by al-Qaida-aligned terrorists this
past September. Only he wasn’t so certain when he first briefed Congress
on the Libyan disaster, just days after it occurred. And even the most
Petraeus-friendPetraeus emerged from his compounding week-long fall from grace to testify behind closed doors to the House and Senate intelligence committees about what the CIA knew about the hours-long assault as it unfolded. The overarching and highly politicized question hanging over Benghazi is whether the Obama administration misrepresented the disaster by initially pointing to an anti-Islam video as the catalyst, rather than the complex terrorist attack that actually occurred. What’s begun to leak out of the Petraeus hearings is this: the former four-star general and spymaster was convinced from jump that this was the work of terrorists.
In his Friday testimony. Petraeus claimed “he thought all along that he made it clear there was terrorist involvement,” according to Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). But, King said, “That was not my recollection” of Petraeus’ testimony.
Nor is it what Petraeus’ old boss was saying at the time. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, publicly explained on Sept. 28 that contemporaneous — and ultimately incorrect — intelligence reporting “led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo,” and “we provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress.”
Confusing matters further, Petraeus indicated to lawmakers that the “talking points” the CIA initially gave to the Obama administration and members of Congress omitted early references to terrorism. Those talking points, published on Thursday by CBS, say that the attack on the consulate was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.” They hold open the possibility that the intelligence picture will change — as, indeed, it did, significantly. Those talking points do not indicate the certainty that Petraeus now says he possessed to attribute the attack to Libyan militant group Ansar al-Sharia.
According to King, Petraeus couldn’t explain the discrepancy. King said the talking points went through an “interagency” review, but the CIA ultimately “said, ‘Okay for it to go.’”
The Obama administration’s explanation of the assault on Benghazi evolved from emphasizing an ultimately incorrect connection to the anti-Islam video to blaming Benghazi on a terrorist assault. Its defense is that the intelligence shifted; critics believe that Obama was covering up a terrorist attack to ensure his reelection. There are numerous unanswered questions about what happened in Benghazi: for instance, why security at the consulate was so light despite numerous precursor attacks that summer.
Petraeus, finally out the door of the administration and under investigation by his own former agency, just added a few more, rather than clearing up the existing ones.
We’ll update this post as more information from Petraeus’ testimony leaks out.
Update, 4:52 p.m.: According to the Associated Press, the CIA excised mentions of terrorist groups from the talking points “so as not to alert them that U.S. intelligence was on their trail.” Pentagon spokesman George Little had said the day following the attack that the U.S. would retaliate, but did not give any specifics as to who was responsible.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Petraeus may be called in U.S. inquiry on Benghazi: Feinstein
Reuters
Deborah Zabarenko
 |
Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program that Petraeus' resignation on Friday "was like a lightning bolt."
She said there will be an investigation into why the FBI failed to inform her and others on the intelligence committee before Friday about the extramarital affair between Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, when the FBI probe had been proceeding for weeks.
The California Democrat said there was no connection between Petraeus' resignation and the September 11, 2012, killings in Benghazi. Petraeus had been scheduled to testify about the Benghazi case on Thursday in a closed session of the committee; Mike Morrell, the acting CIA director, is now expected to do so.
She said the committee may decide to call Petraeus in a future meeting of the intelligence panel on the Benghazi killings. Four U.S. citizens were killed, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
"My biggest concern is, there are literally hundreds of threat warnings in the material that has been accumulated," Feinstein said. "There were five attacks during the year, one prior attack on the consulate itself. The question I have is ... why wasn't something done about it?"
U.S. Representative Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, raised questions about why it took FBI investigators so long to inform President Barack Obama and others in his administration that Petraeus was involved.
FBI TIMELINE QUESTIONED
"The timeline has to be looked at and analyzed," the New York congressman said on CNN's "State of the Union. "Because obviously this was a matter involving a potential compromise of security and the president should have been told about it at the earliest stage."
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he was ready to turn the page on the scandal that prompted Petraeus to resign, but said the former general must testify before Congress about what he called a "national security failure" at Benghazi.
Graham, of South Carolina, called for a Watergate-style joint select committee of members of the House and Senate to investigate the matter.
Speaking on "Face the Nation" on CBS, Graham said the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community have much to explain in this case, but singled out Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, for her role.
"I don't, quite frankly, trust her rendition of Benghazi," Graham said. Rice initially described the attack as a spontaneous outburst rather than a planned attack. Her handling of the matter provided fodder to Republican opponents in the final months of Obama's re-election campaign.
Rice has been mentioned as a possible choice by Obama to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but Graham said Rice's nomination to this post "would have incredibly difficult time getting through the Senate."
"I would not vote for her unless there's a tremendous opening up of information explaining herself in a way she has not yet done," Graham said of Rice.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Libya mission was secret CIA operation: report
The International News
WASHINGTON: The US mission in Benghazi that came under attack by militants on September 11 was mainly a secret CIA operation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, shedding new light on the deadly assault.
President Barack Obama's administration has faced a storm of pre-election questions about why there was not more security at the US consulate where four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed on September 11.
The Wall Street Journal said the mission was mainly a CIA operation, adding that of the 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the assault, just seven worked for the State Department.
It also identified the two security contractors killed in the attack - former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty - as working for the Central Intelligence Agency and not the State Department.
In a break from tradition, it said CIA Director David Petraeus did not attend the ceremony when the coffins arrived back on American soil in order to conceal the CIA operation in eastern Libya.
It said the nearly two dozen CIA operatives secretly worked out of a separate building known as the “annex,” where officials at the consulate had retreated following the initial attack before coming under fire again.
The operation, which hit the ground shortly after the start of the February 2011 revolt that overthrew Libyan dictator Moamer Qadhafi - was aimed at counterterrorism and securing heavy weapons held by the embattled regime.
The Journal suggested that the security lapse may have been due to miscommunication between the CIA and the State Department, with the latter assuming the annex security team was a sufficient backup for its own guards. “They were the cavalry,” it quoted a senior US official as saying.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Petraeus' Resignation Will Stop Him From Testifying About Benghazi
Business Insider
Joshua Beringer
|
It's worth asking: was this in any way connected to the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi?
Ben Shapiro at Breitbart seems to think so, calling the scandal the "latest in a string of groundshaking events demonstrating that the Obama administration hid information vital to the American people." And Rupert Murdoch seems to agree:
Petraeus was scheduled to testify before the House and Senate Intelligence committees on Thursday regarding the events surrounding September 11, as Congress gears up for a week of hearings related to the attack. Mark Knoller at CBS News tweets that he will no longer be testifying in light of his resignation, but acting CIA director Mike Morell will testify in his place, according to Politico. Morell was quickly named Petraeus' temporary replacement by the Obama administration.
However, many reject the theory that Petraeus' actions are connected to Benghazi. “This had nothing to do with Benghazi or relationship with the White House — which by the way was excellent — or anything else for that matter,” an anonymous aide told Wired magazine. “Just his flawed behavior."
It's also important to note that an extramarital affair could very well have cost Petraeus his security clearance, as Business Insider reported earlier today.
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