US Steps Up Covert Action Against Iran

With the aid of Congressional Democrats, the Bush administration has received funding for covert action within Iran, with the aim of gathering intelligence on its nuclear program and destabilizing the regime.

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

In order to have funding diverted to the operations, the Executive branch must submit a Presidential Finding to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House, Senate, and both Intelligence committees, which means that the Democratic leadership, while outwardly pretending to enforce the mandate given to it in the 2006 elections, have instead been complicit in allowing the brinksmanship to continue. This is part-and-parcel of the false foreign policy spectrum I detailed last week.

United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

The Bush administration going well beyond the scope of Congressional authorization is nothing new, as it remains committed to the idea, within the scope of the Unitary Executive theory, that there is absolutely nothing in the power of Congress to prevent the President from directing the military to do anything in the field. That the framers could not possibly have had that it mind when writing the Constitution should be evident, but nonetheless it is a tact the administration has taken since its inauguration. Taking the Unitary Executive to its logical conclusion, however, would stipulate that should the President direct US forces to assassinate a foreign official, it would acceptable despite the law against such actions.

In this instance, the Bush administration has claimed that any operations undertaken by the JSOC, rather than the CIA, need not be included in the Finding submitted to Congress, and is thus immune from any oversight or required approval. Again, there is nothing inherent in that principle which would prohibit the JSOC from carrying out assassinations or other illegal activities. Indeed, one Congressman sent a letter to President Bush insisting that lethal action was prohibited, but the White House has not seen fit to answer.

In order to bypass military officers who object to the preconceived objective of a war with Iran, the administration has created an atmosphere in which the decision-making for these operations is handed instead to civilians. Civilians, one would assume, more slaves to ideology than military pragmatism, making them obvious allies for Bush and Cheney.

The law cited by Sheehan is the 1986 Defense Reorganization Act, known as Goldwater-Nichols, which defined the chain of command: from the President to the Secretary of Defense, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and on to the various combatant commanders, who were put in charge of all aspects of military operations, including joint training and logistics. That authority, the act stated, was not to be shared with other echelons of command. But the Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment. The degradation of the traditional chain of command in the past few years has been a point of tension between the White House and the uniformed military.

“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military operations,” [John] Sheehan [former commander of US Atlantic Command] said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.”

The covert action within Iran is merely a continuation of two running themes: one, the Bush administration invoking Executive Privilege to engage in any action it wants, legality be damned, and two, the Democrats in Congress more than willing to offer no obstacles.

More than simply frustrating, the shear incompetence of the Democratic leadership to prevent any of the administration's efforts is a clear dereliction of duty. Bush likes to say that he listens to his commanders in the field, but the line of military officers opposing an attack of Iran is growing by the day, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and of course Admiral Fallon, who was forced out as commander of CENTCOM for his insolence on the issue.

Unlike the officers, though, Democrats in Congress control funding, and could put a halt to any of Bush's operations, but continue to be steamrolled by the fancy packaging and refuse to uphold the clear will of the voters, who overwhelmingly want the US out of Iraq and oppose a war with Iran.

Perhaps most glaring, though, is the large historical elephant in the room in the form of Afghanistan. We've seen the result of this kind of covert action before: the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the destruction of the World Trade Center. As part of the operations, the US is cooperating with Sunni dissident groups who, apart from being closely tied to al Qaeda--enemy number one--are believed to have "operated against American interests in the past."

The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.

Another fine friend is the Jundallah, described as "a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists" by Vali Nasr of Tufts University, who continues to suggest that the group has ties to both al Qaeda and the drug trade.

The US has also provided funds and intelligence to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a group which has been on the State Department's terrorist list for more than a decade. This relationship, by definition, makes the US a sponsor of terrorism. If the MEK are terrorists, and the US is sponsoring them, there is only one possible logical conclusion. So, while the US decries Iran's cross-border activity in Iraq, it continues to engage in its own meddling. Yet one is wrong and one is right? One doubts President Bush will call for the freezing of the assets flowing to that particular known terrorist group.

