TENET WALKS AS TERRORISTS 90% READY TO GO?

A little over a week ago, the FBI and Attorney General warned a nasty terrorist attack on U.S. soil may be forthcoming this summer. They made sure we saw photos of seven suspected "evildoers" and Ashcroft warned that "[t]hey all pose a clear and present danger to the United States and should be considered armed and dangerous."

Intelligence, Ashcroft said, suggested terrorists are "almost ready to attack the United States." He claimed an al-Qaida spokesman said "90 percent of preparations" to attack the United States were completed.

So, this looks like a potentially disastrous summer. There is a "credible threat," a "clear and present danger," some "armed and dangerous" suspects, and an apparent time-table.

With the CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and virtually every other related acronym having just suffered through the criticism of the September 11 investigations and with Bush slowly sinking in the polls, one would think that every possible resource would be directed at this potential attack. One would think that all efforts would be redoubled. That all key personnel would be reminded just how damn important it will be to avert this allegedly impending nightmare.

A repeat of 9/11 would not only be a tragic disaster for the nation. It would also make a mockery of the war on terror, undoubtedly bring down the administration, and would be an unmitigated disaster of unthinkable magnitude.

So, what happened yesterday? George Tenet resigned from his spot atop the CIA. That's right, our head intelligence guy quit. It's June, we are steadily creeping toward summer and the possible launching of some horrific terrorist attack here in the U.S., and control of the agency was handed over to Deputy McLaughlin.

With all the attention spent on Tenet's departure, you might have missed out on hearing that the head of the agency's clandestine operations also bowed out.

There may have been a lot of good reasons for Tenet to go. There might not be any decrease in CIA performance after his resignation. Nonetheless, it is not particularly heartening to have the CIA chief and the cat who apparently heads all of the CIA's secret missions taking leave right before a terrorist effort is supposed to be launched.

Let's assume the summer threat is real. If that is the case, it was decided Tenet was such a liability that he had to get out now, despite any potentially adverse impact on intelligence efforts during the transition to new leadership. That is a pretty sobering thought--the CIA head was so bad it was worth sucking it up through some chaos right before a planned attack. That seems really bad after one remembers all the pro-Tenet talk from the Bush bunch every time he's been assailed in the media since 9/11.

Still working with the premise the threat is genuine, I suppose its possible that a decision was made to compromise smooth operation at the CIA for getting Tenet out for political reasons. The investigations are over, the report is on its way, and Bush might need to point to some sort of genuine change in the intelligence community. So, even though the evildoers are 90% ready to undertake a major operation, it's better to post a political gain at the expense of CIA chaos. That is even creepier than believing Tenet was just a horrible director.

Of course, you can dismiss the summer threat as a political smokescreen. The administration scares us all so much about terrorists that we lend our support as a nation to any endeavor directed toward the evildoers. Fear of a summer attack keeps us backing the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and distracts us from policy shortcomings and inconveniences like Abu Ghraib. If that's the case, getting rid of Tenet makes perfect sense. There is really no imminent danger, so our security wouldn't really be compromised. Tenet can get the axe, showing that a "different" CIA is now in place, not that bad one that is about to get the ever-living crap kicked out of it by analysts after the 9/11 committee reports come out.

That scenario is pretty saddening, too.

Let's review. Three possibilities:

(1) Threat is real and Tenet was a complete failure, despite past pro-Tenet statements from the administration.
(2) Threat is real and the administration thinks its worth some potentially dangerous boat-rocking to get Tenet out for political reasons.
(3) Threat isn't real and getting rid of Tenet is a political expediency.

I can hear some of you thinking about option (4)--Tenet quit all on his own and it is unrelated to anything else. I don't buy it. The FBI and AG are showing pictures of guys who allegedly want to blow the crap out of us. Assuming the threat is really credible, someone would have went to Tenet and told him, "you cannot leave right now. Not at this moment. Not when we face a potential 9/11 redux within a few months. You gotta stay on for a few months, at least."

Besides, no one quits at that level. Not really, they don't just decide they are done with it all and walk away from it. They stay until they are forced out. Even if an occasional exception to that rule exists, no CIA head is going to voluntarily take a vacation while impending attacks are "imminent."

The only way the fourth scenario--Tenet quits all on his own--is feasible is if the threat is overblown. Which brings us back to the saddening thought that the administration cooked up this 90% ready-to-go terrorist attack to scare us into backing them.

Don't like any of those possibilities? Either do I. But I feel like one of them is probably true.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe some additional information would explain the whole thing. But I am not really optimistic that the government will provide that information. They are not really forthcoming about things lately.

So, for now all I know is that my government warned me to keep my eyes peeled for some terrorists who are about ready to launch an attack in the U.S. this summer. And that while I am watching out for the summer threat, the guy who heads up the whole freaking CIA just quit.

