By Larry Johnson
closeAuthor: Larry Johnson
Name: Larry Johnson
Email: larry_johnson@earthlink.net
Site: http://NoQuarterUSA.net
About: Larry C. Johnson is a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who moved subsequently in 1989 to the U.S. Department of State, where he served four years as the deputy director for transportation security, antiterrorism assistance training, and special operations in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. He left government service in October 1993 and set up a consulting business. He currently is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC (Business Exposure Reduction Group) and is an expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, and crisis and risk management, and money laundering investigations. Johnson is the founder and main author of No Quarter, a weblog that addresses issues of terrorism and intelligence and politics. NoQuarterUSA was nominated as Best Political Blog of 2008.[1] He has worked as a private consultant on issues of international terrorism and security for the U.S. Government and private companies. Johnson has appeared as a consultant and commentator in many major newspapers and news programs.[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Background
2 Views
2.1 1996
2.2 1998
2.3 1999
2.4 2000
2.5 2001
2.6 2003
2.6.1 Plame affair
2.7 2008
3 Notes
4 References
5 External links
[edit]Background
Larry Johnson moved to Washington, D.C. in 1979 to begin work on a Ph.D. at the American University. Although he completed successfully all coursework and comprehensive exams, he did not write a dissertation. In 1978 and in 1983-85 he worked in Latin America on community development projects as a community organizer. Returning to the United States in 1985 he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, thanks in part to a letter of recommendation from Republican Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that helped to "open doors" for him at the Agency.[3] Johnson entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985 and was a classmate of Valerie Plame. Every member of that class was undercover. After a year in the Career Trainee program, which included a stint with the Afghan Task Force, Johnson was assigned as an analyst in the Middle America Caribbean Division in the Latin American Affairs Office of the Directorate of Intelligence. He received two Exceptional Performance awards and was promoted ultimately to Senior Regional Analyst for Central America.
Johnson remained undercover in the CIA until October 1989, when he resigned from the CIA and started a new job in the Office of Counter Terrorism at the Department of State. Johnson played an instrumental role in launching the Terrorism Rewards program international advertising campaign (working with Diplomatic Security officers Brad Smith and Michael Parks). [4] Johnson also was involved in a variety of crisis management response operations, including the release of hostages from Lebanon and liaison with the Pan Am 103 families. He left government service in October 1993 and started his own business as a consultant.
After leaving government service, Johnson became a frequent guest on many major television news shows when a question of terrorism came up. He was first interviewed by CNN following the capture of Carlos the Jackal. Johnson subsequently appeared on CNN, ABC's Nightline, CBS, the BBC, MSNBC, the Jim Lehrer News Hour, NBC, and NPR. In December of 1999, for example, Johnson was hired by NBC to serve as its terrorist expert for the Y2000 and was in Time Square with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric ("a lot of fun and the best way to see in the New Year"). Johnson also was hired in January 2002 as a Fox News Analyst and remained under contract until February 2003.
Since 1994 a significant focus of Johnson's consulting work has been with the U.S. military special operations forces in scripting and conducting military counter terrorism exercises. He traveled under orders from the U.S. military to Iraq in May 2006 to work on a short term project.
A registered Republican who supported President Bush in 2000, Johnson became a strong critic of the Bush administration in May 2003 for its conduct of the war in Iraq and, a few months later, for its role in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.[5] He was also featured in the 2004 political documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. Since Robert Novak's controversial disclosure of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in July 2003, Johnson has contributed to public discourse on intelligence matters, often sparking further controversy. He has been interviewed by both the mass media and the alternative media and published commentaries on a variety of issues, including the Plame affair, the controversy concerning Mary McCarthy, and the resignation of Porter Goss as Director of Central Intelligence.
[edit]Views
This article or section may contain an inappropriate mixture of prose and timeline.
Please help convert this timeline into prose or, if necessary, a list.
