My Big Fat Greek Family Feud -- With the Feds Thrown In. Or, meet the Kontogiannis clan! A selection, thanks to a reader, and the comments at Muckraker:

... The secret with the 9th Circuit hearings is that there is no evidence against John Michael and the Government doesn't want to admit they got duped by a man who can't even spell C-I-A and isn't even good at his career, i.e. being a criminal; He has gotten caught 3 times for Bribing Public Officials!!! This Case is like the hit and run driver testifying against the J-walker, saying it was the J-walkers fault for his leaving the scence of the crime. Since, when does the government Plea Down. Is this the Prosecutors way of making billable hours or is the payoff that good! The Government didn't need him to cooperate. Tommy knows nothing about nothing ... The time is coming for them to finally pay for all of the innocent people they have destroyed with their ends justifys the means mentality. What family means to Mr. K is that he would send his kids to jail if it was them or him and justify it as he is the breadwinner. He is the biggest piece of garbage walking. The Gov't is the guilty party here. Like the old adage goes: Everybody has a price! The officials in the US Embassy in Greece, New York State took 4.6 Million Dollars to let him out of jail and now the US Attorneys, to mention just a few...Does Anyone in the United States actually care about Truth and Justice or is this the Governments way of giving Carol Lam her exiting Gift: as many indictments as they could manufacture the day before she left office, and before the public realizes just how corrupt the US Atty.'s are. She even forgot John Michael's Name at the indictment Press Hearing. This Fish Smells from the Head to the tail, but this time Justice will Prevail!

Posted by: Paymeoff
Date: August 12, 2007 10:12 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...

Question of the day,how many passports does Tom K. have?

Posted by: It's about time
Date: August 24, 2007 9:29 AM
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To UNNAMED,
When Judge Burns throws out Tom K. rat agreement because he PERJURED HIMSELF under the direction of LAM,FORGE and HALPERN we'll see who goes to jail.

Posted by: It's about time
Date: August 27, 2007 12:37 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
Hey anon: are you a relative of Tommy K. It seems very apparent?? where you been? Late on the defense! Whose your daddy??? Got stuck with the hand in the cookie jar AGAIN!!! Teflon Don died in Jail and sammy is serving time! What mountain is daddy hiding in? Is he funding Binladin again or with Halpern having Tea and crumpets. Nobody left to payoff!! getting upset...

Posted by: antiterrorist activist
Date: August 27, 2007 3:41 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...

Wow, this is awesome!!! The whole Kontogiannis family is on here. Back from your Greek cruise? How was the weather? Frankly, I'm rather shocked your boy "Tommy" didn't slink off and hide somewhere in Greece, never to return back to the US! Amazing how you were even able to leave the country.

Listen, the bottom line is Tommy can try to weasel out of his messes, by blaming everything on other people, i.e, John T. Michael. Any business reflects its leadership. Tommy owns 70% or more of his companies. Tommy acts as if one of HIS trusted people just went off the reservation and arbitrarily acted on his own. Gimmie a break! If that's the case then Tommy sucks as a businessman! Wait a minute, who are we kidding he does suck at business. Trying to paint him as an upstanding guy is a total joke! Why then does he have such a notorious record of criminal activity?

Also, for anyone to criticize John T. Michael for wanting to make money is laughable. Who doesn't? Any money he ever made is negligible compared to the millions Tommy has stolen or defrauded over the past few decades! Kontogiannis family please stop blogging here and defending your crook of a patriarch. You're not fooling anyone. All of his deeds speak for themselves and speaking of greed how much have you all profited off of Tommy's illegal activity? Phony mortgages, dummied financials and come on using a dead woman to get a mortgage under? Yikes. If there is a hell, you should all be very afraid. There will be a reckoning!

As far as that impish drunk loser Deligiannis goes. Well, let's just say he's the real bag egg of it all. He and Tommy together doing dirty business. Tommy would sell his own mother if it made a profit. Oh but wait, he employed the loser (Deligiannis) who supposedly raped his daughter Annette, just because he'd do what Tommy wanted!

Posted by: ontheinside
Date: August 29, 2007 4:22 PM
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Reply to ontheinside, Thank YOU I couldnt have said it better, The US ATTORNEY let T.K. leave the country and only required him to surrender 1 passport when he had 5. It's nice when you payoff the right people.Think about it a 3 time convicted FELON out on 1.5 million $ bail and he's on a private yacht for 3 weeks cruising the Mediterranean.According to U.S.Atty. FORGE he's under cover meeting with OSAMA I guess he figured one look at Tom K. daughters and he die of fright

Posted by: TRUTH BE KNOWN
Date: August 29, 2007 5:48 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...

T.K. The only people that believe your story about the bombing in Greece are those IDIOTS in the U.S. Attorneys office WE all know YOU were behind it and did it to convince these IDIOTS that you were JAMES BOND. Who play PUSSY GALORE? GEORGIA

Posted by: Sad But TrueDate: August 29, 2007 11:00 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...

... If JM is innocent then who besides Tommy is the guilty party? Hum, let me think.....DELIGIANNIS!!!!! He wrote all of those bogus mortgages, doctored financials and forged signatures. That wife beating loser is Tommy's right-hand man!!! He makes me sick. I hope he loses everything! What a scumbag! Didn't he testify against JM? Gee, I wonder how much Tommy paid for that pack of lies? It's all coming out. They'll all go down eventually. Hey Deligiannis do you feel more like a man beating down your poor wife in front of your kids? What the hell do you need 10-20 guns in your house for? You getting ready to start WWIII? You're a fat, ugly, drunk who sucks in bed. It's amazing you even had any kids.

Posted by: ontheinside
Date: August 30, 2007 4:08 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...

I am Corinne Michael, proud to say wife of the wrongly accused,Defendant John T. Michael and I am NOT "ontheinside" and whoever thinks I am must find that the "ontheinside" has validity in their statement. I don't need to stoop to the Level of the family by talking s--- about people and making wrong ASSumptions... and if I do I want to look you in the face and see your reaction not do it behind your back. Oh I'm sorry that is the families MO with their ends justify the means mentality... but I think your ends finally caught up with your means and there is no one else to blackmail into reform. I don't need to bad mouth Mr. Deligiannis online--I have never been accused of HOLDING BACK-- If I have something to say believe me everyone will know it came from me-- I don't hide behind pseudo names or lie and smile in someones face as I lie and stab them in the back. As far as my "Gravy Train" being over and derailed that joke is on you, you all though by destroying the business you would bankrupt us into taking a deal-- you made a gross miscaculation. Tommy K.'s lies will be proven in open court, all of your crimes will be in the open and my husband will build another successful business minus the now 3 time convicted felon (oh! what was he convicted of? "Bribing Public Officials") around to destroy it with his lies, cover-ups and deceit. Too bad we found out too late who tk really is... My life and my family is all I need. I would rather live on the street than be rich with money made by the lives u all have taken part in destroying, with the tears and blood shed at your hands. I know who you are making yet more unfounded allegations against us...you are truly misguided by your fathers proven ability to scam. But, I can't blame the family in its entirety for being so FEEBLE as to believe Tommy K's ponse schemes and taking part, for even public officials have a price for their conformity. At least I can sleep at night knowing nobody suffered at my husband's hand, he is yet another victim of Tommy's lies. ... The only reason I am even Justifying your statement with an answer is because I don't appreciate being accused of something I didn't do... I guess that is why me and John T. Michael are together and HAPPY despite what his family has done to him. Oh! FYI my name has 1 R and 2 N's...

Posted by: Corinne Michael
Date: August 30, 2007 11:01 PM
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T.K. your deal is history even your paidoff U.S.Attys.(NIFONG) can't help you. Cheer up maybe you'll get ajoining cells.
P.S.
We all no who did that bombing in Greece and the only people that might still buy your BULLSHIT STORY is these moronic Feds.
Posted by: TRUTH BE KNOWN
Date: August 31, 2007 7:14 AM
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...

TRUTH BE KNOWN- what bombing in Greece are you referring to?

Posted by: curiousone
Date: August 31, 2007 10:49 AM
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To Curiousone on 1/12/07 a rocket hit the U.S. Embassy in Athens,Greece. T.K. told U.S. Attys. office about it before hand to get his DEAL he convinced then he was the next coming of James Bond and these morons bought it. If you want the story google it.Everyone knows T.K. set it up to get his DEAL.
P.S.
T.K. when it's proven that's LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE

Posted by: TRUTH BE KNOWN
Date: August 31, 2007 11:42 AM

So, did Kontogiannis really report in advance a bombing at the U.S. embassy in Athens to impress his U.S. handlers? Did he set it up? And what's the relationship with troubled North Carolina prosecutor Nifong? Kontogiannis did have some past business there.

You really could not make this stuff up. Any insights, give a shout.

(Thx to C).

Starving the Lewis Investigation. The WSJ's Scot Paltrow reports that the investigation of former House appropriations committee chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Ca) has been stalled by lack of funds. "In Los Angeles, a federal criminal investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis, a California Republican, stalled for nearly six months due to a lack of funds, according to former prosecutors. The lead prosecutor on the inquiry and other lawyers departed the office, and vacancies couldn't be filled. George Cardona, the interim U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, declined to comment on specific cases but confirmed that lack of funds and unfilled vacancies caused delays in some investigations."

In 2006, Los Angeles federal prosecutors were in the middle of a wide-ranging investigation of Rep. Lewis of California, who until January was chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. He remains its senior Republican. The investigation focused on earmarks, or special spending measures, that benefited clients of a now-defunct lobbying firm to which he had close ties.

People with knowledge of the case said that by the time the investigation stalled in December 2006, it had branched out into other areas, including Mr. Lewis's June 2003 role in passing legislation that helped giant hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management. People associated with Cerberus around the same time gave at least $140,000 to a political action committee controlled by Mr. Lewis. Cerberus officials didn't respond to phone calls or emailed questions concerning the Lewis inquiry.

Money from the PAC was distributed to Republican congressional candidates facing difficult campaigns. The largesse was credited with gaining Mr. Lewis enough support from Republican House members to be chosen as appropriations committee chairman in January 2005. In addition, federal agents were looking into whether Mr. Lewis may have improperly paid for personal expenses with PAC funds.

Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for Mr. Lewis, said, "We have no comment," in response to emailed questions about the investigation.

After the lead prosecutor in the Lewis case quit, others assigned to the case took time getting up to speed. Brian Hershman, a former deputy chief of the Los Angeles office's public corruption section, declined to comment on specific cases, but confirms that his group's work overall was derailed by the departure of experienced prosecutors. Like several others, he says he left for more money to support his family.

