Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

The New York Times today puts Mr. Cheney at the center of Plame-gate. This bit of news will not come as a surprise to anyone. The real "news" in the article is buried deep.  The article portrays Mr. Bush as a passive figure in the leaking of a covert CIA agent and a National Intelligence Estimate.

Here is the astonishing passage from the article:

Mr. Libby said he found a way around that resistance by getting backdoor approval from the president. In a hush-hush meeting described in testimony, Mr. Libby asked the vice president’s chief counsel, David S. Addington, whether the president could declassify intelligence personally, effectively without C.I.A. knowledge or approval.

Mr. Addington testified that as he explained to Mr. Libby that indeed the president could do so, Mr. Libby shushed him. “He extended his hands out and pushed down a little like that, that would indicate, ‘Hold your voice down,’ ” Mr. Addington said at the trial. Mr. Libby testified that Mr. Cheney then went to Mr. Bush and got a presidential declassification.

White House officials have said Mr. Bush did not know how Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby intended to use the intelligence. [Emphasis added by me.]

To paraphrase Mr. Bush: what is worse, the President actively leaking a National Intelligence Estimate or the President declassifying an NIE without knowing why?

If we are to believe the New York Times and the "White House officials", then Mr. Bush is rather careless with this nation’s secrets. The President of the United States declassified a highly classified NIE without discussing it with the intelligence community or without bothering to find out why it should be declassified. The question is not whether the President has the power to do so (he does), the question is of judgment. If Mr. Bush chose to declassify the NIE for political purposes, he has chosen politics over national security. If Mr. Bush chose to declassify the NIE without a valid reason, he has displayed very poor judgment indeed. Either scenario does not put Mr. Bush in a favorable light.

In its attempt to spin a story that keeps Mr. Bush in the dark while throwing Mr. Cheney under the bus, the article also suffers from a timeline problem. According to the article, on July 8 2003, after speaking with Judith Miller, Scooter Libby leaked to Andrea Mitchell later in the day:

Cathie Martin, Mr. Cheney’s former communications director, recalled her discomfort at seeing Mr. Libby reading from the estimate later in the day while he called back reporters covering the story, at Mr. Cheney’s direction, among them Andrea Mitchell of NBC News.

Other senior officials were perplexed when they apparently saw some of Mr. Libby’s handiwork from those phone calls in action. After Ms. Mitchell reported that night on NBC News that “The White House blamed an October C.I.A. report for ignoring Wilson’s information,” the president’s deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, indicated that he had got an earful from Mr. Tenet, according to Ms. Martin’s testimony.

Ms. Martin testified that at a senior staff meeting the following morning Mr. Hadley strongly hinted he thought she was responsible and told her the finger-pointing had been a disservice to the president. According to Ms. Martin’s testimony, Mr. Libby let her take the blame and “looked down” as Mr. Hadley shared his chagrin. Mr. Cheney, she said, later told her not to worry about it. [Emphasis added by me.]

Mr. Hadley is portrayed on July 9 2003 as upset that the NIE was leaked. Yet, the very next day, July 10:

At a meeting on July 10, Mr. Hadley had suggested to Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney that the intelligence estimate could be leaked to a friendly reporter, Mr. Libby testified that his notes said. But neither he nor Mr. Cheney told Mr. Hadley that they had started trying to do so days earlier. [Emphasis added by me.]

Why the change of heart in a matter of 24 hours? It seems unusual for Mr. Hadley to be upset about the leak one day and then become an advocate of leaking the very next day. It stretches credulity that Mr. Hadley became a sudden convert to leaking overnight.

It is clear that Mr. Cheney was a major player in Plame-gate. However, while the article tries to portray Mr. Bush as a hapless bystander, the chronology of events and Mr. Bush’s own actions, and those of his deputy national security advisor, leave a lot of unanswered questions.

As the White House circles the wagons to contain the Iraq fallout, it is time for the New York Times and the mainstream media to ask hard questions of Mr. Bush. The citizens of this country deserve no less.

Michael Gordon of the New York Times announces today that the "Deadliest Bomb in Iraq is made by Iran". The pages of the Gray Lady once again beat the drums of war.

The "intelligence" is damning:

The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.

The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.

In interviews, civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided specific details to support what until now has been a more generally worded claim, in a new National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran is providing “lethal support” to Shiite militants in Iraq.

The focus of American concern is an “explosively formed penetrator,” a particularly deadly type of roadside bomb being used by Shiite groups in attacks on American troops in Iraq. Attacks using the device have doubled in the past year, and have prompted increasing concern among military officers. In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military officials say.

This is truly breathtaking "news". Iran is actively supplying weapons to Shia militias who are killing American soldiers. If there was ever a need for a casus belli to launch a strike against Iran, it appears one is in the making.

I am reminded of a similar headline in the New York Times on September 8, 2002. That particular headline read "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest For A-Bomb Parts" and offered up the following:

In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. American officials said several efforts to arrange the shipment of the aluminum tubes were blocked or intercepted but declined to say, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence, where they came from or how they were stopped.

