Rumsfeld to testify. Late-breaking news from the office of the chairman of the House oversight committee :

In a late breaking development, Secretary Rumsfeld will appear before the Oversight Committee tomorrow, Wednesday, August 1, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

The Committee is holding a hearing entitled "The Tillman Fratricide: What the Leadership of the Defense Department Knew." The hearing will examine what senior Defense Department officials knew about U.S. Army Corporal Patrick Tillman's death by fratricide.

The following witnesses will testify:

The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld
Former Secretary of Defense

Gen. Richard B. Myers (Retired)
Former Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Gen. John P. Abizaid (Retired)
Former Commander, U.S. Central Command

Gen. Bryan Douglas Brown (Retired)
Former Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command

Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger, Jr. (Retired)*
(supboena issued/not confirmed)
Former Commander, U.S. Army Special Operations Command

Haaretz: New American-backed, pro-Netanyahu newspaper emerges in Israel.

Worth reading: Gary Sick's analysis of the emerging US strategy in the Middle East.

Novak: "The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation. High-level U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation to suppress Kurdish guerrillas and capture their leaders. Through covert activity, their goal is to forestall Turkey from invading Iraq." How about, through leaking to Novak that the US is going to finally do something about the long standing PKK presence in northern Iraq following the US invasion, the US hopes to assuage Turkish anger that the US has been tolerating the PKK presence in northern Iraq and doing pretty much nothing about it for how many months and years?

Bush's lawyer. WP: Fredo Gonzales' long record of lying, dissembling, and prevaricating for his career benefactor. More.

Former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith to testify:

... They also plan to call a potentially crucial witness: Jack L. Goldsmith, the former chief of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. It was Goldsmith who wrote a key opinion concluding the eavesdropping program was illegal. A conservative lawyer now at Harvard, Goldsmith, who declined to comment, will have every incentive to talk. He is due to publish a new book this fall called "The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration." According to its Amazon.com listing, the book will chronicle how the president's "apparent indifference to human rights has damaged his presidency." On the cover are pictures of Bush, Cheney—and Gonzales.

NYT: Mining of data prompted fight over warrantless domestic spying.

This interesting too: "The first known assertion by administration officials that there had been no serious disagreement within the government about the legality of the N.S.A. program came in talks with New York Times editors in 2004. In an effort to persuade the editors not to disclose the eavesdropping program, senior officials repeatedly cited the lack of dissent as evidence of the program’s lawfulness."

Of course, that wasn't true.

Undersecretary of defense for policy Eric Edelman, who wrote Hillary Clinton the bitchy note that he wouldn't brief her on any Pentagon contingency planning? He'll be briefing the Senate Armed Services committee in closed session on August 2 about drawdown plans.

From the office of SASC chairman Carl Levin:

ARMED SERVICES

Room S-407, The Capitol

Thursday, August 2, 2007 – 9:30 a.m.

CLOSED

To receive a briefing on drawdown planning for U.S. forces in Iraq.

Briefers:

Honorable Eric S. Edelman
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, USMC
Director
Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J-5)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff

I'm sure the Senators appreciate Edelman's inner growth on the issue of Congressional oversight.

The Journal reports on the US looking the other way on terror financing when it comes to Saudi Arabia.

AP: Perjury probe urged. The Post calls for Gonzales to be put out to pasture. WP: Senators may seek Gonzales perjury probe. "Leahy (D-Vt.) told reporters he is giving Gonzales until late next week to revise his testimony about the surveillance program or he will ask Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine to conduct a perjury inquiry." More from Newsweek.

... I had some thoughts about the other domestic intelligence programs Gonzales sometimes cites as an excuse for why he told Congress last year there were no internal administration disputes on the warrantless domestic spying program.

Update: FBI director contradicts gist of AG's testimony.

"To the Staff." Hilarious. Via Romenesko. Here's the whole thing.

AP: Memo refutes Gonzales' sworn statement.

On vacation, with limited Internet access, back in business in a few days.

So what's the excuse for the warrantless domestic spying that doesn't concern terrorism?

Speaking of which, is it just me, or is the kids animated film, Monsters Inc, really a critique of post-9/11 security excesses?

Wurmser out at OVP?

"La Loi, C'est Moi," Part ad nauseam.

Former US special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to be on NPR's comedy game show, "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me" this weekend. Via the Auditors.

