Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

It’s always a shame when you lose a few e-mails. In the high-tech world, the "dog ate my homework" excuse does not quite work. To lose an e-mail you have to work hard to destroy the evidence. So, I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, to hear that the White House has lost some e-mails!

According to the Los Angeles Times some key emails concerning the US Attorney scandal may have been lost by the White House:

The White House said today that it may have lost what could amount to thousands of messages sent through a private e-mail system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other top officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators.

The e-mails were considered potentially critical evidence in congressional inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics may have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The White House said an effort was underway to see whether the messages could be recovered from the computer system, which was operated and paid for by the Republican National Committee as part of an effort to separate political communications from those dealing with official business.

"The White House has not done a good enough job overseeing staff using political e-mail accounts to assure compliance with the Presidential Records Act," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in an unusual late-afternoon teleconference with reporters.

As a result, Stanzel said, "we may not have preserved all e-mails that deal with White House business."

Most unfortunate. Surely the missing emails must be recoverable? right?:

The e-mails were sent through a communications system created in conjunction with Republicans early in the Bush administration. Rove and others were given special laptop computers and other communications devices to use instead of the government communications system when dealing with political matters.

The parallel system was designed to avoid running afoul of the Hatch Act, which prohibits using government resources for partisan purposes, White House officials have said.

But evidence has emerged that system users sometimes failed to maintain such separation and used the private system when communicating about government business.

Special laptops. Other communications devices. I have a few questions:

• Were Rove and company using their special laptops on the White House LAN? If so, what is the White House policy on connecting non-government computers to the White House LAN? Is that considered a breach of security?
• If the "special laptops" were using the White House LAN, then emails sent and/or received by those laptops would have had to go through the White House firewall before going out to the internet. Shouldn’t someone look at the firewall logs to determine how many emails were sent out and/or received from these laptops and to which IP addresses? Does the White House firewall log all content that passes through it? If so, someone should retrieve the emails from the firewall logs.
• If these special laptops did not plug into the White House LAN, did Rove and company use a wireless public network (like Verizon Wireless) from inside the White House to send/receive official White House communications to outside parties? Is that considered a breach of security in the White House?
• Were any of the emails sent from these special laptops, through gwb43.com, internal White House communications between White House staffers? If so, has internal White House deliberations been compromised by the communications being sent out over the public internet?
• Does the email server at gwb43.com do regular backups? If so, someone should pull the backup tapes from the relevant time period to retrieve the "deleted" emails.

So many questions. I am sure the crack staff at the White House and the RNC will be able to answer these questions and retrieve these "lost" emails. Because as everyone knows, it really is very difficult to "delete" things these days. There’s almost always a copy lying around somewhere - in some mail server, on some backup tape, in some firewall log, etc.. That DELETE button on the computer doesn’t do what some may think it does.

Dateline Ramadi June 18, 2006 from the Associated Press:

RAMADI, Iraq - Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops set up outposts Sunday in southern parts of Ramadi as part of an operation to establish Iraqi army bases in the country’s largest Sunni Arab city and wrest it away from months of insurgent control.

The United States Military is poised to retake the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi from the Iraqi insurgents. Keeping with the theme of progress this week, the press is dutifully reporting "progress" in the Iraq war.

The White House is busy taking victory laps after the killing of al Zarqawi a week and a half ago. In his latest "Freedom is on the march" tour, the President has snuck into the Green Zone bunker in a display of virtual freedom, Maliki has cracked down in Baghdad for the cameras, and the city of Ramadi is being retaken from the insurgents.

In spite of the PR blitz, the picture in Iraq remains largely the same and is getting steadily worse. The American Embassy in Baghdad, having not received the Karl Rove memo, reports in a cable to Washington that things are going from bad to worse.

The pundits in the press want to hear none of it however. The more interesting news is the bounce President Bush is likely to get in the polls. The more interesting news is how Karl Rove can now use Iraq to bludgeon the Democrats into defeat in November. Well, at least that was the preferred storyline this week until the deaths kept on piling up in Iraq. President Bush’s dead cat bounce in the polls is not translating into progress in Iraq.

