The Next Hurrah

Qaddafi gets his reward

by emptypockets

We've extensively covered the story of the six healthcare workers scapegoated by Libya, telling you how they were blamed for an outbreak of HIV in a Libyan hospital, raped, beaten, and tortured in prison, and sentenced to death (here, here, here, and here); how American corporations nevertheless continued to expand trade with Libya, and how political leaders like Hillary Clinton discouraged diplomatic efforts to free the workers (here and here); and, finally, how the EU as a whole, and France in particular, ultimately secured their last-minute release (here).

So it's only fitting that we bring you the final chapter: this week, Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi is in France, receiving his reward: the royal treatment, meetings with national leaders, and a deal for Libya to receive several nuclear reactors from France. Happy International Human Rights Week.

I don't know how to feel about this outcome. Was the visit this week a part of the original package, which included $400 million for the families of HIV-infected children, that Libya extorted from the EU before the medics were released? Or is the visit just what it feels like: a lollipop for the child who stops his tantrum, a $20 tip for the mugger who didn't take your whole wallet?

The most positive light I can see it in is a reference to the old chestnut of game theory known as "The Prisoner's Dilemma," in which a pair of players have the option of cooperating with or exploiting each other -- the rewards are higher if you both cooperate, but attempting to do so runs the risk of exploitation by your partner. The most successful strategy for years (up until a funny trick was discovered in 2004) has been "tit-for-tat" -- start off cooperatively, then do whatever your partner did the last time. If he's good to you, return the favor; if he screws you, screw him back next time.

This translates directly into political games, and is sometimes considered to be one of the guiding principles of cold war strategy. Perhaps France's Sarkozy, unlike the "never cooperate" strategy adopted by Clinton or the "always cooperate" strategy used by American business, is simply practicing "tit-for-tat": regardless of Qaddafi's past, his most recent action was beneficial, so he gets benefits. If Qaddafi acts well in the future, he'll presumably get more rewards; if not, he'll presumably be cut off until the next "turn." One thing to note about this strategy is that it doesn't mean you'll always "win" -- there will be events where your partner screws you -- but, in the end, you come out farther ahead than you would with any other strategy.

Considering that in the mid-1980s Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein appeared to be a well-matched pair of terroristic dictators, and today one has been pulled from a hole and hanged while the other has pitched his tent in the fertile fields of France (and I don't mean that in a dirty way), it would seem that "Prisoner's Dilemma" is a game Qaddafi plays well.

Why is our director of national intelligence letting terrorists roam free?

by emptypockets

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, writes in an op-ed in this morning's New York Times that FISA, which requires court review of certain kinds of government wiretaps, "slowed -- and sometimes prevented -- our ability to collect timely foreign intelligence." He urges Congress to renew the Protect America Act, a temporary measure passed this year that bypasses FISA, and is due to expire in February.

Having personally transcended outrage, mockery, and scorn, I am going to go ahead and take McConnell at his word.

He writes that FISA has "not kept pace with changes in technology" (FISA was created in response to the illegal government activities of the Nixon administration) and that, under FISA, "our experts were diverted from tracking foreign intelligence threats to writing lengthy justifications to collect information from a person in a foreign country". Bottom line? "The intelligence community should spend its time protecting our nation, not providing privacy protections to foreign terrorists".

Which raises the question -- if they know who the terrorists are, why not go get them? Why is McConnell spending his time fighting political battles in Washington, DC, which even if won, will only let him listen in on phone calls? Why does he want to divert our experts to listening to tapes when they could be out catching bad guys?

I can imagine one reason: monitoring known terrorists may lead to the capture of larger groups of terrorists. But, to me, that stands too great a risk of losing track of them, as occurred with bin Laden. Shouldn't McConnell and the US government capture these terrorists while they can? Why are they playing soft with them?

The other possibility, of course, is that McConnell doesn't actually know yet who the terrorists are, and wants to be able to eavesdrop on lots of private conversations of innocent civilians, with the hopes that that will turn up a handful of terrorists. But that's not what he's saying, and I'm prepared to take him at his word: he knows where they are, he knows who they are. He'd just rather listen in than stop them.

Does this Sound Familiar?

by emptywheel

Where have we seen this before: a Bush Administration gives vague guidance to our favored military dictator in a turbulent neighborhood, and the dictator takes a step that might destabilize the whole region.

The Bush Administration knew that Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf planned to institute emergency rule but did not act or speak out about the plan, according to officials with knowledge of the discussion who spoke anonymously in Friday's Wall Street Journal.

"In the days before the Nov. 3 announcement, the general's aides and advisers forewarned U.S. diplomats in a series of meetings in Islamabad, according to Pakistani and U.S. officials," the paper said.