Guardian: "The discovery of a huge underground lake in Darfur may ease one of the causes of conflict in the desert region of southern Sudan, scientists said today. Researchers hope to drill at least 1,000 wells in the area and pump the long-hidden water to the surface, perhaps hastening the end of a four-year war that has left more than 200,000 people dead, displaced more than 2.5 million others and destabilised neighbouring Chad and Central African Republic."

Report: Turkey mediating between Syria, Israel?

Farideh Farhi: Iran Intel Ministry up to its old tricks.

So Tommy Kontogiannis was apparently a money launderer, an arms dealer -- and an IRS deadbeat:

The FBI stated that:

More than $1 million in bribes was laundered by being sent to Kontogiannis instead of going directly to Cunningham. Investigators identified at least 70 bank accounts maintained by Kontogiannis at one bank.

Despite his many businesses, Kontogiannis has not filed a tax return since 2001.

For the first time, investigators shed light on what Kontogiannis expected to get from Cunningham – help on a potential sale of fighter jets to his native Greece.

Cunningham also told investigators that Wilkes held fundraisers for Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and Tom DeLay (.pdf).

WP: Intelligence puts rationale for war on shaky ground. "'We're creating terrorists in Iraq, we are creating terrorists outside of Iraq who are inspired by what's going on in Iraq,' [says Dan Benjamin]. 'The longer we stay, the more terrorists we create.'" More from Fred Kaplan.

The Usual Suspects. In case you thought Cheney might have secretly been consulting with Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace and Amnesty International, have no fear. He was meeting with just who you thought he was: Exxon, Enron, British Petroleum, Duke Energy, and a Norquist/Gale Norton front group with ties to Abramoff.

Coming at 10am from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a new NIE on terrorist threats against the US homeland. I previewed some of what will be released here:

--Concern that Al Qaeda is getting more comfortable in "ungoverned spaces" of Pakistan, due to various factors, including a recent agreement by the Pakistani authorities with tribal leaders to leave Islamic militants in Waziristan alone. Intelligence community seeing more signs Al Qaeda is regrouping, able to train, and communicate in Pakistan ...

--Expect a new National Intelligence Estimate on terrorist threats to the homeland (this is not yet officially out ...), which [ODNI intel chief Thomas] Fingar rated the greatest threat to US national security. Al Qaida remains the greatest threat to the country. US intel community is increasingly concerned about Al Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan using Europe, and in particular the UK, as a gateway to target the US homeland. Thwarted airplane plot last summer "very sophisticated" and of the type that concerns them, with its mix of UK and Pakistani-based terrorists working together on a plot to target the US. ...

Just Out: Ten Questions on Iran for Ha'aretz's intelligence correspondent, Yossi Melman.

Conflicts of interest arrest release of House intelligence committee Cunningham report.

Ha'aretz: "The world's best-known Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, delivered a stinging tirade Sunday against rival Palestinian factions in his first public appearance in Israel since he left the country more than 35 years ago. The 66-year-old poet, who was born in a village near Acre, described the infighting between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza as 'a public attempt at suicide in the streets.' He spoke to a packed Mt. Carmel Auditorium in Haifa. The event was also broadcast live over Arab satellite television and on large screens in adjacent halls. ... Among the predominantly Arab-Israeli crowd that assembled to hear Darwish were Jews- some of whom didn't even speak Arabic and could not understand what was being said."

Weldon update, via a reader. Filings show that in the first half of the year, he spent $24,000 of his campaign funds to pay legal fees, and $5,000 to a private investigator.

What country sends more foreign fighters and suicide bombers to Iraq than any other? Saudi Arabia. LAT:

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. ...

Others contend that Saudi Arabia is allowing fighters sympathetic to Al Qaeda to go to Iraq so they won't create havoc at home.

Not something the average viewer/reader would know listening to the press conferences which seemingly go out of their way not to offend the Saudis.

More here.

Bill Kristol: Why Bush Will be a Winner.

Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy -- also something that wasn't inevitable.

And third, and most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where -- despite some confusion engendered by an almost meaningless "benchmark" report last week -- we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.

"Don't go wobbly on me" ...

NYT:

North Korea told the United States yesterday that it had shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and readmitted a permanent international inspection team, completing its first step toward reversing a four-year-long confrontation with the United States during which the North has made fuel for a small but potent arsenal of nuclear weapons.

North Korea sent the announcement through the country’s small mission to the United Nations at 9:30 a.m. yesterday, according to Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state who negotiated the accord to close the reactor that was agreed to in February. The reactor shutdown comes nine months after North Korea conducted a nuclear test, but it is unclear whether the country has mastered the ability to deliver or sell a working nuclear weapon.

