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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 9:22 am Post subject: Months of rendition for having 'a suspicious name' |
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Anatomy of a CIA Mistake
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Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake
German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition'
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 4, 2005; Page A01
In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.
Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations... |
The CIA has gone too far and the administration has only aided and abetted their sloppiness. Some remarks on Gitmo are included.
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One way the CIA has dealt with detainees it no longer wants to hold is to transfer them to the custody of the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, where defense authorities decide whether to keep or release them after a review.
About a dozen men have been transferred by the CIA to Guantanamo Bay, according to a Washington Post review of military tribunal testimony and other records. Some CIA officials have argued that the facility has become, as one former senior official put it, "a dumping ground" for CIA mistakes. |
But in the Masri case, what really sticks out is that there was no evidence for the CIA to pick the man up. They didn't even have the patience to hold him in custody under a presumption of innocence under his passport was verified.
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In the first weeks of 2004, an argument arose over whether the CIA should take Masri from local authorities and remove him from the country for interrogation, a classic rendition operation.
The director of the al Qaeda unit supported that approach. She insisted he was probably a terrorist, and should be imprisoned and interrogated immediately.
Others were doubtful. They wanted to wait to see whether the passport was proved fraudulent. Beyond that, there was no evidence Masri was not who he claimed to be -- a German citizen of Arab descent traveling after a disagreement with his wife.
The unit's director won the argument. She ordered Masri captured and flown to a CIA prison in Afghanistan. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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More garbage from President Strong-On-Terror.
If it wasn't all so deadly serious his apologists would be merely sad clowns rather than people hurting their own country. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 2:53 am Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
More garbage from President Strong-On-Terror.
If it wasn't all so deadly serious his apologists would be merely sad clowns rather than people hurting their own country. |
What did Bush personally have to do wih this particular case? Does he personally sign an order for EVERY terror suspect to be arrested? Did he even know about this?
Or was it some over-zealous underling?
Blaming Bush for things like this is why he has defenders. Some people like to take a fair and balanced view of things. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 4:11 am Post subject: It would have to be a whole nest of aggressive underlings... |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Hater Depot wrote: |
More garbage from President Strong-On-Terror.
If it wasn't all so deadly serious his apologists would be merely sad clowns rather than people hurting their own country. |
What did Bush personally have to do wih this particular case? Does he personally sign an order for EVERY terror suspect to be arrested? Did he even know about this?
Or was it some over-zealous underling?
Blaming Bush for things like this is why he has defenders. Some people like to take a fair and balanced view of things. |
From the article:
| Quote: |
J. Cofer Black, a professorial former spy who spent years chasing Osama bin Laden, was the CTC's director. With a flair for melodrama, Black had earned special access to the White House after he briefed President Bush on the CIA's war plan for Afghanistan.
Colleagues recall that he would return from the White House inspired and talking in missionary terms. Black, now in the private security business, declined to comment.
Some colleagues said his fervor was in line with the responsibility Bush bestowed on the CIA when he signed a top secret presidential finding six days after the 9/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures and renditions, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks against the al Qaeda enemy, according to current and former intelligence officials. Black's attitude was exactly what some CIA officers believed was needed to get the job done.
Others criticized Black's CTC for embracing a "Hollywood model" of operations, as one former longtime CIA veteran called it, eschewing the hard work of recruiting agents and penetrating terrorist networks. Instead, the new approach was similar to the flashier paramilitary operations that had worked so well in Afghanistan, and played well at the White House, where the president was keeping a scorecard of captured or killed terrorists. |
I, too, used to ask people to show me how Bush might be personally involved in all this torture and detention stuff...until the evidence was presented. And there's plenty of it out there.
For example, take Peter Goss' interview. As the director of the CIA, he clumsily denies torture.
Or, you can look this article, which shows where Bush is objecting to a bill that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in U.S. military custody.
Or check this article out, which was one of the first ones to bust out the secret prisons stories in the American media.