[edit]1996
In 1996, Johnson noted that terrorism worldwide was on the decline. "Terrorist incidents [both internationally and in the US] have fallen to levels not seen since the 1970s. Whether measured by the number of incidents, the number of fatalities, or the number of groups, raw statistics demonstrate that the level of terrorist violence has declined since the mid-1980s. In fact, the evidence suggests terrorism was more widespread and deadly 10 years ago."[6]
He also wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times suggesting that the newer and more deadly terrorist threat to the U.S. was embodied by "networks of terrorists, mostly foreign, working within its borders." Exemplifying this threat was Ramzi Yousef, one of the masterminds behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. In the article, Johnson suggests that enhanced cooperation between intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI and CIA, is mandatory to meet the growing threat of terror networks.[7]
[edit]1998
In 1998, Johnson argued that while overall terrorism was declining, the threat from bin Laden and al-Qaeda should be the focus of American counterterrorism policy:
The nature of the threat posed by Bin Ladin is highlighted by my final chart, number 7. Osama Bin Ladin and individuals associated with him have killed and wounded more Americans than any other group. This chart also illustrates that groups such as Hamas and the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) prior to 1998 have killed more foreigners in the anti-US terrorist attacks. If we take into account the bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Osama's status as the most lethal terrorist is certain.[8]
In addition, he told USA Today that bin Laden had participated in "virtually every major attack of terrorism against the United States" in the 1990s. Johnson underlined the threat posed by bin Laden, saying that he was possessed by "hatred and craziness." If left unanswered, "he would continue to terrorize Americans around the world. He has no compunction about killing women and children. He's a complete egalitarian in his murderous attitude."[9]
[edit]1999
In an interview with PBS's Frontline for its 1999 program, Hunting bin Laden, Johnson discussed Osama bin Laden.[10] According to Johnson, Americans had "tended to make Osama bin Laden sort of a superman in Muslim garb." "Actually," he continues, "Osama bin Laden, in my view, represents more of a symptom of a problem, and the problem is this: the Saudi Arabian government, not just Osama bin Laden but many people in Saudi Arabia, have been sending money to radical Islamic groups for years." Johnson continued:
When you look at who's killed Americans in the last 10 years, the individuals he's supported and backed--I'm basing that upon the initial information that's been released in the indictments and conversations with others in the intelligence communities--Osama bin Laden has been the one killing Americans. No other terrorist group in the world has been out killing Americans except for Osama bin Laden.... Osama bin Laden remains out there as the one really targeting us. So, we recognize that he's the threat. He's serious about wanting to kill Americans, but as long as he's in Afghanistan, as long as he doesn't have access to a cell phone, as long as he can't just hop on a plane and travel wherever he wants without fear of being arrested, his ability to plan and conduct terrorist operations is extremely limited. We have to recognize [that] he would like to do a lot of damage. He would like to kill Americans, but wanting to is different from being able to, having the full capabilities in place.[11]
In the interview, Johnson doubted the ability of members of bin Laden's organization to plan and put their lives on the line:
There's not another Ali or Mustafa out there at this point and Osama bin Laden in my view has not been a very effective organizer or leader. He talks a great game and puts out terrific threats as far as stirring the passions in the United States and maybe firing up the imaginations of some young Muslims throughout the world. But when push comes to shove, can he get a group of people who are together who will say: we are going to plan an operation, we're going to put our lives on the line, we're going to go out and try and kill people and we don't care what the consequence is? It hasn't happened.[12]
Frontline asked:
[Is it] ... fair to say what you're saying is that the president of the United States, his national security advisor, his deputy national security advisor for counter-terrorism, are basically blowing smoke [about the danger posed by bin Laden] and his followers]?
Johnson responded:
They're grossly exaggerating the problem. They are hyping it. They shouldn't be talking about rising terrorism. Instead of saying "terrorism's rising," it's not. "Terrorism is spreading," it's not. "More people are dying from terrorism," not the case. But what they should be saying is, "There's one individual out there that really doesn't like us, and he's made it his mission in life to kill Americans, and we've gotta deal with him." But we need to have a voice of reason in that process instead of putting ourselves out crying wolf, because this is essentially what's taking place right now. They call it the administration that cries wolf.[12]
[edit]2000
Johnson co-authored an article in 2000 with Milt Bearden which focused on the threat posed by al-Qaeda specifically, rather than terrorism trends in general. Beardon and Johnson note that new information emerging about the bombings at Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 points to the threat posed by Imad Mugniyah and Osama Bin Laden will require "a coordinated policy that will employ a full range of covert, clandestine, diplomatic, and military operations," concluding:
The Clinton Administration has shot its bolt on the terrorist problem with small effect, and no last minute show of force will change the record. A new administration can start afresh with a more sharply defined set of terrorism goals – Mughniyeh and bin Laden and their protectors for starters – and bring the full, coordinated force of American diplomatic, military, and intelligence capabilities to bear on the problem.[13]
[edit]2001
After Johnson's testimony to the special forum at the U.S. Senate, Gary J. Schmitt, executive director and CEO of the Project for the New American Century, refers in the Daily Standard (blog) to an op-ed piece Johnson wrote two months prior to the 9/11 attacks, claiming that Johnson argued that the US had little to fear from terrorism.[14]
In an editorial entitled "The Declining Terrorist Threat," published in the New York Times on 10 July 2001, Johnson says:
Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.... None of these beliefs are based in fact.... While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.[15]