Replacements "are mostly rookies," he says. "It will be some time before they'll be able to restore the section to what it was before."

With additional funds recently made available by Congress, the Los Angeles office has filled 12 of 57 lawyer vacancies and is expecting an additional 12 lawyers to start soon. To jump-start the Lewis investigation, Mr. Cardona, the interim U.S. attorney, in June called on a veteran prosecutor, Michael Emmick, to revive and supervise the investigation, people with knowledge of the investigation say.

Extraordinary. I read this twice quickly but couldn't find the answer. Who distributed these hostile to the Congresspeople fact sheets? If it was the Pentagon, or a contractor working on US tax dollars, didn't it violate the law by wading into politics?

Kontogiannis Transcripts. The judge hearing the government's request that Kontogiannis' guilty plea be kept sealed asserts that his understanding from the government is that opening Kontogiannis' guilty plea would lead people to "assume he is cooperating with the government and he is going to be untouchable, and that creates personal danger to him as well as, I'm told, the agents who have been working with him." (p. 13). Kontogiannis' own lawyer earlier describes himself as a former assistant U.S. attorney in New York who specialized in organized crime cases (p. 11). Is it increasingly plausible that Kontogiannis is an FBI asset, working as an informant on organized crime cases that, post 9/11, may have assumed some counterterrorism applications? Note this remark from Kontogiannis' lawyer: "Both the Southern District of California and Eastern District of New York routinely have closure in plea proceedings and such cases. And the heightened concern in the context of counter-terrorism has given even greater compelling force to basis for seeking closure under the circumstances" (pp. 11-12). Also note that the request for the transcripts to be sealed was relayed by the US attorney's office in San Diego but was originally from another US attorney's office - which one is redacted, but presumably the one for the Eastern District of New York. More from Spencer, and background from me here, here, here, here, and here.

Time: Allawi gets Baath endorsement: "Iyad Allawi's bid to become Iraq's prime minister again has received an endorsement from an unexpected source: the Baath Party. A spokesman for the exiled leadership of Saddam Hussein's old party told TIME that Allawi 'is the best person at this time to be given the task of ruling Iraq.' He said he hoped that Allawi would pave the way for the Baath Party to 'return to the political life of Iraq, where we rightfully belong.'"

And Marc Lynch has a smart article pointing out that Allawi has been pushed by Saudi-owned Arab media for the past year:

While Allawi has only recently returned to the headlines, his bid for a return to power has actually been going on for more than half a year. Allawi's re-emergence dates back to last November, when he began appearing frequently in the Saudi-owned Arab media, and popped up in Amman, Jordan, as a key interlocutor in "secret" talks between the Americans and the Sunni insurgency. ... Allawi has been negotiating widely, including a recent trip to Kurdistan, ostentatiously accompanied by American Ambassador Zal Khalilzad (Kurdish leader Mahmud Othman says that they are "interested", and KDP leader Masoud Barzani today traveled to Riyadh with Allawi). Iraq-watchers these days entertain themselves by counting votes to see if he might be able to somehow cobble together a Parliamentary majority to unseat Maliki (Moqtada al-Sadr hopping on board is the latest, rather unlikely, rumor).

Allawi's return reflects more than his own considerable appetite for power: the fact is that his political profile fits American objectives in the region far better than Nuri al-Maliki, Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, or any of the other major Shia candidates. Allawi is Shia, but, unlike his long-time rival Ahmed Chalabi, does not even pretend to have rediscovered his religious roots. Allawi presents himself as an Iraqi nationalist, able to appeal across sectarian lines and - most importantly - eager to pursue a hard line against Iran. The anti-American edge which he cultivated last December, when he reached out to the insurgency and flirted with Sadr, seems to have faded as American interest in him has grown. And he is much-admired in Amman and Riyadh, key players in the Bush administration's shiny new coalition of "Sunni moderate states" (pro-American dictators on board with the anti-Iranian campaign).

The main objection to Allawi - that he lost democratic elections, winning only 25 seats in the current Parliament - carries less weight these days in a Washington which has lost interest in promoting Arab democracy. At this point, the argument goes, Iraqis care more about restoring security than they do about democracy. Enough time for elections later: Americans may gamble that Allawi would gain popularity by delivering on security and by mobilizing anti-Iranian nationalism. And if he doesn't, well, who in Washington really cares about democracy anymore, compared to containing Iraq's descent into civil war and ramping up pressure against Iran?

So what's the problem?

An Allawi return would signal a return to more overt American custodianship of Iraq at a time when most Americans would prefer to get out. Iraqis would know and deeply resent that America was the only reason for Allawi's return. ...

In a new paper for the think tank CNAS, "Measuring Progress in Iraq" (.pdf), Georgetown professor Colin Kahl argues that the surge has been a partial military, but not a political success, resulting in almost no political reconciliation; and that of recent security gains witnessed, the Sunni "awakening" against Al Qaeda in Iraq has "the least to do with the surge."

The Sunni awakening is mostly a consequence of enemy-of-my-enemy dynamics between Sunni groups and AQI that emerged before the surge (as a consequence of AQI atrocities and power grabs in tribal areas), are causally independent from the surge, and may stem more from preparations by Sunni groups to position themselves politically and militarily for an eventual American withdrawal after the surge.

On the political question, Kahl argues that the ascendance of a new strongman is a fantasy, and that there is really only one realistic scenario for an eventual political solution: the emergence of a highly decentralized state. "The second scenario is the direction Iraq is headed in given the self-separation of the population, but whether the outcome is stable or incredibly violent over the long term is yet to be determined." Go read.

Newsweek reports the latest on Allawi, his lobbyists, and his needed FARA fix.

North County Times: Judge to unseal transcripts from secret hearing for Cunningham co-conspirator, Kontogiannis. Portions of transcripts to remain sealed.

A Win for "State Secrets" Protects a Defense Contractor Benefactor of Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons -- and his Air Force Allies. Reno Gazette-Journal:

In a ruling that could make it difficult for former eTreppid software designer Dennis Montgomery to argue his lawsuit against the company, a federal judge Wednesday granted a Department of Defense request for a protective order to ensure no material involving national security is released.

All sides in the lawsuit involving eTreppid Technologies, the Reno company Gov. Jim Gibbons is accused of helping obtain defense contracts in exchange for gifts and trips, are prohibited from sharing certain information that is subject to the state secrets privilege, U.S. District Judge Philip Pro said in his order.

The information also cannot be used as evidence at trial, Pro said. Disclosure of certain materials "could be expected to cause serious, and (in) some cases exceptionally grave damage to national security," he said.

Pro made a number of exceptions. He said the two sides can discuss the "Big Safari" contract between eTreppid and the Air Force, "including but not limited to the fact that the Big Safari contract required eTreppid to perform data analysis," and involved "image identification technology."

They also can acknowledge that the people involved in the contract had to sign secrecy agreements with the defense department, and that the technology might have commercial or government applications.

U.S., acknowledging mistake, releases 8 Iranians, including two with diplomatic passports, seized at a Baghdad hotel yesterday to Iraqi authorities. The Iranians from the Ministry of Electricity were working at the invitation of Iraqi authorities. "An adviser to the top U.S. general in Iraq called the detentions 'regrettable,'" according to the AP. "Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosyhar Zebari told the British Broadcasting Corp. the Iranians were released after Iraqi officials intervened and told the Americans they were part of an official delegation on a legal visit to discuss electricity cooperation."

Reuters: U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people.

George Washington University's distinguished Henry Farrell confesses to pondering a deep state conspiracy theory. (Kevin Drum's wife too.)

Petraeus "Softened" the NIE? A sharp eyed D.C. national security observer notes:

This paragraph was buried in Karen DeYoung's piece in the WaPo this am...

"The NIE, requested by the White House Iraq coordinator, Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, in preparation for the testimony, met with resistance from U.S. military officials in Baghdad, according to a senior U.S. military intelligence officer there. Presented with a draft of the conclusions, Petraeus succeeded in having the security judgments softened to reflect improvements in recent months, the official said."

...This seems fishy to me. I dropped a line to a few folks who have written NIE's before and they said it wouldn't be unusual for someone on the ground to have a chance to review the NIE prior to release, but that seems different then "softening".

Thoughts?

Renzi a (Former) Spook? From a lawyer correspondent, "Hmmmm, so was Renzi a spook or what? And is he tied to any of the appropriations investigations?" Check this out, from the Arizona Republic:

Blurry background

For a national political figure who served on the powerful House Intelligence Committee, Renzi's background is, as described by Wikipedia, "unclear."

He was born June 11, 1959, in Fort Monmouth, N.J. His family moved to Sierra Vista in 1975, and he completed high school there before getting a degree in criminal justice at Northern Arizona University in 1980.

Exactly what Renzi did for the next two decades is blurry. He has said he worked overseas for the Defense Department, but research turned up no information on which agency, where he was assigned or what duties he had.

Renzi founded an insurance company in 1989 and bought a six-bedroom home in Virginia two years later for $765,000. He and his wife, Roberta, lived there with their children for more than a decade.

In the late 1990s, Renzi opened an insurance agency in Sonoita and registered to vote in Santa Cruz County in 1999. A year later, he bought a vineyard in the area.

During fall 2001, a new congressional district was formed in Arizona, and Renzi bought a house in Flagstaff. He established himself as a voter there and, a month later, announced his candidacy. In interviews at the time, Renzi shrugged off the label of outsider, saying, "Let the chips fall where they may if I am a carpetbagger."

Update: Love the dry observation posted as a comment to this 'Renzi is a secretive mystery, now retiring' Arizona Republic article by a reader, krazy1472:

"Renzi was endorsed by the Arizona Republic in all three general elections."

CNN:

Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation Monday in a brief statement at the Justice Department.

"Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government services as Attorney General of the United States effective September 17."

He did not take questions from reporters.

Bush will likely nominate Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to the position, senior administration officials said.

Chertoff has headed Homeland Security since 2005. He served as a federal appellate court judge, a federal prosecutor and as special counsel for a Senate committee investigating President Clinton's involvement in the Whitewater land development.

Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as acting attorney general, the White House press office said.

President Bush is expected to make a statement about Gonzales at 11:50 a.m. from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he has been vacationing, but will not announce a replacement, two senior administration officials said.

More here.

Unlike the Rove resignation, where Bush and Rove appeared together, Gonzales and Bush are delivering their statements in separate appearances - a sign, perhaps, of the circumstances under which he is leaving, that he was fired.

