Tweet
Apparently, you can hide your lying eyes (photo: the|G|™)
The Obama administration has approved covert military operations in a wide number of Middle Eastern countries, The New York Times reports, including in Somalia, Yemen and Iran (not to mention the long-running, kinda sorta covert war in Pakistan). As former National Security Council staffers Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett note, Obama’s move marks a particularly dramatic “intensification of America’s covert war against Iran” — a war that, because it is being run out of the office of General David Petraeus (praise be upon him) and CENTCOM, is “not subject to the same congressional oversight and reporting requirements as the Central Intelligence Agency.”
The Leveretts observe the approach is “powerfully reminiscent” of the Bush administration, which likewise sought to evade formal congressional oversight of its covert war against Iran even as the Democratic Congress authorized $400 million to conduct the operations, reportedly including support for the Pakistan-based terror group Jundullah, or Army of God.
In 2007, I asked then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) about those operations and reports the Bush administration was seeking to avoid the oversight of his panel. Surely, with an unpopular war further dragging down a more unpopular Republican administration, Rockefeller would be champing at the bit to take on a Bush/Cheney effort to gin up another war and (more importantly to a senator) evade his personal congressional fiefdom, even if for purely partisan or egotistical reasons — “I’m a United States senator, god damn it!” — right?
DAVIS: I wonder if you’ve heard some of these news reports that the Bush administration is backing extremist groups in Pakistan to launch attacks against Iran? Are you familiar with those news reports?
ROCKEFELLER: I’ve seen no intelligence that would verify that.
DAVIS: Reports quote administration officials as saying this is going on and it’s being done in a way to avoid oversight of the Intelligence Committee. Is there any way—
ROCKEFELLER: They’ll go to any lengths to do that, as we’ve seen in the last two days [during hearings on warrantless wiretapping].
DAVIS: Is there anything you could do in your position as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee to find answers about this, if it is in fact going on?
ROCKEFELLER: Don’t you understand the way Intelligence works? Do you think that because I’m Chairman of the Intelligence Committee that I just say I want it, and they give it to me? They control it. All of it. All of it. All the time. I only get, and my committee only gets, what they want to give me.
DAVIS: Is there any way someone, maybe not you, they can somehow press the administration to find something—if they’re doing something that may be illegal—
ROCKEFELLER: I don’t know that. I don’t know that. I deal with Intelligence. That’s it. They tend to avoid us.
DAVIS: Well, what do you think about these allegations?
ROCKEFELLER: I’m not—I don’t comment on allegations. I can’t. I can’t afford to.
Rockefeller has since been replaced by the undead Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). And if you believe Feinstein will in any way challenge the Obama administration on a matter that she and other Senate Democrats already signed off on when Bush was in power, well, then, you probably also think that nice Nigerian gentleman who keeps emailing is really going to send you that $200 grand.
16 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
I forgot who ran the govt. but it’s clear now. I feel safe
Right. DiFi is definitely not the answer.
it is odd.
doesn’t anyone recognize that david rockefeller created barry obombya?
barry is the creation of the rockefellers.
look at barry obombya very closely. you tell me where he deviates from the cfr, trilateral, bilderberger agendas.
A Rockefeller…? *gah*
Nothing says spreading freeance like covert ops.
It would strain credulity to believe that this is not by design.
For the Executive branch, it’s obvious of course.
For Congress, while less obvious, it too is no coincidence that our Congresscritters somehow just can’t figure out how to fix this.
When Congresscritters like Jello Jay Rockefeller baldly proclaim their own ignorance and impotence, one should remember that politicians never, ever admit to their own failings unless it is to avoid be held “responsible”.
When there’s bad stuff to be done, unwitting is better than witting.
obama our soulless god.
This once country known as america is no more.
You folks sound like the chatter on Facebook of my teenage daughter’s friends. Not much in the way of fact, but lots of non sequitur and innuendo.
Thanks.
You know when other countries do this our government calls it state terrorism.
That was a good catch!
In other news, The four Kurds that Iran just hung were paid by the US to bomb the IRG.
And the factual documentation regarding the four Kurds would be?
The exchange with the Senator above says more about how neocons go about actualizing their agendas than what the office of the Executive can get away with under Bush or Obama. What concerns me from the NYT article and the Atlantic article is all of the potential that Obama is not in the loop about the activities that are controlled by those at DoD who espouse neocon ideas -no Congressional oversight and, paradoxically, likely no direct awareness of the POTUS for many high risk actions.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein is an excellent choice! The good from California senator “talks the talk,” and we like that.
http://www.feardepartment.com/search/label/Dianne%20Feinstein
Things just get more and more depressing. It is shocking to think about the fact that the Obama Security Assessment is going to focus on the fact that there are homegrown terrorists. Well, considering the fact that the people become more and more disenfranchised each and every day, is it any surprise?
Just seems like the government has decided that it wants to go to war against its own people as opposed to trying to instead be representative of them. I’m not insinuating anything, but can you look at our government in any way and say that they are working on our behalf?
It is insane to think that our economy continues to supposedly recover, but more and more people are out of work. Or if they can find work, it is for much less money than they historically made. The government is for and by the corporations who subvert our representatives and that’s about it.
I’m not surprised that people are angry and some of them will be led to act. It happens in other countries all the time. Why would America think that it is any different?