Wonderful.

More on the Tenet "Resignation"

DAN SENOR NO HELP ON CHALABI RAID

"Coalition spokesperson" Dan Senor stood behind the podium today and gave the usual rundown of events in Iraq... Here's a list of things we've done well. Here's a list of things we are going to do well. Here are a few brief observations about things that didn't go so well. Etc. Any questions?

Of course, he was doing this after every single major media outlet had already reported on the raid at Ahmad Chalabi's residence. He went through his prepared statement without even saying a word about it.

Not surprisingly, every question (except those relating to yesterday's apparent attack on a wedding party)was about Chalabi. After all, we have a transfer of power in about a month, and it is pretty interesting to find out that a governing council-members home was ransacked.

Dan Senor primarily told reporter after reporter they should take their questions to the Iraqi police. Sure, he was eventually willing to say the raid had nothing to do with the oil -for-food controversy. He was also willing to provide a little bit of information about the U.S. ambassador's procedural involvement in Iraqi police actions. For the most part, though, he kept referring questioners to the Iraqi police.

It's insane. This guy is the coalition spokesperson and that's all he has to say about this? It's not helpful and it's not forthcoming.

Senor is the mouthpiece for the "coalition" and he left the biggest news item of the day from Iraq out his remarks. His refusal to comment a great deal and to simply make referrals to Iraqi police doesn't help me to understand either the "coalition's" stand regarding the raid, or its involvement. It is completely unhelpful. I am U.S. citizen, so I guess I feel like I should have some idea how my government, leader of this coalition, feels about a raid on a pretty influential Iraqi with whom we have allied ourselves. Dan Senor remaining silent doesn't help me a great deal.

Senor's reaction is not forthcoming. Every account of the raid speaks of U.S. troop involvement. It seems really unlikely that no one directly involved with U.S. troops would be able to offer quality analysis. It seems unspeakably weak to refer journalists to the Iraqi cops to answer questions about how U.S. troops were used.

So, we have U.S. troops at least tangentially involved in a raid on the home of an Iraqi governing council member who has been regarded as one of the "good guys" by Washington... Maybe I am way off here, but I really think that is probably the kind of thing about which the coalition spokesperson should probably speak.

Instead, he tells people to consult with that fountainhead of accurate and immediate information known as the Iraqi police.

Many people assume the worst about everything the Bush administration touches. We've reached a point where prison abuses are immediately believed to to go "all the way to the top" and where people who usually avoid tinfoil beanies wonder aloud about U.S. involvement in hostage executions.

Now, along comes the Chalabi raid.

A smart spokesperson for the administration's most spotlighted arm, "the coalition," should probably be ready to say something to make people worry less and feel better. Or, at the very least, say something to make them believe they are not being lied to.

A smart administration, if they knew their spokesperson required a little extra direction, would have told Senor to shed some light on things, instead of keeping everyone in the dark as much as possible.

Why didn't Senor or the Bush White House manage to handle the Chalabi raid in an honest and forthcoming way?

I don't know. Go ask the Iraqi police, maybe they can help you out with that one.

POSTSCRIPT: After writing this, I discovered that Donald Rumsfeld said he knew nothing about the raid. So, unfortunately, maybe the Iraqi police are the best source of information about what U.S. troops are doing these days.

END THE BERG BEHEADING CONSPIRACY--WITH ANSWERS

Orange jump suit. Videotape continuity problems. The plastic chair seems identical to the ones sitting around in Abu Ghraib. A well-known terrorist taking credit for the killing still dons a mask. Not enough blood. The government story regarding his detainment has changed. He may have done work on a communication tower at Abu Ghraib. The Israeli stamp on the passport. Someone says the AK-47's are not the "standard" version used by terrorists, but "Gallil" models constructed for, and used by, Israeli forces. The tape is dubbed. The accent isn't right. That killer didn't look like a guy with a prosthetic leg. That bus at the University of Oklahoma had an interesting passenger list.

That's not even a comprehensive list of the reasons why many doubt the veracity of the Nick Berg execution videotape and question the U.S. government's explanation of what happened. This morning, I found a list of fifty items fueling the conspiracy theorists (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/15/22827/0477). The list's assembler admits some questions are more important than others and some of the conspiracy "evidence" may be nothing more than coincidence. Regardless of the strength of the conspiracy theorists' "evidence," alternative explanations and accusations regarding Nick Berg's death continue to circulate.

Some critiques of the Bush administration's line are relatively tame ("the video is authentic but there are reasons to think it might not be the Jordanian we originally identified wielding the knife.") Others are chilling ("we did it ourselves in a dog-wagging frenzy to pull attention away from problems in Iraq and to redouble U.S. resolve.")