IraqSlogger's Eason Jordan says that in his CNN interview yesterday, Ayad Allawi dissembled about whether he knew the exact amount and details of the lobbying contract. One sign: his signature on the contract:

When asked by Blitzer to confirm whether he was paying Washington lobbyists $300,000 to work on his behalf -- a story first reported by IraqSlogger -- Allawi said "I think those numbers are accurate" but said he was unsure of the exact amount being paid to the Republican lobbying firm because "I am not party to the exact amount."

The latter part of that statement is false because Allawi himself signed the August 20 contract with the Washington lobbying firm of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR) -- a contract that spells out that Allawi is to pay BGR $300,000 over the next six months.

IraqSlogger obtained that BGR-Allawi contract and reported on it exclusively August 23.

Allawi said he hired the firm "because of the crucial role of the United States," adding: "We are asking this firm to help us to advocate our views, the views of the nationalistic Iraqis, the nonsectarian Iraqis."

The BGR point man on the Allawi contract is Robert Blackwill, who served in 2004 as President Bush's presidential envoy to Iraq.

While the BGR-Allawi contract calls for Allawi to make $50,000-a-month payments over six months, Allawi said the money wasn't his own but instead was coming from an Iraqi supporter of Allawi's Iraqi National Accord political party.

Allawi refused to identify the financial supporter by name.

Allawi said he'd return to Iraq in the days ahead to press his "fight for our country."

On the question of who's paying, a top contender is likely Hazem Shaalan. Some suggest he is a vehicle for Saudi/UAE money.

Balkinization's Jack Balkin:

The Bush Administration now faces three problems. The first is finding a person to serve for the last years of a lame duck administration in a department with many unfilled vacancies, a diminished reputation for integrity and serious morale problems. The second problem is getting the person confirmed before a Democratic controlled Senate. Democrats will very likely grill the nominee in confirmation hearings, and if the nominee was involved in the operations of the current Justice Department, may try to settle scores and demand information about what Gonzales did, leading to yet another standoff over executive privilege. The third and most serious problem is that Democrats may use the confirmation as a bargaining chip to pry open more disclosures from this most secretive and stubborn of White Houses.

As for Mr. Gonzales, he was a disgrace to the office. There are many roles he could have competently filled-- and did fill-- in his career. The Nation's chief law enforcement officer was not one of them. He abused his office for political gain, repeatedly misled Congress under oath --and probably out and out lied on more than one occasion-- and turned a once proud institution of government into an object of deep suspicion.

No one person can cure what ails the Justice Department these days. It will take determined leadership and reform by a large number of individuals. I have no confidence that the current Administration will put the right people in place. We may have to wait for a new Administration, and even then to fix what Alberto Gonzales did to the United States Department of Justice may take many years.

NPR: Gonzales announcement at 10:30am.

NYT: Gonzales resigns as attorney general:

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WACO, Tex., Aug. 27 — ­ Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.

Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch near here.

Mr. Bush has not yet chosen a replacement but will not leave the position open long, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Attorney General's resignation had not yet been made public.

Mr. Bush had repeatedly stood by Mr. Gonzales, an old friend and colleague from Texas, even as he faced increasing scrutiny for his leadership of the Justice Department, including his role in the dismissals of nine United States attorneys late last year and questions about whether he testified truthfully about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs.

"We're watching a political exercise," Mr. Bush said at a news conference this month, dismissing accusations that the Attorney General had stonewalled or misled a congressional inquiry. "I mean, this is a man who has testified, he's sent thousands of papers up there. There's no proof of wrong."

Mr. Gonzales's resignation is the latest in a series of high-level departures that has reshaped the end of Mr. Bush's second term. Karl Rove, another of Mr. Bush's close circle of aides from Texas, stepped down two weeks ago.

The official said that the decision was Mr. Gonzales's and that the president accepted it grudgingly. At the same time, the official acknowledged that the turmoil over his tenure as Attorney General had made continuing difficult.

"The unfair treatment that he's been on the receiving end of has been a distraction for the department," the official said.

Earlier this weekend, U.S. News' Paul Bedard reported that DHS chief Michael Chertoff was likely to be nominated as Gonzales' successor.

The AP reports, "A senior Justice Department official said that a likely temporary replacement for Gonzales is Solicitor General Paul Clement, who would take over until a permanent replacement is found.” (Via ThinkProgress).

Saudi Arabia's Man. With several American politicians declaring that Iraq should dump Maliki and speculation about the forces pushing former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi as a possible successor, it's worth reading this article by the NY Sun's Eli Lake from last August, 2006. It raises the question of whether the intermediate forces behind Allawi, who David Ignatius, Nibraz Kazimi, and others essentially say is Saudi Arabia, and Sunni Gulf countries, have tried to install their man before. Lake, August 2006:

The government of Iraq is secretly holding a Baathist cabal of military officers it claims attempted a coup against Prime Minister al-Maliki.

The plotters were rounded up July 5 with the help of American military authorities after the Iraqi government's security warning center sent word to Mr. Maliki, who was in Kuwait on his first official visit as head of state, two highly placed Iraqi sources said.

The prime minister quickly canceled a scheduled trip to Amman, Jordan, and returned to Baghdad to attend to the matter. At the time, Mr. Maliki's staff told reporters that the prime minister was cutting his trip short because of Iraq's "security situation."

In an interview last night, an adviser to Mr. Maliki and a member of parliament in Baghdad, Mithal al-Alusi, said a coup attempt indeed took place last month. He said the mutinous attempt to replace the elected government of Iraq was organized by military officers loyal to Saddam Hussein.

"The Baathists were trying to have this coup, and people have been arrested and it has been stopped. There have been a lot of rumors as to who is behind this," Mr. Alusi said, referring to speculation that the plot may have involved a former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, whose men worked with the CIA in 1995 to oust Saddam in a military coup.

Kazimi, formerly with the INC, offers his thoughts on why this Allawi political coup will never happen. "These are the usual amateurish stunts that US diplomats and spooks resort to when trying to arm-twist a Middle Eastern ‘flunky’; Washington is panicked by the Sunni withdrawal from the government whilst their current policy can be summed up with “Give the Sunnis everything they want”—including arms and protection to former insurgents who’ve been killing Americans and Iraqis for the last five years. By spreading this rumor, the Americans would like to spook Maliki into giving the Sunnis all that they want too—their current demands being the Presidency, and the Oil, Defense and Finance ministries and the Intelligence Service, in addition to their current portfolios—and fall into line with policy. Here’s a series of reality checks ...."

Also worth reading Walter Pincus' summary of Allawi's comments about his Iraqi lobbying benefactor in an interview with CNN today. Likely Allawi benefactor is perhaps former Iraqi defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, based in London, and fighting charges of embezzling $1 billion in government funds. (Shalaan, for his part, accused Iran of concocting the evidence against him).

This 2005 piece also worth rereading if only for the realization that Maliki and Allawi have been so personally at it for a while. And a usual player in the dispute is the de-Baathification commission's Chalabi, who can only come out the winner from them finishing each other off, as long as everyone has essentially conceded that traditional electoral democracy was overrated anyway, and is contemplating the public relations challenges and strategies for tolerating a possible junta of national salvation.

National Review's Jonathan Adler: "If the Administration could avoid a protracted confirmation bloodletting — a very big if — I think that replacing Alberto Gonzales with Michael Chertoff would be a very positive step. Gonzales' departure is long overdue. Indeed, the only remotely defensible reason for his remaining as AG has been that Senate Democrats would conduct show trials during his successor's confirmation hearings. While the Department of Homeland Security has hardly been without problems of its own, there are no questions about Chertoff's intellect and integrity. Indeed, he would bring substantial experience to the job — more than Gonzales had — and would be more respected by those who fear Gonzales has unduly politicized the Justice Department. Before coming to DHS, Chertoff was a federal judge, U.S. Attorney, and Assistant Attorney General. That said, I find it hard to believe the administration will make this move, and so the Justice Department will have to hobble along for another 16 months with AGAG at the helm."

Go read this. One is mystified about why it would have not been a million times easier for the government to get a FISA warrant after it found Yassin Aref's name and number in a notebook in a terrorist camp in Rawah Iraq, which would then enable it to investigate if there is a case against him with wiretap and other evidence it could admit without question into court. When it has probable cause, why not use it? Is the argument really just that it is too much of a hassle? As if dealing with the possibility that the evidence could be thrown out of court is not more of a hassle?

For those interested in Congressional legal issues, check out the new blog, Point of Order, written by former House counsel Michael Stern, who led the House intelligence committe's investigation of Duke Cunningham.

"For the Purpose" loophole in Bush's torture executive order. The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage:

Top military lawyers have told senators that President Bush's new rules for CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists could allow abuses that violate the Geneva Conventions, according to Senate and military officials.

The Judge Advocates General of all branches of the military told the senators that a July 20 executive order establishing rules for the treatment of CIA prisoners appeared to be carefully worded to allow humiliating or degrading interrogation techniques when the interrogators' objective is to protect national security rather than to satisfy sadistic impulses.

The JAGs expressed their concerns at a meeting late last month with Senators John Warner of Virginia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and an aide representing John McCain of Arizona, who could not attend because he was campaigning for president. All three senators are Republicans who have been key proponents of laws banning the abuse of detainees, and have vowed to monitor the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners.

The top JAG for the US Army, Major General Scott C. Black, followed up on the meeting this month by sending a memo to lower-ranking soldiers reminding them that Bush's executive order applies only to the CIA, not to military interrogations. Black told soldiers they must follow Army regulations, which "make clear that [the Geneva Conventions are] the minimum humane treatment standard" for prisoners.

"This Executive Order does not change the standard for the Army. . . . I want to ensure that there is no confusion concerning the Executive Order's lack of applicability to the Army," Black wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe. "As a Corps, we must be diligent to ensure that all interrogation and detention operations comply with the Army standard."

In an e-mail yesterday, a Justice Department spokesman defended Bush's order as "consistent" with the minimum standards of humane treatment required by the Geneva Conventions.

But the JAGs told the senators that a key part of the order opens the door to violations of the section of the Geneva Conventions that outlaws "cruel treatment and torture" and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment," officials familiar with the discussion said.

The JAGs cited language in the executive order in which Bush said CIA interrogators may not use "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual." As an example, it lists "sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation."

Among lawyers, "for the purpose" language is often used to mean that a person must specifically intend to do something, such as causing humiliation, in order to violate a statute. The JAGs said Bush's wording appears to make it legal for interrogators to undertake that same abusive action if they had some other motive, such as gaining information.

Other law-of-war specialists agreed that this part of Bush's executive order creates an escape clause allowing abusive treatment.

