A former third-ranking official at the CIA pleaded guilty on Monday to fraud charges related to accusations he improperly steered agency contracts to his best friend, the Justice Department

The CIA’s former executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, admitted steering contracts to friend Brent Wilkes, who already is serving a 12-year sentence for bribing former Republican Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham, the department said.

It said Wilkes, a one-time Republican fundraiser, had made Foggo a standing offer of a high-paying job, and the two hid their relationship from the CIA and used shell companies to conceal Wilkes’s interest in the CIA contracts.

More at Yahoo News

H/T Bat!

I’d like to believe this is true……..

From the Washington Post:

Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In a strikingly upbeat assessment, the CIA chief cited major gains against al-Qaeda’s allies in the Middle East and an increasingly successful campaign to destabilize the group’s core leadership.

While cautioning that al-Qaeda remains a serious threat, Hayden said Osama bin Laden is losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Islamic world and has largely forfeited his ability to exploit the Iraq war to recruit adherents. Two years ago, a CIA study concluded that the U.S.-led war had become a propaganda and marketing bonanza for al-Qaeda, generating cash donations and legions of volunteers.

In their heart of hearts they know abortion is wrong.

In their heart of hearts they know gay marriage is wrong.

On the issue of torturing another human being to near-death, well, THEY’RE JUST NOT SURE.

CIA Boss: Waterboarding May Be Illegal

WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director Michael Hayden cast doubt on the legality of waterboarding on Thursday, a day after the White House said the harsh interrogation tactic has saved American lives and could be used in the future.
[...]

“It is not included in the current program, and in my own view, the view of my lawyers and the Department of Justice, it is not certain that that technique would be considered to be lawful under current statute,” Hayden said.
[...]

Hayden’s comments came just hours after Attorney General Michael Mukasey, in a separate House hearing, said the Justice Department would not investigate whether U.S. interrogators broke the law when waterboarding accused terrorists following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The CIA has concluded that members of al-Qaeda and allies of Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud were responsible for last month’s assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and that they also stand behind a new wave of violence threatening that country’s stability, the agency’s director, Michael V. Hayden, said in an interview.
[...]

The same alliance between local and international terrorists poses a grave risk to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism…

So, al-Qaeda was behind it all. But why Bhutto? I mean, with Musharraf being “a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism“, you would think al-Qaeda would have spent more energy going after him!

Am I missing something?

In an earlier post, “Where’s bin Laden?” I wrote about the changes to the script for the film Charlie Wilson’s War, specifically, the removal of all mentions of bin Laden, al-Qaeda or 9/11. Mike Finnigan at C&L helpfully passed on a link to “Tom Hanks Tells Hollywood Whopper in ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’” by Melissa Roddy at AlterNet.

Now, via Jonathan Schwarz at A Tiny Revolution (here and here), come two good pieces on the real history behind the film Charlie Wilson’s War.

First up is Chalmers Johnson with “Imperialist Propaganda: Second Thoughts on Charlie Wilson’s War” at TomDispatch.com:
Read more »

It’s a better question for George Bush, actually. But where’s bin Laden in Charlie Wilson’s War?

I read a draft of the script last year, and while most of it hasn’t changed much, there were a few notable, disappointing omissions.

Let me be clear: Charlie Wilson’s War is an excellent film, one of the best I’ve seen all year. Overall, the cast is superb. The film combines substance with wit to spare. Aaron Sorkin is a master of exposition, using it as ammunition and often off’setting it with comedy and other activities: sitting in a hot tub, a belly dance, the old West Wing walk and talk, a dance of dueling meetings reminiscent of the Marx Brothers. Director Mike Nichols knows the medium well, but he’s also an actor’s director, well beloved by them. Hanks is quite good as Wilson. I still think Julia Roberts is miscast, but I understand why she was cast (huge box office draw). I was ecstatic to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman cast as Gust; it’s a perfect fit and one of his most enjoyable performances, and that’s saying a lot. His first scene alone is worth the price of admission, and he and Hanks have great chemistry. Ned Beatty plays a small, key role. The film even has Amy Adams, splendid as always (see Junebug if you haven’t), although a friend of mine noted, she should have been sporting big hair for the era (as most American women in the cast are).
Read more »

You know what. If impeachment doesn’t get put smack dab in the middle of the table this country is in for a world of hurt. These guys are begging for it. They continue to break law after law after law, to ignore the constitution and then smirk about it. By not, at the very least, starting impeachment investigations, we are telling every future president and administration that criminal behavior is A-ok. It’s sickening. The Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for not starting impeachment procedings immediately upon taking control in 06. I think my brother is right. Impeachment is off the table because they are accessories.

The Bush administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest interrogation tactics.

Normally, that would force the government to defend itself against obstruction allegations. But the CIA may have an out: its clandestine network of overseas prisons.

While judges focused on the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and tried to guarantee that any evidence of detainee abuse would be preserved, the CIA was performing its toughest questioning half a world away. And by the time President Bush publicly acknowledged the secret prison system, interrogation videotapes of two terrorism suspects had been destroyed.