The North Korean claim, which was carefully synchronized with the arrival of a first shipment of fuel oil from South Korea, can be easily verified by the 10-member inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, though communications are slow from the bleak, heavily guarded nuclear site at Yongbyon, roughly 60 miles north of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.

Loaded with equipment, the inspectors arrived there yesterday to begin supervising what is envisioned as a lengthy disarmament plan, and to rebuild a surveillance system that was dismantled when they were expelled four years ago. American spy satellites will also be able to detect whether the reactor core is cooling; confirmation could take several days.

The Asia policy-oriented blog China Matters "ponders the puzzle of the Bush administration’s hardline policy against overseas North Korean assets in 2005-2006--why it was instituted, why it was covert, why it failed--and what it says about the president's over-reliance on executive orders to advance his policies ... "

This cannot possibly be true?

Dan Rather interviews Iranian Baluchi rebel leader Rigi, and "presents an in-depth look into reports that the CIA may be seeking to destabilize the Iranian government."

NY Sun:

President Bush is set to instruct the Treasury Department to block assets associated with Iran's revolutionary guard corps in a new executive order declaring financial war on foreign saboteurs of the Iraqi government.

The paperwork to designate Iran's revolutionary guard corps, or IRGC, and Quds Force is now on the president's desk awaiting his signature, according to three administration officials who requested anonymity. The designation of the IRGC and Quds Force would mark the first time the finance related executive order process, reserved usually for foreign terrorist organizations, would be used against a branch of a foreign military.

AP: Conrad Black found guilty of fraud.

Leaked Army Karbala investigation shows Iraqi police collaborated in ambush, killing of US troops. Its key findings were not mentioned by the former White House aide who briefed the press earlier this month in Baghdad.

Update: AP, 7/13: "U.S. troops battled Iraqi police suspected of links to Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen, killing six in a rare firefight between American soldiers and their Iraqi partners. Friday’s clash underscored the deep infiltration of militants in the country’s security forces. ... In addition to the six police officers, seven gunmen were also killed in Friday’s clash in eastern Baghdad, sparked when U.S. troops arrested a police lieutenant, the American military said in a statement. It said the lieutenant was believed to be helping Iran organize Shiite militants and leading a cell involved in bomb and mortar attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops. ... It was unclear whether the lieutenant was a militiaman who joined the police or a policeman who later joined the militia."

"Eerily Similar." A Hill staffer correspondent comments, in response to this:

Read your post. It strikes me that we are in an eerily similar situation to 1999 and 2000.

-- The United States is fully aware of Al Qaeda training camps operating openly, with links to cells and operatives in Western Europe elsewhere;

-- Our government is picking up increasing signs of communications, movements of money, and other signals indicative of planning for future attacks;

-- An internal debate is occurring over whether to take action against those training camps, including military strikes; while those who are forward leaning are pushing for more aggressive risk-taking, others are cognizant of not wanting to violate sovereign territory and risking large civilian casualties;

In 1999 and 2000, we were talking about Afghanistan. Today, it is Pakistan. The Clinton Administration was savaged after 9/11 for "treating terrorism as law enforcement", excessively taking into account the diplomatic sensitivities of other nations, and too much regard for civilian lives when we could have killed the bad guys with a missile strike. The Bushies said that would not happen on their watch.

So why is it happening again? At least the Clintonites did not have "the lessons of 9/11" as a backdrop.

He adds, "Every Pakistan expert I know is confident that, if Musharraf were overthrown or assassinated, he would be replaced by another military man with a similar pro-Western bent. The Islamicists make a lot of noise, but do not have any real power base. It does look like the Shah situation where the U.S. is left holding the bag."

Here are some top lines of an intel briefing from the Hill today. Summary: duck.

NY Sun's Eli Lake: Navy plans pullback from Persian Gulf. Recently heard the Stennis carrier group is floating back to Hawaii.

Former White House aide Sara Taylor will appear tomorrow. See here.

AP: Iranian police raid pro-democracy student group. Meantime, the Post's Robin Wright reports that Iran has expanded its investigation of Iranian American scholars.

WP: Gonzales informed of FBI abuses, misled Congress about his knowledge. Sports and weather at 11.

Update: More on Fredo and the FBI. Leahy responds that Gonzales misled his Judiciary committee too in his recent written response saying that he did not learn about NSL abuses until he received drafts of the March 2007 IG report.

North County (San Diego) Times: Judge removes celebrity attorney Geragos from Cunningham case. Wilkes' attorney refused to undergo security clearance process.