So, how do we measure progress in Iraq? At a bare minimum, in a war, one sign that you are winning is defined by how much territory you control. Arguably, the United States and the Iraqi government do not control very much outside the Green Zone in Baghdad and the Kurdish regions. Since Ramadi is in the news now and the press is breathless about the impending violence, it is worth looking at how many times we have taken Ramadi only to lose it again. Surely, if we are doing the same thing over and over again, we are not making progress; we are at best treading water. And given the loss of lives and treasure in recapturing the same city over and over again, we are in fact going backwards, i.e., losing.

Dateline Ramadi December 2, 2005 from the BBC:

US and Iraqi forces have launched a military operation in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the day after insurgents staged a show of strength in the city.

Dateline Ramadi February 26, 2005 from the BBC:

Reports said three died in a gun battle in Ramadi, as US and Iraqi forces try to clear insurgents from key areas in the so-called Sunni Triangle.

People in Ramadi said there was a prolonged exchange of fire.

Dateline Ramadi July 23, 2004 from the Christian Science Monitor:

RAMADI, IRAQ – Some of the heaviest fighting in months erupted on Wednesday in the troubled city of Ramadi. Throughout the day, the thud of mortars, bombs, and machine-gun fire echoed down desolate streets as insurgents battled hundreds of US Marines.

An estimated 25 insurgents were killed, and 25 people - including two Iraqi police - were detained in a day of clashes, which saw 13 US soldiers lightly wounded in firefights and multiple ambushes.

At sunset, as American helicopters swooped over central Ramadi, a small funeral procession for Iraqis killed in the fighting moved slowly through town. But stores remained locked behind metal gratings and few residents ventured onto streets littered with debris and cratered by bombs.

The pattern in Ramadi, and much of Iraq, has been insurgents fleeing the area as US troops move in. When the troops inevitably leave the insurgents creep back in. After the insurgents come back in, they kill or chase away whoever the US has put in charge:

Large swaths of Ramadi have been in insurgent control for months. Powerful roadside bombings and gunbattles take place every day, confining U.S. patrols to small sections of the city. Prominent tribal leaders who have cooperated with U.S. forces have been assassinated or forced to flee outside the country.

It’s the same story every time. Ramadi is a microcosm of what is happening throughout Iraq. Add to the insurgency the sectarian violence and growing civil war and you have a real quagmire.

This is apparently the "progress" Karl Rove accuses the Democrats of "cutting and running" from. Our Iraq policy is no longer (if it ever was) about winning. It is not even about avoiding defeat. Our Iraq policy is now all about domestic politics. The Republican National Committee has officially dubbed the Democrats’ Iraq policy alternatives as "Cut and Run". Serious policy debate is no longer possible. The RNC political strategy is quite shameless. It will use our troops and the Iraqi people to try to garner enough votes in November to retain control of Congress.

I think the Bush Administration must know by now that they have failed in Iraq. The best thing the United States could do right now for the Iraqi people is to start pulling out. Unfortunately, having lost Iraq, the Administration and its allies are now trying to salvage their political careers. American soldiers and Iraqi citizens are dying in the battle for control of the United States Congress.

So, once more unto the breach. Once more into Ramadi we go.

The United States Senate voted 78-15 to confirm General Michael Hayden as the new CIA Director. 25 Democrats joined 52 Republicans and 1 Independent in voting to confirm General Hayden. In doing so, the Democrats gave Karl Rove and the Bush Administration the headline they were hoping for when they nominated General Hayden.

The Washington Post website obligingly served up the following as its top news story:

Senate vote gives broad bipartisan endorsement to the architect of NSA’s domestic spying program.

The cowering Democratic response to the Hayden nomination has just needlessly inoculated the Republicans from the charge of violating Americans’ civil liberties by conducting warrantless domestic spying. This is a defeat for the American people and may result in defeat at the polls in November for the Democrats.

