1-18-06, 9:00 am
In December 2005, the New York Times reporter, James Risen, created quite a stir when he reported that the Bush Administration had assigned the National Security Agency to engage in putatively illegal wiretapping of telephone and email communications within the U.S. Former Vice President Al Gore excoriated this policy and demanded the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this matter for the purpose of bringing possible criminal charges.
This is a serious matter in that 'it may be the largest domestic spying operation since the 1960s, larger than anything conducted by the FBI or CIA inside the United States since the Vietnam War.' There is high-level corporate collaboration in this scandal. For 'unknown to most Americans, the NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries….' Since a telephone call between, say, Islamabad and Jakarta or an email between Germany and Italy, may be routed through the sophisticated telecommunications infrastructure of the U.S., the larger scandal may be that the NSA may be eavesdropping on the entire planet.
Yet though this is a 'faith-based' account to an extent, it bears the ring of authenticity in that it at times simply adds detail to what we already know. For example, he writes of 'secret prisons in Poland and Rumania' operated by the CIA that are used for aggressive interrogations and torture. Unfortunately, the author does not comment on the irony of these two Eastern European nations being used for such dastardly purposes after—supposedly—they have been 'liberated' from Communist 'tyranny.'
As is well-known, even before the ouster of these regimes in Eastern Europe, the CIA had developed extensive networks there. Thus, 'in 1990 the CIA and NSA jointly stole virtually every code machine (and their manuals) in use by the Soviet Union, giving NSA’s code breakers a remarkable advantage on Moscow.'
Another region that comes in for searching scrutiny is the Middle East. The author suggests that Israeli intelligence wielded profound influence within the CIA when it was alleging that Iraq contained weapons of mass destruction—a major rationale for the war. The author also points the finger of accusation at Saudi Arabia; 'the sympathies of at least some officials in the Saudi security apparatus lay with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and not with the United States,' he argues. 'CIA sources also say that the agency has had strong evidence that some of the intelligence it has shared with Saudi security officials has ended up in the hands of al Qaeda operatives.' When one intelligence official toured the offices of his Saudi counterparts, he was stunned when he noticed that 'a number of Saudi officials had Osama bin Laden screen savers on their office computers….'
Once again, Colin Powell—a major source in the best-selling books by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post—appears to be a source for Risen all. Naturally, he emerges from these pages as a hero which is either reflective of his attempt to restrain the more bellicose forces within the regime—or reflective of his skill as a bureaucratic in-fighter.
Now the same folks who led the nation into war ostensibly because of the supposed presence of WMD in Iraq or now beating the war-drums and whipping up hysteria because of Iran’s supposed plan to construct nuclear weapons. Where this latest war-making scheme will end up is hard to say at this point. Strikingly, concomitant with the increase in volume of war cries has come an increase in calls for impeachment of the present occupant of the White House. Thus, it is not too soon to stress the importance of this book not only for what it reveals but also for what it exposes: for the increasing rift between the security agencies and the Bush White House will play an increasingly critical role in the attempt to remove this President.