Debating the surge at AEI:

Before a packed house including Vice Presidential daughter Liz Cheney and former VP aide Mary Matalin, Iraq surge godfathers Frederick Kagan and Gen. Jack Keane faced off against a proponent of a phased withdrawal from Iraq at a discussion at the American Enterprise Institute today. "I think I am the designated skunk at the AEI surge garden party," said James Miller, of the new centrist think tank, Center for a New American Security, a former Clinton era deputy assistant secretary of defense, from the panel. And in a way, that's exactly what he was meant to be. [...]

The AEI debate on this sweltering Washington day drew the kind of crowd you would expect to see for the kind of high stakes event the think tank ran during the height of the Iraq invasion. And the stakes are high: while the panel moderator Danielle Pletka mourned at the end everyone was only talking about the surge in the context of US domestic politics, and not US national security, the event organizers too are arguing for a strategy they see as urgently necessary for political vindication, but one that has lost the support of the vast majority of the American public. As the presence of Cheney daughter Liz and aide Matalin attest, the public debate continues a private discussion with a more receptive audience of two in the White House.

Go read.

WP: Tunneling near Iran nuclear sites stirs worry.

Justice Department attorney John Koppel in the Denver Post: Department under the current leadership is a "disgrace."

As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time.

The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful. The unconscionable commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence, the misuse of warrantless investigative powers under the Patriot Act and the deplorable treatment of U.S. attorneys all point to an unmistakable pattern of abuse.

In the course of its tenure since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has turned the entire government (and the DOJ in particular) into a veritable Augean stable on issues such as civil rights, civil liberties, international law and basic human rights, as well as criminal prosecution and federal employment and contracting practices. It has systematically undermined the rule of law in the name of fighting terrorism, and it has sought to insulate its actions from legislative or judicial scrutiny and accountability by invoking national security at every turn, engaging in persistent fearmongering, routinely impugning the integrity and/or patriotism of its critics, and protecting its own lawbreakers. This is neither normal government conduct nor "politics as usual," but a national disgrace of a magnitude unseen since the days of Watergate - which, in fact, I believe it eclipses.

In more than a quarter of a century at the DOJ, I have never before seen such consistent and marked disrespect on the part of the highest ranking government policymakers for both law and ethics. It is especially unheard of for U.S. attorneys to be targeted and removed on the basis of pressure and complaints from political figures dissatisfied with their handling of politically sensitive investigations and their unwillingness to "play ball." Enough information has already been disclosed to support the conclusion that this is exactly what happened here, at least in the case of former U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias of New Mexico (and quite possibly in several others as well). Law enforcement is not supposed to be a political team sport, and prosecutorial independence and integrity are not "performance problems." ...

As usual, the administration has attempted to minimize the significance of its malfeasance and misfeasance, reciting its now-customary "mistakes were made" mantra, accepting purely abstract responsibility without consequences for its actions, and making hollow vows to do better. However, the DOJ Inspector General's Patriot Act report (which would not even have existed if the administration had not been forced to grudgingly accept a very modest legislative reporting requirement, instead of being allowed to operate in its preferred secrecy), the White House-DOJ e-mails, and now the Libby commutation merely highlight yet again the lawlessness, incompetence and dishonesty of the present executive branch leadership.

They also underscore Congress' lack of wisdom in blindly trusting the administration, largely rubber-stamping its legislative proposals, and essentially abandoning the congressional oversight function for most of the last six years. ...

The sweeping, judicially unchecked powers granted under the Patriot Act should neither have been created in the first place nor permanently renewed thereafter, ...

Kudos to someone still there willing to say what they think under their own name. One realizes how very rare that has become.

The BBC's Tehran bureau chief Frances Harrison shares her observations upon leaving after three years there.

Via Atrios, new Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt:

Why Bush and the military are emphasizing Al Qaeda to the virtual exclusion of other sources of violence in Iraq is an important story. So is the question of how well their version of events squares with the facts of a murky and rapidly changing situation on the ground.

But these are stories you haven’t been reading in The Times in recent weeks as the newspaper has slipped into a routine of quoting the president and the military uncritically about Al Qaeda’s role in Iraq — and sometimes citing the group itself without attribution.

And in using the language of the administration, the newspaper has also failed at times to distinguish between Al Qaeda, the group that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an Iraqi group that didn’t even exist until after the American invasion. ...

Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, said, “I have been noticing — not just your paper — all papers have fallen into this reporting.” The administration, he added, “made a strategic decision” to play up Al Qaeda’s role in Iraq, “and the press went along with it.” (Actually, that’s not entirely accurate, but we’ll get to that in a moment.)

Recent Times stories from Iraq have referred, with little or no attribution — and no supporting evidence — to “militants linked with Al Qaeda,” “Sunni extremists with links to Al Qaeda” and “insurgents from Al Qaeda.” The Times has stated flatly, again without attribution or supporting evidence, that Al Qaeda was responsible for the bombing of the Golden Dome mosque in Samarra last year, an event that the president has said started the sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. ....

I’d have been happier still if The Times had helped its readers by doing a deeper job of reporting on the administration’s drive to make Al Qaeda the singular enemy in Iraq.

Military experts will tell you that failing to understand your enemy is a prescription for broader failure.

NYT: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."

Dick Morris' and Roger Stone's MO:

...A request that occasioned controversy between Miss Lolavar and the defendants was Morris and Stone's request that she serve as an intermediary in an anonymous wire transfer of funds to an official in Israel. These funds were to be paid to secure intelligence files from the Israeli government to assist de la Rua's political domestic disputes with Menem, and to imply a corrupt relationship between Menem and George W. Bush, who was then running against Albert Gore for the United States presidency. These files were to be altered by Miss Lolavar to appear to be SIDE documents.

When the defendants became concerned that this plot would be discovered and traced back to them, they ordered Miss Lolavar to orchestrate a press response to blame Vice President Gore for the dissemination of the documents, since it was known to them that the Gore campaign had been attempting to connect Menem with the Bush campaign.

When Miss Lolavar refused to cooperate with these demands, the defendants undertook a series of reprisals. First, they refused to pay her fees under the contract until she executed the wire transfers. Additionally, they made a number of false defamatory statements concerning her, including that she was anti-Semitic, that her efforts to disclose these transactions were the result of a political bribe by Menem's Peronist Party, and that she forged the correspondence that was evidence of the defendants' wrongdoing...

Plaintiff married the attorney representing her in the suit, former Reagan era deputy attorney general Bruce Fein. ... I am just curious, how does IKON do PR for the Argentinian intelligence chief for a year without uh registering as a foreign agent?

Boston Globe: Thompson's Watergate role -- as Nixon's mole:

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight -- asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

"Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."

Via Atrios.

Prisoner 345. Go read journalist Rachel Morris' cover story in the new issue of Columbia Journalism Review about al Jazeera's Sami al-Haj, the only journalist being held at Guantanamo Bay:

. . . Many questions surround Sami al-Haj. After talking with his colleagues, friends, family members, and lawyer, I could piece together only a partial picture of his life. He grew up in the Sudan, where an uncle, who was better off than al-Haj’s family, helped him attend college in India, where he studied computers and English. In the late 1990s, he took a job as an administrative assistant for a company called Union Beverages, and later worked in a similar role for an import-export company in the United Arab Emirates. In 1997, a former university classmate introduced him to Asma, and they married the following year. Asma told me that her husband was "a very kind-hearted person, [but] we didn’t have deep conversations about our future or experiences." She added that he liked to sleep a lot, to watch television (usually Al Jazeera and Egyptian movies), and to read "every newspaper he could find." In 2000, the couple had a son, Mohammed. Soon after, al-Haj answered a newspaper advertisement for a trainee position at Al Jazeera, and the family moved to Qatar. He started work on a trial basis in April 2000. ...

Al-Haj was detained at a moment when distrust of Al Jazeera was accumulating rapidly at the highest levels of the American government. Before 9/11, Al Jazeera was hailed as a rare independent voice in the Middle East. But after the attacks, while Middle East specialists in the government continued to advocate that the U.S. engage with the network, others in the administration developed an intense hostility toward it. According to numerous former senior administration officials, the major hubs of animosity were the Office of the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense, particularly the offices run by Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy, and Stephen Cambone, the former undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

After the Iraq war began, that suspicion intensified. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, said: "There was just this visceral, 'I-don’t-like-them, they’re-our-enemies' response. And they would spread stories like Al Jazeera setting ambushes and IEDs"—in Iraq—"so they could film the insurgents’ attacks. These were the kinds of stories that were told inside the Oval Office -- I heard conversations of that nature almost every month during later 2003 and 2004." . . .

