Progreso Weekly – May 25, 2006
http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Landau&otherweek=11486196
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The wiretapping scam
By Saul Landau
Karl Rove or his White House troglodytes shape discussion around
themes that distract the public from the issues and place the
incompetent and corrupt Bush Administration in a patriotic light. The
current subterfuge deals with the Administration’s “security need” to
monitor telephone calls – vital intelligence. “If Al-Qaeda phones the
U.S., we want to know about it,” said Bush, defending the constitutionally
dubious and very massive eavesdropping program.
In fact, little “vital intelligence” derives from phone monitoring.
Nor do eavesdropping agencies seem to care about getting good
intelligence. On September 10, 2001, for example, NSA experts
encountered a seemingly juicy Arabic phone call. But they didn’t
translate the message, “tomorrow is zero hour,” until September 12.
“Real intelligence,” Special Agent of the FBI Robert Scherrer told me in
1980, “comes from framing the right question and finding the person with
the right answer; not the paid informant who tells you what he thinks you
want to hear so he can keep getting paid.”
In 2002-2003, the “intelligence community” ignored such wisdom.
Instead, CIA Case Officers posed loaded questions to dubious Iraqi
exiles with hidden agendas. Schemers posed as “hot sources,” like the
infamous Curveball, a low-level and larcenous clerk in an Iraqi chemical
factory who defected to Germany. Curveball assured eager-to-hear-it Bush
officials that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons. German
intelligence said his information “lacked credibility,” but Bush used his
“information” in public speeches.
Faced with this kind of spurious “human intelligence,” some
“intelligence pros” retreated into the data of signal intercepts.
Ironically, as the high tech NSA super sleuths searched for
mathematical formulas to track terrorists’ phone calls, they failed to
detect terrorists who “had set up shop literally under [NSA’s] nose.”
The hijackers of American 77 plotted from Laurel, Maryland, NSA’s
neighbor. NSA employees and terrorists “exercised in some of the same
health clubs and shopped in the same grocery stores.” After the hijackers
left their Motel to go to Dulles Airport to capture American 77, “they
crossed paths with many of the electronic spies who were turning into Fort
Meade, home of the NSA, to begin another day hunting for terrorists.”
(James Bamford, Washington Post, June 2, 2002)
During the period just before 9/11, NSA workers might as well have
gone on vacation, like the President who wasn’t there. Absent before
and immediately after the 9/11 attacks and on vacation when Hurricane
Katrina struck, Bush still excels at distracting the public – with
dramatic photo ops.
His staff reached new depths when they set false contexts for
discussing “leaks of intelligence” to obscure the fact that the
government was illegally wiretapping citizens – instead of collecting
meaningful intelligence.
Indeed, General Michael Hayden, the NSA chief, did not convince Bush
to postpone his pre 9/11 vacation. Subsequently, however, he advised W to
approve a constitutionally questionable wiretapping plan. Technological
fixation along with classifying millions of documents seems to absorb
those charged with discovering threats.
Rather than infiltrating hostile groups with declared intentions to
attack, the $40 billion a year “intelligence community” eavesdropped
on millions of civilians who had no violent intentions.
Phone intercepts masquerading as “vital raw intelligence,” became a
political ruse. Congress now debates whether “war on terrorism”
justifies warrant-less intercepts, which presumes that eavesdropping
will provide terrorism “experts” with material to protect the nation. As
if!
No Member of Congress has asked: “Why doesn’t the intelligence
community [a term that debases both words] use its intelligence and
ask people who know something?”
Billions of dollars get spent on spy satellite photography and signal
intercepts, but little effort goes into sharing with decision makers the
views of scholars who actually know about Muslim terrorists. Instead of
reading insightful articles and books on the subject, NSA and CIA mavens
rely on technology and biased sources to pierce the nether world of
terrorism.
Weeks before the mid January 1979 fall of the Iranian Shah, Fred
Halliday published a paper After the Shah, (Institute for Policy
Studies) and a book (Iran: Dictatorship and Development Penguin 1979). He
predicted the demise of the U.S.-backed Monarchy, and its replacement by a
repressive theocracy.
Rather than consulting brilliant scholars like Halliday, however, top CIA
spooks used paid informants and useless intercepts. So, instead of
anticipating the Shah’s demise, Washington felt shock when theocratic
revolutionaries deposed their man in Teheran and took U.S. officials
hostage.