Ten days after the 9/11 attacks, after quoting the above passage, Timothy Noah concludes a post in his "Chatterbox" feature at Slate: "Johnson's analysis, we now see, was bold, persuasive, and 100 percent wrong."[16] Johnson defended himself against such attacks:
The rightwing is resurrecting an op-ed I wrote in July 2001. I stand by the full article. It is still relevant today. I am accused, incorrectly, of ignoring the threat of terrorism. In fact, I correctly noted that the real threat emanated from Bin Laden and Islamic extremism. President Bush, for his part, ignored the CIA warning in August 2001 that Al Qaeda was posed to strike inside the United States.[17]
After September 11, Johnson appeared several times on FOX News to address the question of military action against terrorism. On 14 November, he defended the FBI's proposal to interview 5,000 students in the U.S. suspected of having information relevant to the September 11 investigations:
I think they should talk to everyone that they feel they have a need to talk to. I mean, look, this is war. This is not a legal proceeding. This isn't the O.J. Simpson trial. The folks that attacked us -- they murdered Americans. And we've got to recognize that in wartime, we should do things differently.[18]
[edit]2003
In January 2003, Johnson wrote an analysis of the relationship between the upcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq and the threat of transnational terrorism. According to Johnson, Bremer's response was to tell him that "it didn't matter what Saddam did or didn't do, we were going to war."[19] The paper warned that an invasion would "do little to destroy the infrastructure of radical Islamic terrorism responsible for the 9-11 attacks." Noting that Saddam Hussein's regime has been a longtime supporter of regional terrorist organizations such as the PLO, Johnson examines contacts between Saddam Hussein and transnational terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda:
There is no doubt that Iraq is a state sponsor of terrorism—i.e., a country that provides financial support, safe haven, training, or weapons and explosives to groups or individuals that carry out terrorist attacks. . . . According to Central Intelligence Agency data, there is no credible evidence implicating Iraq in any mass casualty terrorist attacks since 1991. . . .
Johnson notes that the period immediately leading up to 2003 saw a rise of activity surrounding terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, suggesting that "Iraq is willing to help a movement that it would otherwise oppose on ideological grounds. Nonetheless," Johnson concludes, "it is important to understand that Iraqi entreaties to Al Qaeda, are most likely intended as a tactic to bolster Iraq’s ability to fight off a U.S. invasion rather than a deep-seated theological and ideological commitment to the terrorist agenda of Bin Laden.[20]
In that analysis Johnson also warns that the U.S.-led invasion was likely to backfire:
In fact there is a serious risk that a U.S. led war against Iraq may crystallize the diffused anger in the Arab and Muslim world — a heretofore unattained goal of bin Laden and his followers — and persuade more Muslim youths to take up the terrorist banner against America and her citizens.... If we decide to invade Iraq we must be prepared for the contingency that our attack will inspire young Muslims to pursue jihad against the West in general and the United States in particular. Just as the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan rallied many Muslims, especially young adults to the cause of jihad, a U.S. attack may enable Islamic extremists to attract new followers.[20]
Johnson also gave interviews on the topic of what to do with captured al-Qaeda leaders; while he did not condone torture, he suggested that a "sleep deprivation and reward system" might be useful for getting information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:
I don't see a constitutional right to have eight hours of sleep. You shouldn't subject someone to freezing but they don't get to wear mink coats, either.[21]
In May 2003, Johnson joined members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) in condemning the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes:
It is a misuse and abuse of intelligence. The president was being misled. He was ill served by the folks who are supposed to protect him on this. Whether this was witting or unwitting, I don't know, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.[22]
[edit]Plame affair
After Robert Novak wrote a column identifying the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson as a CIA officer, the media invited Johnson to comment on the ensuing scandal because he had been a member of the same Career Trainee class with Valerie Plame Wilson. For example, in October 2003, he appeared on Democracy Now to discuss the Plame affair. He told interviewer Amy Goodman that Valerie Wilson's cover should have been respected whether she was an "analyst" or a "cleaning lady": "if she's undercover she's undercover, period. If the media allows themselves to get distracted with those kinds of curve balls, they ignore the issue."[23]
He told a Senate Democratic Policy Committee in October 2003, "My classmates and I have been betrayed. Together, we have kept the secrets of each other's identities a secret for 18 years. Each and every one of us have kept that secret, whether we were in the CIA, in other government service or in the private sector. But this issue is not just about a blown cover. It is about the destruction of the very essence, the core of human intelligence collection activities: plausible deniability, apparently, for partisan domestic political reasons."[24]
Johnson testified at a special joint hearing of Congressional and Senate Democrats on 22 July 2005 about the consequences arising from the Plame affair.[25]
[edit]2008
In 2008, Johnson emerged as a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton and a strong critic of Barack Obama. Larry Johnson's blog, NoQuarterUSA, became a rally point for Clinton supporters wary of Barack Obama's qualifications to be president. Supporters of Barack Obama insist that a story that first appeared on Johnson's blog--a report that Republican operatives have a tape of Michelle Obama making racially insenstive comments about caucasians--has been "refuted" Barack Obama's Fight the Smears website.[26]. However, Johnson never claimed to have the tape and reported that the Republican operatives controlling it intended to release the tape sometime after the Democratic Convention in August 2008. On October 21, however, he asserted that the operative in possession of the tape had been instructed by the McCain campaign not to release it.[27]
[edit]Notes
^ http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-political-coverage/
^ Larry C. Johnson, "About Me," No Quarter (personal blog).