Asma al-haj didn’t know what had happened to her husband until late 2002, when she received a letter from him explaining that he was in Guantánamo. Around the same time, Al Jazeera issued a press release announcing that an employee was being held at the camp. The Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld requesting information, but received no reply. For the next three years, little was known about the circumstances of al-Haj’s detention, until early 2005 when he obtained the services of Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer based in Britain. ...

The accusation that al-Haj had filmed Osama bin Laden did not resurface in the unclassified evidence described to al-Haj in the three hearings he has had. Instead, the allegations against him have evolved over time. In his status review, held in late 2004, military officials said al-Haj had gone to Afghanistan to buy Stinger missiles to fight in Chechnya, a charge that has since been dropped. Then, he was alleged to have sought the missiles in 1996, although Stafford Smith says he can prove that al-Haj was in the United Arab Emirates every day of that year. ...

Paul Kiel runs down next week's planned House Judiciary committee hearing on the Libby commutation.

Press Enterprise: Grand jury finds Ken Calvert land sale illegal.

Check out footnote 1 here.

Good news. BBC reporter Alan Johnston released.

Via the Corner, House Judiciary committee hearing on Libby commutation next Wednesday.

Washington Whispers previews Robert Novak's book. Marcy recently made a compelling case that Libby in fact was a source for Novak on a key aspect of his column, disclosures from the still classified trip report.

From the archives. Hubris, p. 242:

" ... In April 1989, the first president Bush nominated Armitage to be secretary of the Army, but the nomination hit trouble -- in part due to his role in the Iran-contra affair -- and Armitage hired a lawyer to help. That attorney was Scooter Libby. Armitage headed off a potentially nasty confirmation fight by withdrawing. ..."

Talk about the aspens out west and the roots turning!

MSNBC "Breaking News": White House won't rule out eventual pardon for Libby.

WP: Wolfowitz joins AEI.

Talk about obstruction of justice. Check this out.

More here.

The thing that is so jaw dropping reading the DOG IG report (.pdf) is that - the DoD IG is so studiously neutral about the fact that the program it was charged with investigating had all of its database files deleted before it got there - but after the program agents had been notified that an investigation was to take place. The DOG IG repeatedly treats that small wrinkle as just another detail in its scientific investigation specs, as if there was no human agency involved in the decision to delete the evidence it was supposed to investigate. What planet are they on?

Bush commutes Libby jail sentence. My friend Jeff Lomonaco has been calling this for weeks. Update: Here's the grant of executive clemency.

Update: Here's Fitzgerald's statement:

We fully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative.

We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as “excessive.” The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country. In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.

Although the President’s decision eliminates Mr. Libby’s sentence of imprisonment, Mr. Libby remains convicted by a jury of serious felonies, and we will continue to seek to preserve those convictions through the appeals process.”

From the LAT: "'He won't antagonize anyone who didn't already hate him, and he will give solace and encouragement to the people who like him but are having doubts about his resolve,' said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster."

Check out Marcy Wheeler on Hardball.

Via Spencer Ackerman, the AP is reporting that AQ Khan is no longer under house arrest, indeed has not been for months. Khan tells the AP in an interview that he's recovering from cancer.

I'm on NPR's To the Point with Warren Olney and other guests talking about Iran today.

WP: A president besieged.

Update: Correspondent D: "... The trope of the 'the lonliness of power' was invented during the cold war to glorify the presidency and empire. Like this egregious example, it was used to emphasize the U.S. monarch's sincerity. Funny how it never seems to work for Texans like LBJ or the Bushes."

Fascinating piece. "Indeed, the more you understand the historical record, the more the parallels leap out -- but they're between Bush and Chamberlain, not Bush and Churchill." ... "Likewise, Churchill almost certainly would look askance at the Bush administration's years-long campaign to shut down public debate over the 'war on terror' and the conflict in Iraq -- tactics markedly similar to Chamberlain's attempts to quiet his opponents. Like Bush and his aides, Chamberlain badgered and intimidated the press, restricted journalists' access to sources and claimed that anyone who dared criticize the government was guilty of disloyalty and damaging the national interest. Just as Bush has done, Chamberlain authorized the wiretapping of citizens without court authorization; Churchill was among those whose phones were tapped by the prime minister's subordinates. Churchill, by contrast, believed firmly in the sanctity of individual liberties and the need to protect them from government encroachment."

Reader LB sends this clip from "Meet the Press" today, in which Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy raises some quite pointed concerns:

MR. RUSSERT: And joining us now is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Good morning and welcome.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): Good morning, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: As you well know, you have issued subpoenas on the Bush White House regarding the eavesdropping, wiretapping put in place by the president after September 11th. Critics this morning will say, senator, that this plan is so essential to monitoring contacts between international terrorists and people here in the United States that subpoenas now is very, very counterproductive and could affect our anti-terrorism situation.

