Attending to Business
In today’s Politico Arena, the editors ask:
Is Obama “dithering” on Afghanistan (Cheney) or fulfilling his “solemn responsibility” (Gibbs)?
My response:
President Obama got some adult criticism this week from Dick Cheney, none too soon. While the risk to American troops in Afghanistan grows, Obama dithers, unable to decide whether to get in or get out — whether to be the one thing the Constitution authorizes him to be, Commander in Chief. Yet he finds time to fly off to Copenhagen to promote Chicago for the Olympics, to insinuate himself in local political campaigns, to go on “Fox hunts,” yesterday excluding Fox News from the White House pool allowed to interview his executive pay czar, and now, we learn, to slash executive salaries at companies not only partially owned but simply regulated by the government. Are there no limits to the man’s hubris?
Even the Washington Post this morning, no bastion of free-market fervor, noted that this “represents a signal moment in the history of the American economic experiment,” moving us ever closer to the European model. But it was Arena contributor Allan Meltzer who yesterday hit the nail on the head: ”All the noise about pay and pay cuts is part of an effort to divert the public’s attention from the main cause of the mortgage fiasco — the role that Congressman Frank and others had in creating the mortgage crisis by refusing to limit the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac after 2003.” That these regulators will be able to calculate the salary that is appropriate to discourage excessive risk-taking is simply comical.
And so we have here a textbook example of modern government: Obama fails to do or do well what he is authorized to do, yet he strides into matter far beyond his authority — or competence. He seems not to understand the Constitution he once taught, and more recently promised to uphold.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
The Zero Percent Doctrine
I was never a fan of Dick Cheney’s one percent doctrine.
According to Ron Suskind, after 9/11 Cheney explained to law enforcement and intelligence officials that they should treat even the one percent chance of a terrorist attack as a mathematical certainty. The particular case was of a Pakistani nuclear scientist helping al-Qaeda to acquire a nuclear bomb, but the standard became a shorthand for U.S. counterterror efforts generally. No scale of effort would be too great. Better to chase down 100 leads, 99 of which turn out to be bogus, because finding just that one nugget would have been worth the level of effort.
Now we have evidence that the federal government is chasing down far more than 99 blind alleys for just one lead. From today’s front-page story in the New York Times, Eric Schmitt explains how the FBI has adapted and evolved since 9/11:
The bureau now ranks fighting terrorism as its No. 1 priority. It has doubled the number of agents assigned to counterterrorism duties to roughly 5,000 people, and has created new squads across the country that focus more on deterring and disrupting terrorism than on solving crimes.
But the manpower costs of this focus are steep, and the benefits not always clear. Of the 5,500 leads that the squad has pursued since it was formed five years ago, only 5 percent have been found credible enough to be sent to permanent F.B.I. squads for longer-term investigations, said Supervisory Special Agent Kristen von KleinSmid, head of the squad. Only a handful of those cases have resulted in criminal prosecutions or other law enforcement action, and none have foiled a specific terrorist plot, the authorities acknowledge. (Emphasis mine.)
So, just to review:
- 5,500 leads over 5 years
- 5 percent deemed credible
- “A handful” technically would mean five or less, but charitably might total a few dozen. Still, that translates to far less than 1 percent of leads investigated resulting in a criminal prosecution.
But, and here’s the kicker,
- None – zero, zip, nada – foiled a specific terrorist plot.
On the face of it, this seems like a waste of time and resources that should be spent elsewhere.
Cheney vs. Obama: Tale of the Tape
In case you missed it, President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke separately today on terrorism and national security. Like two boxers at a pre-fight press conference, they each touted their strength over their opponent. They espoused deep differences in their views on national counterterrorism strategy.
The Thrilla in Manilla it ain’t. As Gene Healy has pointed out, they agree on a lot more than they admit to. Harvard Law professor and former Bush Office of Legal Counsel head Jack Goldsmith makes the same point at the New Republic. Glenn Greenwald made a similar observation.
However, the areas where they differ are important: torture, closing Guantanamo, criminal prosecution, and messaging. In these key areas, Obama edges out Cheney.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Dick Cheney: Obama’s Enabler
That’s the theme of my Washington Examiner column this week:
Dick Cheney’s “Shut Up and Listen” tour continued last week on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” There, the former veep reiterated his favorite theme: Obama is putting America at risk by “taking down a lot of those policies we put in place that kept the nation safe.”What in the world is Cheney talking about? Granted, Obama’s anti-terror policies are clouded by rhetorical “Hope” and euphemism, and the new administration is less given to chest-thumping than its predecessor. Otherwise, Obama’s approach to terrorism is virtually identical to Bush/Cheney’s.
