Daniel Levy and Trita Parsi weigh into day two of a lively "Iran panic" discussion at MoJo.

Bloomberg: "Crude oil was little changed, after rising to a record above $143 a barrel on concern Israel may attack Iran over its nuclear program and disrupt supply from OPEC's second-largest producer. Pressure on Iran to end uranium enrichment and the falling value of the U.S. dollar may drive prices to $170 a barrel, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said June 28. Kuwait, the fourth-largest OPEC producer, is taking precautionary steps to export oil if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, Kuwait News Agency reported."

Ha'aretz: Iran issues death sentence for alleged Israeli spy. More.

Spencer Ackerman: A security contractor's intelligence briefing for its clients about the conditions in Baghdad differs from administration picture.

Haaretz: "On Sunday, the [Israeli] cabinet overwhelmingly voted in favor of a prisoner exchange with the Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah in which two kidnapped Israel Defense Forces reservists presumed dead, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, would be returned in exchange for five Lebanese fighters including notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar. Olmert said Monday that he believed there was a possibility that the government's move to begin the process of declaring the abducted soldiers dead, spurred Hezbollah to consummate the deal more quickly."

NYT: "A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say. The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism. In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said." Optics of this -- not so good.

George Packer: Obama's Iraq problem.

Seymour Hersh: Preparing the Battlefield:

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

A friend comments:

The Seymour Hersh article is actually really interesting, good, and not overblown - as long as you read out anything coming from Gardiner.

There is much in it, but this is sure to provoke a big blowup:

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, "We'll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America." Gates's comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates's answer, the senator told me, was "Let's just say that I'm here speaking for myself." (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator's characterization.)

This bit strikes me as among the most important issues raised by the Hersh piece:

There is a growing realization among some legislators that the Bush Administration, in recent years, has conflated what is an intelligence operation and what is a military one in order to avoid fully informing Congress about what it is doing.

I am also pretty skeptical about the CIA-supporting-PJAK/Baluch to destabilize the Iranian regime stuff that Gardiner, discredited former ABC news consultant and phony Obama interviewer Alexis Debat, and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been saying. Skeptical in large part because people out front saying it like Debat have shown an inclination to make things up, while well meaning and sincere people like Gardiner saying it don't offer much in the way of evidence beyond their own conviction and some charts tracking the hawks' rhetoric that make the conspiracy theorists go nuts but don't in the end really show very much but that there's a propaganda effort, which was already reported a year ago. Another of that allegation's sources cited in the piece, who I do respect, seems sometimes inclined to crowd please and sex things up for his audience on occasion, in an almost he can't help himself or unwitting way perhaps because he feels that's what his audience wants. But mostly I'm skeptical because of the fact that former US intelligence sources I consider highly credible tell me the CIA is not working with the Baluch/Rigi, certainly not to destabilize the Iranian regime, and those like British reporter James Brandon who have been up in the Qandil mountains with the PKK/PJAK say the groups have no good weapons, are extremely modestly supplied, and no sign of serious US or western support to be found. They expressed that they would welcome western support when he was up there over a year ago, but he saw no sign and they said they hadn't gotten any. And indeed far more recently the PJAK has threatened to attack US forces because of US support to Turkey in its attacks against the PKK. As well as because of the fact I talk to several Iranian diaspora oppositionists and hawks some of whom would love the US to support these groups and act more aggressively to destabilize the Iranian regime, who are pretty unhappy with the Bush administration for not doing very much on this issue.

In the end, I just don't think the Bush administration is trying to seriously destabilize the Iranian regime or change it, while no doubt it would be thrilled if the Iranian Thomas Jefferson suddenly came to power or Ahmadinejad stepped on a poison viper. I think the thrust of the policy is overwhelmingly geared towards the fairly unsexy effort to cobble and keep together however imperfectly an international coalition to try to pressure and isolate this Iranian regime diplomatically, economically, etc. while preparing to turn over that multilateral diplomatic framework to its successor. Of course, in the meantime, it's trying to gather intelligence and get leverage - and not appear as a Gulliver hamstrung by Iraq, or a paper tiger, before Iran, as much as it can. And important too, it doesn't want Iran to miscalculate out of overconfidence either, and think the US indeed has no leverage. So a lot of projecting power, rhetoric about keeping military option on the table, etc. and of course, contingency planning in case something drastic changes (and leaving room, as Hersh illustrates, for accidents and incidents to exploit by those seeking to gin up confrontation, although they've failed repeatedly til now which is evidence as well of the thrust and direction of the policy and the people driving it). Was with someone last night working the issue pretty close to ground zero so to speak. The policy and expectation are basically to tread water on Iraq for the next six months, barring a major change. And treading water requires a degree of projecting power so that such a major change or provocation from Iran is, at least most in the administration hope (OVP excepting perhaps), averted.

The group I assembled at an online "Iran panic" forum offer considerable more insights on this, and you can join in.

Update: US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker to Candy Crowley on CNN Late Edition: "I can tell you flatly that US forces are not crossing the border into Iran. ... US forces are not operating across the Iran-Iraq border." (Does it depend how you define "US forces?" )

I do think Hersh makes an important larger case that administration and CIA are increasingly going to the defense appropriations subcommittee for authorization for covert budget items .... rather than to Congressional intellience oversight committees, which haven't passed an intelligence authorization bill for a few years; and that the administration, by defining something as military force protection and preparing the battlefield and running it out of the Pentagon rather than the CIA, is legally excusing itself from reporting covert actions to the intelligence oversight committees. I don't see them slipping in a war with Iran that way on the way out the door. He makes the point that it is more than a hypothetical possibility. But there are larger signs and far more that point to the policy continuing to be nudged along in a different direction.

"Iran Panic." How likely is a scenario in which the US or Israel strikes Iran before Bush leaves office? (Or is the left falling for propaganda?) I asked former Mid-East peace negotiator Daniel Levy, Iranian American pro-engagement activist Trita Parsi, Israeli national security correspondent Yossi Melman, former State Department counterproliferation expert Jacqueline Shire, and anti-war writer Danny Postel. Check out their responses, and join the conversation at MoJo all week, where they'll be weighing in.

I hear long-time jailed Iranian student dissident Ahmed Batebi, who appeared on the Economist cover on the Iranian student demonstrations in 1999, arrived in D.C. last Tuesday night.....

NYT: Obama to the Middle East, Europe in July.

Bloomberg: "Senator Chuck Hagel declined to endorse his party's likely presidential nominee, John McCain, and said he would consider serving as secretary of defense in a Barack Obama administration."

WP: "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents helped investigate the kidnapping last week of a Mexican citizen who is related to the chairman of the powerful House intelligence committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), officials confirmed yesterday."

The Post traces the roots of an email/Internet smear campaign against Obama, finding anonymous Freepsters in Boston and Washington State, an ex political opponent in Illinois, and others.

NYT: Bush rebuffs Cheney on North Korea:

Two days ago, during an off-the-record session with a group of foreign policy experts, Vice President Dick Cheney got a question he did not want to answer. “Mr. Vice President,” asked one of them, “I understand that on Wednesday or Thursday, we are going to de-list North Korea from the terrorism blacklist. Could you please set the context for this decision?”

Mr. Cheney froze, according to four participants at the Old Executive Office Building meeting. For more than 30 minutes he had been taking and answering questions, without missing a beat. But now, for several long seconds, he stared, unsmilingly, at his questioner, Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation, a public policy institution. Finally, he spoke:

“I’m not going to be the one to announce this decision,” the other participants recalled Mr. Cheney saying, pointing at himself. “You need to address your interest in this to the State Department.” He then declared that he was done taking questions, and left the room.

In the internal Bush administration war between the State Department and Mr. Cheney’s office over North Korea, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top North Korea envoy, Christopher R. Hill, won a major battle against the Cheney camp when President Bush announced Thursday that he was taking the country he once described as part of the “axis of evil” off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Dead ender?

National Journal's Bara Vaida and Jennifer Skalka with their cover story: With Clinton's loss, can Emily's List gets its mojo back?

