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Today's Must Read
That's one way to placate the National Clandestine Service. CIA Director Michael Hayden is going after the agency's independent watchdog, Inspector General John Helgerson. Hayden wonders if Helgerson -- who is not appointed by the CIA director -- hasn't gone too far in investigating how the agency conducts detentions and interrogations.
Helgerson has for years been perceived as overly aggressive in reviewing CIA techniques in the war on terrorism. In 2004, he produced an internal report that seemed to say that Department of Justice-approved interrogation techniques employed by the CIA amounted to torture. That report was part of a series of internal administration moves contributing to uncertainty among interrogators and senior officials about what was legally permissible. Some in the NCS -- the agency's undercover operatives -- have purchased legal insurance to guard against the possibility that they will one day face criminal charges for putting administration-approved practices into place. In short, many in the CIA think Helgerson is out to get them.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the investigation has grown out of an effort by Hayden months ago to explore a "friction" that had emerged between Helgerson's office and that of the CIA general counsel, which also has lent its legal imprimatur to CIA interrogations and detentions, after the general counsel's office believed Helgerson was improperly second-guessing its advice. But the investigation, headed by Hayden confidante Robert L. Deitz, is now a full-fledged exploration of how Helgerson conducts his work. It comes as Helgerson is "nearing completion" on several reports into interrogations, renditions, and detentions, reports The New York Times.
In investigating Helgerson, Hayden is probably taking steps to assuage what by all accounts is an NCS plagued with legal confusion. Both the LAT and the NYT describe the investigation as "unusual" if not "unprecedented." Hayden's spokesman told both papers that the director is simply out to "help this office, like any office at the agency, do its vital work even better."
Not everyone is so credulous. Frederick P. Hitz, a CIA IG in the 90s, blasted the inquiry in the NYT:
Mr. Hitz said any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would “not be proper.”“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Mr. Hitz, who now teaches at the University of Virginia. “Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the I.G.?”
The LAT reports that whatever the outcome of the probe, the IG's office will feel the consequences for a long time:
But officials expressed concern that the probe would also involve reviewing the inspector general's files. Such a step could have a dramatic chilling effect, officials said, making agency employees reluctant to cooperate with future investigations for fear that their involvement and the information they provide would be exposed.
Helgerson has been under fire for years. A recently-declassified report blasting the CIA's pre-9/11 performance has been vociferously criticized by Hayden and his two predecessors, Porter Goss and George Tenet. Goss made Helgerson undergo a polygraph last year after Goss fired one of Helgerson's subordinates, Mary McCarthy, for allegedly leaking classified information about the agency's so-called "black sites" -- off-the-books detention facilities in Europe -- to The Washington Post. That leak fueled the perception that Helgerson was out to stop certain CIA policies -- a perception surely bolstered by his most recent reviews into interrogations, detentions and renditions.
But Helgerson is a presidential appointee, not a Hayden subordinate. According to the NYT, Hayden would have to go to White House appointees if he wants Helgerson gone.
Under federal procedures, agency heads who are unhappy with the conduct of their inspectors general have at least two places to file complaints. One is the Integrity Committee of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, which oversees all the inspectors general. The aggrieved agency head can also go directly to the White House.If serious accusations against an inspector general are sustained by evidence, the president can dismiss him.
And we all know President Bush is scrupulous about both evidence and oversight. Especially over crucial intelligence-related policies in the war on terrorism.
Comments (33)
Ugh wrote on October 12, 2007 9:42 AM:Is there anyone in the Bush administration who is not a thug?
moondancer wrote on October 12, 2007 9:48 AM:I'm sure Hayden will help Helgerson, out the door. And no Ugh they are all thugs.
bob wrote on October 12, 2007 9:49 AM:> Is there anyone in the Bush administration who is not a thug?
Only Barney. Even Miss Beasley is a thug.
Rob wrote on October 12, 2007 9:59 AM:We live now in a reality that as a short story in a creative writing class would produce a failing grade for lack of realism. This is the sort of story that is so ridiculous it has to be true, because no one could ever get away with making it up.
John Boyer wrote on October 12, 2007 10:01 AM:Another example of the Bush administration using unprecidented methods to avoid the scrutiny that needs to be applied to them and their methods. The Bush touch, sort of like what happens in my digestive tract, everything he touches turns to shit.
bwindrip wrote on October 12, 2007 10:07 AM:The wounded mink
Will have to slink
Off to a prison cell, I think.
bwindrip wrote on October 12, 2007 10:11 AM:Crap!