The Democrats now have 6 months in which they must grow a backbone. However, if today’s vote is any indication they are steadily digging themselves into the same safe yet futile hole that John Kerry climbed into during the 2004 Presidential elections. Republicans in the Congress and the White House must be doing cartwheels watching the latest act of Democratic Hara-kiri.

When President Bush nominated General Michael Hayden for the position of Director of Central Intelligence he threw down a gauntlet to the Democrats. He dared the Democrats to do battle on this nomination. He dared the Democrats to vote against Hayden and he dared the Democrats to hold up the nomination. He dared the Democrats to leave vacant the CIA Director’s position while the United States is engaged in wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Predictably, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee saw the gauntlet, turned tail, and fled.

With the notable exception of Senators Feingold, Wyden and Bayh, the remaining Democrats on the Committee voted to send Hayden’s nomination to the floor. By voting for the nomination the 4 Democratic Senators have fallen into the political trap set for them by the Administration. The Administration has put the Democrats in a vise. If Democrats vote against the nomination, the Administration can claim that the Democrats are obstructionist and weak on national security. If the Democrats vote for the nomination, the Administration is inoculated against charges that it overstepped its authority by conducting warrant-less surveillance. A vote for Hayden is in effect an acceptance of the Administration’s position on the NSA spying. Either way the Democrats vote they will be beat upon relentlessly in the run up to the November elections.

Democrats have rightly decided that blocking Hayden’s nomination will damage them politically going into the November elections. However, voting for the architect of the NSA spying program is an even worse option. A vote for Hayden, in addition to giving the Administration a green light on the NSA spying, will also alienate the Democratic base - and the base is crucial in the November elections where turnout will likely determine the outcome of many races. A vote for Hayden will damage the Democrats just like John Kerry’s Iraq votes damaged him in the 2004 Presidential elections. Here the Administration has figured out that they can have their cake and eat it too - they get the nominee through and they damage the Democrats politically.

I propose a third option for the Democrats. When the nomination comes up for a vote on the Senate floor, the Democrats should neither try to block it nor vote against the nomination. Instead the Democrats should abstain. Abstaining on the nomination vote blunts the Administration’s logic and outflanks them politically. The Democrats cannot be seen as obstructionists when they do not hold up the nomination. The Democrats cannot be seen as weak on national security when they do not vote against the nominee. The Bush Administration will also fail in their gambit to inoculate themselves from charges that the NSA spying is illegal. The Democrats can say that they stood on principle and could not vote for a nominee who has a questionable record on protecting American civil liberties, and on the other hand, the Democrats can say that they could not vote against the President’s nominee for the crucial position of Director of Central Intelligence in a time of war. 

When the Bush Administration picked General Hayden, no doubt they believed they had a horse on which they could win multiple political points ahead of the elections. They counted on the Democrats to cower at the prospect of a nomination fight. They counted on the Democrats to lose the game. Instead of capitulating on the playing field laid out by Karl Rove and his friends the Democrats need instead to move the playing field. It’s a simple strategy yet it holds the promise of success. 

Communique by Dire Straits

They wanna get a statement for Jesus sake
It’s like talking to the wall
He’s incommunicado no comment to make
He’s saying nothing at all

But in the communique you know he’s gonna come clean
Think what he say, say what he mean
Maybe on Monday he got something to say
Communication
Communique
Communique

Maybe he could talk about the tricks of the trade
Maybe he could talk about himself
Maybe he could talk about the money that he made
Maybe he’d be saying something else

But in the communique you know he’s gonna come clean
Think what he say, say what he mean
Maybe on Monday he got something to say
Communication
Communique
Communique

And now the rumors are flying
Speculation rising
Say that he’s been trying someone else’s wife
Somebody at the airport
Somebody on the phone
Says he’s at the station and he’s coming on the noon
Then we get the story a serious breeze
And a photograph taken in the hall
You don’t have to worry with the previous release
Right now, he’s saying nothing at all
But in the communique you know he’s gonna come clean
Think what he say, say what he mean
Maybe on Monday he got something to say
Communication
Communique
Communique

 

Karl Rove suffers from occasional amnesia. Yet the junkyard dog prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald will not let this memory challenged senior White House staffer off the hook. It appears that the slow dance Karl’s been doing with the prosecutor is about to come to an end. The music is fading and the lights are about to come on.