... Although EMILY's List is not to blame for Clinton's narrow loss to Barack Obama, the group had a lot riding on her candidacy--politically and psychologically. Her defeat calls into question the very core of EMILY's List's strategy--that women will back female candidates in the interest of equality, and that gender and identity politics can trump issues, message, and personality. Clinton's failure, in many ways, is also a reflection of the divide between Baby Boomer women (the foundation of EMILY's List) and their daughters, who, according to exit poll data, came out in force in the primaries for Obama. Among women age 29 and younger, Obama routinely defeated Clinton in key primary states, even in contests that Clinton won, while Clinton overwhelmingly beat Obama among women age 45 and older. (See chart, pp. 22-23.)

Clinton's fall from front-runner to runner-up capped a challenging few years for EMILY's List, which pioneered the use of direct mail and donor bundling to raise early money for Democratic women candidates. In the 2006 election, Democrats triumphed mightily, yet EMILY's List faltered, as 74 percent of the challengers it backed lost their general election contests.

In the current campaign cycle, meanwhile, the group has drawn fire from other Democrats for employing divisive tactics--from pitting abortion-rights Democratic women against Democratic congressmen who also favor abortion rights, to feuding publicly with another high-profile abortion-rights group about its decision to endorse Obama.

EMILY's List has won wide praise over the years for leveraging the power of women at the polls and building an unprecedented network of progressive female donors. But now some political observers say that the group's influence may be waning. ...

As the November election looms large, EMILY's List has to demonstrate that its message and approach are still valid--even as the political world morphs to accommodate the Facebook generation--and in essence prove that it can still win. ...

PRI's Marketplace: Worst June for Dow since .... 1930. ?

Via Steve Aftergood, new CRS report on Iran's economy (pdf).

USA Today:

Even after leaving office, former Republican Senate leaders Rick Santorum and Bill Frist continue to raise and spend big money, but little of it has gone to GOP candidates, campaign finance records show.

Although Frist retired and Santorum lost re-election in 2006, both have political action committees, known as leadership PACs, that have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars this campaign cycle.

Santorum's committee, America's Foundation, brought in nearly $800,000 from January 2007 to March 31, campaign finance reports show. The committee donated $19,500, or 2.4%, to candidates. ...

What's Santorum doing with the other $780,500?

The PAC's second largest expense — $150,218 — was for management fees, many of that paid to former campaign staffers. Of that, $113,320 went to Capitol Resource Group, which is headed by Rob Bickhart, who is also executive director of America's Foundation and once served as Santorum's fundraising chairman during his re-election campaign. An additional $20,000 went to Mark Rodgers, who was Santorum's chief of staff. The PAC's staff, Davis said, had many responsibilities, including managing Santorum's media requests, developing and maintaining a website, and overseeing fundraising. Davis, a former Santorum Senate staffer, has been paid $20,217 through March 31. [...]

Paul Chang, 60, wasn't happy with the small percentage of PAC donations to candidates. Chang, a retiree from Woodruff, S.C., said he wished he had known before he made $250 in donations....

NYT: "North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear activities is a triumph of the sort of diplomacy — complicated, plodding, often frustrating — that President Bush and his aides once eschewed as American weakness."

Oil up to $140/barrel, Dow plunges.

Former Justice Department official Marty Lederman writes on John Yoo testimony today at House Judiciary committee. Marcy Wheeler is covering the hearing.

More from the Post:

As the hearing was winding down, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) asked Addington whether he would bear any responsibility "if the CIA program is found to be unlawful."

Addington responded: "Is that a moral question? A legal question?" Another debate ensued. "No, I wouldn't be responsible is the answer to your question," he concluded.

"Legal or moral," he added after Nadler had moved on.

Time will tell.

Steve Clemons: "Chris Hill beats John Bolton: Bush Declares New Track for US-North Korea Relations."

AP:

The Bush administration is considering opening a diplomatic outpost in Iran in what would be a dramatic official U.S. return to the country nearly 30 years after the American Embassy was overrun and the two nations severed relations.

Even as it threatens Iran with sanctions and possible military action over its nuclear program, the administration is weighing opening a U.S. interests section in Tehran similar to one in Havana, officials said Monday.

This would give the U.S. a presence on the ground without endorsing the government, one official said.

The U.S. now relies on the Swiss Embassy in Tehran to communicate with the Iranian foreign ministry.

Also on Monday, European Union nations approved new sanctions against Iran, imposing additional financial and travel restrictions on a number of Iranian companies and experts—including the country's largest bank.

An Iranian American contact comments "This AP story is true. The US already opened its office two months ago in Hast-gerde Karaj... "

MJ: Federal investigations of Pentagon intrigues: don't forget the Chalabi leak investigation.

Newsweek: Turning U.S. spy satellites on America

SCOTUS overturns DC handgun ban.

Apparently they declared that the trigger lock requirement is unconstitutional. AP: "The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted."

More from Stephanie Mencimer: "... On a practical level, the decision simply means that for the first time in 30 years, D.C. residents will be able to get a license to keep handguns at home. Since it’s clear that huge numbers of city residents are already keeping guns at home illegally, it’s hard to see how this is going to have much of an impact on things one way or another, though perhaps the rats should start to worry."

BBC take will be worth listening to. They always do these straight faced American school massacre stories in a way that makes their American cousins seem positively uncivilized.

Coming down the pike: Big Sy Hersh piece out Sunday, about aggressive covert-operations targeting Iran. Perhaps this is what this secret briefing I mention below scheduled for Friday is meant to anticipate - but probably not the right agency.

Via Nazionale 260. Milan prosecutor Armando Spataro emails an update on the Abu Omar rendition trial. Among recent evidence presented at the trial, this:

A senior police officer described the search (on 5 july 2006) on the Italian secret service (SISMI) apartment in Rome, via Nazionale 260, where we found other evidences. So he spoke on the documents seized from this SISMI site in Rome:

• The investigations revealed the existence of an office (an apartment in Rome city centre) with links to SISMI, used for 'secret operations'. The manager of this secret centre, Pio POMPA, was a close associate of [former Sismi director Nicolo] Pollari. In this apartment, following a search ordered by an official mandate, the Police seized many reports on Italian and foreign judges and prosecutors, on Italian important politicians, on journalists etc. and other papers (The Rome Prosecution Office is leading an investigation into this illegal filing process);

• In the same apartment the Police seized a SISMI document dated on 01.07.2005. Annexes 9 and 10 of said document reveal that the CIA had informed SISMI as early as 15 May 2003 that Abu Omar was being interrogated by Egyptian security services in Cairo. But the Sismi Director said, on 2006 before the special commission of the European Parliament, that the Sismi didn't know anything on Abu Omar and his kidnapping.

In the apartment kept by Pollari's public relations aide Pio Pompa, files on journalists writing on Sismi's involvement with the Niger forgeries as well.

Update: More on the trial from the Post.

WP: McCain campaign manager Rick Davis pulled in $2.2 million in consulting/lobby profits through McCain relationship.

Friday 1130am: Secret level briefing for Senate Foreign Relations committee staff by State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs on State Department's democracy promotion activities in Iran.

New Spencer Ackerman blog link.

Lawyer for Chinese Uyghur ordered released from Gitmo by Supreme Court on CBC tonight: his client doesn't know about the ruling. Is sitting in solitary confinement. For the sixth year. Lawyer not not allowed by the U.S. government to tell him about the ruling. Lawyer: We've got a man in solitary confinement who they've got no authority to hold at all. ... Update: ThinkProgress has got the transcript.

US News: Seizing laptops and cameras without cause. Senate Judiciary Constitution subcommittee hearing on the matter led by Sen. Russell Feingold today.

Pro Publica: Journalists, think tankers, former government hands paid for Al Hurra appearances. Update: more thoughts on the station from Marc Lynch, aka Abu Aardvark.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed's David Glenn: Scholars mourn a colleague who lost his life in Afghanistan.