^ "Former CIA Official Larry Johnson Delivers Democratic Radio Address," transcript posted on official Democratic National Committee's website for The Democratic Party, July 23, 2005], accessed November 21, 2006.
^ Interview with Larry Johnson, confirmed by his supervisor
^ "Ex-CIA official Blasts Bush on Leak of Operative's Name: Democrats' Radio Address Focuses on White House Aides' Role," CNN July 23, 2005, accessed November 21, 2006.
^ Gail Russell Chaddock, "Why Terrorists Pick On the French," Christian Science Monitor (5 December 1996) p. 1.
^ Larry Johnson, "Terrorists Among Us," New York Times (20 August 1996) p. A19.
^ Terrorism Today
^ Lee Michael Katz, "The Hunt for Bin Laden," USA Today (21 August 1998) p. 1A.
^ See Transcript of original interview with Larry C. Johnson, as broadcast on Frontline in 1999. Cf. "Interview: Larry C. Johnson," for Hunting bin Laden, transcript of interview broadcast on Frontline subsequently on 13 April 2001. See also dedicated PBS webpages for media links: Iraq and the War on Terror, Frontline PBS, online featured programs, accessed 19 November 2006.
^ frontline: hunting bin laden: interviews: larry c. johnson | PBS
^ a b [1].
^ As posted in [2].
^ Gary Schmitt, [ 07/25/2005 "Meet Larry Johnson: The CIA official Turned Democratic Spokesman Has a Pre-9/11 Mindset," Daily Standard (blog), July 25, 2005, accessed November 20, 2006.
^ *Larry C. Johnson, "The Declining Terrorist Threat," The New York Times 10 July 2001: A19.
^ Timothy Noah, "(Not Exactly a) Whopper of the Week: Larry C. Johnson," Chatterbox: Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics (blog), hosted by Slate September 21, 2001, accessed November 20, 2006. Note the full context of this quotation:
It is, to be sure, a little bit cheap (and slightly at odds with the usual parameters of this feature) to criticize someone for making an erroneous prediction, particularly after a tragedy. Chatterbox is especially reluctant to tag Johnson because Johnson's op-ed was argued forcefully, backed up meticulously with factual data, and bravely at odds with conventional wisdom at the time of its publication. Add in that Johnson now makes his living as a consultant to corporations about terrorism, and therefore had everything to gain by exaggerating the dangers terrorism poses, and the guy practically looks like a hero. Chatterbox, who two decades ago was an editor for the New York Times op-ed page, would have published Johnson's piece had he still been an editor there this past July. In his capacity at Slate, Chatterbox might well have written up Johnson's prediction, and perhaps even endorsed it.
But boy, is he glad he didn't! Johnson's analysis, we now see, was bold, persuasive, and 100 percent wrong. Sadly, a mistake this embarrassing cannot be ignored. As a fellow skeptic, Chatterbox in all sincerity wishes Johnson better luck next time.
^ Larry C. Johnson, "Johnson vs. President Bush," re-posted and updated by SusanHu at DailyKos (blog) July 25, 2005.
^ FOX News Interview with John Garrett (14 November 2001) Transcript #111405cb.260.
^ [3].
^ a b Larry C. Johnson, "Setting the Record Straight on Iraqi Terrorism," posted in Booman Tribune: A Progressive Community (personal blog) 27 January 2003. accessed 19 November 2006.
^ Qtd. in Toby Harnden, "CIA 'pressure' on al-Qa'eda chief," The London Telegraph 5 March 2003: 16.
^ Qtd. in Nicolas D. Kristof, "Save Our Spooks," The New York Times 30 May 2003:A6.
^ Democracy Now (3 October 2003)[4]
^ U.S. Senate, Democratic Policy Committee Meeting on the CIA Operative Leak, (24 October 2003).
