Are War Crimes Inevitable?

Megan McArdle argues that war crimes are an inevitable part of war and therefore, "when you choose war, you choose war crimes--and that this is true regardless of why you are choosing the war." Her Atlantic colleague Andrew Sullivan says this is "preposterous, uninformed, ahistorical," noting that, "The United States has managed to go to war for two centuries ...

U.S. Intelligence Agencies Rethink Classification Policy

The United States government is thinking about coming up with a coherent system for dealing with classified information. Steven Aftergood has details. U.S. intelligence agencies have embarked upon a process to develop a uniform classification policy and a single classification guide that could be used by the entire U.S. intelligence community, according to a newly obtained report (pdf) from the ...

The Torture of an Innocent Man

For those of you who didn't catch 60 Minutes's heartbreaking story and interview about Murat Kurnaz's, a German national who spent five years detained and tortured by the United States, you can read the print story here. The long and short of it is this:At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America's shadow prison system in the ...

MI6 Denies Killing Princess Diana

British intelligence denies killing Princess Di. The former head of MI6 denied Wednesday that the British intelligence agency was responsible for the car accident that killed Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi al Fayed, in 1997. Sir Richard Dearlove, who was the director of special operations for the agency at the time of Diana's Paris accident, testified at the inquest into ...

U.S. Senate Narrowly Bans Torture by CIA (Updated)

In a 51 - 45 vote, the U.S. Senate passed this year's authorization for intelligence activities. One of the most important provisions of the law this year was Section 327, which states:SEC. 327. LIMITATION ON INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES. (a) Limitation- No individual in the custody or under the effective control of an element of the ...

Bush’s Iraq War Lies Were Untrue

Much hubbub overnight by a joint Center for Public Integrity - Fund for Independence in Journalism study of statements made by Bush administration officials in their attempt to sell the Iraq War. AP/YahooNews: Study: False statements preceded war A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national ...

Keystone Kops Terror Plots

Bernard Finel, noting the recent string of highly touted terror plot arrests that have ultimately proven to be the work of crazies rather than genuine terrorists, wonders, "Where are the real terror plots?" At some point, you’d figure we’d bust open a ring where there is actually hard evidence of wrong-doing. Where are the weapons caches? The bomb factories? ...

Spying and Policymaking Don’t Mix

Henry Kissinger argues that the much-publicized NIE report on Iran's nuclear weapons program reaches an over-bold conclusion that does a disservice to the debate. The "Key Judgments" released by the intelligence community last week begin with a dramatic assertion: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." This sentence was widely interpreted as ...

Abolish The CIA?

Although it's not a new idea, Christopher Hitchens has seemingly united the blogosphere with his suggestion the it's time to abolish the CIA and start over. His argument, in a nutshell, is that the Agency is simultaneously incompetent and venal. Its turnaround on the Iran weapons program is just the latest instance of it proving spectacularly wrong and, ...

Some Guantanamo Detainees Are Terrorists

Benjamin Wittes has an interesting piece in The New Republic with the curious subtitle "Think the Guantanamo detainees are all innocent? Think again." He details known facts about the several of them, proclaimed "innocent" by their attorney before the Supreme Court last week, who are certainly terrorists by any reasonable definition. He closes, For the past six months, I ...

The Pelosi Ultimatum

Jim Henley: Who among you does not think tonight that if Jason Bourne fought his way at last, bleeding and exhausted, into Nancy Pelosi’s office and slapped the Treadstone folder down on the desk in front of her, that she wouldn’t immediately call the guards and hand the file back to the "proper authorities?" Links at original for those needing ...

Did Morgan Spurlock Find Osama bin Laden?

Some minor blog buzz over a two-day-old (ancient in Internet terms) MSNBC report that Morgan Spurlock may (or may not) have found Osama bin Laden. Rumors are flying that filmmaker Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" fame may have done what the United States government has failed to do for the last six years — find Osama bin Laden. The speculation ...

CIA Destroyed Subpoenaed Torture Tapes they Denied Existed While Congress Stood By

The CIA destroyed at least two tapes of its operatives using "severe interrogation techniques" to obtain information from suspected terrorists, Mark Mazetti reports for the NYT. Both the 9/11 Commission and attorneys for Zacarias Moussaoui had specifically requested any such evidence and Agency officials had previously denied, under oath, that any such tapes ever existed. The Central Intelligence Agency in ...

Why the NIE Did a 180 on Iran

In a piece entitled "New Data and New Methods Lead to Revised View on Iran," NYT reporter Mark Mazzetti sheds some light on how reforms in the intelligence community led to a 180 degree change in the consensus on Iran's nuclear weapons program in only two years. Current and former intelligence officials insist that much of the 2005 Iran report ...

Huckabee Unaware of Iran Report

The most interesting campaign news this morning is a report from The Politico's Jonathan Martin that surging GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was totally unaware of a new National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program four years ago. Kuhn: I don’t know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to take a ...