(Just like me to go to the trouble of penning a poem, then post in on the wrong thread...)
Sailmaker wrote on October 12, 2007 10:11 AM:Check Goldsmith on Hayden, page 78, "The Terror Presidency", typos mine.
"Michael Hayden, former nSA Director General and now Director of the CIA, would often say that he was "troubled if (he was) not using the full authority allowed by law" after 9/11, and that he was "going to live on the edge," where his "spikes will have chalk on them." Hayden's view permeated the executive branch after 9/11 , and in the light of the clear public demand to act aggressively to stop the terrorist threat, I agreed with it. My job was to make sure the President could act right up to the chalk line of legality. But even blurry chalk lines delineate areas that are clearly out of bounds. Congress had restricted what the President wanted to do here, and Philbin and I simply couldn't find any plausible arguement that he could disregard these restrictions."
"These restrictions" refers to FISA in this case, but it gives a flavor for how Hayden and all feel about the rule of law.
Dennis wrote on October 12, 2007 10:19 AM:In the meantime, we have a Congress that isn't worth a damn; more interested in political posturing than in protecting the civil rights of the American people.
Throw the bastards out!
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
dqueue wrote on October 12, 2007 10:30 AM:I encourage you to read an important, speculative piece by Joseph Cannon at his blog Cannonfire, http://cannonfire.blogspot.com. He ponders the question whether the CIA was using rendition flights to mask illicit drug flights, and is it possible the inspector general ferreted out evidence of such?
P J Evans wrote on October 12, 2007 10:42 AM:Our current maladministration prefers lapdogs to watchdogs.
It would be nice if the 535 members of Congress were watchdogs rather than lapdogs, though.
FMArouet wrote on October 12, 2007 10:44 AM:Good catch, Sailmaker.
Hayden was the heel-clicker who implemented much of BushCo's warrantless surveillance, data collection, and data-mining program, the full extent of which will probably astound us, if it is ever uncovered. Besides violating the 1978 FISA and ignoring the Fourth Amendment, who knows how many standing statutes Hayden violated to please his White House bosses when he was at NSA?
Having moved over to CIA, Hayden recognizes that BushCo policies of rendition (i.e., kidnapping without legal recourse, rather than regular extradition proceedings), secret prisons in Romania and Poland, sending captives to collaborating police services (Syria, Libya, Egypt, to name a few) for torture and interrogation, and authorizing CIA operatives to used "enhanced interrogation techniques" (i.e., torture) on suspects all constitute crimes under U.S. and international law.
In his ongoing effort to stave off the indictments of himself and his equally complaisant, heel-clicking underlings, Hayden will of course have to ease out CIA IG John Helgerson, who seems actually to have been taking his IG role seriously and trying to do real investigating of abuses and possible violations of law.
And so who will stop Hayden? DNI McConnell? The Democratic leadership in Congress?
Hchfpqzargh! Forgive me as I choke on my mouthful of coffee.
Lennonist wrote on October 12, 2007 10:49 AM:It's a recurring theme from Bush's Brain. Attack your opponents regarding your own weaknesses to change the subject. Confronted with a candidate who was AWOL in the states during Vietnam? Swiftboat a decorated veteran. Having difficulty with an investigation of an overreaching agency that illegally intrudes? Attack the investigation itself as being unlawfully intrusive. Too many soldiers realizing how you've used them to stay in power. Attack them as being tools of your opposition.
Machiavellian Mayberrys indeed.
Anonymous wrote on October 12, 2007 10:51 AM:Destroying the checks and balances of our system of government is the Bush White House's remaining mission before exiting ignominiously. They have no honor to protect and they fear no repercussions from a scorched earth policy as they are forced into infamy.
John Parker wrote on October 12, 2007 11:03 AM:Seems to me that Hayden has some inside knowledge of Helgerson's soon to be released reports. Of course, Hayden doesn't want anything to come to light on his watch (whether he was on point or not at the time).