Roll Call: Former Bush Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge busted by the Justice Department for failing to register for two years for lobbying for Albania, at $40k a month:

For almost two years former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge failed to register a nearly half-million-dollar lobbying contract that he had with the government of Albania.

Ridge filed a registration statement on behalf of the country earlier this month after being contacted by the Department of Justice.

"It was brought to my attention after the contract expired and my lawyer said under the circumstances I probably should have filed," said Ridge, who is a national co-chairman of Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign and has been mentioned as a potential vice presidential running mate. "I didn't think it was [necessary] to register."

The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires agents to register with the DOJ within 10 days of signing a contract with a foreign government and before performing any duties for the client.

Additionally, "foreign agents" must file biannual reports detailing any agreements, income received and expenditures on behalf of foreign countries or corporations owned by countries.

Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor, represented Albania from October 2006 through the end of August 2007 on issues ranging from homeland security to NATO membership.

On May 7, 2007, Ridge and Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha met with Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) to discuss "various reforms undertaken by the government of Albania to comply with NATO and EU requirements," according to the FARA supplemental statement. Ridge and Berisha met with Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) to discuss the same issues on May 8.

The time stamp on Ridge's registration statement with the Justice Department is dated June 12, 2008. ...

Ridge's registration was spurred by a DOJ inquiry after press accounts surfaced noting Ridge's connection to the country. ...

After a meeting with Justice and his counsel at Blank Rome, Ridge decided to file his FARA registration.

"Once we were made aware of certain contacts by Gov. Ridge, we advised him to register, which he did," said Topper Ray, a spokesman for Blank Rome. ...

Ridge is in good company. One becomes aware of a lot of unregistered foreign lobbying in Washington, although not always as blatantly in violation as this. .... So, curious if Ridge knows something about the strange DOD-US embassy-Albanian government-AEY-mothballed $300 million Chinese ammo weapons deal, now under investigation by the Feds and Congress?

WP's Hiatt: "Senior officials at the State Department and beyond are mulling a proposal to open an interest section in Tehran, similar to the one the United States has operated in Havana since 1977. This would fall short of full diplomatic recognition, but it would open a channel to the Iranian people and, maybe, eventually, to the regime as well. The idea has been under discussion for close to two years and could be adopted within weeks -- though officials continue to worry about how to package such a proposal without having it appear, one said, 'as a sign of weakness.' They worry about the effect of such a signal on Iran, on U.S. negotiating partners in Europe and on domestic politics, given the clash between Barack Obama and John McCain about the wisdom of negotiating with Iranian leaders."

NYT: US embassy, ambassador to Albania implicated in DoD contracting scandal?

U.S. Institute of Peace's Mona Yacoubian: Dealing with Damascus.

Kevin Drum makes a good point. Perhaps in some Strangelovian way, the right and left are both coming to learn to love in some way fearmongering over bombing Iran. Everyone's pretty much already convinced of what they already believe, reporting be damned.

Update: And while you're at Kevin's site, check out the map that shows he and I are something of neighbors apparently in the political blog universe, pretty close to the center. Check out the same team's map of the Iranian blogosphere here too.

Connie Bruck on Sheldon Adelson.

Pro Publica's Dafna Linzer profiles the $500 million US taxpayer funded Al Hurra network. It's not pretty.

From the Archives: a re-read of former CIA director George Tenet's memoir offers his account of a 2002 CIA threat to the White House to file a crimes report with the Justice Department about the Pentagon Ghorbanifar meetings.

Ha'aretz: ImageSat CEO received millions for unnecessary deal.

Shimon Eckhaus, CEO of the satellite imaging company ImageSat International (ISI), became several million shekels richer last week. Eckhaus, who has held the job for about three years, sued the company ... claiming that he is entitled to a bonus of millions of dollars. According to Eckhaus, the bonus is a binding part of his employment contract and resulted from a deal the company struck in Angola some seven years ago. [...]

The generous payment to Eckhaus opens a window onto the secret world of the Israeli defense industry's operations in Third World countries. ...

At the start of the decade, the Angolan government signed a $150 million deal for the purchase of satellite photos from ImageSat, in order to improve its intelligence capabilities in the civil war against the forces of Jonas Savimbi. As part of the deal, ImageSat was to have set up a ground station in Angola to receive the photos, at a cost of some $20 million. The rest of the money was intended to pay for the imagery services over the course of a decade.

Arcadi Gaydamak's business partner in Angola, Pierre Falcone, was the mediator in the deal. Unlike Gaydamak, Falcone appeared for questioning in France and even spent some time in jail. While in jail, Falcone remained involved in mediating the ImageSat deal. A short time later, Patrick Rosenbaum, ImageSat's deputy CEO for marketing who was a key figure in promoting the deal, began working for one of Falcone's companies.

After the Angolan army was dissatisfied with the quality of the service it received, and upon the war's end after Savimbi was killed in 2002, Angola asked to terminate or change the contract. ImageSat, then under the management of Menashe Broder, refused and forced Angola to pay the full sums specified in the contract, even though the ground station was never built. ...

Morris Talansky, the American financier whose envelopes of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash to Israeli prime minister Olmert imperil Olmert's political future, is one of the founding shareholders in ImageSat.

The NYT mag profiles the brilliant "Mad Men," inexplicably passed over by HBO.

Wired's Sharon Weinberger: Pentagon black budget at all time high. " ... The updated report does not speculate on what specific programs are being funded--though past reports have noted that classified space programs account for a good portion of the total. Longtime aerospace reporter Bill Sweetman has speculated that some chunk of this large amount of change is going toward a classified bomber prototype. ...

Ha'aretz's Yossi Melman: Israel is a long way from attacking Iran. "... One cannot conclude, as many have following a report in The New York Times, that an Israeli attack is certainly around the corner. Not only has such a decision not been made in any relevant forum in Israel - the question has not even been discussed. The decision to attack Iran to foil its nuclear program is from Israel's point of view a last resort, and the chances of it happening depend on many variables, which are unfolding over various time frames -- some overlapping, others running in parallel. The most important variable is Israel's coordination with the United States. ... Another variable is international sanctions on Iran. .... Another significant factor is the domestic situation in Iran. ..." More here.

Over at Balkinization, former assistant deputy attorney general for national security affairs David Kris provides a guide to the new FISA bill: "....Fundamentally, this is what I think is at stake in the debate about FISA modernization: whether and to what extent the government will be subject to FISA’s individualized warrant requirement, rather than a vacuum-cleaner regime, for its foreign intelligence surveillance. The debate concerns not only the substantive standards for surveillance, but also the question of who applies those standards, in what manner, at what time, and subject to what minimization requirements. ..."

Update: Kris' part II here.

The NYT's Scott Shane: KSM waterboarded multiple times over two week period. I guess that's what's at variance with what is suggested by the "3-minute" account, which former Justice Department official Dan Levin sharply asserted was inaccurate. Times confirms Poland was one of the "black sites" -- what US officials described as "the 51st state."

LAT's Borzou Daragahi: Iran is offered conditional nuclear talks: "A European proposal to ease the West's nuclear standoff with Iran includes an offer for talks with the Iranians as long as they do not expand their current ability to enrich uranium, Western diplomats say." (Thx to LZ).

WP: "The United States in recent weeks has obtained new intelligence -- fresh traces of highly enriched uranium discovered among 18,000 pages of North Korean documents -- that are raising new questions about whether Pyongyang pursued an alternative route to producing a nuclear weapon, according to sources familiar with the intelligence findings."

AP: Hagel says he'd consider VP offer from Obama. Meantime, NY mayor Bloomberg's got Obama's back in Florida.

Just Out: Does investigation of the Pentagon's channel to an Iran Contra arms dealer continue?

When Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence presented the final installments of the committee’s long-awaited pre-war intelligence investigations to the press earlier this month in the Senate gallery, they demurred when reporters asked them if they intended to pursue possible charges against Bush administration officials whom the senators said had exaggerated the case for war based on the intelligence available to them. ...

But there are signs that further federal investigation of at least one aspect of the committee’s inquiry may continue.