^ Letter to the Senate.[Needs full source citation; see "References" section.]
^ Tumulty, Karen (2008-06-12). "Will Obama's Anti-Rumor Plan Work?", Time Magazine. Retrieved on 20 June 2008.:"a story that apparently first made a big splash on the Internet in late May in a post by pro-Hillary Clinton blogger Larry Johnson"
^ Whitey Tape, API, Phil Berg, and Andy MartinSee Authors Posts (1090) on February 21, 2008 at 9:53 PM in Current Affairs
Latest from Mel Goodman, drawn from his recently published book, Failure of Intelligence. We’ll have a link up soon for you to purchase a copy if you are interested.
By Mel Goodman
The time for serious soul-searching regarding the role of the CIA and the intelligence community is long overdue. The recent intelligence failures regarding the unanticipated collapse of the Soviet Union, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq War demonstrate a CIA and a $50 billion intelligence enterprise that cannot provide strategic warning to policymakers and, even worse, is capable of falsifying intelligence to suit political purposes. It will not be possible to reform the enterprise until we understand and debate the important nexus between intelligence and policy, and the need for a CIA that is not beholden to policy or political interests. The serious problems that need to be addressed include the militarization of the intelligence community, which must be reversed; the absence of congressional oversight over a flawed intelligence product, which must be ended; the illegal actions of the National Clandestine Service, which must be stopped; and the inability of the CIA to tell truth to power, which finds the Agency without a moral compass. There will be no genuine reform until we come to grips with the mythology that surrounds the intelligence enterprise.
Myth Number One: The Central Intelligence Agency is the central intelligence organization in the intelligence community, which consists of 15 intelligence agencies and departments. This has always been a myth, although it was President Harry Truman’s intention to create centrality for the CIA. But the agency met with opposition from the Pentagon, which opposed the objective and balanced intelligence estimates and assessments of the CIA, as well as from the FBI, which did not want any competition in the field of counter-intelligence. Under the Bush administration, the CIA has been steadily weakened, with a director, Michael Hayden, who is a four-star general, and the creation of the post of director of national intelligence, currently Admiral Mike McConnell, who has taken charge of national intelligence estimates as well as the daily briefings of the president. By placing the position of the DNI in the hands of the military, the Bush administration has completed the militarization of the CIA and even the intelligence community itself, where active-duty and retired general officers run the Office of National Intelligence, the CIA, the National Counter-Terrorism Center, the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office. The Pentagon is responsible for nearly 90% of all personnel in the intelligence community and 85% of the community’s $50 billion budget. The absence of an independent civilian counter to the power of military intelligence threatens civilian control of the decision to use military power and makes it more likely that intelligence will be tailored to suit the purposes of the Pentagon. This is exactly what President Truman wanted to prevent.
Myth Number Two: The Intelligence Community is a genuine community that fosters intelligence cooperation and the sharing of intelligence information. The intelligence community has never functioned as a community. With the exception of the production of the National Intelligence Estimates, which are indeed a corporate product of the community, there is limited sharing of the most important and sensitive documents collected by the various intelligence agencies, and very little esprit de corps within the community. There have always been deep rivalries between the civilian and military agencies with the CIA and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence Research often lined up against the Defense Intelligence Agency and the various intelligence branches of the four military services. This division was particularly profound during the debates over Soviet military power and the verification of Soviet and American arms control agreements, with military intelligence consistently exaggerating the strength of the Soviet military and opposing the disarmament agreements of the 1970s and 1980s.
Myth Number Three: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence offers a genuine possibility for exercising central control over the intelligence community. The creation of the DNI has worsened the malaise and the capabilities of the CIA without assuring any reform for the Agency or the intelligence community. The sudden departure of the first DNI in December 2006, John Negroponte, for a lesser position at the State Department, meant that the reform process would start over under a new, less experienced DNI, Admiral McConnell. The veto power of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence over the ability of the DNI to transfer personnel from individual agencies into joint centers or other agencies will undermine any legitimate reform process. McConnell himself spends far too much time preparing for his daily briefing of the president, which should be in the hands of the CIA, and the issue of cyber-security, which should be in the hands of the NSA. Instead of reform, Negroponte and McConnell have built a huge, lumbering, and bloated bureaucracy that includes a principal deputy director, four deputy directors, three associate directors, and no fewer than nineteen assistant deputy directors. The DNI has a huge budget (over $1 billion) and has taken its management staff from the CIA and INR, thus weakening the overall intelligence apparatus. There has been no real accountability of the DNI, with congressional intelligence oversight committees failing to monitor the DNI’s hiring of independent contractors with extravagant salaries.
