In this week's issue of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports that Bush and Co are stepping up covert operations in Iran. Hersh appeared on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and said that "Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents."

Hersh's new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series that exposes the Bush administration's preparations for and intent to go to war with Iran.

More below the fold:

Well, thank God I voted for the Democrats to stop all of the madness of the Bush administration and their flagrant disregard for the law, the Constitution, Common Decency, and the American public.

The guy behind the ultra-successful marketing campaign known as "IRAQ HAS WMDs!!!! IRAQ HAS MOBILE WEAPONS LABS!!!!" believes he should have been better-rewarded for his efforts.

In a series of interviews with Los Angeles Times reporters John Goetz and Bob Drogin, the Iraqi Intelligence Salesman Formerly Known As Curveball whined about how he isn’t appreciated in his own time.

The guy has a point. I mean, when you think about how much money has been made by leveraging the dubious-at-best assertions made by a guy who graduated with a D average from university – and, just to be clear, I’m talking about Curveball here, not any leaders of the free world – you’d think someone, somewhere could’ve seen fit to at least throw the guy a half a pallet or so of shrink-wrapped $100 bills, right?

In another disclosure of how the Bush administration warped the pre-war intelligence to drive American forces into Iraq, a Senate report cites a recently discovered CIA report that claims Bush's linking information between Saddam and Al-Qeada was not credible.

About my old man:  He spent 22 years in the military.  As a teenager, he served at the tail end of World War Two on a Navy refrigerator ship in the Pacific.  Then, after being discharged at the end of the war - and not having a whole lot of success in the civilian world - he re-enlisted -- this time in the Army.  And he did so just in time for Korea.  

He was in the invasion of Inchon, and was sitting on the Yalu river when the Chinese invaded.  Eventually, he earned a battlefield commission, and after the war, was stationed in Germany as an officer in the Army Counterintelligence Corps -- smack dab in the middle of the cold war.  He's gone now, but he saw his share of shit.  Hell, he probably participated in his share of shit.   But one thing he didn't do was vote Republican.  Ever.  He was a devout liberal who was against torture and all forms of civil rights deprivation.  And it used to kill him when, in my late teens, I'd spout the bullshit being fed to me daily by Rush Limbaugh.  (I know, I know -- but I was teenager.)  He used to go ballistic.

While having a discussion on nuclear energy, it came to my realization that for whatever efforts we expound upon Obama being a good candidate we are not thinking of him as a president.

Being President will involve a lot of very tough decisions and ones that I think he will be able to make. But we cannot confuse good, with just, or moral. Every President has had to deal with something.

Please read and rec this!

Today, June 5th, 2008, Senator Rockefeller has released the long, long overdue "Phase II" report on how the Bush Administration used intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq.

I had pretty much given up on the Phase II ever coming out, or if it did come out, it would be a whitewash.

Here is the stunner: The Phase II is out, and judging by the press release, the Phase II report is NOT a whitewash.. I am shocked at how strong the language is. Read below for some quotes.

Forgive me if someone else has posted this today, but I have a slightly different perspective: When the report was released I was a taping a segment for tomorrow's "Bill Moyers Journal" with two of the few "heroes" of the early Iraq coverage, John Walcott and Jonathan Landay of McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder).  It was exciting to watch them go through the report, as it was handed to them in bunches as it was printed, in the Green Room as they noted how it confirmed so much of their very presicent reporting up to six years ago.

If you haven't heard, the devastating report featured Republicans Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe joining the Democrats.    Sen. Jay Rockefeller declared, "Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."

My full wrapup follows.

As I contemplate the way Americans come to conclusions about candidates that effect their votes (our recent primary in West Virginia, for instance, with a predominance of non-college educated people many of whom believe Barack Obama to be a Muslim), I get increasingly worried about how the next administration will handle the economy or the war or anything else.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell (center) is almost done with significant (but unnecessary) revisions for the US Intelligence Community

In an attempt to complete the total overhaul of the US Intelligence Community (IC) prescribed by the 9/11 Commission, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is putting the finishing touches on a revamped Reagan-era executive order that incorporates his position within that system and gives that office (the ODNI) the 'power of the purse' in determining the strategic priorities of the community's members.   Executive Order 12333,  entitled United States Intelligence Activities,  was originally adopted in 1981 to further delineate the relationships among the various intelligence agencies and organizations that had evolved since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in 1947.  

McCain has been Ahmed Chalabi's best pal. Chalabi's been playing the U.S.A. for a fool, dallying with the Iranians, and getting rich of the whole venture (Back at the Liberal Milblog Springboard, see here, here, here, here and here for background.) McCain is Chalabi's buddy, and it's time for Obama to start brining that relationship up..

Why?  Because the long-established McCain/Chalabi love-fest calls McCain's "National Security" credentials into question.  It'd be interesting to know how much good McCain (and his lobbyist buddies) have done for this nasty, Iranian-Agent-of-Influence and likely terrorist-enabler named Ahmed Chalabi...

Read on:

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Douglas Feith. He is a neo-conservative who is considered one of the key planners of the Iraq war. Jon focuses a great deal of his attention on how the war was sold to us, the American public prior to the invasion.

Obviously, it's a little tense since Jon is such an outspoken critic of the pre-war spin as well as the invasion and occupation. Feith is about as polar opposite as it gets and is still trying to make those tired "things changed after 9/11" arguments that drive me nuts.