I hope Helgerson maintains his fierce independence, as that is what his job duties include. If your wrong, your wrong. Deal with it Hayden. The old adage of "it if ain't broken, don't fix it" is not applicable to the CIA, because if it's not working, it's broken. I'm sure their are plenty in the CIA to support this assertion.
osage wrote on October 12, 2007 11:09 AM:Destroying the checks and balances of our system of government is the Bush White House's remaining mission before exiting power ignominiously. They have no honor to protect so they vengefully pursue a scorched earth policy as they are forced into infamy. They don't give a rat's ass about anything but their immoral and highly perverted loyalties to "Bush Republican" values. They'd rather destroy our system of government and the people who serve it honorably than pass authority to the will of the people via the democratic election process. Republicans aren't just cowardly exploitive whores, they are malicious and vindictive destroyers of the virtue and fairness that has defined American government. They are traitors to the principles of what it means to be an American.
Sailmaker wrote on October 12, 2007 11:59 AM:Dqueue - I think you could be correct: maybe the Siebel Edmonds' Turkish/drugs/arms connection 'state secret' is comming to light.
Here is an article with lists of curious coincidences. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/3/91613/7260
People left over from the drug trafficing in Laos during Vietnam, drugs in Afghanistan in the 80s and now, and so on. Truthfully, if I were the IG, and I discovered this rats nest of criminality, I'd think about making sure my will is up to date, along with the 'in case of my untimely demise send this to the NYT' letters.
I'd not place a nickel bet on whether or not those reports ever see the light of day.
Dee Illuminati wrote on October 12, 2007 1:06 PM:Most of the posts focus on a prosecution slant on the article, fine with me,, but take another perspective.
We know that the torture policies were top-down. We saw in the HBO documentary 'Ghosts of Abu Ghraib' that these were a top-down policy by DOD and that an effort to minimize the scandal was initiated.
Unlike the DOD the CIA has employees with a simple problem, at the same time that the politicians are disavowing torture, the policy is to conduct it.
Now understanding that crap rolls down hill and that the specifics of torture can be held accountable while executive priveledge is asserted does leave the CIA employee in a difficult circumstance.
Do they refrain from the act and take the label of 'risk adverse' or do they go the route of 'knuckle dragger cowboy' and risk being left out to dry (swing slowly in the wind) at a later time???
Could the previous acts of torture subsequently disavowed be used to coerce employed individuals in regard to continued employment?
Having to retain legal insurance as a means to continue employment seems an 'intelligent' thing to do.
And I think that the issue is in part obscured by the fact that the 'ticking bomb' scenario was a lurid and insidious proposition to instantiate a policy, as if to say: Cannablism is OK if your an airlines survivor of a crash in the andes so ergo her is the guidlines for cooking human flesh. The lurid circumstances of a ticking bomb scenario are the factual substance of the act of the jury nullification for torture.
I imagine that even those loathe to commit torture at CIA would admit that it is the 'ethical' thing to do if there was a scenario where a 'ticking bomb' scenario existed and the actionable intelligence warranted immediate action.
But we have a crosswinds in effect, a repudiation of torture at the official level, at the POTUS level, 'we do not torture' at the Rumsfeld level, and then the dungeons and the small fry prosecutions and the willfull ignorance of the policy makers when there is blowback from the act of coercion.
So we really have a lurid circumstance where the DOJ and POTUS are arguing about 'how to cook humans' as in the cannibalism, body organ failure, stressful possitions, etc...
And CIA employees are working with their asses hanging out while the lurid discussion continues of how many angels fit on the head of a pin and the deffinition of cruel and unusual punishment.
So for those 'intelligent' enough to look forward and see the downside risks of what is occuring, well legal insurance is probably a good idea considering the people that they work for... politicians.
If they buy legal insurance I hope that they retain an attorney with a better memory than alberto gonzales and smarter as well.
What happened at Abhu Ghraib the ass covering and the scapegoating deserves a 'put option on a career at CIA.'
That is an agnostic assesment of where this stands.
Mary wrote on October 12, 2007 1:15 PM:Hayden is also the man who said that he was very well trained - along with the rest of NSA - on the Fourth Amendment and opined that it didn't have a warrant clause and probable cause standard - just a need to be in one's own subjective karmic state "reasonable." And who gave "misleading" at best testimony to the joint 9/11 investigation - where he talked about being constrained by the same standards as pre9/11 and that maybe Congress should consider changes those, all without revealing that he had usurped that power to himself and already made those changes.