... Mother Jones has learned that one subject of one of the recent Senate Intelligence committee reports has told associates that he has hired a defense attorney in connection to a federal investigation. [...]

One clue as to the origin of a possible federal investigation pursuing the US officials’ channel to Ghorbanifar is contained in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report (.PDF) on the Rome meetings. The report refers to a Department of Defense Inspector General investigation of the same matter (that report remains classified), as well as to a Defense Department Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) investigation of the Pentagon officials’ meetings with Ghorbanifar.

The CIFA investigation was halted only a month after it began by then Defense Department intelligence czar Stephen Cambone, the Senate report found. The CIFA report raised the possibility that “Ghorbanifar or his associates are being used as agents of a foreign intelligence service to leverage his continuing contact with Michael Ledeen and others to reach into and influence the highest levels of the US government.”

The Senate Intelligence committee report concluded that the decision to end the counterintelligence investigation of the Ghorbanifar channel was “premature,” and criticized the Pentagon for not pursuing CIFA’s recommendations. Among the counterintelligence office's recommendations, that a comprehensive “analysis be conducted of the counterintelligence implications related to the ability of Mr. Ghorbanifar or his associates to directly or indirectly influence or access U.S. government officials.”

The Justice Department would not comment on whether it is pursuing a counterintelligence investigation related to the case. ...

Update: Very interesting timeline from Marcy Wheeler.

MJ interview: What to make of a recent Israeli military exercise.

... Melman: The Israeli Air Force and all the other agencies are preparing tentative contingency plans. This has been going on for many many months. Israel's air space is limited, so you need to fly over the sea, but to practice you also need land. To do it over Turkey will not be sufficient ... and politically sensitive. So there is an Israeli Greek security agreement [for this purpose] and that's what they are doing.

Now does it mean an imminent attack? Far from that. I don't see at the moment an Israeli cabinet which has the nerve to take such a decision. ....

MJ: What is Israel's thinking on timing?

Melman: Of course they will wait. Israel will never do it before having some sort of understanding (tacit or not) with the U.S. administration. If they decide to do it, it will not be before spring - mid 2009 most probably, end of 2009, unless they realize something dramatic is boiling up in Iran. ....

Miami Herald: Feds arrest DoD munitions contractor Efraim Diveroli.

McClatchy:

The Taliban tortured Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al Ginco. They thought he was a U.S. spy. Then, U.S. soldiers called the Syrian native an enemy and shipped him to Guantanamo.

Now, Ginco will be turning a spotlight back on the Bush administration itself. Newly empowered by the Supreme Court, Ginco has become the first Guantanamo detainee to demand in a U.S. federal court that the military show the hard evidence that justifies his detention. Scores of others are expected to do likewise, attorneys predict.

The war on terror may never be the same.

On June 12, the court rewrote the rules for the Guantanamo detainees in the landmark case known as Boumediene v. Bush. The 5-4 majority opinion authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy concluded that the foreigners held at the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo Bay facility were protected by the U.S. Constitution's habeas corpus protections.

The ruling empowers the detainees to obtain what Kennedy termed a "prompt" hearing into the evidence used to justify their incarceration.

Some detainees will almost certainly be released. Others will reveal evidence of mistreatment. The Bush administration will have to defend its practices in open court. The military will have to adjust its treatment of prisoners and figure out the future of Guantanamo Bay. ...

Via Kevin Drum.

Gershom Gorenberg in The American Prospect: A new legal challenge to Israeli settlements. More here.

McClatchy's Warren Strobel: General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes:

The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.

A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.

ABC: "Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, now under investigation for allegedly politicizing the Justice Department, ousted a top lawyer for failing to adopt the administration's position on torture and then promised him a position as a U.S. attorney to placate him, highly placed sources tell ABC News."

NYT:

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.

More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, American officials said.

The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refueling tankers flew more than 900 miles, which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, American officials said.

Israeli officials declined to discuss the details of the exercise. A spokesman for the Israeli military would say only that the country’s air force “regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel.”

But the scope of the Israeli exercise virtually guaranteed that it would be noticed by American and other foreign intelligence agencies. A senior Pentagon official who has been briefed on the exercise, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the matter, said the exercise appeared to serve multiple purposes.

WP: Abramoff used White House to oust government foe.

Tomorrow's NYT: White House, GOP, telcos gloat over FISA deal.

... With some AT&T and other telecommunications companies now facing some 40 lawsuits over their reported participation in the wiretapping program, Republican leaders described this narrow court review on the immunity question as a mere “formality.”

“The lawsuits will be dismissed,” Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican in the House, predicted with confidence.

The proposal — particularly the immunity provision — represents a major victory for the White House after months of dispute. "I think the White House got a better deal than they even they had hoped to get," said Senator Christopher Bond, the Missouri Republican who led the negotiations.

The White House immediately endorsed the proposal, which is likely to be voted on in the House on Friday and in the Senate next week. ...

Senator Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who pushed unsuccessfully for more civil liberties safeguards in the plan, called the deal “a capitulation” by his fellow Democrats. ....

The NYT's Eric Lichtblau: "The bill could be brought to a vote on the House floor as soon as Friday, but it may face opposition from two quarters: conservatives who believe it does not give the National Security Agency enough freedom of action, and liberals who charge that it retroactively sanctions illegal conduct by the president."

Meantime, what does the public really know about the program at this point? As the Federation of American Scientists' Steve Aftergood recently told me: "How broad was the surveillance? What number of U.S. persons were swept up in it? What has been done with the information gathered? ... Many of the most basic questions about the program have gone unanswered."

Surveillance State. Congressional Quarterly's Tim Starks:

A final deal has been reached on a rewrite of electronic surveillance rules and will be announced Thursday, two congressional aides said.

The aides said the House is likely to take up the legislation Friday.

The bill would rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, PL 95-511).

On Wednesday, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D‑Md., had said negotiators were working on a bill that would be “significantly better” than a White House-backed, Senate-passed bill (HR 3773) that has support from some House Democrats.

As of Wednesday, sources said the new bill would allow a federal district court to decide whether to provide retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their role in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program.

Under the prospective deal, the secret court created by the original law would get to review, in advance, the process by which the administration chooses foreign surveillance targets who may be communicating with people in the United States.

One source said the federal district court deciding on retroactive immunity would review whether there was “substantial evidence” the companies had received assurances from the government that the administration’s program was legal.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report on an earlier version of the legislation detailed how the companies had received such assurances from the Justice Department and the White House.

A knowledgeable friend comments, "It's worse than Nixon because it extends [the argument that if the president says it's legal, it's legal] to cover non-government, private actors. Nixon limited himself to government actors."

More from the WSJ's Siobhan Gorman and Sarah Lueck. "After more than a year of partisan acrimony over government surveillance powers, Democratic and Republican leaders have agreed to a bipartisan deal that would be the most sweeping rewrite of spy powers in three decades." The House is set to vote on it Friday.

Update: Here's the bill (.pdf).

Senate Intel committee chairman office sends a fact sheet, among the key points:

Prospective Immunity. The Act ensures that the cooperation shall be in accordance with law, by providing an opportunity for the companies to challenge in court the lawfulness of directives to them and for the Government to compel compliance through judicial proceedings. Companies that act in accordance with directives provided under the law shall be protected against future liability.

Retroactive Immunity. The Act provides standards and procedures for liability protection for electronic communication service providers who assisted the Government between September 11, 2001 and January 17, 2007, when the surveillance program was brought under the FISA Court.

A district court hearing a case against a provider will decide whether the Attorney General’s certification attesting that the liability protection standard has been met and is supported by substantial evidence. In making that determination, the court will have the opportunity to examine the highly classified letters to the providers that indicated the President had authorized the activity and that it had been determined to be lawful. The plaintiffs and defendants will have the opportunity to file public briefs on legal issues and the court should include in any public order a description of the legal standards that govern the order.

The immunity provision of the Act does not apply to any actions against the Government for any alleged injuries caused by government officials. Nor does the immunity provision involve any statement by the Congress, pro or con, on the legality of the President’s program.

