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Post# of 472941
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easymoney101

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easymoney101

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Monday, 01/24/2005 12:42:44 PM

Monday, January 24, 2005 12:42:44 PM

Post# of 472941
INTELLIGENCE
Rumsfeld's Dirty Little Secret

embedded links*@
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=303834
The Pentagon has secretly been operating a clandestine espionage branch for the past two years after reinterpreting U.S. law to place more power directly in the hands of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. According to an explosive new article in yesterday's Washington Post, the group, called the Strategic Support Branch, is "designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control" in collecting human intelligence (or HUMINT, in intelligence-speak). Not only does the group operate outside the public view, Rumsfeld has also hidden it from Congress and is not coordinating with the CIA. Already, it has been operating in places like Iraq and Afghanistan – as well as in unnamed "friendly countries" with which the United States is not at war. The group has been working with the elite U.S. Special Forces, such as Delta Force, as well as recruited outside agents, including "notorious figures" whose "links to the U.S. government would be embarrassing if disclosed." The Defense Department has also engaged in legal tricks, redefining the rules to support its claims that the intelligence group is subject to less stringent oversight than similar operations within the CIA. Here's a look inside the Strategic Support Branch:

PLAYING GAMES WITH THE LAW: Defense Department lawyers are hard at work redefining the rules to give Secretary Rumsfeld more expansive powers and to get around any legal constraints. Take Title 10 of the U.S. code, for example. While the Pentagon is legally required to tell Congress about all "deployment orders," Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone this month issued new guidelines that state the group is allowed to "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations…before publication" of a deployment order, making the subsequent order meaningless. Title 50 got a friendly freshen-up as well: current law says Congress does not have to be informed about "traditional" military activities and their "routine" support, so the Pentagon's general counsel simply expanded the definition of "traditional" and "routine."

RE-READING HERSH: The Post article fits with the article written last week by Seymour Hersh, which detailed the Pentagon's secret plans to go to war in Iran. Hersh wrote, "The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia… The President's decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A."

WHO IS WALDROUP? The secret intelligence group is headed up by Col. George Waldroup, a man with little intelligence experience. Waldroup, who likes to refer to himself in the third person as "GW," is not a graduate of the Army's Special Warfare Center nor the CIA's Field Tradecraft Course for intelligence officers. He spent much of his professional life as a "midlevel manager" at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He was embroiled in scandal in the mid-'90s for deceiving a congressional delegation about staffing problems at Miami International Airport. "Waldroup, then assistant district director for external affairs, helped orchestrate a temporary doubling of immigration screeners on the day of the visit, instructed subordinates not to discuss staff shortages and physically confronted a union leader to prevent him from reaching members of Congress." During the investigation, he then "refused to disclose the password to his e-mail files, refused to sign an affidavit summarizing his testimony and, in a subsequent interview, 'stated that he would not answer any questions' because 'he wished to protect himself from exposure to criminal sanctions.'"

A DANGEROUSLY INEXPERIENCED TEAM: The Strategic Support Branch operatives are sent to work directly with the military's elite Special Operations forces. One big problem: Waldroup's team is staffed with members who lack crucial intelligence experience and training. One military Special Forces officer who worked with the team said one of Waldroup's men actually held his team back like an anchor "because of his physical conditioning and his lack of knowledge of our tactics, techniques and procedures. The guy actually put us in danger." Another Special Forces officer in Afghanistan said Waldroup's men were reluctant to leave the base to do their intel: "These guys can't set up networks and run agents and recruit tribal elders."

SHHHH…DON'T TELL CONGRESS: The Strategic Support Branch operated well below congressional radar. The group was set up using funds siphoned off of other Pentagon projects "without explicit congressional authority or appropriation." The Post reported two "longtime members" of the House Intelligence Committee were unaware of any details surrounding the group. And on CBS's Face The Nation, Sen. John McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called yesterday for hearings to examine the group.

DI RITA'S NON-DENIAL: Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita issued a very carefully worded statement designed to look like a denial. "There is no unit that is directly reportable to the Secretary of Defense for clandestine operations as is described in The Washington Post…Further, the Department is not attempting to 'bend' statutes to fit desired activities, as is suggested in this article." Di Rita, however, went on to admit, "It is accurate and should not be surprising that the Department of Defense is attempting to improve its long-standing human intelligence capability."

MEDIA
Powell Exposed

FCC Chairman Michael Powell announced Friday he will step down in March, modestly proclaiming he had "completed a bold and aggressive agenda." Powell will be best remembered for his crackdown on Janet Jackson's right breast and other crimes against decency (prompting Saving Private Ryan to be canceled on Veteran's Day and the pixilation of a cartoon baby's butt). But Powell's most lasting impact will be rewriting the rules of media ownership on behalf of corporate conglomerates to allow for greater consolidation. Powell has set a course that erodes media diversity, competition and independence. Write the president and tell him you want a new FCC chairman to "stop further media consolidation, enforce public interest obligations, increase the diversity of voices in the media, and create policies that will encourage universal, low-cost access to the Internet."

POLICIES FOR FOX AND VIACOM, NOT CONSUMERS: In June 2003, Powell marshaled through new rules that allowed for the continued consolidation of media ownership. Under the old rules, a single company couldn't own a group of individual stations that reach more than 35 percent of the national audience. Powell increased that to 45 percent. While there was no apparent benefit to consumers, it was a windfall for companies like Fox and Viacom which, at the time of the rule change, already owned stations that reached nearly 40 percent of the audience and could have been forced to sell. (The percentage was reduced to 39 percent by Congress – just high enough so Fox and Viacom wouldn't have to sell.)