Myth Number Four: The CIA is not a policy agency, but is chartered to provide objective and balanced intelligence analysis to decision-makers without any policy axe to grind. This is possibly the greatest and most harmful myth of all, because CIA’s covert action, which has registered a series of strategic disasters over the past sixty years, is part of the policy process, and most clandestine collection of intelligence is designed to collect intelligence in support of administration policy. The CIA was unfairly described thirty years ago as a “rogue elephant out of control.” In fact, the CIA is part of the White House policy process with various presidents authorizing regime change in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, the Congo, the Dominican Republic, and South Vietnam, which had disastrous consequences for U.S. interests. The White House authorized assassination plots in Cuba, the Congo, and South Vietnam, and provided legal sanction for CIA’s current role in creating secret prisons, conducting torture and abuse, and pursuing extraordinary renditions, often involving totally innocent people who have no recourse to judicial proceedings. The CIA’s role in Chile, which was authorized by national security adviser Henry Kissinger, was particularly outrageous, involving bribes to Chilean congressmen in order to allow the Christian Democratic president, Eduardo Frei, to seek reelection in violation of the country’s constitution. Intelligence collection prior to the Iraq War was designed primarily to support the Bush administration’s profligate decision to use force, and the CIA station in Baghdad is primarily concerned with collecting intelligence to support the notion of a successful war effort and a successful surge of forces. The congressional intelligence oversight process has made no genuine effort to monitor CIA’s clandestine collection in Iraq and elsewhere, and to stop the illegal and immoral activities of the CIA that are part of the policy process.
Myth Number Five: The 9/11 intelligence failure was due to the lack of sharing intelligence collection. The conventional wisdom is that the 9/11 intelligence failure was caused primarily by the failure to share intelligence, particularly the failure of the CIA to inform the FBI of the presence of two al Qaeda operatives in the United States. In actual fact, the problem was far more serious; it was a problem of sloppiness and incompetence in dealing with sensitive intelligence information. It has been established that 50-60 analysts and operatives from the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA had access to information that Khaled al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had entered the United States long before 9/11. These analysts and operatives failed to inform leading officials at their own agencies of the two al Qaeda operatives, who were brought to our attention by Malaysian intelligence officials in January 2000. Thus, two of the leading 9/11 terrorists fell through the cracks of the system. Even now, there is still an inadequate flow of information between federal and state and local intelligence agencies as the United States lacks one central depository for all information on national and international terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security should be the home of this depository, but it isn’t. The FBI lacks an effective computer system to coordinate intelligence information. Finally, the CIA devotes far too much attention to current and tactical intelligence and insufficient attention to the big picture needs of strategic intelligence.
Melvin A. Goodman is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University, and author of the just released “The Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.” He was an intelligence analyst at the CIA from 1966-1990.
(small, medium and large sizes; for both dogs and cats)
+ 
http://www.madcowprod.com/02072008.html
Thank you for sharing this with us, Larry.
The book promises to be one helluva read and a real eye opener, just from this post alone.
Whew!
Wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for rehabilitating that mess!
Always method to madness, isn’t there?
Mel, best of luck with the book. I look forward to adding it to my library. I consider anything that you write required reading.
~~~~
O/T Can someone help me out? We used to advertise a book here on NQ. Something about the spice trade and the cities of Amsterdam, Venice and London. This was around the time of the “Be Obama’s European Tour Guide” contest. What’s the title? I want to buy it.
We now return to praising Mel’s book and arguments.
I almost dropped a lot of money on spice trade and silk road books a few weeks back.
I think The Taste of Conquest must be what you are looking for. If not, search on spice trade at amazon. You can get it for $16.50 shipped via abe books.
I concur, I received Taste of Conquest as a gift, and it was a good book.
Too too funny…
Is this in the archives?
I never heard who one the contest either.
duooh!! *won
Some questions.
First, were all of the things attributed to CIA in the quotes above actually carried out by government employees, or were some of them (thinking of the mysterious black-uniformed people at Guantanamo in some of the photos that made it into the press, for example) contractors? Is there a difference in terms of responsibility? In other words, if a contractor assigned to an agency screws up royally, should the agency or some other entity be blamed?
Second, seems like this could go toward more privatization (which I view as a bad thing, given the unauthorized CS gas release in Iraq, the shoot ‘em ups that killed many innocent Iraqis, the brash and bordering-on-dangerous behavior in New Orleans after Katrina, Colonel Westhusing’s frustration with contractor incompetence, etc., etc.) —OR— toward a more central, less military dominated, intelligence community. Is Goodman suggesting one over the other as a solution? Sounds like he thinks perhaps that Truman’s vision should be implemented. Or that we should scrap it. Hard to tell from these quotes.