Inspector General Review. The Act directs the Inspectors General of the Department of Justice, the Office of the DNI, the National Security Agency, and the Department of Defense to complete a comprehensive review, within the oversight authority of each IG, of the President’s Surveillance Program. In no later than a year, the Inspectors General shall submit a report to Congress; the report shall be unclassified but may include a classified annex. In light of the dismissals of cases that may result from implementation of the immunity title, the IG review will be an especially important vehicle for reporting to Congress on the facts of the President’s program, as well as to the public, to the extent classification permits.

Multiple Levels of Oversight. The Act provides for multiple levels of oversight both within the Executive Branch, including by Department of Justice and Intelligence Community Inspectors General, and in regular reporting to both the Congress and the FISA Court.

Sunset. The Act will sunset at the end of 2012 ensuring that the next Administration, together with the Congress, will address whether the Act should be made permanent or modified based on experience.

More from Steve Benen, and the Post.

Update: The ACLU declares the "Hoyer/Bush bill" unconstitutional. The group's Caroline Frederickson:

... "This bill allows for mass and untargeted surveillance of Americans’ communications. The court review is mere window-dressing – all the court would look at is the procedures for the year-long dragnet and not at the who, what and why of the spying. Even this superficial court review has a gaping loophole – ‘exigent’ circumstances can short cut even this perfunctory oversight since any delay in the onset of spying meets the test and by definition going to the court would cause at least a minimal pause. Worse yet, if the court denies an order for any reason, the government is allowed to continue surveillance throughout the appeals process, thereby rendering the role of the judiciary meaningless. In the end, there is no one to answer to; a court review without power is no court review at all.

"The Hoyer/Bush surveillance deal was clearly written with the telephone companies and internet providers at the table and for their benefit. They wanted immunity, and this bill gives it to them.

"The telecom companies simply have to produce a piece of paper we already know exists, resulting in immediate dismissal. That’s not accountability. Loopholes and judicial theater don’t do our Fourth Amendment rights justice. In the end, this is politics. This bill does nothing to keep Americans safe and is a constitutional farce.

"The process by which this deal has come about has been as secretive as the warrantless wiretapping program it is seeking to legitimize."

It's hard to understand how David Broder could be under the delusion Lugar would have a cabinet position in a McCain presidency. That is about as unlikely as Rice being McCain's running mate. No chance. What's Lugar been about for the past umpteen years? Calling for engagement with Iran. What's McCain's chief foreign policy plank at this point? Being a tough guy on Iran. No chance. Nil. This is so self evident, hard to understand if Broder is channeling wishful thinking, or what.

Scott Horton in the New Republic: "Travel Advisory. The U.S. isn't likely to try Bush administration officials for war crimes -- but it's likely that a European country will."

Vali Nasr: Iran stumbles in Iraq:

... Washington needs to see this as an opportunity not just for Iraq but for U.S. relations with Iran. The U.S. and Iraqi governments should build on recent gains. Stepped-up action against Mahdi Army cells and disrupting the flow of money and weapons are important, but so is quickly improving the economic lot of the poor of Basra, Sadr City and other Mahdi Army strongholds. In the long run, only good government will change the calculus in Iraq.

It is a frequent refrain in Washington that the United States needs leverage before it can talk to Iran. In Iraq, Washington is getting leverage. America has the advantage while Iran is on its heels. Engaging Iran now could even influence who wins the Iraq debate in Tehran.

"Overt De-Escalation, Covert Disruption": Ignatius channels David Kilcullen's thinking on future US Iraq force.

Here's a question for Pelosi at her press conference today:

Reports of the newest FISA compromise indicate that, on telecom immunity, a federal court would be compelled to grant the telecoms immunity if there was substantial evidence that the Bush administration assured them that the warrantless surveillance program was legal. Doesn't that actually endorse and extend to private actors the Nixonian view that if the president says it's legal, it's legal, regardless of what the law says and the Constitution says? Wouldn't that set an awful precedent that an administration could get private actors to do whatever they wanted including breaking the law?

NYT:

Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.

Ha'aretz: Israel-Hamas truce takes hold in Gaza strip.

Worth rereading a post from a few weeks back, tracing the roots of an Iran oil blockade meme.

Update: An Iranian American contact writes, "Just fyi – Israelis connected to the intelligence services told me that their objective was a naval blockade already 1.5 years ago…" He adds, "They spoke with great confidence, as if they had planned to have the sanctions fail to create greater appetite for the blockade. I thought they were smoking something…"

Then again, 1.5 years ago was before the three sets of UN Security Council sanctions went through.

Presumably should they prove inadequate the option for an oil blockade plan B is what House Resolution 362 and its Senate counterpart are designed to help lay the groundwork for...

NBC Aram Roston investigation on a Jordan fuel deal sparks Congressional probe.

Daniel Levin, you'll remember, is the former acting assistant attorney general who submitted himself to waterboarding because he was so troubled about the question of whether it constituted torture (the White House insisted it does not). The White House later blocked his appointment. A friend watching Levin's testimony now to the House Judicary Committee hearing notes: "Levin just said, in essence, that anyone who thinks waterboarding was used only for a total of three minutes on detainees should go back and learn more. i.e. that is inaccurate and wrong, though he couldn't say very much more."

Update: In a further observation on today's House Judiciary Committee hearing, this friend notes:

Stunning. Levin's explanation of the infamous Footnote 8 from his December 2004 opinion repudiated the notion that his own opinion results in support for all the interrogation techniques that had been in use. That is a famous celebratory point from conservatives, even including really thoughtful folks like Jack Goldsmith. But now Levin is saying that's not what he intended. Instead, his point was that substituting his arguments for the previous arguments that had been used would not have resulted in different conclusions by the authors of those previous arguments. That is, those arguments would have concluded the same. But Levin repudiated the notion that his own opinion supported all the existing interrogation techniques at the time. That is truly stunning.

And in fact, it undercuts, to some extent, one of the central contentions of Goldsmith's excellent book, which was that [John] Yoo's executive overreach was utterly unnecessary. In a sense that remains the case, but only if one continued to buy into other problematic aspects of Yoo's views, which Levin evidently repudiates. In other words, Levin's new opinion did cause alterations in the actual specific techniques that could be used in interrogation. And in fact I believe Levin suggested as much in his opening statement as well.

More below the fold:

Here's the first passage [of Levin's testimony] alluding to footnote 8, though it's not explicit, that comes later in the transcript: [Rep. Jerrold] NADLER: OK.

Now, John Yoo has written that the December 2004 replacement opinion you drafted was done "for appearance sake," in quotes, and that, quote, "No policies or interrogation techniques changed as a result of the withdrawal of the torture memo," close quote.

Mr. Yoo has also said that, quote, "The OLC's reversal was pure politics," unquote.

NADLER: Now, do you agree that nothing changed as a result of your 2004 memo?

(CROSSTALK)

NADLER: Do you agree that the 2004 memo you authored was pure politics?

LEVIN: I certainly don't agree it was pure politics. And I don't think it's accurate that nothing changed as a result of the change in legal analysis.

NADLER: What do you think was the change?

LEVIN: I'm sorry?

NADLER: How would you characterize the change?

LEVIN: Well, unfortunately, I'm not authorized to discuss certain matters. But I believe it is the case that there were certain changes in practices as a result of the change in legal analysis.

NADLER: So as a result of the change in your memo, you think there were changes in practices. That means required changes in interrogation policies?

LEVIN: I believe that's the case, sir. Yes, sir.

Here's Daniel Levin's opening statement (as printed here and with some extra comments as delivered below):

LEVIN: Thank you for inviting me to testify today. As you can tell, since leaving government in 2005, I've avoided making any public statements on these matters. And, to be perfectly honest with you, I'd rather be keeping that record intact.

But I do believe that a public discussion and debate of the legal issues involved and of the process by which legal opinions were issued and relied upon is important. [...]

It's also important, frankly, to be precise about what you mean by torture. There's a definition under U.S. law where Congress has defined the term, although using words that I believe are very hard to apply.