Why is anyone all that worried about torture after the el-Masri turn down though? Could it be that someday, someone might attack those "state secrets" affidavits given as being given to instead cover up crime and obstruct justice and prevent embarassment - - not so much because Bin Laden gets WMDs immediately upon the release of infomration that we tortured and kidnapped, abused, degraded and humiliated someone with no evidence and with a depravity only associates itself with trueblooded evil?
steve duncan wrote on October 12, 2007 1:17 PM:How would you like a job for life, Helgerson? Why, look what I found in my pocket. It's an appointment to a federal judgeship. Oops, dropped it! Why don't you just pick that up and keep it, John?
hardheaded liberal wrote on October 12, 2007 1:19 PM:Somehow the CIA always seems to be able to obfuscate the drug-smuggling charges that have been made over and over with respect to the agency's activities. So I would bet that no evidence of a drug-smuggling operation will ever be pried out of the CIA.
Helgerson could have found evidence of even more explosive information, such as the death of a detainee at the hands of a CIA interrogator (or a "contractor" interrogator, like those whose interrogations were so harsh that they killed several Afghanis). Or a death of a detainee who had been unlawfully "rendered" to the tender mercies of Egypt or of some other US "ally" that the CIA knows uses torture freely.
Somehow I doubt that Hayden would fear that Helgerson would disclose evidence of drug smuggling. Hayden could have sh*t his drawers, though, if Helgerson was tracking evidence of one or more deaths of detainees.
Jim M wrote on October 12, 2007 1:31 PM:The axe will fall soon. This was just the cloud-maker, so that later the headline can be "Bush Fires CIA IG Who Was Under a Cloud."
Jeremy wrote on October 12, 2007 2:05 PM:Helgerson should announce an investigation of Hayden's investigation of his investigations.
Max Renn wrote on October 12, 2007 2:20 PM:Hayden is the New World Orders Heydrich: amoral, intelligent, vindictive, ambitious and ultimately evil.
Noam Sane wrote on October 12, 2007 2:27 PM:This is the kind of stuff we used to laugh about when it happened in some banana republic. Just great.
steve duncan wrote on October 12, 2007 2:35 PM:Noam Sane wrote on October 12, 2007 2:27 PM:
This is the kind of stuff we used to laugh about when it happened in some banana republic. Just great.
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Duckman GR wrote on October 12, 2007 3:16 PM:Um, we ARE a banana republic.
And they're all a bunch of Heyrich's.
lll wrote on October 12, 2007 3:43 PM:dqueue gave us a great lead, and folks should be picking up on it.
there is so much history of the cia and drug running (check out wikipedia's section devoted to just this topic), why should we be surprised that afghanistan - who had essentially eradicated its poppy/heroine industry prior to our invasion - is now smack central?
those planes were never empty, ever. and there are just too many, and too many flights, to account for the numbers of prisoners, at least the ones we know about. do the math.
helgerson has no doubt uncovered these drug runs, and more importantly, has likely uncovered the complicity of the powers that be in the matter. he should definitely be watching his back.
Big Time Patriot wrote on October 12, 2007 5:14 PM:"Some in the NCS -- the agency's undercover operatives -- have purchased legal insurance to guard against the possibility that they will one day face criminal charges for putting administration-approved practices into place. In short, many in the CIA think Helgerson is out to get them."
Is that really what it is "in short"? Or, in short, are the questions that Helgerson is asking leading operatives to realize that their supervisors (at the request of the administration) are asking them to commit illegal acts? Perhaps many in the CIA think Helgerson is out to save their butts from jail.
However those ORDERING the illegal acts (see Hayden) might think Helgerson is out to get them.
Marty Medak wrote on October 13, 2007 11:18 AM:If Hayden is truly conducting investigations within the United States, is he not committing yet another crime. I thought that his authority to do so was limited: within the US, the FBI is to conduct investigations.
Marty Medak wrote on October 13, 2007 8:32 PM:Isn't Hayden breaking the law (yet again) by investigations conducted within the US. I thought that his charter stopped at our borders, and that the FBI had jurisdiction within the US.
Or, is the CIA charter now just another one of those quaint, old documents?
Hchfpqzargh! wrote on December 7, 2007 10:55 AM:What FMArouet said.
Does anyone else reading this website think, as I do, that the Congressional Democratic so-called "leadership" is up to their necks in knowing about all this? And THIS is the real reason that Pelosi took "impeachment off the table" the DAY AFTER Democrats swept both houses of Congress? Not for the reasons she gave (busy agenda, more important things [like what could possibly be more important than saving our country from neo-authoritarians???]). But because the top Democrats were guilty at some level as well?
Powkat wrote on December 7, 2007 11:06 AM:Dee - a person with an active conscience would take the risk-adverse label.