The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Andrew Berger and Peter Sheehy | March 14, 2008, 9:54AM

President Bush has issued an executive order weakening the Intelligence Oversight Board, which was created by the Ford administration following a Congressional investigation into abuses by intelligence agencies. Among the changes: the order "deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation" and "terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general." (Boston Globe)

The goal posts have been moved so many times that it's worth recalling that when President Bush called for a "surge" of troops in Iraq, the stated goal was to create the stability required for the Iraqi government to function effectively and begin the process of reconciliation. By that standard, General Petraeus conceded yesterday that the "surge" has failed. Petraeus informed the press that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the government's ability to provide basic public services. (Washington Post)

A recently released Justice Department report revealed the FBI's abuse of intelligence-gathering privileges through the use of "national security letters," and yesterday two government audits of this abuse revealed that the agency obtained records that the FISA court had deemed protected by the First Amendment." Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's Inspector General discovered that the FBI attempted to skirt the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court after it twice rejected an FBI records request because "the 'facts' were too thin" and the "request implicated the target's First Amendment rights." (Washington Post)

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Andrew Berger and Peter Sheehy | March 13, 2008, 10:37AM

Lawyers for Ali al-Marri, a detainee held at the Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina, will assert in court papers that al-Marri was systematically abused and informed that there were numerous videotapes depicting the FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency's handling of him. In a related matter, Defense Department officials are reviewing interrogations at military facilities from Iraq to Guantánamo Bay, and have found approximately 50 tapes, including one that depicts a detainee being forcibly gagged. In February, Seton Hall Law’s Center for Policy and Research reported that it had discovered "new evidence of a longstanding government practice of recording interrogations at Guantánamo Bay," suggesting that "the two CIA tapes that were destroyed were only a tiny fraction of perhaps 24,000 recorded interrogations." (Washington Post, New York Times, Seton Hall University School of Law)

The White House's Office of Management and Budget proposed a new rule last year that obligated contractors to report waste or fraud they encountered in government contract work. However, the rule has a loophole that exempts such mandatory reporting on foreign soil. (Washington Post)

Two detainees at Guantanamo Bay were captured and imprisoned as juveniles. Mohammed Jawad was captured when he was 16 and Omar Khadr was captured when he was 15. The detainees' lawyers are asking for leniency but Military prosecutors say that there is no provision for juvenile status under the 2006 war-crimes tribunal laws. (AP)

Despite high profile support for an earmark moratorium, any measure banning lawmakers' ability to fund home-state projects is likely to fail. The Senate will likely reject the moratorium today and even Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who initially seemed supportive of reform, has tempered her support. Meanwhile, The Hill reports that "congressional candidates in tight races, from Alaska to New York, are vowing to pursue earmarks despite the intensifying movement against pet projects." (Washington Post, The Hill)

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Andrew Berger and Peter Sheehy | March 12, 2008, 10:03AM

The House, overcoming the objections of 23 Democrats and 159 Republicans, has finally passed a much debated ethics bill that will, for the first time ever, allow nonmembers to initiate investigations. The reform measure comes at time when two House lawmakers are under indictment, two have been sent to prison, and several others are under federal investigation. (Washington Post)

John McCain boasts that he was crusading against excessive spending and legislative corruption when he helped block the Boeing-Air Force air tanker contract. But lobbyists in his campaign, including his finance chair, helped Airbus beat out Boeing last year for a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling tanker planes. McCain is under scrutiny in this deal because he sent letters "urging the Defense Department, in evaluating the tanker bids, not to consider the potential effects of a separate United States-Airbus trade dispute." (Washington Post, New York Times)

All Muck Is Local favorite Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) accused his critics yesterday of having an "unethical, illegal, lynch mob mentality." Kilpatrick is facing calls for his resignation over a text messaging scandal that revealed he had a romantic relationship with his chief of staff and has led to possible perjury charges. (AP)

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Andrew Berger and Peter Sheehy | March 11, 2008, 10:39AM

The Antoin "Tony" Rezko trial has focused attention on a "vaguely worded" e-mail that alludes to Barack Obama's role in empowering a state health planning board that Rezko allegedly packed with associates - many of whom made political contributions to Obama. At the time that the e-mail was written, the board was set to expire and Obama was chairman of the Illinois Senate’s health committee. (New York Times)

The Washington Monthly features 37 short essays on torture. Though the contributors are from across the political spectrum, the unifying message of the articles" is, "simply, Stop." (Washington Monthly)

A new report from Human Rights First, entitled "Tortured Justice" criticizes "the use of evidence tainted by torture and other inhuman treatment" in the cases against detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The report also states that the use of such evidence is "tainting the legitimacy of the proceedings, both at home and in the eyes of the international community; alienating US allies and empowering terrorists." (AFP)

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Andrew Berger and Peter Sheehy | March 10, 2008, 10:19AM

If only they had listened to Doug Feith. In a soon to be released "massive score-settling work" on the run-up to the Iraq war, Feith skewers Colin Powell, the CIA, Gen. Tommy R. Franks (who called Feith "the f***king stupidest guy on the face of the earth") and L. Paul Bremer for their misguided pre-invasion planning and mismanaged occupation. Feith asserts that the State Department and intelligence experts undermined his genius work and President Bush's policies. While Feith praises Donald Rumsfeld, he elides "some of the basic facts of the war, such as the widespread skepticism inside the top of the U.S. military about invading Iraq, with some generals arguing that doing so would distract attention from the war against global terrorists." (Washington Post)

In The Nation, the author of Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting explains how John McCain "broke the rules while doing the bidding of media mogul Lowell "Bud" Paxson, a major contributor to McCain's 2000 presidential campaign" and how "McCain's staff lied it [sic] about it then and they are inventing new lies even now." (The Nation)

After four years of investigations, the Senate Intelligence Committee is finally ready to release a report critiquing President Bush's claims about Iraq's WMD program in the buildup to the Iraq war. Though the report details the numerous wildly erroneous White House assertions that provided the pretext for invading Iraq, officials assert that the report stops short of alleging that the Bush manipulated intelligence. In short, one official has concluded that "the left is not going to be happy. The right is not going to be happy. Nobody is going to be happy." (LA Times)

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