SEN. LEAHY: Well, of course, that’s the kind of talking point that the White House has tried to put out, and they, the White House has chosen confrontation over cooperation. I think that’s unfortunate. Nobody on my committee, Republican or, or Democrat, is trying to subpoena the operations of what’s been done in wiretapping terrorists. And I was a prosecutor for eight years. I believe in going after criminals, terrorists or anything else. Use wiretaps, use search warrants, whatever. What we’re asking is, what was the legal justification they tried to follow, when, for years, they were wiretapping ordinary Americans and everybody else without a warrant. We have a FISA court. We can, we can redesign the FISA law, if need be, if they need help to go after terrorists.

MR. RUSSERT: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ACT, FISA.

SEN. LEAHY: Yes. And, and, and moot to that, I mean, everybody wants us to get somebody who wants to strike at the United States.

MR. RUSSERT: So you have no problem with the plan of eavesdropping as such?

SEN. LEAHY: Provided it follows the law. What I don’t want is this open-ended idea that they had at the White House, until the press found out about it, which would allow, for example, if they didn’t like some comment that you made on NBC, they could then go without any warrant, wiretap your phone, check out your bank account, surveil you. Well, we don’t want that in America.

MR. RUSSERT: Even if I had no contact with someone overseas?

SEN. LEAHY: Even if you had no contact with someone overseas under the broad way that they were talking about. So what, what we’ve asked is, what was their legal justification for it? Their answers, as we’ve asked these questions, as the press has asked these questions, has changed so many times, some of it in testimony under oath, we’d kind of like to find out what is the basic reason for it. And we will work with them. I’ve talked to Senator Rockefeller, who’s a chairman of the Intelligence Committee. We will work with whatever changes are needed in the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, so there’d be no question you can go after potential terrorists with wiretaps and all. But we’ll do it with a check and balance. I don’t want us to ever go back to the situation that we had 30 years ago when we put into place this FISA court, as you called it, where they were wiretapping somebody who disagreed with the government on the Vietnam war. In this case, somebody disagrees with the administration on the Iraq war, under their broad views, you could just go in and wiretap them. This, this is America. This is not a, this is not a dictatorship.

Quite pointed.

WP: A new Hakim steps forward. More.

Alibek Revisited. In "Selling the Threat of Bioterrorism," the LAT publishes an important investigation of Soviet bioterror-evangelist Ken Alibek, who, with some well placed Congressional earmark help, has profited from promoting the threat, although many of his claims have turned out -- sound familiar? -- to be discredited:

... Officials still value his seminal depictions of the Soviet program. But recent events have propelled questions about Alibek's reliability:

No biological weapon of mass destruction has been found in Iraq. His most sensational research findings, with U.S. colleagues, have not withstood peer review by scientific specialists. His promotion of nonprescription pills — sold in his name over the Internet and claiming to bolster the immune system — was ridiculed by some scientists. He resigned as executive director of a Virginia university's biodefense center 10 months ago while facing internal strife over his stewardship.

And, as Alibek raised fear of bioterrorism in the United States, he also has sought to profit from that fear.

By his count, Alibek has won about $28 million in federal grants or contracts for himself or entities that hired him.

He has had well-placed help. Some of the money has been allocated because of a Southern California congressman's "earmarks," controversial budget maneuvers that direct federal agencies' spending. Moreover, two senior aides to a New Jersey congressman who also provided crucial help to Alibek left government and promptly joined his commercial efforts. ...

Among Alibek's congressional benefactors, Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ) on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), former chair of the House appropriations committee, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich. And Alibek's Washington promotion was aided along the way by a spooky former aide to Florida Republican Bill McCollum, Vaughn Forrest.

Alibek made his first network-television news appearance in February 1998, and three months later testified at a congressional committee hearing on terrorism and intelligence. A news release said Alibek would "provide new information on Russia's offensive biological weapons program."

The only contact listed was a committee staffer named Vaughn Forrest, a onetime candidate for Congress. Forrest in the 1980s had traveled to Afghanistan to support the Muslims who ultimately drove out the invading Soviet Union. In helping Afghanistan's mujahedin, Forrest had developed a productive relationship with the CIA. Forrest introduced Alibek to the chairman of the Senate-House Joint Economic Committee. Forrest took the lead in arranging the hearing.