More likely than not, the real plan here is to provoke Iran into an action which would justify military activity within the short time Bush has in office. The likelihood of any of these groups achieving a regime change or destabilization they haven't in the past decade of trying is not large, but the chances of Iran finding signs of American weapons on any captured militants are not all that small. Such findings could invoke Iranian action, and deliver Cheney his war.

John Bolton has already floated the idea that Bush will attack if McCain loses the election, and it seems he is indeed laying the framework for what is sure to be yet another foreign policy disaster as we speak. History only serves as a lesson to those who pay attention to it.

Related:

North Korea contrasted with Iran, June 28
False choices in foreign policy, June 26
Ignoring history's lessons, May 19

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Capitulation on Telecom Immunity

In February, the fear mongering over renewing the Protect America Act with a clause granting retroactive immunity for participants in the illegal NSA wiretapping program was front-and-center, with obfuscation of the facts and promises of the end of days should immunity not be included. Yet, despite these promises of doom if the act expired, Republicans were unwilling to even vote to extend the PAA to allow for further debate, and instead chose to let it lapse. Just the very fact that they let it lapse is a clear indication that even they didn't believe what they were saying.

Four months later, out of view thanks to incessant superficial coverage of the horse race, Congress is again preparing to grant immunity, only this time in the form of a compromise. But, as EFF reports, such a bargain would be a compromise in name only. In practice, it would grant clemency to the phone companies and keep hidden forever the full extent of Bush's spying program by keeping the details out of court.

Under the guise of a compromise, the legislation is designed to ensure that the only issue the courts will review is whether or not the President told the telecoms that their conduct was legal, but not whether the conduct actually was legal.

Essentially, the new bill would ensure that the question of the legality of the program would never be addressed, as it still hinges on the premise that if the Executive branch unilaterally determines something legal, it becomes so. This judiciary element of the branch is of course nowhere in the text of the Constitution, and to allow it to stand without challenge would do irreparable harm to the founding document.

The passing of a bill granting retroactive immunity would be a vindication and validation of the dangerous Unitary Executive Theory, a conception of unbridled Executive privilege which blossomed in the Nixon administration--of which Dick Cheney was a part--and has appeared in full bloom and bearing fruit in the current regime. In practice, the theory basically means that anything the Executive does cannot, by definition, be illegal by virtue of the fact that he does it. In Nixon's words, "if the President does it, it's not illegal."

The danger of that kind of circular logic should be apparent, yet is conspicuously absent from any public debate. It is quite clearly a perversion of the Constitution's establishment of the separation of powers, belief in which requires either illiteracy or a blatant erasure of significant passages from the document.

Central to debate, and essential for its success from the immunity proponents' perspective, is ritual obfuscation of the reality of the FISA statutes and often outright lies to instill fear in the American public, a task which the lazy media is all too happy to assist with.

Glenn Greenwald has been at the fore on the immunity negotiations, and one of the few people to consistently itemize the falsehoods enveloping the debate. The debate--and I use the term loosely--has always been at the root an effort to grant phone companies immunity. But next to nothing of the fear-inspiring words tossed into the fray deal with the topic at all. Instead, false pretenses and promises of imminent doom are thrown out as if the issues can't be addressed in any bill that doesn't grant immunity.

But things such as foreign-to-foreign communications have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not anyone can be held responsible for past actions.

The whole issue of "foreign-to-foreign" communications is a complete red herring. It's irrelevant in considering whether to enact the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill or anything close to it. Even the most stalwart civil libertarians in the Congress -- such as Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd -- have been willing from the start to amend FISA to exclude foreign-to-foreign communications from the warrant requirements.

If the President agreed to sign it, Congress could pass a law amending FISA in one day to fix that particular "problem," and then virtually every scary threat Lichtblau's article describes would instantaneously disappear. All of the supposed fears and dangers Lichtblau's article cites are an absolute sideshow because virtually every member of Congress is willing right this minute to pass a law to amend FISA to eliminate the cause of those supposed dangers -- i.e., the requirement that warrants be obtained to eavesdrop on foreign-to-foreign calls. Pointing to the "dangers" from that requirement in order to justify passing the Rockefeller/Cheney bill is exactly the same as pointing to the threat posed by Al Qaeda in order to justify invading Iraq; one has nothing to do with the other.