Two former Reagan administration officials, Robert S. Turner and P.X. Kelley, wrote an op-ed page piece in The Washington Post on July 26 criticizing Bush's order as a violation of the Geneva Conventions that could endanger captured US soldiers by eroding respect for the treaty. Among their criticisms, they also singled out the "for the purpose" wording.

Newsweek has a long report on the US's frustrated efforts to get bin Laden, along with this grim prognosis:

... When the United States struck Afghanistan in 2001, "there were probably 3,000 core Al Qaeda operatives," says Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate School. "We killed or captured about 1,000; about 1,000 more ended up in distant parts of the world. And about 1,000 ended up in Waziristan. But the great terror university in Afghanistan is gone; they've relied on the Web since. They haven't had the hands-on instruction and the bonding of the camps. That's resulted in low-skill levels. Their tradecraft is really much poorer."

The danger now, says Arquilla, is that the longer the Iraq War goes on, the more skilled the new generations of jihadists will become. "They're getting re-educated," he says. "The first generation of Al Qaeda came through the [Afghan] camps. The second generation are those who've logged on [to Islamist Web sites]. The next generation will be those who have come through the crucible of Iraq. Eventually, their level of skill is going to be greater than the skill of the original generation."

Gonzales Out? U.S. News' Paul Bedard: "The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general." What would you bet, who has longer in his job, Gonzales or Maliki?

A former professor of mine, Philip Zelikow, a person I consider of high integrity, including for speaking out publicly and repeatedly against the use of torture and for long urging the administration to close black site prisons, is having a rough day in the blogosphere. He's been chastised by among others Glenn Greenwald, whose work I admire, for not revealing in an interview with ABC this week that he is an outside consultant to the lobby firm BGR when he spoke to them about Iraq recently, including commenting that he believed people in the U.S. government were thinking about such post-Maliki scenarios. As IraqSlogger's Christina Davidson first reported this past week, BGR recently snagged a $300,000 contract to represent former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allai, who is seeking to have Iraqi prime minister Maliki replaced -- by himself. Naturally, if Zelikow was working on the account for Allawi at the same time he was telling the media that he thinks Maliki should be replaced, that would be a conflict of interest that should have been disclosed.

But it turns out, Zelikow, a former counselor to Secretary of State Rice, says he did not know about the Allawi contract with BGR at the time of the ABC interview, and did not learn of it until he started getting called by the media about it two days afterwards.

He writes, "I'm listed as a senior adviser to BGR, which means I'm an outside consultant who gives them advice on issues from time to time, while I work fulltime here in Charlottesville at UVA. For example, I helped raise money and direct donations on Darfur (involving ....the charitable foundation now known as 'Not On My Watch'), help on various issues connected to Persian Gulf security, .... on Thailand, ... India (they represent the govt of India). Of course I do not talk to the State Department about any of these matters, since I'm still barred from doing so under federal law.

"Although I've disclosed the Kurdish connection in my Iraq work, I haven't done any direct work for or with the Kurds who are represented by the firm. And I've done nothing on Allawi at all and had no idea that he was a client. He wasn't on our client list and the filing was made public only after the original Iraqslgger story. I first heard about a possible connection on Thursday (two days after the ABC News comment) when I got calls from Isikoff, Anne Gearan with AP, and CNN. CNN didn't correct their story until a day later.

(Posted updated below the fold with a new statement from ABC)

"The one Iraq-related matter I have discussed with BGR is my view of the Kurdish situation. Therefore, in both written and oral discussions with Congressman Snyder's committee I highlighted (in a spotlighted text box) my role in advising a firm that was helping the Kurdish regional government, precisely so no one could make any accusation of concealment.

"And, no, I am not formally consulting with the administration about Iraq policy. I talk about Iraq issues with a number of Republicans and Democrats in an effort to help both sides find a common way forward, and therefore preferred not to take sides in public testimony. I'm not doing paid work on Iraq for anyone in the government."

My sense is if Zelikow made a mistake, it was not one of concealing a conflict of interest, because he not only wasn't working on the BGR Allawi account, but didn't know about it at the time he was interviewed; but rather that he didn't preempt the perception of a possible conflict of interest, and that the best thing would have been to make sure the media knew about his BGR work. The argument that he's deceitful strikes me as totally unfair. As he says, it's "hard to see how to preempt the conflict if you don't know there is one. If they brought up the Kurds, different story."

As for following my own advice, I studied with Zelikow at the Kennedy School in 1995, and worked as a staff researcher for a bipartisan task force of which he was the executive director in 2002-2003, called the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age.

Late Update: Zelikow sends this updated statement he received from ABC News, August 30th:

From: "Sproul, Robin V" Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:10:11 +0000 Conversation: ABC News Interview Subject: ABC News Interview

Dr. Zelikow:

Thank you again for speaking with me today. I apologize for the delay in addressing this issue.

Upon further reporting about the exact nature of your relationship with BGR, it is now clear to us why you did not disclose your occasional consultancy work with BGR. We now understand that you have discussed one Iraq related matter with BGR, your views on the Kurdish situation, and that you were not in a position to know the extent of BGR's other work on Iraq when we conducted the interview with you on August 21. Your participation in the interview was appropriate and professional and we appreciate the insight you provided our reporter. As you know, our interest in talking to you was based on your past work in the State Department, your current position as a professor of history at the University of Virginia, and your continued unpaid and unofficial role as a respected advisor on Iraq issues to members of both political parties.

We would welcome you back on any ABC News program in the future as an expert on Iraq issues.

At this time, we have sent an updated statement to our World News website.

Robin V. Sproul
Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief
ABC News

Bloomberg: Brzezinski endorses Barack Obama.

Writes a reader: "Oh, this is great. [The Reserve Officers Association of the United States] is becoming a shill for the White House.....!"

With the biggest station and more money flowing and disappearing in world history, if you can't have an (indirectly) CIA-funded putsch in Baghdad, it's hard to imagine where you could have one these days. Still, I bet it doesn't happen. This would be at least the second time Allawi fronted a failed coup, the last time Saddam was still in power.

(And of course, I'm being snarky. Such an operation wouldn't happen without authorization from the White House, which doesn't seem forthcoming. Yet, anyhow. For his part, a former Agency analyst dismisses the notion. "The Iraqi intelligence service is not to be equated with the INA, and I don't see much of a circumstantial case." It's worth noting that there does seem to be something in the full NIE if not the unclassified key findings that prompted everyone from Bush to Hillary Clinton, Carl Levin and now Dianne Feinstein and Peter Hoekstra to call for Maliki to be replaced, even though a new government could take months to put together, as the Maliki one did, and it's hard to see how anyone who came next would be any better, for lots of structural reasons. Something that seemingly goes beyond the analysis of the unclassified key findings that describe what everybody knows about him being too passive on the national reconciliation front.)

Update: Justin has more on a more likely direct funder of Allawi's latest lobbying efforts: "In the past, Allawi has funded his Washington efforts through the generosity of wealthy expatriates. In 2003 and 2004, an Iraqi doctor living in London paid $340,000 to the lobbying firm Preston Gates Ellis and others to promote Allawi in the nation's capital."

LAT:

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders over the course of the war.

Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.

Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop buildup before force levels are decreased to their pre-buildup numbers sometime next year.

Pace's recommendations reflect the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who initially expressed private skepticism about the strategy ordered by Bush and directed by Petraeus, before publicly backing it.

According to administration and military officials, the Joint Chiefs believe it is of crucial strategic importance to reduce the size of the U.S. force in Iraq in order to bolster the military's ability to respond to other threats, a view that is shared by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Pace is expected to offer his advice privately instead of issuing a formal report. Still, the position of Pace and the Joint Chiefs could add weight to that of Bush administration critics, including Democratic presidential candidates, that the U.S. force should be reduced.

Misuses of History. The Politico: "A historian quoted by President Bush to help argue that critics of the administration’s Iraq policy echo those who questioned the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Japan after World War II angrily distanced himself from the president’s remarks Thursday. 'They [war supporters] keep on doing this,' said MIT professor John Dower. 'They keep on hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and it’s always more and more implausible, strange and in a fantasy world. They’re desperately groping for a historical analogy, and their uses of history are really perverse.' Dower was decidedly unhappy with his 15 minutes of fame. 'I have always said as a historian that the use of Japan [in arguing for the likelihood of successfully bringing democracy to Iraq] is a misuse of history,' he said when notified of the Bush quote. He immediately directed me to a November 2002 New York Times op-ed where he outlined 10 reasons why 'most of the factors that contributed to the success of nation-building in occupied Japan would be absent in an Iraq militarily defeated by the United States.'”

Go read Andrew Sullivan on the Weimar presidency.

NIE observation, from a Hill reader:

Hi Laura,

I saw your post and thought you might also add this excerpt. It seems particularly relevant given the proposals being advanced for some type of "change in mission" by many figures in Congress and elsewhere in the political arena.

"We assess that changing the mission of Coalition forces from a primarily counterinsurgency and stabilization role to a primary combat support role for Iraqi forces and counterterrorist operations to prevent AQI from establishing a safehaven would erode security gains achieved thus far. The impact of a change in mission on Iraq's political and security environment and throughout the region probably would vary in intensity and suddenness of onset in relation to the rate and scale of a Coalition redeployment. Developments within the Iraqi communities themselves will be decisive in determining political and security trajectories." ...

The assessment/warning opens two questions: If the IC assesses that mission change will undercut security gains, then policy makers will ask (1) How long will it take for security to improve to a level where a mission change is not unacceptably costly? and (2) What will sustaining a U.S. "counterinsurgency and stabilization" mission require in terms of personnel and $ during upcoming appropriations/authorization decision cycles? Some will read the NIE as advising against a change in the U.S. mission, but the NIE provides little guidance about how long it may take to reach an acceptable transition point (if that is indeed the goal).

...

Without wading too deeply into the murky water of Vietnam analogies, it appears that the U.S. plan may come up against political obstacles similar to those that undercut early U.S. counterinsurgency efforts like the Strategic Hamlets Program. The comparison is not fully sound, but observers could paint Maliki in the same light as Diem, i.e. as an insecure leader resisting the dilution of his control/independence by external reform and security proposals, particularly to the extent that those proposals may strengthen potential political/security rivals. A "bottom up" security approach coupled with central political reform/compromise may be sound counterinsurgency strategy, but, as the NIE says, it will only be successful to the extent that political support at the center is present/achievable.

As to whether that political support may be forthcoming, the Pentagon Papers may be instructive:

"The U.S., for its part, was asking Diem to forego independence by accepting the wisdom of the American recommendations for reform. The central question was whether he would--or could--do so. Among those who responded to this question in the negative, J. Kenneth Gaibraith was most trenchant:

'In my completely considered view . . . Diem will not reform administratively or politically in any effective way. That is because he cannot. It is politically naive to expect it. He senses that he cannot let power go because he would be thrown out.'" Just what is it that we are asking Mr. Maliki to do, and what should we expect?

