In response to my speculation that CIA Deputy Director Steve Kappes is stepping down because of Jeff Stein’s recent critical profile of him in Washingtonian, CIA spokesman George Little replies, “The notion that Mr. Kappes is retiring because of a magazine article is just ludicrous.”
Adam Serwer reads through the State Department legal adviser’s recent defense of why drone strikes outside Afghanistan are legal and observes that the rationale Harold Koh offered could be used to argue that assassinations of people like Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S. citizen-turned-extremist who has argued that Muslims More…
For a moment, leave aside the legal questions about the Obama administration’s apparent decision that it possesses the legal authority to order the extra-judicial killing of American citizen and possible al-Qaeda affiliate Anwar al-Awlaki. Karen Greenberg, director of New York University’s Center on Law and Security and the person More…
As you’ve probably read this morning, the Pakistani Taliban executed a complex attack — using suicide car bombers and gunmen — on the American consulate in Peshawar. The Taliban didn’t get past a consulate checkpoint. Nor did their team manage to kill any Americans. But they did bring their More…
Marc Theissen, get set to attack your next target — Michael Sulick, head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service.
Via Jeff Stein, Sulick, a longtime CIA operative, told a gathering at his alma mater that the loss of torture techniques hasn’t hindered intelligence work:
No sooner did the Post speculate about the future of CIA asset/drug-deal facilitator/quasi-warlord/Kandahar official/presidential brother Ahmed Wali Karzai than Dexter Filkins of The New York Times reports that no one is really going to bother trying to oust an unmovable political object. And since that’s the case, More…
An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials.
The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist,
Wikileaks obtained and published (PDF) a CIA “Red Cell” analysis — that’s what the agency presents either to counter received wisdom or to be deliberately provocative — on bolstering support for the Afghanistan war among skeptical European publics. (Hat tip to Jeremy Scahill.) Among the strategies employed: More…
So reports Jeff Stein on his brand-new Washington Post intelligence blog:
The Justice Department and Warren’s Florida-based attorney, Mark David Hunter, confirmed independently that the erstwhile covert operator is heading for a Washington trial, scheduled now for sometime in June. Hunter otherwise declined to comment.
As soon as Jeff More…
I snarked Wednesday about CIA Director Leon Panetta’s assertion that the CIA has lately dealt al-Qaeda a hefty blow, since we don’t really have the visibility into that process to independently evaluate the claim. But the Los Angeles Times’ Greg Miller has a great piece about how U.S. More…
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