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The agency set up prisons under its covert action authority. Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal advisers.
Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.
It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to.
Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black-site program was approved by a small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials. |
In other words, it is not necessary that Bush directly approve of the black-sites. Plausible deniability. But, Bush did approve the expansive finding amid a debate where others (Colin Powell as one example) urged him to reconsider.
My fair and balanced view is that Bush smells responsible, but he'll never be held accountable. You have him writing a broad finding permitting new kinds of actions to hunt down terrorists, you have one of his attorney generals redefine the word torture, you have CIA officials and CTC agents revolutionizing their methods from cautious to aggressive, you have a Vice-President arguing with Sen. McCain that expansive powers for the President is necessary, and you have the administration trying to compromise by exempting the CIA from prohibitions against torture that might apply to the rest of the armed forces. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 10:27 am Post subject: |
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| You can read more on Black in Steve Coll's Ghost Wars; Black figures prominently in a few chapters. |
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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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I'm disappointed that so many European foreign ministers were eager to accept Condoleezza Rice's assurances that the US doesn't use torture. Even if it is true, it's a fairly well-known fact that the US government has foreign agents doing some of its dirty work.
http://www.maherarar.ca/mahers%20story.php |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 8:41 pm Post subject: Re: It would have to be a whole nest of aggressive underling |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Hater Depot wrote: |
More garbage from President Strong-On-Terror.
If it wasn't all so deadly serious his apologists would be merely sad clowns rather than people hurting their own country. |
What did Bush personally have to do wih this particular case? Does he personally sign an order for EVERY terror suspect to be arrested? Did he even know about this?
Or was it some over-zealous underling?
Blaming Bush for things like this is why he has defenders. Some people like to take a fair and balanced view of things. |
From the article:
| Quote: |
J. Cofer Black, a professorial former spy who spent years chasing Osama bin Laden, was the CTC's director. With a flair for melodrama, Black had earned special access to the White House after he briefed President Bush on the CIA's war plan for Afghanistan.
Colleagues recall that he would return from the White House inspired and talking in missionary terms. Black, now in the private security business, declined to comment.
Some colleagues said his fervor was in line with the responsibility Bush bestowed on the CIA when he signed a top secret presidential finding six days after the 9/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures and renditions, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks against the al Qaeda enemy, according to current and former intelligence officials. Black's attitude was exactly what some CIA officers believed was needed to get the job done.
Others criticized Black's CTC for embracing a "Hollywood model" of operations, as one former longtime CIA veteran called it, eschewing the hard work of recruiting agents and penetrating terrorist networks. Instead, the new approach was similar to the flashier paramilitary operations that had worked so well in Afghanistan, and played well at the White House, where the president was keeping a scorecard of captured or killed terrorists. |
I, too, used to ask people to show me how Bush might be personally involved in all this torture and detention stuff...until the evidence was presented. And there's plenty of it out there.
For example, take Peter Goss' interview. As the director of the CIA, he clumsily denies torture.
Or, you can look this article, which shows where Bush is objecting to a bill that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in U.S. military custody.
Or check this article out, which was one of the first ones to bust out the secret prisons stories in the American media.
| Quote: |
The agency set up prisons under its covert action authority. Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal advisers.
Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.
It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to.
Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black-site program was approved by a small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials. |
In other words, it is not necessary that Bush directly approve of the black-sites. Plausible deniability. But, Bush did approve the expansive finding amid a debate where others (Colin Powell as one example) urged him to reconsider.
My fair and balanced view is that Bush smells responsible, but he'll never be held accountable. You have him writing a broad finding permitting new kinds of actions to hunt down terrorists, you have one of his attorney generals redefine the word torture, you have CIA officials and CTC agents revolutionizing their methods from cautious to aggressive, you have a Vice-President arguing with Sen. McCain that expansive powers for the President is necessary, and you have the administration trying to compromise by | | | |
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