There's a different definition, or, more accurately, definitions under international law, the Convention Against Torture being perhaps the most prominent.

The definition under U.S. law and under the convention differ in significant respects, in particular when it comes to the nonphysical forms of torture.

LEVIN: There's also the colloquial use of the term, which I believe differs from all these definitions.

And let me apologize for any disruption my daughter causes.

(LAUGHTER)

She's -- but I wanted to bring along her along.

And there are the Geneva Conventions, which use different terms, in addition to torture, but which certainly prohibit torture and much more.

This emphasis on precision and the terms used and the questions asked may sound overly lawyerly. And I suppose, in some sense, it is. But we are talking, here, about legal questions that are being analyzed by lawyers giving legal advice.

And I think that raises one of the most important issues in this area. I think it's critical to remember that the legal analysis should begin and not end the discussion of whether to do something.

If something is illegal, then obviously it's not an option. You simply can't do it. But if it's legal, then it's only that, an option. And there should be a powerful discussion about whether it's a good idea.

And Philip Zelikow gave an interesting talk about this, and I agree with him that, in this area in particular, too often the legal analysis replaced the policy analysis. And the question tended to become, simply, is it legal, and, if so, we'll do it.

I think that may have been understandable in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but as time went on, it became increasingly clear that many of the steps we were taking, even if legal, had significant costs, and costs which might well outweigh any benefits we were receiving.

LEVIN: And this is just my personal view, but I think that we in the government were sometimes too slow to recognize some of those costs and adjust our policies accordingly. [...]

I'd like to make two final points.

First, there's been reporting about certain steps I may have taken in working on opinions in this area, and some people have said some very flattering things. Some have said some not so flattering things as well.

I'm not authorized to discuss that matter, but I can say that while it's always nice to have nice things said about you, they're completely undeserved.

And I don't say that out of any false sense of modesty. The simple fact is I did nothing that thousands and thousands of members of our military have not done during training. I simply took the steps that I felt I needed to take in order to do the work I was privileged to be assigned, and I deserve no particular credit for that. [...]

I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you would have, but if I could just add one point. As a witness sitting here in a hearing, I feel like I have some obligation to say something about this. And I'm very limited, I think, in what I can say.

But if the subcommittee has been informed that there was a total of three minutes of waterboarding, I would suggest the subcommittee should go back and get that clarified, because that I don't believe is an accurate statement.

Postscript: I think it's striking that Levin brought his child to watch his testimony, which he seemed to be under some constraints about providing. Unlike John Yoo, former top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes, Alberto Gonzales and so many others, history is likely to treat Levin as honorable, and this will mark one of the events that can explain why he did what he did, even at the cost of his job in the Bush administration's Justice Department. As Philippe Sands and others suggest, in the years to come, even when we're not expecting it, who knows if there will be war crimes charges brought against some of the officials who seemed so willing to do what it took to advance their careers just a few years back.

And what is Levin suggesting about the "three-minute" simulated drowning being inaccurate? Is he suggesting other administration officials perjured themselves? Or that the procedure itself is administered differently? Jonah Goldberg thinks he has the answer - it was five minutes, according to Goldberg. (Unlike Levin, presumably Goldberg not willing to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak?) And is that right? And where did "three minutes" come from anyhow? From former CIA official John Kiriakou?

More from former Justice Department Office of Legal Council official Marty Lederman: "In previous posts on this blog, I have been both highly complementary of much of Dan Levin's work at OLC (see here and here), and, as to one specific aspect of Levin's analysis, sharply critical. Whatever our substantive differences might be, however (and I imagine there are many), it is hard to escape the conclusion that Dan Levin was an OLC attorney of great integrity, honesty, and rigor -- that he took his public service extremely seriously. Which is why he was fired. ..."

Today, Levin explained that the footnote did not mean what we have all understood it to mean -- namely, that Levin was signing off on the legality of all previously approved CIA techniques. Instead, he merely intended to convey that the persons who wrote those previous memos would not have altered their own bottom lines, even if they had used Levin's version of statutory analysis: If one replaced the statutory analysis in the previous OLC opinions regarding specific techniques with Levin’s statutory analysis, he explained, the attorneys writing those previous opinions would not have come to a different conclusion; but footnote 8 "did not mean, as some have interpreted -– and . . . this is my fault, no doubt, in drafting -- that we had concluded that we would have reached the same conclusions as those earlier opinions did. We were in fact analyzing that at the time and we never completed that analysis."

Why wasn't the new analysis of the legality of the CIA techniques completed? Because the Administration replaced Dan Levin with the (apparently much more compliant) Stephen Bradbury.

By contrast to Levin, see this WP profile on former Pentagon lawyer William Haynes, apparently at a lawyer's direction experiencing profound memory loss in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services committee Tuesday. Post: "It was the most public case of memory loss since Alberto Gonzales, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, forgot everything he ever knew about anything. And, like Gonzales, Haynes (who, denied a federal judgeship by the Senate, left the Pentagon in February for a job with Chevron) had good reason to plead temporary senility. [...] In two hours of testimony, Haynes managed to get off no fewer than 23 don't recalls, 22 don't remembers, 16 don't knows, and various other protestations of memory loss. It was an impressive performance, to be sure. But let's see him try to do that with a hood over his head, standing on a crate with wires attached to his arms."

Daniel Levy: Ten comments on the Gaza ceasefire and what's next.

CQ:

The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to consider legislation Wednesday to impose additional sanctions on Iran, but the effort appears snarled by language in the bill that would block a proposed nuclear deal with Russia.

Supporters of the new Iran sanctions want to attach the bill, now in unnumbered draft form, to the Senate’s fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill, one of a few pieces of legislation with a good chance of enactment this year.

To make the sanctions more palatable to some lawmakers, they have weakened the bill, but the Russia language remains a sticking point.

“It’s just very much in our national interest to try to work with the Russians in dealing with nuclear materials and proliferation issues, and this would get in the way of that,” said Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.

Among those who have weighed in with their concerns are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s chairman, Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., and its ranking Republican, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, all of whom have written to the Finance Committee’s chairman, Max Baucus, DMont., and ranking Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.

Biden and Lugar wrote that the language “would likely make it impossible to obtain Russian agreement on further measures and would thus preclude the possibility of broad cooperation on additional U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran.”

Opponents of the nuclear deal criticize Russia for providing nuclear fuel and conventional weapons to Tehran.

But supporters of the deal say the United States needs Moscow’s help in further isolating the regime, which they accuse of developing nuclear weapons. Russia is “a country that we have to have working with us if we’re going to be effective in diverting Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” Bingaman said.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential pro-Israel lobby, weighed in Tuesday, sending a letter to Finance Committee members in support of the bill. ...

Update: Worth rereading this post of mine from a few weeks back: tracing the roots of an Iranian oil blockade meme.

LAT: Curveball speaks.

Politico: Former White House aide David Safavian wins new trial. In appeal, two of the five counts he was convicted on were thrown out. He's getting a new trial on the remaining three counts.

As previously reported by Ha'aretz, the LA Times reports that Sheldon Adelson's ties to Tom DeLay said to have eased his Macao casino bid. In return for China giving Adelson the Macao casino license, Adelson allegedly helped Beijing by getting DeLay to kill a Lantos-backed House resolution which would have called for Beijing not to get the Olympics games, on human rights grounds. According to a recent George Will column, Adelson is now the single largest foreign investor in China. Hawks who cite China threat still lining up to tap Adelson ATM.

NYT: New progressive book club.

NYT's James Risen: "The Army official who managed the Pentagon’s largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food, housing and other services to American troops. The official, Charles M. Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Smith said that he was forced from his job in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the Army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations. Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. ... But he was suddenly replaced, he said, and his successors — after taking the unusual step of hiring an outside contractor to consider KBR’s claims — approved most of the payments he had tried to block."