Anyways, its an important interview for anyone who cares about Iraq:

IQ tests are not supposed to measure what you know or learned in school, but rather your native innate intelligence.  Studies of identical twins reared apart suggest that by late adulthood IQ is almost entirely genetic.  There are some environmental effects (i.e. nutrition) but cultural factors like being raised in a rich educated home are now believed to have zero impact on IQ by late adulthood.  There are some psychologists who argue that dropping out of school causes your IQ to drop dramatically, however one could argue that people may drop out of school because they were already genetically getting dumber (it just takes a few years for one's IQ scores to catch up with the current state of one's intelligence).  

Did John McCain tell the truth about WMD intelligence in the leadup to the war? During a Washington Post live discussion, I asked Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Dana Priest, and here's what she had to say:

Chicago: McCain was quoted in Feb 2003 as asking "is there any doubt in anybody's mind that if Saddam Hussein thought he could harm the United States that he wouldn't give any terrorist organization some weapon of mass destruction?" My impression is that that is not what the intelligence said at the time. The probability of Saddam initiating an attack against the U.S. without being provoked was deemed to be low.

The National Intelligence Estimate described the idea of him passing WMD to Islamic terrorists as the kind of extreme, desperate step he might only take as a last measure of revenge if he were invaded and he wanted as many others as possible to be taken down with him. Do you agree that McCain's statement seems at odds with the intelligence at the time?

Here was her answer:

I've been prodded into writing a brief diary about cetaceans in general and dolphins in particular.  We humans have a tendency to gravitate toward certain animals for which we have special affection regardless of where that affection derives.  For me, it's cats.  I have three magnificent Maine Coon cats who rule my life and show me love.  As cats go, they're pretty smart.  If I could conjure up an IQ number that was valid, I would give my cats an IQ of about 15, just slightly lower than our mayor, and a couple points higher than our current President.  I also have a compelling interest in dolphins and whales.  Well, here goes...

It just gets better and better with the Bush Buffoons:

Hundreds of employee laptops are unaccounted for at the U.S. Department of State, which conducts delicate, often secret, diplomatic relations with foreign countries, an internal audit has found.

As many as 400 of the unaccounted for laptops belong to the department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, according to officials familiar with the findings.

The program provides counterterrorism training and equipment, including laptops, to foreign police, intelligence and security forces.

Ironically, the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program is administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), which is responsible for the security of the department’s computer networks and sensitive equipment, including laptops, among other duties. It also protects foreign diplomats during visits here....

Auditors found that the department had lost track of $30 million worth of equipment, according to one official, "the vast majority of which . . . perhaps as much as 99 per cent," was laptops.

It's keystone kops all throughout this administration. Yes, human beings are fallible, and we all make mistakes. But the level of incompetence demonstrated by this administration is as mind-boggling as the deliberate malfeseance has been. We can only hope that there weren't really serious breaches of national security this time.

Which of course leads to the obvious conclusion: reason #4,297 for not giving any part of this administration access to the kind of information about the lives of Americans that they constantly seek, particulalry with the lack of Congressional oversight they demand. The combination of incompetence and disregard for the law should have long ago sufficient for this Congress to say "enough."

When Joe Lieberman is actually trying to pry information out of DHS, you know we've got a serious problem:

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Me., are seeking detailed explanations from the Department of Homeland Security regarding a new initiative to secure federal information technology systems.

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Senators reiterate their support for the Administration’s heightened attention to cyber security as evidenced by creation of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). The CNCI, formally established in January, is intended to strengthen the federal government’s ability to secure the electronic networks and databases upon which it relies.

But, given the Administration’s request to triple DHS’ cyber security budget over the past year, the Senators are asking for specific information on issues ranging from the secrecy of the project to its heavy reliance on contractors to the lack of involvement by the private sector, which controls the vast majority of the nation’s cyber infrastructure.

While making it absolutely clear that he supports the administration on cyber security, even Lieberman doesn't have enough information on this one. His letter contains 17 questions, many of them multiple point, trying to determine information that they've been trying to get at since they first asked for a briefing five months ago.

The program is another potential assault on our privacy rights. This is a wide-ranging program in which the entire intelligence community--including the NSA--will be tasked with monitoring the nation's computer networks. Why should this be such a concern to even Lieberman? Wired sum that up:

Why might citizens be worried about privacy and civil liberties? Consider that the whole initiative appears to have been launched after the Director of National Intelligence told the President Bush that a cyber attack might wreak as much economic havoc as 9/11 did.

Consider that the NSA, which currently protects classified networks, wants to expand into protecting all non-classified federal government networks. Consider that Congress is set to legalize the NSA's monitoring rooms in the nation's phone and internet infrastructure.

For its part, the FBI says it also needs access to the internet's backbone, while the Air Force is hyping its own efforts at cyber defense and offense. Meanwhile, THREAT LEVEL's sister blog Danger Room reports that DARPA is getting in on the hot cyber-action, with a project to make a fake internet to develop new cyber attacks and defenses....

Now it seems the only question is whether the government will be able to turn the net into a controllable, monitorable and trackable pre-internet AOL-type service or whether the chaotic net will live on as just another frontier for the military-industrial complex to start an arm's race and rake in billions of government dollars.

This attempt to expand the reach of the intelligence agencies--given their proven and blatant disregard for following the law--deserves to be questioned, and both the House and Senate Intelligence committees should pick up the theme and join Lieberman in asking these important questions.

Yet another reason the Protect AT&T Act--or any other intelligence desire of this administration--should not be granted. Chertoff's five-month refusal to cooperate with Lieberman, of all people, proves that these people cannot be trusted with our privacy.

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow had a conversation along these lines on Countdown last week, and something clicked for me.

Answer this question:
Wouldn't you rather have a President who is the smartest person in the room?