Ever since Karl Rove’s 5th appearance before the grand jury, the speculation has been building that he’s headed for the big house. The Washington Post this morning sent up the flare that the time is at hand, and tonight David Shuster on MSNBC practically declared that Rove is practicing the frog march. Jane Hamsher over at Firedoglake has organized her notes in anticipation of an indictment and Atrios is chilling the champagne.

What about me you say? Well, my opinion hardly counts. But since you asked, I think it’s over for Rover. Rover is about to find out that spinning the prosecutor is called obstruction of justice. The only parlor game left to play really is when the indictment(s) will be handed down. My guess is this Friday. Make your guess in the comments section. Those that get it right will have their names up in lights on the day of the indictment.

Let the games begin!

The story goes like this: Negroponte is unhappy with Goss. Negroponte goes to Bush for help in getting rid of Goss. Bush approves. Goss is fired. Hayden is looked upon as a likely replacement. Bush will announce on Monday that Hayden is the new CIA Director.

That is the story that the major news outlets are peddling based on some high octane spin coming from the White House. Karl Rove must be losing what hair he has left burning the midnight oil.

I have one major problem with this story line. The problem is that Porter Goss dropped everything on Friday and ran to the White House with virtually no notice to quit. That is simply not done when you are the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the middle of an intelligence driven War on Terror. His hasty exit has left the CIA in turmoil. If he was pushed out as a result of a power struggle the Administration would have had a successor at the ready to smooth the transition. Not having a successor ready is either monumentally irresponsible or an indication of a scandal that is big enough that all other considerations seemed not to matter to Goss and the President.

Adding fuel to the fire, asked about his resignation Porter Goss was decidedly unhelpful:

Porter Goss said Saturday that his surprise resignation as CIA director is "just one of those mysteries," offering no other explanation for his sudden departure after almost two years on the job.

It looks like Porter Goss is not on board with the program. Look for Goss to sing like a canary in the near future.

We are also to believe that John Negroponte was involved in a power struggle with Goss.  To buy into this spin, we would have to believe that Mr. Negroponte takes his job seriously. Unfortunately, Mr. Negroponte is so engaged in his job as the Director of National Intelligence that he spends three hours of his busy workday relaxing at a ritzy private club:

On many a workday lunchtime, the nominal boss of U.S. intelligence, John D. Negroponte, can be found at a private club in downtown Washington, getting a massage, taking a swim, and having lunch, followed by a good cigar and a perusal of the daily papers in the club’s library.

“He spends three hours there [every] Monday through Friday,” gripes a senior counterterrorism official, noting that the former ambassador has a security detail sitting outside all that time in chase cars. Others say they’ve seen the Director of National Intelligence at the University Club, a 100-year-old mansion-like redoubt of dark oak panels and high ceilings a few blocks from the White House, only “several” times a week.

…

But there seems to be a new, relaxed John Negroponte. And some close observers think they know why.

He’s figured out the job. Which is to say, he really doesn’t have much control over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

It does not appear that Negroponte was struggling with much of anything let alone struggling with the Director of the CIA.

If there was a power struggle, it might have been between the Defense Department and the CIA. The Defense Department appears to be usurping most of the intelligence budget and activities from the CIA. Mr. Negroponte is a hapless bystander in this power struggle as the following exchange with Senator Diane Feinstein illustrates:

“We appointed you to be the person to (run) all intelligence,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., lectured Negroponte at a Feb. 28 hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. (CQ Transcripts: Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing, Feb. 28, 2006)

Feinstein asked Negroponte about “recent media reports [that] have spotlighted a number of activities that appear to be related to intelligence collection or covert action, but that well may be outside of the official intelligence community’s channels.