ISIS: Latest diplomatic offer to Iran (.pdf)

NBC's Aram Roston: "Today, long-time international arms dealer Monzer al Kassar will appear before federal judge Jed Rakoff in a hearing in Manhattan. Al Kassar already was arraigned on Friday, shortly after his extradition to the U.S., and he pleaded not guilty to charges of selling millions of dollars worth of machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and surface to air missiles to the FARC, the Colombian rebel group designated as a terrorist organization. Al Kassar's current accommodations, the federal correctional system, are a far cry from what he was used to when NBC News producer Aram Roston met him in 2006, in a palace in the south of Spain. ..."

Update: More context from the Sydney Morning Herald drawn from interview with another arms dealer pursued by DEA for his weapons sales to the FARC, Viktor Bout:

... Bout is not the only alleged global arms dealer to be targeted by the US. On June 7 last year the Syrian millionaire and alleged arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar was arrested in Spain in a similar sting operation organised by US authorities. He had also been indicted on charges of seeking to sell weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, to FARC.

In September 2006 the Indonesian arms dealer Hadja Subandi and a group of Sri Lankan Tamil and Singaporean associates were arrested in a sting in Guam. They are accused of trying to sell $US900,000 worth of surface-to-air missiles and other sophisticated weaponry to the Sri Lankan separatist rebels the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

It has been clear since the early years of the decade that Western security services have been concerned over the proliferation of man-portable air defence systems, such as the shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles Bout was allegedly trying to sell to FARC. The US has been more active than any other country in trying to secure stocks of these missiles, persuading governments to destroy obsolescent stocks while cracking down on arms merchants dealing in them.

"When you have al-Kassar last year and Viktor Bout this year caught in strikingly similar sting operations, a pattern clearly emerges," says Anthony Davis, a security analyst with Jane's Information Group. That pattern is precisely why the US is on a collision course with Russia, where many surface-to-air missiles are manufactured and later somehow find their way onto black markets. (China is another, even more important, source of surface-to-air missiles and other sophisticated weaponry that is bought and sold on underground international markets.)

David Albright's report (.pdf): Swiss smugglers had advanced nuclear weapons design.

... Soon after learning of the weapon designs, a senior IAEA official told Pakistani government officials about the designs found in Switzerland. The Pakistanis were upset, since they realized that the designs had to be from their nuclear weapons arsenal. They were genuinely shocked; Khan may have transferred his own country's most secret and dangerous information to foreign smugglers so that they could sell it for a profit. And these advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of most treacherous regimes in the world.

The CIA pressured the Tinner family into working for them, most likely in 2003. They are believed to have provided information on the Khan network and turned over centrifuge components that they had not yet sent to Libya. However, the Tinners apparently did not tell the CIA about these nuclear weapon designs.

For what has to be viewed at best as partial cooperation, the Tinners appear to have received a large sum of money and a CIA commitment to help keep them out of jail. The CIA was unable to keep its promise on jail time. ...

The Bush Administration often says that the Khan network was wrapped up. However, four years after the arrest of Khan and several of his associates, important questions about their activities remain outstanding. Gaining their cooperation has been difficult; prosecuting Khan's associates has been especially difficult.

ACW's James Acton comments: "... However, most importantly, I want to question how much difference this actually makes at a practical level. ... Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want to underplay the seriousness of Khan selling weapon designs. But, from a proliferators perspective, mounting a warhead on a missile is surely only a modest strategic advantage compared to obtaining the Bomb in the first place."

AP: UK raises terror threat to highest levels for citizens in the UAE

The British government has raised its terror warning to the highest level for its citizens living in the United Arab Emirates, an embassy spokesman said Monday.

A statement posted on the Web site of the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi said the country has "a high threat of terrorism."

"We believe terrorists may be planning to carry out attacks in the UAE. Attacks could be indiscriminate and could happen at any time," it said.

Simon Goldsmith, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Dubai, confirmed the heightened alert and said the terror threat level for Britons in the UAE was at the highest level used by the British government.

The embassy, however, "is not advising British nationals to change their travel plans," Goldsmith told The Associated Press by telephone from Dubai.

The threat level was changed on Saturday, he added.

Goldsmith would not comment on what triggered the heightened alert, but said the threat level was under constant review.

Possible targets include spots popular with expatriates and foreign travelers such as residential compounds, as well as "military, oil, transport and aviation interests," according to the warning posted on the British Embassy's Web site.

McClatchy: "An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad." More in its series here.

WP: New British, EU sanctions on Iran. British prime minister Gordon "Brown, appearing with Bush at a 10 Downing Street news conference, said Britain and the European Union would act later Monday to freeze the assets of Iran's largest bank, Bank Melli, in response to Tehran's refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program. [...] European action against Bank Melli comes on top of restrictions imposed in October 2007 when the U.S. Treasury Department froze bank assets and halted transactions as part of a broader package of sanctions against state-owned Iranian financial institutions. Bank Melli allegedly sent $100 million to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from 2002 to 2006, according to Treasury officials. Treasury has also cut off another major Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from the U.S. financial system."

The Baltimore Sun's Paul West: McCain cheapened his own brand. "He embraced President Bush and attempted to become, like Bush, the choice of the Republican establishment. In the process, he helped obliterate recollections of his first run for president, when he became the first Republican in a long time with strong crossover appeal to independents and Democrats. Losing his reputation for independence could prove particularly costly this year. [...] For many voters, his image today is as an outspoken defender of an unpopular war in Iraq and a supporter of Bush's economic policies, including the tax cuts that McCain voted against in the Senate but now promotes as a presidential candidate. Interviews this spring with swing voters in primary states underscored the depth of McCain's challenge. Even some of those who dislike Obama said they would not vote for McCain because it would be like giving Bush a third term."

NYT's Ethan Bronner: Hamas deepens control in Gaza. "One year ago, gunmen from Hamas, an Islamist anti-Israel group, took over Gaza, shooting some of their more secular Fatah rivals in the knees and tossing one off a building. Israel and the West imposed a blockade, hoping to squeeze the new rulers from power. Yet today Hamas has spread its authority across all aspects of life, including the judiciary. It is fully in charge. Gazans have not, as Israel and the United States hoped, risen up against it. ... The notion of Gaza as an enduringly separate entity is solidifying, making it less likely that Palestinians might agree even among themselves on peace with Israel. ... Even more politically complicated is the question of how the closure has affected Hamas’s authority and popularity. Many in the West and Israel would very much like to believe Hamas is in trouble. And it is easy to find people here who hate the government and its black-clad police, even among some who voted for Hamas in the January 2006 elections that gave it a majority in the Palestinian legislature and led to 18 months of tense power sharing before the takeover. But those in Israel who watch most closely — Arabic speaking security officials — say that while the closure is pressing Hamas, it is not jeopardizing it." Related from Ha'aretz: Israel agrees in principle to cease-fire proposal with Hamas.

Politico:

One week into the general election, the polls show a dead heat. But many presidential scholars doubt that John McCain stands much of a chance, if any.

Historians belonging to both parties offered a litany of historical comparisons that give little hope to the Republican. Several saw Barack Obama’s prospects as the most promising for a Democrat since Roosevelt trounced Hoover in 1932.

“This should be an overwhelming Democratic victory,” said Allan Lichtman, an American University presidential historian who ran in a Maryland Democratic senatorial primary in 2006. Lichtman, whose forecasting model has correctly predicted the last six presidential popular vote winners, predicts that this year, “Republicans face what have always been insurmountable historical odds.” His system gives McCain a score on par with Jimmy Carter’s in 1980.

“McCain shouldn’t win it,” said presidential historian Joan Hoff, a professor at Montana State University and former president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency. She compared McCain’s prospects to those of Hubert Humphrey, whose 1968 loss to Richard Nixon resulted in large part from the unpopularity of sitting Democratic president Lyndon Johnson.

“It is one of the worst political environments for the party in power since World War II,” added Alan Abramowitz, a professor of public opinion and the presidency at Emory University. His forecasting model — which factors in gross domestic product, whether a party has completed two terms in the White House and net presidential approval rating — gives McCain about the same odds as Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Carter in 1980 — both of whom were handily defeated in elections that returned the presidency to the previously out-of-power party. “It would be a pretty stunning upset if McCain won,” Abramowitz said.