Harvard Law prof and former Bush OLC head Jack Goldsmith makes a similar point in a New Republic piece out today, though Professor Goldsmith is happier about the continuity than I am. For more, see Glenn Greenwald.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Government and Politics; Political Philosophy
Former FBI Agent: Torture Sucks. Don’t Do It.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings produced an ugly picture of the role torture played in interrogating Al Qaeda leaders. The testimony of former FBI agent Ali Soufan shows how traditional intelligence techniques worked on Abu Zubaydah and “enhanced” techniques did nothing to advance national security interests:
Immediately after Abu Zubaydah was captured, a fellow FBI agent and I were flown to meet him at an undisclosed location. We were both very familiar with Abu Zubaydah and have successfully interrogated al-Qaeda terrorists. We started interrogating him, supported by CIA officials who were stationed at the location, and within the first hour of the interrogation, using the Informed Interrogation Approach, we gained important actionable intelligence.
We were once again very successful and elicited information regarding the role of KSM as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and lots of other information that remains classified. (It is important to remember that before this we had no idea of KSM’s role in 9/11 or his importance in the al Qaeda leadership structure.)
Soufan then recounts a tug-of-war between the interrogators and the contractors brought in to apply the third degree. The intelligence and law enforcement professionals struggled to reestablish rapport with Zubaydah after each iteration of harsh interrogation tactics.
The new techniques did not produce results as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking. At that time nudity and low-level sleep deprivation (between 24 and 48 hours) was being used. After a few days of getting no information, and after repeated inquiries from DC asking why all of sudden no information was being transmitted (when before there had been a steady stream), we again were given control of the interrogation.
We then returned to using the Informed Interrogation Approach. Within a few hours, Abu Zubaydah again started talking and gave us important actionable intelligence.
The enhanced interrogation techniques were not only inferior to traditional interrogation techniques, they proved counterproductive. The use of illegal techniques resurrected the “wall” between the CIA and the FBI with regard to these detainees. This prevented FBI experts who knew more about Al Qaeda than anyone else in the government from questioning them. Plus, as Soufan recounts, coercive techniques make detainees tell you what you want to hear, whether it is true or not. As Jesse Ventura says, “you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney, and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
Torture did not advance the work of picking apart Al Qaeda, it disrupted it.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties
Getting the Opponent to React in Foolish and Self-Defeating Ways Is One of the Primary Goals of Most Terror Campaigns
Stephen Walt has a great blog post up at ForeignPolicy.com.
I particularly appreciate how he recognizes that terrorists seek and profit from overreaction on the part of the victim state:
If our leaders react to every terrorist incident as if it’s a monumental disaster, and if they hype the terrorist threat for political advantage — as George Bush and Dick Cheney did — the public will surely respond by demanding that we throw more resources at the problem than is prudent. Getting the opponent to react in foolish and self-defeating ways is one of the primary goals of most terror campaigns, of course, because these blunders can help the terrorists win victories that they could not achieve otherwise. We did more damage to ourselves when we invaded Iraq than Osama bin Laden accomplished on 9/11, and an open-ended commitment in Central Asia could easily compound that error.
You don’t have to believe that the Bush Administration wrongly sought political advantage – they may have believed the hype or believed that hyping threats was good policy – to recognize that hyping terror threats advances terrorists’ goals and damages our own interests.
The Problem of Guantanamo
The Constitution obviously does not leave Americans helpless in fighting against those who wish them ill. But it also sets standards of conduct that should not — indeed, cannot — be carelessly tossed aside.
The prison at Guantanamo Bay has become such an international symbol of the U.S. abandoning its principles because it reflects an anti-terrorism policy gone badly awry. First, the Bush administration was both callous and careless in imprisoning people, even paying unreliable tribal allies for captives. Second, the U.S. government created no effective and objective truth-determining process to assess guilt. Third, Washington employed torture, violating both domestic and international law.
No doubt dangerous terrorists have been incarcerated at Gitmo. But so too have many innocent people. Indeed, the claims of former State Department Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson are particularly sobering:
Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, admitted today that of the approximately 800 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay since the controversial detention center opened, only “two dozen or so” were actually terrorists. Wilkerson told the Associated Press today that “there are still innocent people there,” and that “some have been there six or seven years.”
Wilkerson made other comments earlier in the week in an internet posting entitled “Some Truths About Guantanamo Bay.” In that posting he said that “several in the US leadership became aware of the lack of proper vetting very early on and thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.”
Wilkerson also claimed that then-Secretary Powell and Richard Armitage were pressuring for the repatriation of as many detainees as possible, and that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney were unphased by the fact that “among the detainees was a 13 year old boy and a man over 90,” standing in opposition to returning detainees.
Even if Wilkerson exaggerates–and he has been a credible witness so far–he points to the price America has paid for failing to live up to its principles. The U.S. has locked up many who were neither terrorists nor otherwise dangerous. Doing so undoubtedly has helped turn some people in and out of Gitmo towards violence against America. And mistreating the innocent has badly sullied America’s reputation as a shining city upon a hill.
Confronting terrorism will never be easy. But violating America’s principles is no way to defend the America in which we all claim to believe.
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