“For example,” Feinstein continued, “military databases of suspicious activity reports . . . by the (domestic military) counterintelligence field activity, or CIFA; and, secondly, a Pentagon program to secretly pay Iraqi newspapers to run pro-American articles.

“Were these activities subject to your approval and oversight?”

Negroponte’s answer was short-circuited by an unidentified voice, according to the CQ transcript, quite possibly his deputy, former Air Force general and NSA chief Michael Hayden.

“Ma’am, I don’t believe that either of those activities would fall into Mr. Negroponte’s area. They are Department of Defense programs, I believe.”

“Now, let me raise this problem then,” Feinstein continued.

“Now, I know how tough it is. But if you didn’t know and you didn’t give a go-ahead [to domestic military spying], it indicates to me that, for 85 percent of the budget, which is defense-related, that you’re not going to have the controls that you should have,” Feinstein said.

“You want to comment?”

Negroponte, who not long ago in Baghdad was dismissing senior military officers with the wave of his hand, had to be feeling an acute wave of heartburn.

The Director of National Intelligence was forced to concede that the U.S. intelligence activities Feinstein was asking him about had “not risen to the level of my office.” In any event, they came “under the direction of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence” — a pipsqueak, relatively speaking.

Negroponte said he “understood” that the Pentagon was doing an internal review of spying programs because of a congressional uproar.

“But will you get the results of that review?” Feinstein asked.

“Yes,” promised Negroponte, dismissed like a schoolboy, “I will get those results.”

Enter General Michael Hayden. He apparently is the forerunner to be the new CIA Director. If he is nominated it will be a victory for Dick Cheney and will further diminish the power of the CIA vis-à-vis the Defense Department. Michael Hayden after all is Dick Cheney’s go to guy for warrant-less eavesdropping. The former Director of the National Security Agency was the implementer and chief public defender of the Administration’s warrant-less domestic spying program. General "Bill of Rights" Hayden of course famously excised the "probable cause" clause from the Fourth Amendment:

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I’d like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American’s right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use —

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually — the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the —

GEN. HAYDEN: That’s what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable —

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says —

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard —

GEN. HAYDEN: — unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause." And so what many people believe — and I’d like you to respond to this — is that what you’ve actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place in probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn’t craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.

Just to be very clear — and believe me, if there’s any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it’s the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you’ve raised to me — and I’m not a lawyer, and don’t want to become one — what you’ve raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe — I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we’re doing is reasonable.

He is just the guy we need to head our spy agency.

Michael Hayden, the Defense Department and Dick Cheney (even perhaps Negroponte) may be jockeying to take advantage of the power struggle caused by Goss’s departure but it is not plausible to conclude that they were the primary cause of his departure. The New York Daily News asserts today that its "all about the Duke Cunningham scandal" (better known as Hookergate). The Wall Street journal also reports that Goss’s number 3, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, may be under federal criminal investigation for his involvement in Hookergate. Josh Marshall widens the net by looking at possible misdeeds at the DHS related to Hookergate contracting. No one however has yet connected Porter Goss directly to the scandal. The involvement of Foggo with Hookergate does not explain the abruptness of the Goss exit. Something else must have spooked Goss. Whatever caused his sudden flight probably involves him directly, not tangentially.

There is way too much smoke here for there not to be fire. There is much original reporting to do here. I trust that our worthy investigative reporters will leave no stone unturned to unearth the roots of this scandal. The Nixon Watergate scandal started with a third rate burglary. The reality challenged G. Gordon Liddy has always claimed that the real story involved hookers. Mr. Liddy may finally get his wish in that the new Watergate scandal is starting with hookers. Where it leads is anyone’s guess. However, it does promise to be a hot summer in Washington.