What’s more, Republicans have held the presidency for all but 12 years since the South became solidly Republican in the realignment of 1968 — which is among the longest runs with one party dominating in American history. “These things go in cycles,” said presidential historian Robert Dallek, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. “The public gets tired of one approach to politics. There is always a measure of optimism in this country, so they turn to the other party.”

That desire for change also tends to manifest itself at the end of a president’s second term. Only twice in the 20th century has a party won a third consecutive term in the White House, most recently in 1988, when George H.W. Bush replaced the term-limited Ronald Reagan, who was about twice as popular in the last year of his presidency as President George W. Bush is now.

But the biggest obstacle in McCain’s path may be running in the same party as the most unpopular president America has had since at least the advent of modern polling. Only Harry Truman and Nixon — both of whom were dogged by unpopular wars abroad and political scandals at home — have been nearly as unpopular in their last year in office, and both men’s parties lost the presidency in the following election. ...

Dr. iRack critiques hawks' failure to grasp why Iraqi leaders aren't signing on to US SOFA demands. " ... The truth of the matter is that it is difficult to see a way forward in current negotiations if one starts from the premise that the entire goal of the talks is to allow the United States the maximum amount of "freedom of action" in Iraq and the largest possible troop presence for as long as we want. As Dr. iRack wrote yesterday, even the Maliki government--which probably, deep down, wants a long-term bilateral security relationship--is uncomfortable with this position, because it is a blow to Iraqi sovereignty--creating, at the very least, a political "marketing" problem in the face of rising national sentiment and impending provincial elections. [...] Moreover, because Maliki et al. are increasingly overconfident that they can police Iraq all by themselves, and the Bush administration has done a great job of convincing the Iraqi government that we need them more than they need us (because our support to Maliki, at the strategic level, is effectively unconditional), the current Iraqi ruling coalition believes they have all the leverage. This shouldn't be the case. ...."

Former IAEA inspector David Albright: Pakistan nuclear 'hero' AQ Khan peddled Pakistan's own nuclear design. NYT: Khan nuclear smuggling ring had advanced design-- Pakistan's:

It was not until 2005 that officials of the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna, finally cracked the hard drives on the Khan computers recovered around the world. And as they sifted through files and images on the hard drives, investigators found tons of material — orders for equipment, names and places where the Khan network operated, even old love letters. In all, they found several terabytes of data, a huge amount to sift through.

“There was stuff about dealing with Iranians in 2003, about how to avoid intelligence agents,” said one official who had reviewed it. But the most important document was a digitized design for a nuclear bomb, one that investigators quickly recognized as Pakistani. “It was plain where this came from,” one senior official of the I.A.E.A. said. “But the Pakistanis want to argue that the Khan case is closed, and so they have said very little.”

Tinners may have given information to the CIA, the NYT reports. More from the Post:

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states. [...]

The computers that contained the drawings were owned by three members of the Tinner family -- brothers Marco and Urs and their father, Friedrich -- all Swiss businessmen who have been identified by U.S. and IAEA officials as key participants in Khan's nuclear black market. The smuggling ring operated from the mid-1980s until 2003, when it was exposed after a years-long probe by the U.S. and British intelligence agencies. [...]

Albright, citing information provided by IAEA investigators, said the designs were similar to that of a nuclear device built by Pakistan. He contends in the report that IAEA officials confronted Pakistan's government shortly after the discovery, adding that the private reaction of government officials was astonishment. The Pakistanis "were genuinely shocked; Khan may have transferred his own country's most secret and dangerous information to foreign smugglers so that they could sell it for a profit," Albright said, relating a description of the encounter given to him by IAEA officials.

US/IAEA pushback on Pakistan/Khan -- and Khan's image in Pakistan as nuclear hero, as AQ Khan makes campaign to be released from house arrest by new Pakistani leadership? Contact says timing of these stories may have had more to do with a bunch of Tinner stories in the works.

More from the AP: "The [senior IAEA] diplomat [in Vienna] referred a reporter to a transcript of a panel discussion on Nov. 7, 2005, where ElBaradei spoke of at least one weapons design being copied by the Khan network onto a CD-ROM 'that went somewhere that we haven't seen' and added, 'That gives you an indication of ... how much the technology had (been) disseminated.'"

CQ: Surveillance deal reached in principle: "...Sources said the major change is that a federal district court, not the secret FISA court itself, would make an assessment about whether to provide retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their alleged role in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. It was not immediately clear, however, what standard the court would use to determine whether retroactive legal immunity was justified. If that standard is too low, civil liberties advocates maintain, the law will have been written so that companies are almost assured of being granted immunity, and any claim of court scrutiny is a mirage. One source said the court would review whether there was “substantial evidence” that the companies had received assurances from the government that the administration’s program was legal."

Weldon told Wired's Sharon Weinberger about his meeting with the former KGB head of Russian arms export control agency and their idea for an American front company for Russian weapons sales to the Mideast. Weldon:

Chemezov offers—it’s an amazing offer with Putin’s support... there are countries in the Middle East that are approaching Russia to buy replacement weapons and spare parts. Chemezov is here to say, "We want to work with America to either establish either a joint company, or even an American company that would act as a front for weapons these nations want to buy. So American would not think we’re going behind their back." What an unbelievable offer. Chemezov is here, with Putin’s knowledge, to try to set that up with us. Our National Security Advisor doesn’t even attend the meetings.

One suspects that Hadley and others may have already been advised of the FBI/DOJ task force investigating Weldon et co by this point (2006). Would not be surprised if MO was to stand back and see what he does. We know there were wiretaps on Weldon going back about this far.

Via MJ, new National Journal Peter Stone piece on brother Karl reveals that Rove making six figures from Freedom's Watch/Sheldon Adelson. "Two GOP strategists said they have heard that Rove has worked out a private consulting deal with Adelson; this arrangement, one strategist reported, pays Rove in the mid-six figures for giving speeches and providing assistance to Freedom’s Watch on labor union issues, a top priority of the group."

Site went down for a while yesterday. Now it seems to be working with Internet Explorer, but it doesn't seem visible in Mozilla. Basically, if someone blows a switch in India, it's kaput. (OK, some readers can see it in Mozilla, others including this one can't. Not sure what's up). Update: OK, seems to work everywhere, thanks to PK who advised cleaning out the Firefox cache.

Thomas Edsall: "Two other top Clinton advisers, former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national security adviser Samuel R. 'Sandy' Berger, face more difficulty in gaining entry to the Obama camp, according to sources. Holbrooke, who is known to have sharp elbows, reportedly does not get on well with two of Obama's key advisers, Anthony Lake, national security adviser in Bill Clinton's first term, and former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice. While Berger has many supporters, he also damaged his reputation by pleading guilty to unauthorized removal and retention of classified terrorism documents from the National Archives in 2003. He was fined $50,000, lost his security clearance for three years, and was placed on probation for two years. The likelihood that neither Holbrooke nor Berger will be absorbed into the Obama foreign policy staff or the advisory structure at a high level actually works to lessen the probability of divisive Democratic conflict on this front."

Paul Kiel at Pro Publica: 21 members of 109th Congress investigated by the FBI. "Below is a rundown of all 21 lawmakers, current and former. Ten of them are no longer in office. Investigations of seven are part of the Abramoff investigation. Seventeen are Republicans, four are Democrats. This total, based on prosecutorial filings and unambiguous news reports, does not include at least three reported federal investigations of lawmakers for matters other than corruption, including Ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL). All the lawmakers, with the exception of those who have pleaded guilty, deny wrongdoing."

Via Emptywheel, the AP's Matt Apuzzo challenges the Justice Department demand that a press conference call on the Supreme Court Gitmo decision yesterday be off the record:

That’s because Associated Press reporter Matt Apuzzo quickly objected, saying the off-the-record rule "does nothing to help anybody understand anything."

When he said he would consider the discussion on the record, he was told he should get off the call. Apuzzo refused, say