Hot Off the Presses, the unclassified key judgments of the new NIE on Iraq (.pdf).

ABC gets an advanced look at the NIE on Iraq, whose unclassified key findings are to be released today at 2:30pm:

The NIE report says, "There have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation since our last National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in January 2007. The steep escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now, and overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks."

The report goes on to say, "Coalition forces, working with Iraqi forces, tribal elements, and some Sunni insurgents, have reduced al-Qaida in Iraq's (AQI) capabilities, restricted its freedom of movement, and denied it grassroots support in some areas. However, the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high; Iraq's sectarian groups remain unreconciled; AQI retains the ability to conduct high-profile attacks; and to date, Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively. There have been modest improvements in economic output, budget execution, and government finances but fundamental structural problems continue to prevent sustained progress in economic growth and living conditions."

Other key findings from the National Intelligence Estimate:

-Iraq's security will continue to improve modestly during the next six to 12 months, but that levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance.

-Broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long term political progress, and economic development are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments.

As for the fight against Al Qaeda, which the administration has been touting, the report says, "…the emergence of 'bottom-up' security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI represent the best prospect for improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi government accepts and support them. We also assess that under some conditions 'bottom-up initiatives' could pose risks to the Iraq government."

Via correspondents, check out this from Juan Cole: Military Coup Planned For Baghdad?

A rumor is circulating among well-connected and formerly high-level Iraqi bureaucrats in exile in places like Damascus that a military coup is being prepared for Iraq. I received the following from a reliable, knowledgeable contact. There is no certitude that this plan can or will be implemented. That it is being discussed at high levels seems highly likely.

"There is serious talk of a military commission (majlis `askari) to take over the government. The parties would be banned from holding positions, and all the ministers would be technocrats, so to speak. . . [The writer indicates that attempts have been made to recruit cabinet members from the ranks of expatriate technocrats.]

The six-member board or commission would be composed on non-political former military personnel who are presently not part of the government OR the military establishment, such as it is in Iraq at the moment. It is said that the Americans are supporting this behind the scenes.

The plan includes a two-year period during which political parties would not be permitted to be part of the government, but instead would prepare and strengthen the parties for an election which would not have lists, but real people running for real seats. The two year period would be designed to take control of security and restore infrastructure.

. . .[I]t is another [desperate plan], but one which many many Iraqis will support, since they are sick of their country being pulled apart by the "imports" - Maliki, Allawi, Jaafari et al. The military group is composed of internals, people who have the goal of securing the country even at the risk of no democracy, so they say. "

IraqSlogger's Christina Davidson: BGR newly registered* lobbyist for Allawi - or forces backing him? (Via TPMm).

*Update: Note from Christina. "They did register. DOJ just hadn't processed their papers yet. Computers were down." And she asks, who do you think is paying?

Walter Pincus: "The Bush administration plans to screen thousands of people who work with charities and nonprofit organizations that receive U.S. Agency for International Development funds to ensure they are not connected with individuals or groups associated with terrorism, according to a recent Federal Register notice. The plan would require the organizations to give the government detailed information about key personnel, including phone numbers, birth dates and e-mail addresses. But the government plans to shroud its use of that information in secrecy and does not intend to tell groups deemed unacceptable why they are rejected. The plan has aroused concern and debate among some of the larger U.S. charitable organizations and recipients of AID funding. Officials of InterAction, representing 165 foreign aid groups, said last week that the plan would impose undue burdens and has no statutory basis. The organization requested that it be withdrawn." Hint of intimidation? hard to understand what's going on here. The Bush administration didn't manage to vet out blood diamonds dealer Viktor Bout from its ammo and logistics suppliers and it's worried about USAID charities? Fine but shouldn't it start with all those folks contracting with DOD who um have security clearances to screen gov't threats and are now headed to jail? Like Mitch Wade? Who scratched the backs of the now disappeared guys running the Pentagon domestic spying programs inside the DoD/CIFA?

Update: The Washington Institute's Matthew Leavitt writes why he supports the policy.

Politico: Pro-war group has interesting funders: "A new group, Freedom’s Watch, is launching Wednesday with a $15 million, five-week campaign of TV, radio and Web ads featuring military veterans that is aimed at retaining support in Congress for President Bush’s “surge” policy on Iraq. ... The board consists of Blakeman; Fleischer; Mel Sembler, a Florida Republican who was Bush’s ambassador to Italy; William P. Weidner, president and chief operating officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.; and Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The donors include Sembler; Anthony Gioia, a Buffalo businessman who was Bush’s ambassador to Malta; Kevin Moley, who was Bush’s ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva; Howard Leach, a former Republican National Committee finance chairman who was Bush’s ambassador to France; Dr. John Templeton of Pennsylvania, chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation; Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast Spectacor, the huge Philadelphia sports and entertainment firm; Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and ranked by Forbes magazine as the third-wealthiest American; and Richard Fox, who is chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and was Pennsylvania State Chairman of the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980." (What's up with Pennsylvania?) More.

Bush Cites The Quiet American. From the Tribune's Swamp:

In his speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City today, President Bush summoned up the Alden Pyle CIA agent character of Graham Greene's classic Vietnam novel "The Quiet American" which is essentially a contemplation on the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

I'm not sure he really wanted to go there or why his speechwriters would take him there.

As Bush said:

In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

After America entered the Vietnam War, Graham Greene -- the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. Matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people. In 1972, one anti-war senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?"

Bush seemed to be seizing on Greene's idea of U.S. naivete on entering the war and trying to turn it around and apply it to those now calling for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

But Greene wrote his book about the way America bumbled into Vietnam, not how it left it.

By reminding people of Greene's book, Bush was inviting listeners to recall the mistakes his administration made in entering and prosecuting the Iraq War. Did he really want to do that?

Even more astonishing is that Bush's speechwriters included in the president's speech a mention of the very fictional character some of the president's critics have used for years to lambaste him for what they consider a major strategic blunder.

The thinking goes, Bush may have been well-intentioned like Pyle but, also like the Greene character, Bush's efforts are ultimately doomed. ...

Finally, something war champions and war critics can agree upon.

DoD rep and attorney for detainees discussing Gitmo on NPR's Diane Rehm show.

AP: Second Iranian American to be released in Iran?

Remembering Freedom Fries.

The NYT has quite a story about Eliot Spitzer's dad, a wealthy real estate developer, and notorious Republican PR operative Roger Stone and some threatening phone calls made from a residence of the latter to the former.

CIA Office of Inspector General Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks (.pdf). Completed in 2005 by a team headed by IG John Helgerson. AP, NYT and WP reports. Tenet's statement.

CIA director Mike Hayden's response below the fold

Statement to Employees by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
General Michael V. Hayden on the Release of the 9/11 IG Report Executive
Summary

Earlier this month, Congress passed a bill implementing some of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The legislation, lengthy and complex, includes a provision dealing with the report that CIA's Office of Inspector General prepared on the performance of our agency prior to September 11th. The act gave me 30 days to make available to the public a version of the report's executive summary, declassified to the maximum extent possible. Today, well within deadline, I am releasing that material.

While meeting the dictates of the law, I want to make it clear that this declassification was neither my choice nor my preference. Two Directors of National Intelligence have supported the agency's position against release.

The long, grueling fight against terrorism, which depends in very real part on the quality of our intelligence, demands that we keep our focus on the present and the future. We must draw lessons from our past--and we have--without becoming captive to it. I thought the release of this report would distract officers serving their country on the frontlines of a global conflict. It will, at a minimum, consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed. I also remain deeply concerned about the chilling effect that may follow publication of the previously classified work, findings, and recommendations of the Office of Inspector General. The important work of that unit depends on candor and confidentiality.

In keeping with the letter and spirit of the law, CIA has in its declassification process removed relatively little from the report's executive summary. We focused chiefly on the protection of essential sources and methods. I also thought it unnecessary and unwise to permit identification of officers below the level of Center Chief, even if only by title, and those passages have been deleted, as well.

There is some background that I believe you need to know. In 2002, the Joint Inquiry Committee of Congress instructed our Office of Inspector General to determine if any agency officers should be rewarded for outstanding service in the run-up to 9/11 or held accountable for the unsatisfactory discharge of their duties. In June 2005, the Inspector General presented my predecessor, Porter Goss, with a final report answering that specific mandate. The summary, like the complete report, is a very human document. In it, one group of agency officers--dedicated to their task--looks back to examine and judge the actions of another group of agency officers--dedicated to their task, the task of
understanding and combating al-Qai'da.

You should also know that there are very different perspectives on this report. It was important for us to conduct our own review--that is something on which most, if not all of us, can agree. But our colleagues referred to in the document, and others who have read it, took strong exception to its focus, methodology, and conclusions. In October 2005, Director Goss declined to accept its primary recommendation--the creation of an Accountability Board to consider disciplinary action against a handful of individuals at different levels of command. I have re-read the report, carefully evaluated what it says, and have found no reason to revisit his decision.

Director Goss noted at the time that the officers cited include some of our finest. With inadequate resources, they and those they led worked flat out against a tough, secretive foe. As the executive summary points out, there was never a question of misconduct. While they, and our government as a whole, were unable despite their best efforts to shield our nation from attack, their skill, wisdom, energy, and leadership were key elements in the agency's victories over al-Qai'da before and after 9/11. They have made powerful contributions to our national security. They have prevented other acts of terrorism, and they have saved innocent lives, in our country and overseas.

This is not about avoiding responsibility. In fact, the opposite is true. CIA has for years spoken publicly, openly, and explicitly about shortcomings in its counter-terror programs before 9/11. Those shortcomings have been the subject of hearings, studies, panels, press reports, books, and critiques of all kinds, some fair, some not. As you will see, the Inspector General found no "silver bullet" that would have prevented the terror attacks of September 11th. There was, in the words of the summary, "no single point of failure."

Nor did CIA wait for this formal review to begin identifying and correcting the systemic flaws discussed in the report. This is an organization that is self-aware, self-critical, and, to a great degree, self-improving. The Inspector General's report, like others before it, found areas in which CIA could do better, and, in the intervening years, we have worked hard to do just that.

Counter-terrorism is an exceptionally difficult challenge. The risks, and the stakes, are extremely high. The enemy is adaptive, resilient, and determined to strike us again here at home. There are limits to what intelligence can accomplish, and there can be no guarantee of perfect security. But the talented, motivated officers who work against this threat day and night give our nation a strong advantage. Together, we recognize that the finest tribute we can pay to the victims of terrorism is a redoubled effort to rip that scourge out by the roots. We can, and should, be proud of the many great things CIA has done, and will do, to defend the United States in a very dangerous world.