There are a few different possibilities, each with a variety of slight permutations. The terrorists we say did it actually did it. Some other terrorists did it. We did it. We didn't do it, but we intentionally facilitated it. We didn't do it, but we accidentally made it easier for terrorists to do it.

Of those five possibilities, only two of them (the ones where the U.S. is culpable) are really worth hiding if you are part of the administration. One of them is a potential p.r. disaster, but would be manageable. I don't think it would matter too much to most of us, in a traditional political sense, which terrorists killed Berg if the conspiracy theories were put to rest.

I looked at the previously mentioned list of fifty factors fueling all of the conspiracy talk and realized that someone "in the know" could probably answer most of those questions in a minute or less. Others might be a little more difficult, but I am sure a well-informed expert could posit a reasonable explanation regarding what is likely with respect to those thornier matters.

Right now, I see alot of folks who really doubt the U.S. government making some very horrific accusations and hinting at some of the most despicable behavior thinkable. I would think the Bush administration would like to cut that sort of thinking short in an election year. It would make some of us who just have a few concerns regarding the forthrightness of the administration a little less worried if we could get a few answers.

When someone pulls out a copy of an email from a U.S. government employee telling a family their son is confirmed to be in U.S. and that email contradicts the administration's current position, there needs to be more explanation than "we were wrong." Especially when we know about the lawsuit demanding an end to Berg's detention that immediately preceeded his release.

It is a lack of explanation that breeds distrust. Secrecy, or the appearance of secrecy, inflames many people more than any open confession of error or incompetence. Allowing questions to go unanswered inspires the conspiracy theorist. The more silence, the more reason some find to doubt the government's honesty.

I would like to request the Bush administration pick a few people "in the know" who can sit down and address some of the questions about the videotape and the circumstances surrounding its production.

I'd like to be able to understand the orange jump suit and suddenly nimble one-legged man. I'd like to have someone credible tell me that when I assume the plastic chairs seen in Abu Ghraib and the Berg video are insanely common and are the primary cheap chair seen in Iraq, I am correct. Little things like that might make me feel a bit better about all of this. Maybe they cannot answer every question. That's fine. Just answer what you can and explain why some of the other queries aren't currently answerable.

A mid-level state department analyst and someone from U.S. Army intel could probably handle that list of fifty things in just a few hours. Assuming the answers don't point toward the unthinkable, it seems like a good investment of time and effort.

KERRY'S SILENT CAMPAIGN

Lynndie England is the new face of America in the eyes of the Arab world. Donald Rumsfeld shuffles off to Abu Ghraib in hopes of containing a growing scandal. Nick Berg is beheaded on videotape and we all see it. Colin Powell gets marching orders to hit the weekend political talk shows. The president of the Iraqi Governing Council is slain by a car-bomber as the date for a transfer of power approaches.

President Bush is dealing with some very difficult problems in Iraq, and little of the news coming out of there is helping him very much. His poll numbers are slipping. Some of the newest data shows Kerry pulling ahead.

How has he done it? By lambasting Bush in public forums for failures in Iraq? From proposing a detailed alternative strategy in the war on terror? No. He's gained ground by keeping his mouth shut.

Sure, he has said a few things. He made his little "in my administration, I will not be the last to know" speech after the prisoner photos showed up on CBS. He expressed his revulsion on the Berg murder. But mainly, John Kerry has been giving stump speeches on domestic policy issues. He's bee reciting talking points on health care instead of aggressively addressing the issues dominating the headlines.

You can't argue with success, they say, and so far this avoidance strategy has been working. Kerry has been letting Iraq do the work for him. As bad news about the occupation, the turnover, and the prisons appears, it does more for Kerry than anything the DNC could invent. Every news story on Abu Ghraib becomes a free anti-Bush position ad--showing Lynndie England's smiling mug is probably more effective than seeing vintage footage of Kerry walking the jungles.

But bad news can only fuel a Kerry fire so long as he's quiet. If candidate Kerry started talking too much about Iraq, he would have an uncomfortable situation on his hands. Kerry voted in favor of the war, after all. Kerry hasn't presented a clear alternative to the status quo with respect to the occupation, either. Kerry's dove past is already haunting him--going after Bush on Iraq won't help him there.

This is unique: The very issue that's likely to either make or break the sitting President is virtually off-limits to his chief rival.

Bush vs. Kerry is rapidly becoming Bush vs. Iraq. If things are going well in Baghdad in November, it would seem, Bush will repeat. If not, Kerry is likely to edge him out.

Kerry will continue to talk about jobs and healthcare to his own consituency in order to neutralize any potential problem Ralph Nader might pose for him. Meanwhile, he'll hope Iraq exports enough rope to hang the Bush campaign.