COURT FINDS POWELL'S DECISIONS LACKED JUSTIFICATION: The June 2003 rules also allowed one corporation to own more stations in a single market. Under the old rules, corporations were limited to one station in most markets and two in the largest markets. Powell changed the rules to allow for ownership of two stations in most markets and three in the largest markets. The rules also lifted rules restricting cross ownership of print and broadcast media in a single market. In June 2004, a federal court blocked implementation of all the rules, finding that the commission fell short "of its obligation to justify its decisions to retain, repeal or modify its media ownership regulations with reasoned analysis." The FCC is now required to revisit its decision.

ANTI-CONSUMER POLICIES CRAFTED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: On numerous occasions while at the FCC, Powell met with top corporate media executives in closed-door, off-the-record meetings. Leading up to the June 2003 rule changes, Powell met privately with top executives of Viacom, NBC, Gannet and News Corp., including Rupert Murdoch. Kevin Martin, a Republican commissioner, had 16 private sessions with broadcasters through June 2003, the most of any commissioner. In all, the FCC held 71 meetings with corporate media interests before the rulemaking, compared to just five with major consumer groups.

DIGITAL DIVIDE WIDENS: During Powell's tenure, the gap between the technological haves and have-nots widened. Powell made it clear from the beginning that he didn't care. Shortly after assuming the chairmanship of the FCC, Powell attacked the notion that the digital divide was a problem, declaring, "I think there's a Mercedes Benz divide, I'd like one, but I can't afford it." As a result, during Powell's tenure "there has been almost no increase in the percentage of households with Internet access at home. Penetration has been stuck at 60 percent." Of households that lack Internet access, four-fifths have incomes below $50,000. The FCC's policies under Powell created "a cozy duopoly of broadband providers: the Bells and the cable-TV companies ... [which] have been slow to push for higher broadband speeds or fast price declines." The result: "Americans pay ten and twenty times as much, on a megabit basis, as consumers in Korea and Japan pay. Three years ago the price gap was half as large."

MEET THE NEW BOSS, WORSE THAN THE OLD BOSS: Kevin Martin, who worked for the Bush-Cheney transition team before being appointed to the FCC, "is believed to top a short list of candidates" to replace Powell. Martin has followed "a more stringent deregulatory path than Powell" – meaning he would permit even greater media consolidation. Martin is also "considered more hard-line on indecency issues than Powell."


Under the Radar

CULTURE – AMERICAN PROGRESS AT SUNDANCE: On Saturday, the Center for American Progress co-sponsored a panel at the Sundance Film Festival addressing the notorious red-blue divide and its impact on American society. "When corporations knuckle under to such pressure, 'it ends up creating a culture that is less rich, and certainly not being demanded by the general public,'" said American Progress CEO John Podesta, "who pointed out that ABC's saucy soap 'Desperate Housewives' is 'No. 1 in the red states as well as the blue states.'" Among the panel's participants were musician Michael Franti, National Review writer Byron York, and Marty Kaplan, a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

FDA – DRAGGING ITS HEELS: Apparently not convinced by conclusive scientific evidence, the opinion of its own review staff or top advisors, the Food and Drug Administration has yet again delayed ruling on the over-the-counter sale of Plan B, the morning-after birth control pill. It seems unfair that the pill's manufacturer, Barr Pharmaceuticals, has been made to jump through hoop after hoop in trying to get approval for the pill, which "could reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies while posing no apparent risk to women," yet the FDA keeps dangerous drugs like Vioxx available for years after they should be recalled.

GONZALES – FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS FACE JURY DUTY: Did Alberto Gonzales help get then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush excused from jury duty in 1996, saving Bush from having to disclose his then-secret 1976 conviction for drunken driving? In a written statement issued last week, Gonzales insists he did not; he merely "'observed' the defense lawyer make a motion to strike Bush from the jury panel 'to which the prosecutor did not object.'" Interviewed by Newsweek, however, those two lawyers, as well as the judge who presided over the case, say Gonzales's account is a "complete misrepresentation." "Gonzales asked to have an off-the-record conference in the judge's chambers" and prodded the judge "to 'consider' striking Bush from the jury," Michael Isikoff reports. "Out of deference" to the governor, the judge and lawyers went along, though "there was little doubt among the participants as to what was going on. 'In public, they were making a big show of how he was prepared to serve,' said [Judge David] Crain. 'In the back room, they were trying to get him off.'" A senior White House official tells Newsweek that Gonzales has "no recollection" of the meeting.

IRAQ – NOT SO WILLING ANYMORE: The much-publicized "coalition of the willing" list has been scrapped. "Used to back [the White House's] argument that the [Iraq] invasion was a multilateral action," the original list consisted of 45 allied nations praised for providing support for the war in Iraq, although the State Department admitted from day one "that only a few of these countries are providing any major military presence in the Gulf." The newer version of the list, "a smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq sometime after the June transfer of power," will not include major allies from the first list – Ukraine, Spain, the Netherlands, and Hungary, to name a few – who have all withdrawn or announced plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.

STEM CELL – PUTTING ALL THE EGGS IN ONE BASKET: In 2001, when President Bush imposed a far-reaching ban on stem cell research, he rested the hopes of millions upon just 60 stem cell lines that supposedly had "great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures." After only "20 of those lines proved usable", researchers have revealed that all the stem cell lines approved for federally funded research are tainted. Far from providing any disease alleviation, they could potentially "provoke an immune system attack that would wipe out their ability to deliver cures." Scientists, whose hands are already bound by the administration's ideology-based policy toward stem cell research, could be forced to wait at least another year for these stem cells to be recovered, if they can even be salvaged.

"All truth passes through three states," wrote Arthur Schopenhauer. "First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
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