Mike Hayden

Janeane Garofalo on next season's 24.

WP: Iran to release scholar Haleh Esfandiari on bail. "'We are very pleased that after 3 and a half months in prison that she is being released. I hope this means she can come home soon. We don't know anything about conditions of her release and we're waiting to hear from the judiciary what the terms of the release are,' said her husband Shaul Bakhash, a George Mason University professor." More.

The NYT reports on the new NIE on Iraq, just delivered to Congress.

The White House found those wiretap documents the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees have been demanding. There's just one problem. (And why seriously would anyone but Cheney's office have them? Gonzales just works there).

Muckraker: Schlozman out at DOJ.

Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress have published their third bi-annual Terrorism Index. "In the third Terrorism Index, more than 100 of America’s most respected foreign-policy experts see a world that is growing more dangerous, a national security strategy in disrepair, and a war in Iraq that is alarmingly off course."

They're back. The dreaded Venezuelan space terrorists.

The WP's Peter Baker missed a few important insights in its piece on why Bush's democracy vision has stalled. The two biggest: Bush's vision of overturning tyranny and bringing democracy to Iraq has been dashed in massive sectarian bloodshed, loss of life, turmoil, insurgency, uncertainty and heartbreak and a massive devotion of US resources that might have gone to promoting grand things lots of places, and secondly, that in many targeted countries, promoting democracy would mean allowing Islamist groups, some designated as terrorist groups by the Bush administration, to prevail. The piece left out so many big examples of the contradictions -- Musharraf/Pakistan, Saudi Arabia whose corrupt royal family is so close to the White House and Cheney's office, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt -- of where Bush has decided he isn't quite sure he really wants democratic realities to be realized, and he just may prefer the tyrant, as Cheney openly does in Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia. While the piece would seem to promote a few voices blaming the stalling of Bush's grand vision on the bureaucrats in the U.S. government, it also tried to save itself from total ingratiation with the White House by naming responsible the office of the vice president's "little-girl crush on strongmen." But how did it miss how corrupted and stalled and conflicted is the vision at the very top of the U.S. government -- with the president himself -- and the realities the president has found himself confronting? Bush is now using all the Sunni tyrants, the autocrats, royals and propped up, hardly a two of them democratically elected, to counter Iran, for instance. Bush have a hard time with the policy? Congress may be interested to know due to the $30 billion in military aid to those states it's being asked to approve by the Bush White House.

The U.S. government may be in serious trouble if and when Pakistan's military dictator falls. Same the hideously corrupted Saudi royal family, so personally close with Bush and Cheney. They don't seem to have too much use for democracy when it comes to their friends, the corrupt autocrats. It's hard to understand how the piece skipped such big glaring points and contradictions, as if Bush's pure longing for democracy in the world had not been sabotaged by nothing so much as conflicts of interest going to the very top, and U.S. national security interests defined by the very top. How would we know if Bush were really serious about democracy? If he told Riyadh to stuff it. That's never going to happen, so we can rest assured that Bush is quite content to live with the art of the possible, with a very high degree of realism, and any griping about the bureaucrats is something journalists should know better than to accept as more than a wink-nod excuse for the president's own decisions to compromise his vision of promoting democracy.

Update: Comments reader DT: "I agree that Peter Baker could have said more about Pakistan and Saudi, about Islamist groups (Hamas in the piece might be taken as representative of the species), perhaps about wink-nod (but Bush really seems to _believe_ that stuff, including Sharansky -- he just can't grasp the contradictions), and Iraq. I may have missed a few things. Baker still accomplishes a lot, and on page one. He gets Cheney nicely. The influence of Sharansky is news to me. The damage to 'color revolutions' by American support is made clear. Iraq is an obvious failure, perhaps so obvious Baker didn't spend much time on it (he does mention it). So overall, I'm very glad this piece got published. Maybe I'm in a minority -- this could well be -- but I did not take it as ingratiating to the White House, which turns out to look pretty incompetent and compromised (e.g. the mention of Bush's neglect of the deposed Thai at the UN, plus the general ham-fistedness of the Bush staff ('Gerson, Bartlett, Karl Rove, Peter Wehner'). I don't think this is pleasant breakfast reading for 43. But I'm willing to accept that the article is a rorschach test for all of us. Myself, I'm glad to have it, and hope Fred Hiatt reads it for breakfast."

Correspondent D: "I think Bush doesn't know the difference between democracy and legitimation. He wants the latter with as little as of the former as necessary to establish the latter, and he conceives it as something strictly electoral, sentimental and abstract. ... Bush turns over control of the bureaucracy to the vice president and then denounces the bureaucracy because he can't control it. It's like he read Sharansky and suddenly believed he was president. Meanwhile, those who run the empire on a daily basis roll their eyes and go back to work. ... Baker probably saw a way to ingratiate himself and get back in the door. The people are so tiresome."

NYT: "At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, 'is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president’s Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence.'"

The Kontogiannis Rabbit Hole. Quite a coincidence, huh?

Documents show that the daughter of Thomas Kontogiannis, a New York developer who pleaded guilty to laundering bribe money for Cunningham, bought a home owned by the late uncle of Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern, one of the prosecutors on the Cunningham case.

Michael's defense attorney, Ray Granger, says the deal gives the appearance of favoritism to Kontogiannis. He also alleges in papers filed in federal court yesterday that the federal government likely knew about the transaction, which he said involved a bank account that was used to launder bribes for the ex-congressman.

Michael, who is Kontogiannis' nephew, is scheduled to go on trial next month on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, obstruction of justice and unlawful monetary transactions.

The papers allege that Kontogiannis' daughter, Annette Apergis, purchased a Nassau County, N.Y., home from a member of the Halpern family in June 2005. The prosecutor's uncle died in 2003 and the home, on a privately owned and maintained street, was bought from his widow, according to the papers.

But the transaction wasn't recorded until this year � after Kontogiannis took a plea deal from prosecutors. Kontogiannis pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering for his role in hiding the bribes given to former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham through mortgages. ...

The court filing includes copies of the land records and checks detailing the land sale, which took place days after The San Diego Union-Tribune first wrote about the questionable sale of Cunningham's Rancho Santa Fe home. ...

Included in the filing is a declaration from Michael, which says that in late 2006 or early 2007 Kontogiannis told him that he had a “common bond” with one of the prosecutors on the case – Halpern – and that Kontogiannis and Halpern's uncle had been neighbors for years. ...

Granger's motion is as much an attack on Kontogiannis as it is on the prosecutors.

Search warrant applications by government investigators for Kontogiannis' businesses alleged that Kontogiannis used numerous bank accounts connected to his various businesses to further his mortgage frauds, according to the papers filed by Granger.

One of the bank accounts was used in May 2004 to launder bribes to Cunningham to pay off a mortgage on the former congressman's Rancho Santa Fe mansion, according to Granger's motion.

Granger said that same account was used by Annette Apergis in June 2005 – more than a year later – to buy the Long Island home of Halpern's uncle. Granger argues that “in all likelihood that the proceeds of criminal activity were used to purchase the Halpern residence.”

Further, Granger said, because of the intense investigation of Kontogiannis it is unlikely the government did not know of the connection between the two families. ...

The motion also alleges that by turning a “blind eye” to Kontogiannis' continuing fraudulent practices, the federal government is in essence offering an improper inducement to secure his cooperation – which is also ground for dismissing the case.

Update: Marcy has posted the court filings:

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/files/070807_michael_motion_to_dismiss.pdf

Her comment: "Michael has a point here. The government has acknowledged that Kontogiannis was involved in extensive mortgage fraud. But the plea only included one count. So there is one giant unanswered question why the government is choosing not to charge the rest of them."

NYT:

[FBI director Robert Mueller's] notes also reveal a series of meetings before and after March 10 between Mr. Mueller and other high-level administration officials. Some of those meetings were attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, suggesting that Mr. Cheney had played a central role in the controversy. Other regular participants included Mr. Gonzales and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, which conducted the eavesdropping program.

The notes, which were turned over to the committee this week, are not dated. But they suggest that Mr. Mueller gradually became an intermediary between the White House and the Justice Department, meeting with each side almost hourly as the crisis deepened.

During their bedside meeting with Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card tried to obtain his signature on a presidential order reauthorizing the program. Mr. Comey, acting as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft’s hospitalization, had declined to sign the reauthorization, he said, because he believed that part of the program was illegal.

During the meeting, Mr. Ashcroft rebuffed the White House entreaties to sign the directive. Mr. Comey was present during that session, and Mr. Mueller’s notes show that Mr. Comey then briefed the F.B.I. director on Mr. Ashcroft’s remarks. Mr. Ashcroft, the notes said, reviewed his legal objections to the eavesdropping program and complained to Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card that he had been “barred from obtaining the advice he needed on the program by the strict compartmentalization rules of the WH,” a reference to the extreme secrecy imposed by the White House.

Here are Mueller's notes. Note the meeting with Cheney 3/23/04 in his office at Cheney's request, p. 6 of 6, The End. More from Spencer.

More White House departures in the works?

A White House wedding in the works. (Wouldn't you know a former Rove aide would be involved?)

Benchmarks, meet the reengineered Iraqi parliament.

Is the reported "clash" between the White House and the Iraq commander Petraeus a ruse? After all, by many accounts, Petraeus and the White House want the same thing: to go big for as long as possible. It's hard not to wonder if this is a "clash" that will be "resolved" with the White House not really giving up anything at all. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the White House is seeking to control the optics with Congressional Republican leaders anxious about how basically continuing a maximal US presence in Iraq will affect their '08 reelection prospects.

Bloomberg:

Many Mississippians have benefited from Governor Haley Barbour's efforts to rebuild the state's devastated Gulf Coast in the two years since Hurricane Katrina. The $15 billion or more in federal aid the former Republican national chairman attracted has reopened casinos and helped residents move to new or repaired homes.

Among the beneficiaries are Barbour's own family and friends, who have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from hurricane-related business. A nephew, one of two who are lobbyists, saw his fees more than double in the year after his uncle appointed him to a special reconstruction panel. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in June raided a company owned by the wife of a third nephew, which maintained federal emergency- management trailers.

Meanwhile, the governor's own former lobbying firm, which he says is still making payments to him, has represented at least four clients with business linked to the recovery.

