Obama’s intelligence policy
November 16, 2008 1 Comment
While Barack Obama’s progressive supporters are busy celebrating, government insiders are cautioning against any premature ideas that the new President-elect is likely to implement any meaningful change in policy. Intelligence is no exception. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal states that “Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies”.
Moreover, Obama’s intelligence transition team is said to be composed largely of what observers call “pragmatists”, i.e. mostly officials “who have supported Republicans, and centrist former officials in the Clinton administration”. These “centrist pragmatists” include John Brennan, former head of the National Counterterrorism Center and supporter of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Another member of the team is no other than Jami Miscik, “the fastest-rising woman in the history of the CIA”, who later left the Agency to join Lehman Brothers. Prior to leaving the CIA, Miscik became known for defending the CIA’s politicized (and suspiciously inaccurate) report titled “Iraq and al-Qaida: Assessing a Murky Relationship”, which helped the Bush Administration put forward the fictitious connection between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda.
Notably, Brennan once publicly defended the practice of extraordinary rendition (i.e. the transfer of prisoners held by the CIA to countries that routinely practice torture during interrogation) as an “absolutely vital tool” with which he had “been intimately familiar […] over the past decade”. He is now said to be “a potential candidate for a top intelligence post” under Barack Obama.
Administration appointments aside, it is interesting to see what passes for “centrist pragmatism” in today’s US intelligence environment. If career officials who support extraordinary rendition and the extralegal use of torture are described as moderate “centrist pragmatists”, then what are hardliners like? [IA]
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US strikes in Pakistan part of secret deal
November 16, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment
Ever since the United States began to engage in systematic military incursions and airstrikes against perceived terrorist targets in Pakistan, the Pakistani government has been vocally criticizing the Bush Administration for its “counterproductive” methods, which do not help “meet the objectives of the war on terror”, in the words of Mohammed Sadiq, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Now a new report by The Washington Post has disclosed that the US airstrikes and military incursions are in fact covered under a secret US-Pakistani high-level agreement, according to which “the US government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan’s government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes”. Under the deal, the US government is said to have temporarily halted ground incursions, but regular airstrikes against targets in Pakistani territory have intensified.
Although this report will be denied by the Pakistani leadership, it rings accurate and is substantiated by the long and telling history of US-Pakistani security relations. It essentially signifies the continuation of the fundamentals of these relations, which appears to have remained untouched despite the recent change of guard in Islamabad.
The obvious ironic element in this development is highlighted by the recent comments of Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardary, who candidly —and accurately— stated that the US strikes on Pakistani soil are “not good for our position of winning the hearts and minds of people”. Time magazine reports that “[o]pinion polls routinely show that an overwhelming majority of ordinary Pakistanis oppose US actions inside their country”. Yet “[t]he government has to respond to public sentiment, leading to harsh, uncompromising language from political and military leaders”.
This new development must not terminate the debate about the legality of the US military actions inside Pakistan. Even if the Pakistani government has authorized these actions, they still constitute extrajudicial assassinations. The latter are not justified by their reported sanctioning by the country’s elected regime. Nevertheless, this latest repot strengthens the increasing consensus of observers that, despite the recent change of guard in Islamabad, it is still business as usual in Pakistan’s relations with Washington. [JF]
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Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with News, Pakistan, United States, War on Terrorism