Because the US response was "muted," Pakistan interpreted American silence as a green light to instituting martial law, quickly deposing an intransigent Supreme Court, which had ruled against the general in the past.

"One of Gen. Musharraf's closest advisers said U.S. criticism was muted, which some senior Pakistanis interpreted as a sign they could proceed," the Journal said. "'You don't like that option? You give us one,' the adviser says he told his American interlocutors. 'There were no good options.'"

A U.S. official "familiar with the discussions" told the paper the talks were part of "'intensive efforts' to dissuade Gen. Musharraf from declaring a state of emergency."

"There was never a green light," the U.S. official told the New York daily. [my emphasis]

Of course, when we offered such vague guidance to Saddam Hussein in July 1990, just before he invaded Kuwait, he did not yet have nukes (though he was trying awfully hard to get them). Nor was he hosting a slew of terrorists who had already struck at the United States.

I'd love to know a little more about these conversations. The most obvious question, of course, pertains to the role of Dick Cheney in these purported "intensive efforts" to dissuade General Musharraf from imposing martial law. Was this vague guidance just one more consequence of having Dick in charge of Pakistan policy?

Will Luis Posada Face Justice?

by emptywheel

Back in May, a judge dismissed immigration charges against Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, arguing he had been tricked in the interview that led to his indictment. At the time, it looked like BushCo threw the case, not wanting to convict one of their favored terrorists.

But now, two of his associates have pled guilty to charges of obstruction of justice in connection with his case.

Two associates of Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles have pleaded guilty in the Western District of Texas to charges of obstruction of justice in connection with the U.S. government�s investigation of Posada Carriles, Michael J. Mullaney, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas announced today.

Osvaldo Mitat, age 65 and Santiago Alvarez, age 66, both natives of Cuba, each entered pleas of guilty today to a one-count superseding criminal information that charged each defendant with obstruction of justice. The plea occurred before U.S. District Judge David Briones. Each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, three years supervised release and a $100 special assessment. Sentencing for both has been scheduled for Feb. 1, 2008.

According to the statement of facts agreed upon by each defendant, on or about Dec. 18, 2006, a federal grand jury in the Western District of Texas subpoenaed both Mitat and Alvarez to testify in the course of its investigation into allegedly false statements made to the government made by Posada Carriles about his unlawful entry to the United States and other matters.

On or about Jan. 11, 2007, each was granted immunity from prosecution from any self-incriminating statements and each was ordered to testify by the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Texas. Not withstanding the grant of immunity and court order compelling their testimony, the defendants refused to testify before the grand jury about the subject of its investigation. By doing so, Mitat and Alvarez did unlawfully and corruptly influence, obstruct and impede, and endeavor to influence, obstruct, and impede the due administration of justice.

Among others investigating this case were lawyers from the Counter-Terrorism section of DOJ.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic. But if they're getting pleas from Posada's associates, does that mean things might move forward?

No, Pakistan Was the Last Big Test. And We Failed It.

by emptywheel

"Serious Person" Michael O'Hanlon and  escalation surge architect Fred Kagan end their op-ed with the following words.

There was a time when volatility in places like Pakistan was mostly a humanitarian worry; today it is as much a threat to our basic security as Soviet tanks once were. We must be militarily and diplomatically prepared to keep ourselves safe in such a world. Pakistan may be the next big test. [my emphasis]

I'm just a DFH and not a "serious person" or anything. But I am certain they have this wrong--dead wrong. It highlights the problem of neoconservatism--an acute myopia that therefore cannot see a problem until we're already in the thick of it and until they can make an argument--however specious--that the only solution is military.

The way in which O'Hanlon and Kagan conceive of Pakistan "becoming the next big test" is the perfect illustration of this. They describe the events that need to occur for them to take some action--and of course, action is exclusively military.

AS the government of Pakistan totters, we must face a fact: the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss. Nor would it be strategically prudent to withdraw our forces from an improving situation in Iraq to cope with a deteriorating one in Pakistan. We need to think — now — about our feasible military options in Pakistan, should it really come to that. [my emphasis]

Note, "could not stand by" ... "should it come to that." They're only considering action if Pakistan "descends into the abyss." Otherwise, here we are standing by.

Couple that with their ignorant assertion that, "There was a time when volatility in places like Pakistan was mostly a humanitarian worry," and you see the problem. They would not--and did not--consider action at a time when non-military solutions were the obvious solution to the problem, when AQ Khan and his nukes didn't have us by the nuts. As I said last year when I was earning Matt Bai's wrath, the time to address these problems is before they've exploded, while we're still nominally allies. Because we're going to have to do nation-building anyway, whether or not Pakistan falls into the abyss, if we want to prevent its extremists from accruing more power. Had we done it six years ago, when Musharraf took the risk of cooperating with us after 9/11 and when he was begging for a textile trade agreement so he could create jobs, we ignored him. Now, it's going to take a lot more than some textile factories to find a solution to the crisis, peaceful or no.