Gulf News report: Baghdad set for a shake-up:

Under pressure from the Congress, Arab states and Sunni Iraqi leaders, the US administration on Tuesday set the stage for "major" political changes in Iraq.

The changes will be in "the structure, nature and direction of the Iraqi state," a senior American official in Baghdad was quoted by AP as saying.

He did not give out details, but the plan is expected to be high on the agenda of a 'crisis summit' which would be attended by key Iraqi leaders who seek to save the crumbling national unity government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.

Toy recall hysteria. Like sharks. Is the media fueling it? Consumers? Is this really even in the top ten of what most parents of small children worry about? Hard to fathom.

About the long-awaited "Petraeus" report? LAT: "Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it actually will be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government."

WP/NYT: U.S. to designate Iranian Revolutionary Guards corps a terrorist organization:

... For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Although administration discussions continue, the initial decision is to target the entire Guard Corps, U.S. officials said. The administration has not yet decided when to announce the new measure, but officials said they would prefer to do so before the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly next month, when the United States intends to increase international pressure against Iran. ...

Update: The Post's Robin Wright was on NPR this morning saying the decision reflects an expression of Washington's frustration at having trouble getting a third round of more meaningful economic sanctions through the UN Security Council (because of China's increased economic ties with Iran, she said) and was seen as a way to target the Guard Corps' substantial financial and business interests AND the foreign companies that do business with it absent that. Responding also to pressure from Congress.

More here.

Unbelievable. More here and here. Via Celia Perry.

Yediot Ahranot: Wanted: Hebrew, Farsi speakers.

NYT: "Mr. Rove failed his own party, as well as the American people, when he counseled President Bush to turn every serious policy debate — Social Security, the war in Iraq, even terrorism — into one more political dogfight. Today, despite Mr. Rove’s claims of invincibility, both houses of Congress are back in Democratic hands, Mr. Bush’s approval ratings are around 30 percent and many Republican presidential candidates are running as fast as they can away from the Bush legacy. Mr. Rove can now contemplate that legacy from his home in Texas. But he should not get too settled in. Congress needs to use all its power to bring Mr. Rove back to Washington to testify — in public and under oath — about how he used his office to put politics above the interests of the American people." Novak: Rove "irreplaceable."

WP: Rumsfeld grows aged.

NYT: Rove leaving White House. WSJ interview.

AP: Italy probe unearths huge Iraq arms deal.

FISA battle:

... McConnell and other officials ultimately briefed about 250 lawmakers on the issue and encountered little resistance to their proposed repair for surveillance involving purely foreign communications. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the intelligence committee chairman, who had received some of the first detailed briefings on the surveillance program, called Vice President Cheney in late June to explore options.

"I want to move forward," he said. But Democratic leaders wanted something in return: the release of long-sought administration documents describing the controversial warrantless wiretapping program Bush had authorized in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The administration declined to release the documents, which include Bush's presidential order allowing the wiretaps, as well as the administration's legal opinions justifying the action. Administration officials described a particular showdown with key Democratic leaders -- including Rockefeller and Carl M. Levin (Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which Democrats proposed a trade of sorts.

While the exchange was not a quid pro quo, the senators essentially said, "You give us the documents we want, and we'll give you the legislation," according to an administration official present, who said the response was "no." McConnell argued that the Democrats were "looking backwards" and that he was the "forward-looking guy," a witness said.

A critical moment for the Democrats came on July 24, when McConnell met in a closed session with senators from both parties to ask for urgent approval of a slimmed-down version of his bill. Armed with new details about terrorist activity and an alarming decline in U.S. eavesdropping capabilities, he argued that Congress had days, not weeks, to act. [...]

On July 31, McConnell met with Democratic leaders in an unusual night session to hash over their concerns. In McConnell's bill, the attorney general's office would certify that U.S. collection methods were in line with the law, a procedure Democrats told him they did not trust. In a series of conference calls, McConnell continued to complain about a Democratic-backed provision limiting warrantless surveillance to foreign suspects tied to terrorist groups. Democrats noted that an earlier, administration-backed measure had included similar language.

"There was a lot of back-and-forth," said a congressional official familiar with the discussion. Pelosi suggested as a compromise limiting the authority to "threats to national security." But McConnell -- whose office was getting e-mails throughout the negotiations from officials at the Justice Department, the vice president's office and elsewhere in the intelligence community -- remained firm, and eventually the Democrats relented and presented a bill that they believed had met McConnell's requirements.

McConnell deemed its fine print unacceptable, however, and in the end, it was the Republican bill, a near-copy of his proposal, that passed both chambers of Congress. It drew support not only from most Republicans but also from 16 Senate Democrats and 41 House Democrats. Hours after its passage, Pelosi declared portions of the bill "unacceptable" and forecast changes in the coming months.

Newsweek:

In 1943, U.S. servicemen stationed in Iraq were issued a pocket-size 41-page book entitled “A Short Guide to Iraq.” In straightforward prose, the book gave American soldiers a primer to help them through the cultural snarls and byways of the country in which they were stationed. They learned a little history, a little geography and a smattering of vocabulary and grammar.

In light of what we know about Iraq and the Middle East today, the book’s contents look a little slight. But when you reflect on what Americans knew about a then-obscure corner of the world in 1943, it looks like a godsend. Back then there was no television to beam a country’s culture into living rooms around the world. You couldn’t Google “Iraq” and learn basic history and culture on the fly. “A Short Guide to Iraq”—recently republished by the University of Chicago Press as “Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II”—filled a big gap in the knowledge of American troops in Iraq, and its overall message was certainly admirable: “You aren’t going to Iraq to change the Iraqis. Just the opposite. We are fighting this war to preserve the principle of ‘live and let live.’"...

Over and over, the book offers advice built upon the twin notions of tolerance and respect ...

McClatchy: "Two knowledgeable U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because intelligence on Iran is highly classified, said that the administration so far doesn't have 'smoking-gun' evidence that could be used publicly to justify an air attack [on Iran]. The presumed target of an attack would be camps in Iran where officials believe the Iranians are teaching Iraqi Shiite fighters how to fashion bombs that can destroy American armored vehicles."

ABC News investigates, are GOP leaders leaking state secrets? First Boehner, now Hoekstra. A bit of pattern analysis suggests that the loose lips may be especially pronounced in GOP leaders whose name include a consecutive "oe." Investigators note that the fact that they are also the biggest blow hards on leaks could be a sophisticated ruse to cover nefarious motives. Stay tuned. ...

Beach Reads. If it's not too late for your vacation, I highly recommend Julia Child's recently released memoir, My Life in France, written with and completed after her death by her nephew Alex Prud'Homme. The 36 year old slightly ditzy, California-raised, Wellesley educated new bride of a sophisticated fellow World War II Office of Strategic Services officer finds herself getting off the boat with him in post-war France without a clue about cooking, France, Europe, or her purpose in life. She soon discovers her passion which becomes as all consuming of an obsession and even, as she cooks eighteen versions of every dish to perfect it, a grind. Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunting investigators make an appearance persecuting the United States Information Agency's European hands and no one at first wants to publish what turns out later to be her multi volume bestseller, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. What sixties American housewife wants to spend all day cooking as convenience foods are entering the market, her first publisher worries? Almost two decades after arriving in Europe, after she and her husband grow disillusioned working for the U.S. government, they move back to the States, and Julia becomes an unexpected national star with her cooking shows on public television, only a few years after they first own a television. Towards the end of her life, Julia learns to live without her lifelong companion, Paul. It's a moving and a terrific read, and has glimpses into a contemporarily familiar strain of American political zealotry and hatred against liberalism going back, one sees, to its very beginnings.

Late Update: Reader DR comments, thanks for the recommendation... : "The Roy Cohn portrait was lovely. She skewered him as deftly as the plumpest French chicken.

"Whenever I read about McCarthy or any of the other periodic outbursts of American nativism, I'm reminded of how deep the current of know-nothing fearmongering resides in the American psyche. The war on terror is nothing but a replay of a century's worth of anti-communism, a bogeyman based on a reed of reality that's exploited as leverage to impose an otherwise unpopular right wing agenda. (Sorry about the mixed metaphor.) I recently went back and read Halberstam's The Best & The Brightest, which I somehow missed the first time around, which makes clear the direct connection between the McCarthy era and the Vietnam War, not only because anyone in the US government who actually knew anything about Asia was drummed out in the 'Who Lost China?' witchhunt, but because the entire fiasco was caused by our country's leaders' deep fear of looking soft on Communism. I highly recommend that book; it's particularly timely in light of our current replay in Iraq. (I found myself highlighting sentences that could have been written about that different war, 35 years after the book was written, some of them amazingly prescient.)'"

McClatchy: "Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy."

Scotsman: Brits want US out of Helmand province, Afghanistan. "The officer said small teams of [U.S.] special forces relied heavily on air strikes for cover as they were unable to defend themselves against large groups of insurgents. ... NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer acknowledged last month that mounting civilian casualties had hurt support for NATO and said commanders had ordered troops to hold off on attacks in some situations where civilians were at risk."

NYT: Deported Canadian Maher Arar, tortured for a year, was no threat, report shows.

Bush to have press conference at 10:30am, before heading to vacation in Crawford. What do you think he's going to announce? Vacation for the Constitution? An update on his recovery from Lyme disease? The surge is working? Some news about the terrorist surveillance program? Maybe this.

Interesting Nir Rosen piece on contractors in Iraq.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick mulls the Dems' political calculus in keeping Alberto Gonzales, and argues the cost in bad policy is too high:

There is virtually no way to reconcile Sen. Mark Pryor's, D-Ark., claim that Gonzales has "lied to the Senate" and needs to go with his vote to expand the reach of our warrantless eavesdropping program. And how can one possibly square Sen. Dianne Feinstein's, D-Calif., claim that the AG "just doesn't tell the truth" with her vote to give him yet more unchecked authority? You either trust this AG with the power to listen in on your phone calls or you do not, and the mumbled justifications for these "yes" votes ( … but Gonzales shares his authority with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell; … but the bill sunsets in six months) do nothing to lessen the impression that some Democrats mistrust Gonzales when it's convenient, but not when it's truly important.

NYT: DNI, political naif?

Big hints that alleged Duke Cunningham co-conspirator Tommy Kontogiannis is receiving highly unusual treatment from the U.S. government. You can read my theories about what's going on here and here.

More here and here.

Tuesday Update: Court didn't fingerprint TK, for security reasons at his February plea. Via Pacer, via Mrs. P.

On the road. Light posting.