He and Alibek formed a lasting bond. ...

Forrest introduced Alibek to others who could help, including Florida Republican Bill McCollum, then-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Forrest had once been McCollum's chief of staff....

(First I heard of Vaugh Forrest is here, when Larisa reported that he recently accompanied Hoekstra to meet an Iranian contact in Paris). If Weldon who never met a hyped-up for-profit Russian-linked threat opportunity he didn't like isn't part of the picture, I am sure he is disappointed he missed out.

Update: Reader RS writes, "Hyping security threats is a standard MO for many people in security industries. Sometimes reality actually lives up to the hype. I thought this article was a bit harsh on Ken. ..." Hyped to the tune of $28 million in federal earmarks? He responded, "The computer anti-virus business rakes in billions of dollars a year. It regularly hypes security concerns (real and imagined) to sell more software."

Kontogiannis Transcripts Sealed, follow up. Marcy's posted sections of the Kontogiannis docket, that explain the back and forth that led to a US court of appeal's decision late last week at the urging of the government to seal the transcripts surrounding Kontogiannis' guilty plea. The government inexplicably "invoked federal laws dealing with classified information," in filings arguing that the Kontogiannis' transcripts remain sealed. See yesterday's post for the background.

I'm speculating, but one topic that could conceivably be touched on in the transcripts that the government wants sealed to the degree that it is "invoking federal laws dealing with classified information" concerns what Kontogiannis was doing in Saudi Arabia with Cunningham, where they met with -- who was it? -- oh yeah, right -- then Crown Prince now King Abdullah, indeed when the private plane stopped in Athens to pick Kontogiannis up en route:

In another sign of their flourishing relationship, the following year, Kontogiannis accompanied Cunningham by private jet on a fact-finding mission to Saudi Arabia, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Riverside, said Thursday.

In 2003, Cunningham made two trips to Saudi Arabia that were paid for by San Diego businessman and naturalized U.S. citizen Ziyad Abduljawad, according to congressional travel reports. Calvert said he accompanied Cunningham on one of those trips.

On their way to Saudi Arabia, they stopped in Athens and picked up Kontogiannis, Calvert said.

Calvert added that he hadn't known beforehand they would be picking up Kontogiannis, whom he had not before met. He hasn't seen Kontogiannis since, Calvert said, adding that Cunningham described the Greek native as a friend and a successful New York businessman.

And while Kontogiannis did participate in some of the meetings that he and Cunningham had with Saudi ministers, Calvert said that Kontogiannis "wasn't involved in any classified or high-level information as far as I can recall."

The whole Saudi element of the Cunningham case has never fully emerged. But considering the two San Diego-based Saudis who participated in the 9/11 attacks (the ones who rented rooms from an FBI informant), and San Diego-rep Cunningham's position at the time of the Saudi trips on the House intelligence committee which was part of a joint House/Senate Congressional committee investigating the 9/11 attacks, the issue is not irrelevant. The Saudis may have found it easy enough to buy off a congressman on the House intel committee, whose investigation they might have wanted to influence, and Cunningham was infinitely buy-offable. Or perhaps the Saudis wanted something else, just good will, some help acquiring some items on the US export control list, some friends on relevant House committees. As we know, Cunningham came back from his trip and soon thereafter issued an obviously Saudi PR firm generated statement praising Saudi Arabia's reforms, and got several campaign donations at a fundraiser organized by the sponsor of the trip. I was also told that the then chair of the House intel committee was also supposed to go on the trip but canceled at the last minute because of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Here are the remarks about Saudi Arabia Cunningham entered into the Congressional Record October 4, 2004, "Saudi Arabia and Reform in the Arab World," after his Saudi trips. As you can see, it is unlikely that Cunningham came up with this all by himself.

We don't know what exactly Cunningham "got" for putting that praise of Saudi "reforms" in the Congressional record -- but we do know that Cunningham had a literal bribe menu price list and that he in all likelihood did it for a fee, of some sort or another.

We know that Kontogiannis was a witness to Cunningham's meetings with the highest leadership of a foreign country with whom the US has the most complicated and unusual sort of arrangements, especially in the post-9/11 period. He was meeting with the guy that Cheney meets with in secrecy. We know the person who paid for the trip paid for the private plane to pick up Kontogiannis en route in Athens.

I could imagine that the USAs could have been convinced by their colleagues in government that what Kontogiannis had to say about this is sensitive - not least because it affects nat'l security, and foreign relations. And it might not be directly relevant to their purpose at hand.

More here.