What this passage illustrates is that the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats, for all of the hype, are not the least bit worried about the actual dangers stemming from a failure to pass a new FISA bill. As Greenwald states, no member of Congress thinks that the US should not be able to eavesdrop on foreign-to-foreign communications, even if they pass through US networks, and a bill to allow such spying could be passed in a single day. But, of course, that's not really the issue at hand, immunity is. It should blatantly obvious that granting immunity for past transgressions has absolutely nothing to do with the US's ability to track such communications, yet the debate is allowed to proceed as if that is the case. Not that the 24-hour news cycle has any room left for actual discussion of substantive topics. After all, Britney Spears may be moving hospital beds.

Another favorite talking point of immunity proponents is to declare the FISA laws outmoded, as they were fashioned decades ago when communications were not nearly as advanced as they are today. But this is another red herring. The statutes have been revised over the years, and again, no member of Congress would deny the government the ability to spy on foreign agents using methods of communication unavailable in the 70s. Nevertheless, that falsehood is promoted as another reason that immunity must be granted immediately.

Perhaps the most damning example of the obfuscation surrounding the debate is the unwillingness of the Republicans and Blue Dogs to sign extensions of the PAA. If the dangers posed by not doing so were really what they said they were, would they not then be responsible for anything that happens as a result? Republicans are held up as strong on national security, which makes it even more inconceivable that they would allow a state of (what they say) clear and present danger to persist merely to eliminate accountability for AT&T and Verizon. If they dangers are what they claim, then by extension they are willing to put Americans in danger. Why, then, do Republicans still have a monopoly on "strong on national security?"

The Democrats in Congress are more than willing to grant the intelligence community all the tools it needs for espionage. It is the Republicans who are preventing that from happening.

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Yes, But Who Will Watch the Watchers?

President Bush likes to think history will remember him, and it certainly will, though probably not as he fantasizes it will. Unless blunder-prone foreign policy and economic collapses should one day become chic, in which case he may luck out.

But, for all his failings, perhaps the greatest stain his presidency will leave behind is the boot mark across the Constitution. Encouraged in his fantastical interpretations of presidential power--in practice, 'monarchy lite'--by Dick Cheney and David Addington as well as all the other usual suspects on his legal team, Bush has spent the last seven years doing his best to ensure that no President will ever have to answer to anyone again.

The problem lies not in disagreeing with the current President or opposing his policies, it lies in the understanding that the latitude and outright immunity to law Bush has claimed has unleashed the imperial presidency upon the nation, one that will still be around when someone of the opposite persuasion comes along. Thus, to acquiesce now because of agreement with Bush's policies is to simply forestall the inevitable period where someone else with whom there are sharp disagreements exerts his or her will devoid of even the slightest check.

Bush's Unitary Executive Theory--although, Cheney, not Bush is probably the impetus here--lies in the flawed concept that the writers of the Constitution were just joking when they created Congress or the Judicial branch. Believers in the theory rely principally on one passage in Federalist No. 70, while brushing aside nearly every other writing by the founders including the context from No. 70, itself.

This selective reading--paring down libraries full of text into a single passage that sort of supports their idea--has allowed them the luxury of believing that the Constitution was written by the leaders of a nation that had fought to rid themselves of a monarchy only to immediately start their own.

Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find a single lawyer not having worked for the Bush legal team who accepts the premise of the Unitary Executive and its ominous implication of an unchecked Executive branch.

The obscure (in the general sense, not to veterans of the Nixon administration like Cheney) theory has been used almost at will by Bush to justify everything from his right to prosecute a war without Congress' consent, to suspend habeus corpus, to eliminate Congressional oversight, and to ignore torture conventions, both domestic and international.

Back in October, the House passed H.R. 928, the Improving Government Accountability Act, by a vote of 404-11. A significant margin, indeed, but the Senate bested them on April 23 by passing its own version unanimously. But, one fight was still lurking in the seemingly uneventful numbers.