But he'll need to use his spare time coming up with viable ways of distinguishing himself on the Iraq issue and the war on terror in time for the debates, if he wants his gains to last.

NICK BERG SHOULD NOT BE A PROP

They didn't just kill him. They posed him, filmed him, decapitated him and uploaded the footage knowing we'd all see it within twenty-four hours. They sawed off Nick Berg's head and held it in front of a camera. It wasn't just an execution, it was a statement. A man's severed head was used as a prop. Somehow that made it worse for me when, acting against my own better judgment, I decided to watch the unedited video online.

The tension as the five men stood behind Berg was difficult to bear, knowing how horribly the vignette would end. Seeing him thrown down and brutalized was even more difficult. The plaintive screams, the pool of blood, the sawing across his neck and the ongoing chanting in the background revulsed me in a way I cannot explain. The one thing that stays with me the most, however, was seeing his lifeless head held in front of the camera and then to see it placed, I believe, on his corpse as the camera continued to roll. There was something unspeakably grotesque and unfathomably sad about his head being used to make a political argument.

Nick Berg's mutiliation and death continues to be used to make points, and that's what distresses me this morning. We are better than the murderous terrorists who executed the decapitation and I would never argue otherwise. But when it comes to holding that severed head in front of the camera, leaders and pundits are nearly as guilty as those who killed Nick Berg.

Yesterday I feared Nick Berg's murder would be trotted out as a reason to back the war on terror. I feared it would be used by others as a reason to reject the war. I worried it would be used to downplay the sadistic actions of Lynndie England and the other guards at Abu Ghraib and to attack those who sought to uncover that scandal. I worried Berg's murder would be held up as an example of what happens when you abuse prisoners. I thought we'd see a prizeless contest develop among analysts, pundits and politicians to see who could offer the most sincere condolences combined with most strongly expressed anger at the perpetrators of the killing.

I saw a group of incredibly evil men use a severed head in hopes of pushing their agenda. Now I see Americans doing the same thing. This morning I have read editorials and statements explaining that Nick Berg's legacy will be to strengthen our resolve for the war on terror--his demise reminds us of why we must fight. I have read others who tell me Nick Berg's death is symbolic of all the reasons the war on terror is doomed and how our currently policy merely encourages needless bloodshed. Articles claim Berg's killing shows us how little merit there is in attacks on U.S. treatment of prisoners. I've read more than one person explaining that the errors we made in Abu Ghraib killed Nick Berg and will kill others. Letters of condolence, jammed pack with rhetoric carefully designed to push agendas proliferates.

It's not surprising. News events create opportunities to promote agendas. The sum of those events are the evidence from which arguments regarding policy are constructed. Exploitation of particular singular incidents as jumping off points for larger generalizations, although guaranteed to maximize exposure and attention, often find themselves shakily supported.

It's surely hard to resist the urge to seize upon the "big story" when one wants to advance their position. I know everyone with an opinion wants to take Nick Berg's death and explain how it fits their worldview and how it makes the truth of their point clear. We are captivated by the cruelty, gore, and sadness. The audience is willing to hear how Nick Berg's murder proves one side right and another wrong. The opportunity to make political gain through his murder is there.

Taking advantage of that opportunity, however, is just what I do not need. I do not think it what others need, either. I'm not interested in seeing Nick Berg's head held up as a reason to stop the war, escalate the war, or anything else. When I watched that video, I was overcome by a profound sadness and feeling of helplessness. We have a war in Iraq that's contentious. We have prisoner scandals, rebel fighting, dead contractors, executions, occupation strategies, rebuilding problems, progress, setbacks, and more. It is all part of a larger puzzle that includes the World Trade Center, the U.S.S. Cole, the Munich Olympics, Quadaffi, culture wars, religious history and so many other things that trying to ingest it all seems almost impossible. Nick Berg's bloody decapitation does not clarify or crystallize the issues easily. To claim it does is to be the worst kind of exploiter. The kind of exploiter who waves a lifeless head in front of a camcorder.

If you are part of the print media, radio, television or the internet, I ask you not to use Nick Berg's death as "proof" for the correctness of your position. If you are a politician, aide, analyst or spokesperson, I ask you to forget we are in the middle of an election year and to remember that one is not required to reduce every event to a partisan talking point.

Nick Berg is dead. I saw them kill him on the internet. That gruesome scene didn't clarify, it didn't vindicate a position. It showed a murder and made me think about things like freedom, evil and war in a very human way. Perhaps it's possible to know about what happened, to see what happened, to let it have its profound personal impact and to move to looking for ways to create a world in which we will not have to see more heads dangled in front of cameras--literally or figuratively.