The diameter, thickness and other technical specifications of the aluminum tubes had persuaded American intelligence experts that they were meant for Iraq’s nuclear program, officials said, and that the latest attempt to ship the material had taken place in recent months.

It was the aluminum tubes that were a sure sign that Iraq was on the verge of going nuclear. It was better to attack Iraq first before a mushroom cloud appeared above an American city.

To emphasize the Iraqi threat, the article also offered up the chemical weapon scare, brought to us by Mr. Bush’s death squad leader White House guest:

Iraq’s nuclear program is not Washington’s only concern. An Iraqi defector said Mr. Hussein had also heightened his efforts to develop new types of chemical weapons. An Iraqi opposition leader also gave American officials a paper from Iranian intelligence indicating that Mr. Hussein has authorized regional commanders to use chemical and biological weapons to put down any Shiite Muslim resistance that might occur if the United States attacks.

The paper, which is being analyzed by American officials, was provided by Abdalaziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iran-based group, during his recent visit with other Iraqi opposition leaders in Washington. [Emphasis added by me.]

The Bush Administration took the claims in the New York Times article and spun their false case for war with Iraq. The article was written by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon. That was then.

This is now. While Judith Miller has been much maligned, Michael Gordon has kept his credibility intact. Now that Ms. Miller has left the Gray Lady, Michael Gordon is left to carry the water for the Administration as it builds a fresh case for war against Iran.

Recently Michael Gordon let us know how he really feels on the Charlie Rose Show:

On Sunday, Calame dealt with a similar issue after Michael Gordon, the paper’s longtime chief military correspondent, spoke on the Charlie Rose show about the Iraq war. The offending incident occurred when Gordon said on the show that "I think, just as a purely personal view…the gap between the rhetoric of having a so-called strategy for victory, and then the reality of what’s going on in Iraq. And I’ve always felt that people in Washington were talking about a strategy for victory, but we actually never marshaled the resources and didn’t work effectively enough in Iraq to accomplish this.

"So I think, you know, as a purely personal view, I think it’s worth it one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we’ve never really tried to win. We’ve simply been managing our way to defeat. And I think that if it’s done right, I think that there is the chance to accomplish something." [Emphasis added by me.]

Clearly, a little extra effort will get us "victory" in Iraq and maybe a war with Iran.

But what do we make of the claim that Iran is supplying Shia militias with IEDs that are killing our soldiers? An astute reader might point out that up until now the reporting has been that IEDs were the weapon of choice for the Sunni insurgents and not Shia militias - that up until now we have been told that it was the Sunni insurgents that were killing American soldiers. If we are to believe Mr. Gordon, it is now Shia militias that are blowing up American soldiers with IEDs. An astute reader might question such a claim as somewhat incredible. An astute reader would be right.

It should, however, not surprise anyone that when building a case for war, small inconveniences such as facts should not get in the way. So, Michael Gordon, I say to you, carry that water - we know its heavy, but you know you can do it.

Finally some proof that The New York Times hates America!

[Hat tip: Group Captain Mandrake]

I have largely ignored the New York Times report about the Bush Administration’s tracking of international banking transactions. I have done so mainly because this is a non-story. Almost everyone with a pulse had to assume that the Government was monitoring the highly regulated world of international banking. It would be monumentally stupid to assume that financial transactions that are so tightly regulated would not be monitored. So, it came as quite a surprise when the Bush Administration started to accuse the New York Times of divulging secrets that the rest of the world already knew.

As Dan Froomkin pointed out in today’s Washington Post, the "double super secret" organization that the New York Times mentioned in its article is not so secret. SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide InterBank Financial Telecommunication, is a very public organization that facilitates international bank-to-bank communications. According to its very public website:

SWIFT is the financial industry-owned co-operative supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. SWIFT’s worldwide community includes banks, broker/dealers and investment managers, as well as their market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade.

So, it is quite clear that SWIFT is not a "secret" organization. SWIFT also claims on its website that it cooperates with law enforcement, including the US Department of Treasury, to prevent illegal acts and it complies with valid subpoenas. However, tonight on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, terrorism analyst Roger Cressey suggested that though SWIFT may have had a website, it was not widely publicized until the New York Times splashed it across its front page. So, I decided to take a look at how well-known SWIFT was before the New York Times published its article.

Since I am originally from Bangladesh, and Bangladesh is a Third World Muslim majority country, I thought a good place to start would be to find out if an ordinary Bangladeshi might be familiar with SWIFT. With that in mind, I decided to take a look at what a Bangladeshi might have to do if he or she wanted to send money back home. A reasonable place to start would be the Bangladeshi Embassy. It turns out that the Embassy offers its citizens advice on how to remit funds to Bangladesh through participating American banks. It also lists the participating banks’ SWIFT Codes to facilitate the wire transfers. For example, if you wanted to use the Bank of New York to wire money to Bangladesh you would contact the bank at:

Bank of New York
Head Office: One Wall Street, New York, NY 10286, USA
Tel:+ 1212 495 1784, Fax:+1 212 635 1799
E-mail: comments@bankofuy.com SWIFT: IRVTUS3N

Clearly, a Bangladeshi national abroad will become familiar with SWIFT if he tries to wire money home.