Congress is close to enacting the most significant boost in three decades in the independence of the cadre of government watchdogs -- federal inspectors general -- but the lawmakers have retreated from a key change involving the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Senate on April 23 approved, by unanimous consent, S. 2324, the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008. But the bill passed only after the lawmakers agreed to an amendment by Senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., which, among other items, deleted a provision giving the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) jurisdiction to investigate misconduct allegations against department attorneys, including its most senior officials.

Unlike all other OIGs who can investigate misconduct within their entire agency, Justice's OIG must refer allegations against department attorneys to the department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). The latter office, unlike the OIG, is not statutorily independent and reports directly to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general.

In practice, the Kyl ammendment ensures that any investigations of top Justice officials would be done, not by an independent investigator immune from political termination, but by someone directly under the very people he or she is investigating. And nothing would legally prevent the official under investigation from having the investigator terminated.

Another significant difference between the House bill and the White House-sponsored Senate bill is that the Senate bill does not require cause for termination of an IG as the House bill does.

Under the House measure, inspectors would be appointed to seven-year terms and could only be removed from office for cause, such as neglect of duty, inefficiency, conviction for a felony or other inappropriate conduct. The House version also would require the independent watchdogs to submit their budgets directly to Congress in addition to the White House.

The White House complained that those requirements would encroach on the president’s constitutional authority to oversee executive branch employees and requests.

The new Senate bill includes no term limits for inspectors and would require the president’s budget to include how much money each inspector general requested and the amount recommended by the agency. The disclosure would allow Congress to see whether agencies are trying to hamstring inspectors by restricting budget funds.

President Bush has utilized signing statements in the past to simply wipe away parts of the law he doesn't like, but now it seems he has a few members on the front lines willing to save him the trouble.

That Bush was allowed to threaten a veto on a bill with 97.3% support in the House is outlandish, yet that's what happened. And Congress, strong-willed fellows that they are, simply asked the White House to strike from the House bill what it didn't like and include what it wished.

Somewhere, a 2nd-grade civics student is firing off an angry letter informing Congress that a 60% majority overrides a veto. 97% flies in just under the wire.

Like most erosion, the bleeding of the Constitution is a one-way street. One from which it will take a long time to recover. For Congress to continue bending to the will of a monarch wannabe is to perform a great disservice to the Republic its members are sworn to uphold. In this particular instance, it's not as if there was not enough precedent to deny the Bush administration its demands. Previous misdeeds are readily available.

President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department office from investigating the role of department lawyers in creating and overseeing the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program, according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The revelation from the attorney general came as the department released documents sent late Monday night to Congress in which the chief of the internal unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), repeatedly implored his bosses to grant him the security clearances to conduct his investigation.

And just in case someone might think the Bush administration was just protecting national security:

[At] the same time, "a large team of attorneys and agents" in the Department's Criminal Division had quickly been cleared to investigate the leak of information about the NSA program to the New York Times.

Further, the Civil Division, which would litigate legal and FOIA challenges involving the NSA program, got clearances for some its people; and, writes Jarrett, "Five private individuals who make up the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board" have been briefed on the program and given security clearances.

The pattern is clear. The granting of clearance had absolutely nothing to do with national security and everything to do with whose side the recipients were on. Performing oversight? No, thanks. Defending the program in defiance of law and logic? Jump on board. Have a look at some state secrets.

Those 'five private citizens' supposed to protect civil liberties? Well, of course, they are "appointed by and serv[e] at the pleasure of the President." Hardly a sign of neutrality, especially under Bush.

What's more, Bush's move was entirely without precedent:

In his April 21 memo [to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, OPR chief H. Marshall] Jarrett writes [that] OPR, which was created in 1975 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, has never been prevented from initiating or pursuing an investigation, adding that OPR has conducted many "highly sensitive investigations involving Executive Branch programs and has obtained access to information classified at the highest levels."

The most recent success of Bush's perpetual push to completely eliminate even cursory oversight of the Executive branch is but one more shot across the bow of the Constitution and the Separation of Powers. Congress may have to start launching some volleys of its own if it would like to keep the Legislative and Judicial branches as more than mere window dressing.

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