By 1991, Bush I pronounced his “New World Order,” an exercise in
hubris. Numero uno doesn’t have to talk to scholars like Halliday, who had
also done significant research on the anti-regime religious Saudi zealots.
So, the military erected bases in Saudi Arabia in order to conduct
operations against Iraq and other “disobedient” Gulf nations – near the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This act affronted Osama bin Laden and
like-minded believers as did the bombings that killed thousands of Iraqis
and destroyed that country’s infrastructure. U.S. policy also continued to
support Israeli repression of Palestinian rights.
By 1993, the data gatherers should have sounded an alarm. Kuwaiti-born
Ramzi Yousef, one of the planners of the first World Trade Center bombing,
mailed letters to New York newspapers before the attack. Yousef claimed he
would attack the financial hub if the U.S. did not meet his demands: End
U.S. aid and diplomatic relations with Israel; a U.S. promise to stop
interfering in “the Middle East countries (sic) interior affairs.” (Steve
Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin
Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001)
In August 1998, bombers hit U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In
2000, saboteurs hit the USS Cole in Persian Gulf waters. Didn’t the
“intelligence community” expect more violence? The FBI and CIA had
also discovered that suspected violent agents had entered the United
States and enrolled in jumbo jet flying school. These aspiring pilots,
however, showed no interest in takeoffs and landings. On August 6, 2001,
National Security Adviser Rice received a Presidential Daily Briefing
citing FBI analysis indicating “patterns of suspicious activity in this
country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of
attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”
For her negligence, Bush promoted Rice to Secretary of State. So, why
shouldn’t the ineffective Hayden become head of another federal agency? At
his confirmation hearings, Senators didn’t ask Hayden why NSA failed to
act promptly on the September 10 “tomorrow is zero hour” intercept.
Senators praised Hayden as they had the hapless George Tenet and the
incompetent Porter Goss, who made the CIA into an intelligence joke. Tenet
promised Bush that finding WMD in Iraq would be a “slam dunk.” Goss’
behavior led some of the most experienced analysts to resign.
Bush has set a pattern for mediocrity. Tom Ridge, former Homeland
Security head, introduced M&M color-coding of crisis alerts. Another
prime example was FEMA head during the Katrina Hurricane debacle
Michael “You did a heck of a job Brownie” Brown.
On constitutional safeguards, Hayden seems to follow another
Administration heavy. Elliot Abrams, Deputy National Security Adviser,
wrote in his autobiography (Undue Process: A Story of How Political
Differences are Turned into Crimes) that he taught his children that his
lying to Congress was justified by a higher morality. Under Hayden, the
NSA refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security
clearance to probe its warrant-less eavesdropping program. Justice’s
Office of Professional Responsibility told Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
they were closing their inquiry because NSA had refused to give their
lawyers the necessary clearances to investigate.
Bush had informed some members of Congress from both Parties that
warrant-less phone intercepts would yield “vital intelligence.” He
referred to a post 9/11 Congressional resolution to fight Al-Qaeda
that he claimed transcended the Fourth Amendment. Spying on citizens
belonged to the President’s inherent powers to fight wars that
Congress did not declare. Constitutional law?
The Members did nothing after Bush informed them of his plan to
violate the law. In fact, shrewd terrorists could switch cell phones
daily, communicate by other means and constantly change locations. To find
them, ask those who know. Don’t eavesdrop on those who don’t and justify
it by appealing to “national security.”
The wire tap ploy extended to ABC News, New York Times and Washington Post
reporters. After all, since these journalists discovered the CIA’s secret
prisons in Romania and Poland, they must have good sources. Look how Karl
Rove framed the issue: tap phones of those who reported on kidnapping,
illegal spying and torture to find the leakers, rather than discuss the
illegal policies. As Rove faces indictment for his role in obstructing
justice in leaking former covert CIA op Valerie Plame’s name, his mastery
of mis-framing issues continues to confound Congress – to Bush’s advantage
and the detriment of Democrats and Truth. Don’t look for Hayden to offer
intelligent counsel, like “change Middle East policy,” as a route to
diminishing the terrorist threat. But do expect him to build files on
Americans as his ilk has done in the past.
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow.
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“Our German forbearers in the 1930s sat around, blamed their rulers, said ‘maybe everything’s going to be alright.’ That is something we cannot do. I do not want my grandchildren asking me years from now, ‘why didn’t you do something to stop all this?” –Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst of 27 years, referring to the actions and crimes of the Bush Administration
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