Larry thanks for the heads up.
Mr.Goodman (Dr?) nails in six paragraphs what these ship o’ fools want to keep “classified”.
It will be an eye opening read.
Out of total curiousity, Hillary gets this, inside out?
Larry..
Mel sums it Up..You and I Know He is Right..
We Have Both Been in the trenchs..Coping with endless Turf battles..and coping with those who are trying to Lift thier Leg the Highest..
I’m glad I’m Out and I think you are too..Bad enough trying to do your job without knee Deep in Piss..
and hardly gaining ground..especially when the Rules Change every day..
why are there turf battles? aren’t they all playing for the same team?
I don’t get it.
I know it will never happen, but I’d love to see the counter-terrorism briefing documents given to (and any other information on al Qaeda shared with) the incoming Bush administration in late 2000, early 2001 by the outgoing Clinton administration intelligence officials.
We already know that the Bush administration demoted the counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, to the point he was limited to dealing with Bush deputies instead of Bush principals. We know that Attorney General Ashcroft downgraded the al Qaeda terrorist threat in the eight months prior to the 9/11 attacks to a point where the pre-9/11 terrorist threat wouldn’t have even registered on their pretty post-9/11 color-coded terrorist level chart. We know that Condi Rice, the NSA chief, only held one cabinet-level counter-terrorism meeting one week before the 9/11 attacks, at which she said they didn’t really discuss al Qaeda, but instead talked about a “regional strategy” (i.e. invading Iraq). We know that once the October 2000 U.S.S. Cole attack was traced back to al Qaeda by January 2001 that the incoming Bush administration blew off retaliating against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan even though President Bill Clinton had promised bin Laden that it would happen, a threat made to bin Laden following the two earlier embassy bombings in Africa. We know that the 9/11 Commission, with the help of Condi Rice’s close friend, Zelikow, covered up the Bush administration’s culpability for the 9/11 attacks succeeding (playing defense), while at the same time another Republican operative made a specious movie trying to lay the blame for 9/11 on the Clinton administration (playing offense). We know that urgent, multiple requests for search warrants (regular, FISA, whatever) from desperate FBI field operatives in the Midwest involving an al Qaeda operative arrested three weeks before the 9/11 attacks were turned down by top Bush officials.
Strange, but I see a pattern forming, dot leading to dot leading to another dot.
Anyway, since I served in the U.S. Air Force Security Service back during the early 1970s and know how field reports were sent back to NSA headquarters (i.e. up the chain of command), I really have a hard time believing that “50-60 analysts and operatives from the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA…failed to inform leading officials at their own agencies of the two al Qaeda operatives (in the United States)…, who were brought to our attention by Malaysian intelligence officials in January 2000.”
This is why I’d love to see the counter-terrorism intelligence briefing materials passed onto the incoming Bush administration as President Bill Clinton’s time in office ended. Were the names of these two al Qaeda operatives in the United States mentioned? If so, then this would be one more indication that the incoming Bush administration was more obsessed over Iraq, and invading Iraq for its oil, than they were in protecting U.S. citizens from the rabid right-wing religious fundamentalist al Qaeda terrorist threat prior to 9/11.
Oh, and I just wanted to add that this is one of the best posts I’ve read in awhile, with so many dots being connected. Excellent work. I am just a wee bit skeptical, though, about “top officials,” especially top intelligence officials in the Bush administration being out of the loop, unless they chose to be out of the loop, like Bush blowing off the August 6, 2001 PDB briefed to him by a CIA official that “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the U.S..” Too much evidence has already surfaced showing that Bush and top officials in his administration, prior to 9/11, didn’t give a damn about the safety of U.S. citizens.
Just about anyone with an interest can answer the questions that the CIA supposedly cannot. The reason the CIA cannot answer the questions is because the answers do not suit the corporate, powerful interest, the military/industrial/entertainment/media complex, the military Keynesians. “Team B” ran it sideways to suit their own purpose, but things do not change very much without team b.
Anyone who thinks that John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton do not represent these same interest groups and that things will change if one or the other of them is elected is not any better at figuring it out than the CIA.
Would anyone deliberately stress those divisions, making the various departments bitterly antagonistic toward each other, purposely?
Perhaps out of some mistaken belief competitive abilities would be enhanced, or in an attempt to scuttle the efficacy of the American intelligence services, which isn’t that far fetched, people DO think in this manner, divide and conquer…
Larry,
i’m currently reading Legacy of Ashes by time weiner … could i get your take on this book? although i’m only a 150 pages into the book it sounds like some of the points you are making are in agreement with his historical analysis.
oops … i menat to say some of the points the author is making … too damn early and not enough coffee yet!
