leon panetta

Here’s the guest list for today’s White House meeting to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy. New additions to the discussion: Amb. Susan Rice, a close Obama adviser turned ambassador to the U.N.; and Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, the “war czar” who will oversee interagency policy coordination. Wait, isn’t that Richard Holbrooke’s job…?

If it’s true, as reported, that the question of the CIA’s drone strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan is bolstering support for the so-called counterterrorism option in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy, then tomorrow’s meeting at the White House looks, from the attendance sheet, like it’ll debate precisely that issue. Here’s the just-released list of scheduled [...]

Just two days ago, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly cautioned reporters not to jump to any conclusions about who won the Afghan presidential election just because “preliminary results” have been certified in Hamid Karzai’s favor. “I want to reemphasize that these are just preliminary, they’re not final, and we’re still waiting for the certified results,” [...]

The CIA is none too happy about the recent disclosure of apparently inchoate “significant actions” canceled by Director Leon Panetta. After the activities’ initial disclosure to Congress in late June, additional reporting determined that these actions were a never-operational effort at assassinating members of al-Qaeda and were contracted to the controversial firm Blackwater. Now, Eli [...]

Crack intelligence reporter Erick Erickson posted that he was hearing “a very credible rumor” that CIA Director Leon Panetta has “dispatched a resignation letter to Barack Obama on vacation.” And what the hell, I figured I’d chase it. People are speculating that Panetta’s on the verge of quitting over the Holder torture probe, a prospect [...]

New statement from the Senate GOP leader. As foreshadowed by last week’s letter to Attorney General Eric Holder from nine Republican senators, McConnell argues that the new probe will be a net disaster for national security:
“We must remain mindful that we still are very much a nation at war with terrorists who spend every hour [...]

Just released by the Department of Justice. He’s calling it a “Preliminary Review” into the interrogation of “certain detainees.” Notice that Holder did not rule out any course of investigative or prosecutorial action, which is exactly civil libertarians hoped:
“The Office of Professional Responsibility has now submitted to me its report regarding the Office of Legal [...]

ABC News is reporting, despite strong denials from both the Obama administration and the CIA, that CIA Director Leon Panetta is going to leave the agency fairly soon because of his inability to stop Attorney General Eric Holder’s torture probe. Wary as I am of predictions here, it would be very surprising to me if [...]

CIA Director Leon Panetta has just sent this letter to the CIA in advance of today’s anticipated release of the 2004 CIA inspector general report on torture — and, quite possibly, an investigation from Attorney General Eric Holder into the same. The last time he sent one of these, it was to buck up agency [...]

Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post writes a curtain-raiser on the unveiling of a story I broke about the contours of the Obama administration’s new team for interrogating the highest-value terrorism detainees. To boil the piece down to its essence, the new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group will be an interagency squad, but housed at the [...]