If you have cable, check out a new AMC series, Mad Men, about the post-war/1950s Madison Avenue advertising industry and America in the early years of the mass consumer age, developed by some of the Sopranos team. You'll thank me.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Senate action on FISA legislation:

A few weeks ago, I made a personal commitment to the Director of National Intelligence that I would lead the Senate to passage of a bill that would help protect America from terrorist attack by enhancing our intelligence community’s foreign intelligence collection capability.

Senate Democrats worked in good faith with the Director of National Intelligence to produce the Rockefeller-Levin bill that was tough on terrorists, provided much-need oversight of the Attorney General, and did not infringe on the constitutional rights of American citizens. Rather than pass this bill, my Republican colleagues chose to rubberstamp a flawed Administration proposal that fails to provide the accountability needed in light of the Administration’s repeated past mismanagement of key tools in the war on terror.

This bill will sunset in six months. Over the course of the fall, I expect the Senate to work diligently on more permanent legislation that will better serve American national security interests and the American people.

Update: Statement from Senate Intelligence committee chairman Jay Rockefeller:

We all agreed Congress needed to take immediate action in order to help keep the country safe, and the Senate did that tonight.

My opposition to the final bill was based on the fact that it did not include the privacy protections and safeguards American citizens deserve and expect.

We had the opportunity to pass a more careful bill that would have given the DNI the authority he requested, while also protecting the rights of U.S. citizens.

Instead, this bill undermines the FISA Court and concedes unprecedented authority to the Attorney General.

It does contain the six-month sunset that we insisted upon, and that gives us an immediate opportunity and responsibility to come back and strike the right balance.

White House executive order on Lebanon.

Black Budget. "The Pentagon’s 2008 spending blueprint seeks $31.9 billion for classified programs, substantially higher than the $19.1 billion the U.S. military was devoting to 'black' initiatives in 2001, according to a new analysis. That’s 18 percent of the 2008 acquisition total of $176.8 billion, according to the July 25 analysis, compiled by Steven Kosiak of the Washington based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). It includes $14.4 billion for procurement, 14 percent of the total; and $17.5 billion for research and development (R&D), or 23 percent of the total, the analysis said. 'CSBA: 'Black' Spending Doubled Since 1995,' Defense News."

On a related note, Taxpayers for Common Sense has created a database of 2007 defense appropriations earmarks.

Statement from the Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell:

I greatly appreciate the significant time many Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives have taken to discuss with me the urgent need to modernize FISA. I also appreciate the bipartisan support for ensuring the Intelligence Community can effectively collect the necessary intelligence to protect our country from attack. In view of the significance of this issue, its impact on the Intelligence Community’s ability to be effective and the continuing dialogue to come to closure on an effective bill, it is important for me to discuss the essential provisions needed by the Intelligence Community.

We must urgently close the gap in our current ability to effectively collect foreign intelligence. The current FISA law does not allow us to be effective. Modernizing this law is essential for the Intelligence Community to be able to provide warning of threats to the country.

Critical Changes Needed

First, the Intelligence Community should not be required to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence from foreign targets located overseas. Simply due to technology changes since 1978, court approval should not now be required for gathering intelligence from foreigners located overseas. This was not deemed appropriate in 1978 and it is not appropriate today.

Second, those who assist the Government in protecting us from harm must be protected from liability. This includes those who are alleged to have assisted the Government after September 11, 2001 and have helped keep the country safe. I understand the leadership in Congress is not able to address before the August recess the issue of liability protection for those who are alleged to have helped the country stay safe after September 11, 2001. However, I appreciate the commitment of the congressional leadership to address this particular issue immediately upon the return of Congress in September 2007.

Provisions that Harm Intelligence Community Operations

The Intelligence Community should not be restricted to effective collection of only certain categories of foreign intelligence when the targets are located overseas. We must ensure that the Intelligence Community can be effective against all who seek to do us harm.

The bill must not require court approval before urgently needed intelligence collection can begin against a foreign target located overseas. The delays of a court process that requires judicial determinations in advance to gather vital intelligence from foreign targets overseas can in some cases prevent the rapid gathering of intelligence necessary to provide warning of threats to the country. This process would also require in practice that we continue to divert scarce intelligence experts to compiling these court submissions. Similarly, critical intelligence gathering on foreign targets should not be halted while court review is pending.

However, to acknowledge the interests of all, I could agree to a procedure that provides for court review—after needed collection has begun—of our procedures for gathering foreign intelligence through classified methods directed at foreigners located overseas. While I would strongly prefer not to engage in such a process, I am prepared to take these additional steps to keep the confidence of Members of Congress and the American people that our processes have been subject to court review and approval.

I appreciate the President’s and the congressional leadership’s commitment to provide the Intelligence Community the necessary tools to protect our country and keep us safe from those who seek us harm. My most solemn duty is to protect America, provide warning, and ensure that our Intelligence Community acts within our Constitution and laws.

James Risen:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales offered a narrowly drawn defense of his recent Congressional testimony on Wednesday, saying he had been truthful in denying that there had been serious disagreements within the Bush administration about the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants.

In a letter to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Gonzales said a dispute between the Justice Department and the White House in March 2004 involved other N.S.A. surveillance activities, not that domestic eavesdropping program. He said the White House first called the eavesdropping the Terrorist Surveillance Program after it was publicly disclosed in December 2005 and confirmed by President Bush.

The attorney general has been under fire from Congressional Democrats for what they describe as misleading testimony both last week and in 2006, and some lawmakers have threatened him with a perjury investigation.

In his letter on Wednesday, he acknowledged that his testimony might have been confusing to those who did not realize that he was parsing his words so carefully. ...

Mr. Specter, the ranking Republican, delivered a scathing critique of the attorney general’s conduct and the letter, but said it would be very hard to prove he had committed perjury.

“I disagree with him categorically where he says ‘I’ve tried to provide frank answers,’ ” Mr. Specter told reporters. “I don’t think he did try to provide frank answers. When he says he may have created confusion, it was more than confusion, it was misleading. He did not tell the whole truth.”

“His testimony was a cat-and-mouse game with the committee,” the senator added, “and that’s not the way the attorney general of the United States ought to treat the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Newsweek:

A secret ruling by a federal judge has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas and prompted the Bush administration's current push for "emergency" legislation to expand its wiretapping powers, according to a leading congressman and a legal source who has been briefed on the matter.

The order by a judge on the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has never been publicly acknowledged by administration officials—and the details of it (including the identity of the judge who wrote it) remain highly classified. But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified because of its sensitivity. [...]

Congressional aides (who asked not to be identified talking about ongoing negotiations) said today that Democratic and Republican leaders of the intelligence committees met until late Tuesday night trying to reach an agreement on a short-term measure that would grant some of the enhanced authority—including the ability to tap telecommunications switches without warrants—that the administration is seeking. One stumbling block that has emerged: the administration's insistence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales be given an expanded role to oversee the program—a particularly controversial move at the moment, given new allegations that the embattled attorney general has misled Congress about legal disputes over the surveillance program. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, said today in a statement that he has "become convinced that we must take some immediate but interim step" to expand surveillance, but that the administration proposal to grant Gonzales greater authority "is simply unacceptable." ...

Update: The Post reports on a compromise measure proposed.

Who's on first? The administration is and has been engaging in a shell game in trying to wriggle out of accountability and Congressional oversight and now accusations of perjury on its warrantless domestic spying programs. Shortly after the activity was first revealed by the NY Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau in late 2005, Alberto Gonzales immediately dubbed the domestic spying program "the Terrorist Surveillance Program." As in, of course, what American could argue with surveilling the communications of the terrorists, wherever they may be? But when in deciding whether to reauthorize the Patriot Act, Congress asked him whether there had been any internal administration dispute over the activities, Gonzales said no, none. Congress was not asking specifically about the Terrorist Surveillance Program - that was Gonzales' shell game to call it that and say in hindsight that that was his understanding of the narrow scope of their question. Congress was asking whether anyone in the administration had concerns about the White House bypassing the FISA court in authorizing warrantless domestic spying and indeed, as it turned out, there had been such grave concerns that a dozen of the top Justice Department and FBI officials had been prepared to resign over it. But Gonzales answered there had not been any concerns at all, everyone was so convinced of its legality.

Now the administration is rushing to produce letters that cryptically reference lots of other activities involved in the warrantless domestic spying program which apparently no one in Congress still understands, including the chairs and vice chairs of the Senate committee that authorizes the Patriot Act and is being asked to blindly expand the powers once again. The letter is apparently an attempt to absolve Gonzales of charges of misleading Congress. Gonzales could not be expected to have understood that Congress was asking him about legal concerns about any of those other domestic spying activities described in the letter, because Congress didn't use the magic word. How could he possibily have known that is what Congress was asking him about?

Same with civil liberties abuses by the FBI on national security letters. How could he have known that Congress was asking him whether there had been any violations of Americans' civil liberties in the FBI's use of warrantless, oversightless national security letters? He thought Congress was only asking him about "abuses" -- which in his head Gonzales apparently and totally honestly and understandably had as a highly technical and pretty much impossible to prove almost supernatural phenomenon -- - e.g. someone had to be proven to have intentionally violated Americans' civil liberties. A simple misunderstanding between Gonzales and Congress, once again. Of course, the DOJ Inspector General had not determined whether the dozens of violations in the FBI's use of national security letters and exigent letters were committed intentionally.

It's the classic "who's on first?" skit. ( ... Abbott: "Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third" ... Costello: "That's what I want to find out." Abbott: "I say Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third." Costello: "Are you the manager?" Abbott: "Yes." Costello: "You gonna be the coach too?" Abbott: "Yes." Costello: "And you don't know the fellows' names?"
Abbott: "Well I should." Costello: "Well then who's on first?" Abbott: "Yes." Costello: "I mean the fellow's name." Abbott: "Who." Costello: "The guy on first." Abbott: "Who." ...) The administration won't give Congress the information it needs to ask the questions or do its job of oversight, although one could argue the intent and scope of their questions were obvious and should have been obvious to the top law enforcement official in the land. When Congress doesn't use the magic word in asking the questions, the administration officials led by Gonzales lie and dissemble. Then when it gets called out on that, the administration produces a dog ate my homework letter saying Gonzales didn't technically provably perjure himself because Congress didn't use the magic word and so he was technically if not truthful then in a legal gray area in answering that there were no administration legal concerns about warrantless domestic spying. Or abuses in the use of national security letters. Or civil liberties concerns raised by the Patriot Act at all. Because the concerns that almost caused a dozen top Justice Department officials to resign, as it turned out, were about "other intelligence activities" that weren't presumably what Congress was asking Gonzales about, since, Gonzales logically assumed, Congress could only be asking him about the Terrorist Surveillance Program which is what Gonzales told them it was called.

How long will the skit continue?