Trying again
Thus, two of the leading 9/11 terrorists fell through the cracks of the system.
They were supposed to. No 9-11 attack. No new Pearl Harbor.
The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.
http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm
Michael Springman, former head of the American visa bureau, Jeddah
“MICHAEL SPRINGMAN: In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there. I returned to the US, I complained to the State Dept here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and to the Inspector General’s office. I was met with silence. ”
According to a CIA officer who testified to the committee, “a kind of tuning fork buzzed” when he and his colleagues heard the news. The CIA arranged for Malaysian intelligence to monitor the pair once they landed in Kuala Lumpur on January 5, 2000. Their behavior, CIA Director George Tenet testified, “was consistent with clandestine activity.”
Photographs of the gathering were taken secretly by Malaysian intelligence and transmitted back to CIA headquarters. By that time, the CIA had obtained a copy of al-Mihdhar’s Saudi passport, giving the agency his full name, passport number, birth date and other details. The passport showed that al-Mihdhar had a visa, issued at the U.S. consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, giving him the right to enter the United States at any time until the visa expired in April 2000.
Yet no action was taken to warn U.S. customs officials. According to Tenet, “We had at that point the level of detail needed to watchlist [al-Mihdhar]—that is, to nominate him to State Department for refusal of entry into the US or to deny him another visa. Our officers remained focused on the surveillance operation and did not do so.”
In the 911 commision report…if I recall they only make passing reference to Saudi Visa waiver.
In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants.
high level = ? never any names…
Point taken. You are not suggesting Addington got his wish? Tinfoil hat wise?
No Quarter:
The link for article below starts with:
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/
Click on: “Introducing the CTC Sentinel - A New
Journal for Cutting-edge research” and download Issue
#3 for February 2008.
The article (pg 1) by Richard Clarke and Robert Knake
is entitled: “Counter-Terrorism Issues for the Next
President”
“…The next president will inherit from the current
administration a dysfunctional counter-terrorism
apparatus.(1) The U.S. military has been stretched
thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
intelligence community has been discredited by the
lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the
ongoing failed hunt for Usama bin Ladin, and the
Department of Homeland Security has so many missions
and so many disparate agencies that it is ineffective. An even more challenging task will be to restore to the United States credibility in the world and to reduce the number of people who bear us ill will…”
Such a large part of this seems to go back to the people making money, not the terrorists, per se.
I suppose it’s like the drug wars, until the inside people, within any government, stop facilitating the flow of cash, terrorists will always have weapons.
A terrorist group can function as a great asymmetrical army, can’t it?
Simon,
A full spectrum counterterrorism package includes efforts to cripple terrorist group capabilites and countermotivation e.g. radicalization is a reversible process with weak points that have not been addressed with precedent and practice. Militarization and privatization have ensured that agencies like the CIA no longer function as a public service e.g. there are more private contractors in Iraq than troops. Countermotivation will be served best with what I refer to as peacebuilding initiative by a ‘peacebuilding corps’ e.g. the fundamental principle will be to ‘help people help to themselves’. There are not nor have there ever been Congressional funding or plans for post-war peacebuilding e.g. Charlie Wilson’s War. Neither does America have a Department of Peacebuilding to dispatch such a peacebuilding corps into regions which have been relatively secured. It is a shame. I do not believe that America has a sincere desire for pragmatic peace. There is a silence surrounding those who have sacrificed their lives. The only talk I hear from Bush is concern about his legacy.
[...] more than 80% of U.S. intelligence spending, which he estimated at about $60 billion in 2007. As Mel Goodman, former CIA official and now an analyst at the Center for International Policy, observed, [...]
[...] than 80 percent of U.S. intelligence spending, which he estimated at about $60 billion in 2007. As Mel Goodman, former CIA official and now an analyst at the Center for International Policy, observed, [...]
[...] more than 80% of U.S. intelligence spending, which he estimated at about $60 billion in 2007. As Mel Goodman, former CIA official and now an analyst at the Center for International Policy, observed, [...]
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Now is the time to invest in US property, Don’t abandon it, invest in it.
[...] more than 80% of U.S. intelligence spending, which he estimated at about $60 billion in 2007. As Mel Goodman, former CIA official and now an analyst at the Center for International Policy, observed, [...]
[...] more than 80% of U.S. intelligence spending, which he estimated at about $60 billion in 2007. As Mel Goodman, former CIA official and now an analyst at the Center for International Policy, observed, [...]
legitimate stay at home employment
i need a list of south beach diet foods…
Nevertheless there will always be a minority who will not get the point you are trying to make….