But, what about Bangladeshis living in Bangladesh? It turns out that SWIFT is quite the marketing tool in Bangladesh. Banks regularly tout their membership in SWIFT to demonstrate their stability and international connections. For example, the Bangladesh Krishi Bank, which was founded to provide banking services to farmers in Bangladesh, proudly advertises its membership in SWIFT:

Bangladesh Krishi Bank is now a proud member of SWIFT. It is connected with modern international financial tele communication system. L/C advising/transferring and quick transfer of remittances as well as other financial correspondences have become very easy & speedy with the installation of SWIFT.

So, apparently Bangladeshi farmers are also aware of SWIFT.

Ok, so what happens if you are not a Bangladeshi farmer or living abroad. Perhaps you might read a newspaper in Bangladesh and happen to browse the business section of one of the major newspapers, The Daily Star. You might run into an article announcing:

CM Koyes Sami, managing director of The Oriental Bank Limited, has been re-elected chairperson of SWIFT member Group of Bangladesh for the term 2004-2005.

SWIFT is a worldwide community, with head quarter in Belgium, having over 7,500 financial institutions in 199 countries as its members, says a press release.

The guiding principles of SWIFT are to offer the financial services industry a common platform of advanced technology and access to shared solutions through which each member can build its competitive edge.

The organisation is engaged in supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to its members.

The SWIFT community includes commercial banks, investment managers, as well as other market infrastructures requiring payments, and transferring securities, treasury and trade.

The fact of the matter is that SWIFT is ubiquitous in the Third World and known to anyone who attempts to transfer money overseas. If you want to do business with a Bangladeshi company and would like to transfer funds, you must know the company’s bank account number and the bank’s corresponding SWIFT Code. Here is a tariff card of a Bangladeshi company. Feel free to send some money to them.

In case you might be under the impression that Bangladesh might be an exception, here is a link to Nepal’s tourism website that announces that major banks in Nepal use the SWIFT system to transfer money abroad. My guess is that since most of the Third World seems to know about SWIFT, I would not be going out on a limb if I posited that al Queda also knows about SWIFT.

So, is Tony Snow that stupid? After all, when asked about how national security was compromised by the New York Times he said this at the White House briefing: "I am absolutely sure they didn’t know about SWIFT." Someone should tell Mr. Snow that most of the underdeveloped world knew about SWIFT well before the New York Times published its article. It appears the only people who thought this was a secret were the Bush Administration. The question then becomes: Is the Bush Administration’s intelligence that bad or do they think we are idiots?

In his column today, Howard Kurtz discusses (sort of) the uproar over Stephen Colbert’s weekend verbal ambush of President Bush at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. Mr. Kurtz complains that the liberal blogs are claiming a cover-up of the weekend’s goings on:

What’s more, you may be interested to know that there’s a MEDIA COVERUP of the Colbert performance. The MSM don’t want you to know about how the Comedy Central man made them look bad! (Never mind that the thing was carried on C-SPAN and the video is widely available online. I played two clips of Colbert on my CNN show, so apparently I didn’t get the memo.)

I am wondering how many people watch C-SPAN on a typical Saturday night. I will go out on a limb and venture that most people are probably not tuned to C-SPAN at that time. Mr. Kurtz also asserts that the video is widely available online. I believe the video is available on liberal blogs such as Crooks & Liars and on C-SPAN. Again, I will venture that the general public does not run to the C-SPAN website for the news. So, that leaves us the liberal blogs to give us the news that Stephen Colbert indeed was at the event and that he delivered a stinging commentary on this Administration’s policies.

Was there a MSM cover-up? I don’t think so. But did the MSM ignore the inconvenient Colbert segment at the dinner. Absolutely. Howard Kurtz might have considered, for example, the article by Elisabeth Bumiller in the New York Times about the dinner. How many times does this article in the paper of record mention Stephen Colbert? Zero. It does not even mention that he was there. Mr. Kurtz might want to spend another column discussing why it is that the MSM ignored Stephen Colbert. Now that would be biting media criticism.

Instead, Mr. Kurtz spends the remainder of the article discussing how the Stephen Colbert episode has become fodder for bloggers on both sides of the aisle. Although he does me the honor of citing my article on the topic (personal note: next time you cite me Mr. Kurtz, please cite my original post and not my cross post on Daily Kos. Thanks a bunch!), he misses the importance of the event by reducing it to a right-versus-left food fight.

It is a significant event when the leader of the free world is held at attention for 20 minutes and roundly rebuked for all the world to see. Whether it was funny or appropriate is debatable and quite frankly irrelevant. Whether it was news worthy is beyond doubt. This story will resonate in spite of the major news outlets’ general disinterest.

My suggestion to Howard Kurtz is that he get ahead of this story before this story runs him over.