But O'Hanlon and Kagan apparently can't see that, because they're looking in all the wrong places.

More on the FBI's Own Falafel

by emptywheel

There's a bit of a squabble over how important Nada Nadim Prouty, the FBI/CIA agent who got unauthorized access to Hezbollah information at the CIA, was to the agency. Via Laura, NBC reports that she was very important.

Current and former intelligence officials tell NBC News that Nada Nadim Prouty had a much bigger role than officials at the FBI and CIA first acknowledged. In fact, Prouty was assigned to the CIA’s most sensitive post, Baghdad, and participated in the debriefings of high-ranking al-Qaida detainees.

A former colleague called Prouty “among the best and the brightest” CIA officers in Baghdad. She was so exceptional, agree officials of both agencies, the CIA recruited her from the FBI to work for the agency’s clandestine service at Langley, Va., in June 2003. She then went to Iraq for the agency to work with the U.S. military on the debriefings.

“Early on, she was an active agent in the debriefings,” said one former intelligence official. “It was more than translation.”

But the same story has a senior official reporting that she wasn't that important.

A senior U.S. official familiar with the case says there is no evidence she was a spy and noted that the CIA and FBI have a good record in prosecuting spies, particularly in their own agencies.

He says her role was limited.“This is not John Dillinger or Reilly Ace of Spies,” said the official.

All of which got me looking at some details of her plea agreement. First, she pled guilty to three crimes, with a combined maximum sentence 16 years and $600,000 in fines. But her recommended sentence (it requires her cooperation with the CIA) is just 6 months to 1 year.

It's the last crime she plead to, though, which is most interesting. She plead guilty to Naturalization Fraud. The statute of limitations had run out on that crime for her, so she had to agree to waive the statute of limitations so they could charge her with it. Which is how they got the following language into her plea:

The defendant admits that she is a native of Lebanon, that her U.S. citizenship will be automatically revoked as a result of her guilty plea to count 3, and that she is removable from the United States ... as a result of her guilty pleas in this case. The defendant further waives any right that she may have to receive notice of intent to request judicial removal and a charge containing factual allegations regarding the removal. The defendant understands and knowingly waives her right to a hearing before an immigration judge or any other authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act, on the question of her removability from the United States. The defendant further understands the rights she would possess in a contested administrative proceeding and waives these rights, including her right to examine the evidence against her, to present evidence on her behalf, and to cross-examine witnesses presented by the government.

The defendant further waives any rights that she may have to apply for relief from removal and requests that an order be issued by this court for her removal to Lebanon. The defendant agrees to accept a written order of removal as a final disposition of these proceedings and waives any rights she may have to appeal the order issued.

The order of removal shall also include a grant of withholding of removal to the country of Lebanon ... Defendant hereby agrees to make both the judicial order or removal and the grant of withholding of removal to Lebanon a public document, waiving her privacy rights.... At the request of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will provide its concurrence to the government's request for a judicial order of removal coupled with a grant of withholding of removal to Lebanon as set forth above at sentencing. [my emphasis]

She has waived the statute of limitations so they could charge her with Naturalization Fraud, which they promptly used to take away any all legal immigration status she has. So obviously, she has agreed to be very--very--cooperative. Presumably not just with the CIA, in explaining how much information she disseminated to whom. But also more generally, to get those sentences (and whatever larger sentence got her to agree to waive the statute of limitations on the Naturalization crime instead).

Not only that, she's completely at the mercy of whomever she's cooperating with. She's got no US citizenship; plus she's got an order of removal hanging over her head, with that order being withheld courtesy of the US government. On their say so, she gets kicked out of the country.

And not only is she in this legal limbo--but the US government required her to allow them to make it public. Now who--or what group--do you suppose the government would want to know that Prouty was going to be sticking around in the US at the sole discretion of the US government?

One detail I find really tantalizing about this, though, is the possibility that her cooperation may be nothing more than silence (aside from clarifying what info she stole from the CIA). After all, she apparently witnessed--if not participated in--interrogations of high level Al Qaeda detainees, as early as 2003. There's a whole range of people the government would like to keep information she knows secret from--most of all the American people. So it's possible she's going to be very cooperative with the CIA in telling what she knows; it's equally possible she's going to be very cooperative in other ways, perhaps most of all, her silence.

Or perhaps they're going to turn her into a super-interrogator, with no legal rights in this country, and lots of incentives to continue doing as they say.