More at Yahoo News

This will be another case of no consequences. Of course this administration is going to continue to do whatever they want, be it morally, ethically or criminally wrong……why wouldn’t they? There are NO consequences to them personally. WE, as a nation, will pay in so many ways, but not them. Thanks for the try Biden. But it won’t happen.

A Senate Democratic leader said Sunday the attorney general should appoint a special counsel to investigate the CIA’s destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists.

Sen. Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cited Michael Mukasey’s refusal during confirmation hearings in October to describe waterboarding as torture.

Mukasey’s Justice Department and the CIA’s internal watchdog announced Saturday they would conduct a joint inquiry into the matter. That review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted. “He’s the same guy who couldn’t decide whether or not waterboarding was torture and he’s going to be doing this investigation,” said Biden, who noted that he voted against making Mukasey the country’s top law enforcer.

“I just think it’s clearer and crisper and everyone will know what the truth is … if he appoints a special counsel, steps back from it,” said Biden, D-Del.

That view was not shared fellow Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who said Congress can get to the bottom of the matter. “I don’t think there’s a need for a special counsel, and I don’t think there’s a need for a special commission,” he said. “It is the job of the intelligence committees to do that.”

More at the Washington Post

Nothing, repeat NOTHING!, will come of this! Do not get your hopes up. Do not entertain the idea that any oversight of any caliber exists in our government. There simply isn’t any. Oversight will not occur until after a democrat takes the office of president again or when republicans really are in the minority, or both.

Justice, CIA to probe destruction of taped interrogations

CIA Director M. Hayden: Agency will cooperate fully.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Justice Department and the CIA will jointly investigate the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects, a top official said.

The Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for national security, Kenneth L. Wainstein, announced the investigation Saturday in a letter to the CIA’s top lawyer, John Rizzo.

The probe will determine “whether further investigation is warranted,” Wainstein said.

CIA Director Mike Hayden said his agency will cooperate fully.

“I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes,” he said.

Also from the article:

“President Bush and Vice President Cheney learned about the videotapes Thursday, when Hayden briefed them about the tapes and their subsequent destruction, administration officials said Friday.”

That’s their official position, for now, and they’re sticking by it! *wink*

The methods included waterboarding, which simulates drowning, government officials said. Bush approved. What a country!

From The Guardian:

The BBC has an interview with a retired CIA agent who was one of the agents who captured and killed Che Guevara. The interview took place in the Miami home of Felix Rodriquez. Mr. Rodriquez proudly displays items for the journalist to view. Makes me sick. From the article:

Full article at the BBC

Wouldn’t you like to use a little of that torture on the assholes who endorsed it? This is the administration of liars, bullies and criminals.

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head’slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

More at the New York Times

The White House withdrew its nominee to become the CIA’s top lawyer on Tuesday after Democrats raised concerns that the agency’s interrogation techniques may be illegal.

The president sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee informing it of the decision to withdraw the nomination of John Rizzo to be the CIA’s general counsel. The panel had been expected to consider Rizzo’s nomination at a hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Rizzo, currently serving as the CIA’s interim general counsel, told a Senate panel in June that he did not object to a 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that stop just short of inflicting pain equal to that accompanying organ failure or even death.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who led the opposition to Rizzo, called him the wrong man for the job.

More at the Guardian

Wait…..I thought we didn’t torture? How can they stop doing something they weren’t doing in the first place?

The controversial interrogation technique known as water-boarding, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex, has been banned by CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden, current and former CIA officials tell ABCNews.com. (Image above is an ABC News graphic.)

The officials say Hayden made the decision at the recommendation of his deputy, Steve Kappes, and received approval from the White House to remove water-boarding from the list of approved interrogation techniques first authorized by a presidential finding in 2002.

The officials say the decision was made sometime last year but has never been publicly disclosed.

More at the Blotter

We Don’t Want the Enemy to Adjust…… Remember this interview? If I had been Matt Lauer I would have taken Bush’s finger, twisted it off his hand and shoved it up where the sun don’t shine. What a jerk.

No one objects to your “detaining and interrogating” prisoners Mr. Hayden. What is objected to is the torture and secret prisons and detaining people forEVER without charging them with anything. And according to people who have been released after your extraordinary rendition, THEY ARE BEING TORTURED!!!

The director of the CIA praised the government’s much-criticized program of detaining and interrogating prisoners yesterday, crediting it for most of the information in a July intelligence report on the terrorist threat to America.

General Michael Hayden said the CIA has detained fewer than 100 people at secret facilities abroad since the capture of Abu Zubaydah, the Al Qaeda operative, in 2002, and even fewer prisoners have been secretly transferred to or from foreign governments.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Hayden defended the government’s policy of extraordinary rendition, criticized the media for publishing stories about the government’s intelligence activities, and warned that Al Qaeda is trying to plant operatives in the United States.

Extraordinary rendition refers to the interrogation policy involving the secret transfer of prisoners from US control into the hands of foreign governments, some of which have a history of torture.

The US government says it does so only after it is assured that transferred prisoners will not be subjected to torture.

More at The Boston Globe