Once again, nobody for Attorney General.

by Kagro X

One by one, Senators are coming out to express their reservations about the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. From John McCain and Lindsey Graham (both of whom, to be frank, everyone should expect to roll over in the end), to John Kerry, to Bernie Sanders, Senators have expressed puzzlement and astonishment at Mukasey's inability to take a clear position on whether or not waterboarding is torture.

Still worse, if that's possible, is the fact that Mukasey remains unwilling to say definitively whether or not the President of the United States is bound by statutory law of any kind.

In a NYT op-ed published last week, Prof. Jeb Rubenfeld of Yale Law School identified an answer given by Mukasey that should prove far more troubling than the horrifying but considerably narrower answer he gave to the torture question:

AT his confirmation hearings last week, Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, was asked whether the president is required to obey federal statutes. Judge Mukasey replied, “That would have to depend on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country.”

Nobody for Attorney General

by Kagro X

Michael Mukasey is certainly qualified to be Attorney General of the United States, if Alberto Gonzales sets any precedent. And while that may be the least convincing recommendation anyone can ever be given for the job, consider that Mukasey yesterday gave perhaps the least convincing answer to one of the most important questions asked of him -- by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)-- in his confirmation hearing:

What happened to the House FISA bill?

by Kagro X

The House was scheduled to take up the RESTORE Act today, in an effort to roll back the August FISA debacle. But as predicted last week, the bill fell victim to yet another Republican motion to recommit (see linked story for a backgrounder on the motion).

As TPM Election Central reported earlier, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced his intention to offer a motion to recommit the bill with instructions that it be amended "promptly" to include language that nothing in it:

"shall be construed to prohibit the intelligence community from conducting surveillance needed to prevent Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or any other foreign terrorist organization...from attacking the United States or any United States person."

What does that mean? A couple things.

First, it means that Cantor has devised a vote that some strategists worry will be very tough for Democrats from marginal districts to resist. How, they fret, will these Democrats be able to explain voting no on an "amendment" that supposedly ensures that intelligence operatives won't be tied up in red tape when they need to prevent a terrorist attack?

Second, it means that if enough Democrats sweat this vote and go along with Republicans, the bill gets "recommitted" -- that is, it's sent back to committee.

Third, the choice of the "promptly" language means the bill gets delayed, and can't come to the floor for passage right away. Why is that?

If you love having people stare at you like you're from another planet, read on after the flip and find out. Then you too can be the person nobody will sit next to on day two of the legislative education conference.

The Latest Terrorism Leak

by emptywheel

In his post on the latest Bush exposure of counter-terrorism resources, Noah Schachtman links to this long profile on the woman and firm exposed by BushCo. Two things stick out from the article:

Taking two staff members from the Investigative Project, Katz set up her own office. She got by on small government contracts. Some of that work, done for the Treasury Department, involved identifying Islamic groups that might be sending money to terrorist organizations. She also had a contract with the Swiss government and with a group of relatives of 9/11 victims who were suing Saudi Arabian officials, businesses, and charities. [my emphasis]

In other words, there is a small chance--admittedly remote--that this is the second leak of information provided by Katz' firm to the government. After all, the best-known prosecution of Islamic charities is that of Holy Lands Foundation. The Foundation was tipped off to the impending raid on their office by a leak through the NYT (though the leak to the NYT was more than just the suspicion they provided support to terrorist groups--it included news of the impending raid). I don't know what to make of that (admittedly outside) possibility, but it deserves note.

And then there's this.

One afternoon early last fall, Katz came across a new thread. It was about her. A jihadi had posted a link to the SITE Institute’s Web site. “The SITE is lurking,” he wrote. Its people were on the boards, using false names and acting as spies. He urged his brothers to ferret them out and expel them.

But another poster responded that SITE might be providing a valuable service. He wrote, “They translate the statements into English on our behalf, and they do not analyze them. Why do we not grab the opportunity?” Eventually, a moderator on the site weighed in: “All right, men, do not argue. We will carry out an election, and then we will see if we should keep them or expel them—what do you think? I am a democratic operative, don’t you think?” He ended with a smiley-face emoticon. By the time attention shifted to a new thread, opinion was running fifty-fifty as to whether SITE was, on balance, good for jihad.

In other words, back in fall 2005, someone went onto a jihadi site and exposed SITE's presence. While that exposure could have come from any number of sources (SITE's clients include members of the media and corporations, as well as the government), whoever exposed SITE had current and detailed information on SITE's work. (I also love how we never learn whether the jihadis identified SITE's lurkers or not.) So regardless of whether SITE's info from Treasury got leaked, their work has been compromised at least once before.

Now couple those two details with this detail, offered by a SITE competitor in the WaPo article.