The Gray Zone - Seymour Hersh, New Yorker (Rummy at least is doomed)

[TacticalPeek]

THE GRAY ZONE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
Issue of 2004-05-24
Posted 2004-05-15

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, "Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding." The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld's testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, "Some people think you can bullshit anyone."


much more
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

[hedda_foil]

1. Woo HOOOO! Go Sy, Go!

I was hoping there was more coming and this is a f*cking bonanza!

[kaitykaity]

2. They'll find some way to say

it wasn't perjury.

I'm lovin' Sy Hersh more and more. He's had a bone
for Rumsfeld ever since Rumsfeld let 3,000 Pakistanis
go in Afghanistan in early 2002, letting al-Qaeda
oepratives go in the process. (Sorry, no link.)

[TacticalPeek]

4. Sy . . . (sigh)

does it again.

Maybe this will shame a few other journalists off the dime.

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. I believe this is the one

The Getaway

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/020128fa_FACT


Hersh does it again. I hope this is finally the one that drives the stake through Rumsfeld's heart.

[kaitykaity]

18. Right you are.

Thank you!!

[berry]

34. Sy Hersh--"The Getaway" published Jan 28, 2002 in The New Yorker.

I don't have the link either, but I think the archives are available free.

Yeah, Hersh seems to be aiming right at Rummy (and Cambone, and maybe all the neo-cons), but this article also seems to be a CIA hit on the civilian Pentagon. Maybe this is the beginning of the payback for the Plame outing, etc. that we've all been waiting for? It seems like a several-birds-with-one-stone sort of attack. The WH doesn't come off well either--and the Pentagon neo-cons may have been seen as the Achilles' heel (easiest and best target). Note that the CIA opted out of the whole extreme-interrogation business in Iraq, at least according to Hersh's CIA informant.

Frankly, there's a lot in Hersh's article that I don't understand. Probably it means more to people who know about how black ops and things like that work. I was especially confused by the talk of SAPs that are compromised by just mentioning them, and yet the ex-CIA guy is talking freely about them.

I was cheered by the suggestion that a second Church Committee was in the cards. It's high time we (the US) revisited those issues. Along with all the questions of secrecy in a democracy.

[kaitykaity]

37. Linked in post #14.

There's a whole cadre of ex-intelligence folks out there, with
an organization headed by a guy named Ray McGovern called
"Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity." His stuff
is on truthout a lot, and he is royally pissed at the whole
neocon crew. You could be right that this is part of the payback.
If it is, it's about d*mn time.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/03/03_400.html

[whosinpower]

3. Great article!!!!!!

Lays it all out.

[LittleApple81]

5. People... read the whole thing... It is an amazing piece of journalism!

n/t

[LittleApple81]

13. kick

[Spazito]

6. This man is a treasure and if bush is turfed in Nov..

(I think he will be) the American public will a a BIG debt of gratitude to this man for laying it on the line to tell them the facts!

[AudreyT]

7. one of my fav journalists

I love reading Hershs articles. Hes really inspired me to work on my writing.

[mouse7]

8. Sy Hersh tells the truth... prefered reporter of the Intel community

It's pretty clear through these stories over the last few weeks that Sy Hersh is the "approved" reporter that Intel community insiders go to when thing run amok in DC and in the field. Hersh just has way too much info.

The CIA is PISSED about the disaster at Abu Ghraib. The CIA cleared out their case files on this and dropped them all on Hersh's desk. The CIA wants heads to rolls, and they are going to get their wish.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. The CIA has been dropping dimes as big as manhole covers...

...since Valerie Plame and her network was exposed. They're probably more pissed at Junior and the NeoCons than they were at JFK and Nixon. And we all know what happened to those two guys.

[KittyWampus]

17. I Got The Feeling They Especially Hate Cambone...

if the article's interviewee is any indication.

So Cambone testified alongside Taguba... trying to cover his ass and Rumsfeld's and hopefully contributed to his own eventual hanging.

It's too damn bad some of these assholes won't be really hung for treason.

We'll have to "settle" for Truth & Reconciliation".

[Spazito]

23. I read somewhere that the bush admin are preparing to offer ....

Cambone as the fall guy if they can't stop it at the lower level. I don't think it will stop the calls for Rumsfeld's resignation though.

[LittleApple81]

31. No wonder he would not let Taguba go by himself to testify. n/t

[Tatiana]

9. Amazing and informative piece, to be expected from Sy.

He's certainly VERY well-connected and this article defintely explains how we this prison scandal came about.

This is a must read.

[mouse7]

16. It's obvious now. Rummy thinks he's Jack Ryan.

We found out the other day that Rummy thinks his fiction reading list is more important than the news. Now we know why. Rummy thinks he is Jack Ryan. Rummy then made Steven Cambone his Jack Clark and started his own personal version of Rainbow Six.

Rummy... you cannot be Jack Ryan. It's fiction, dumbass.

[TacticalPeek]

43. Rummy's weird.

In January 2003, Norman Schwarzkopf, who had been the commander of the first Gulf War, put it even more bluntly: "Candidly, I have gotten somewhat nervous at some of the pronouncements Rumsfeld has made.... He actually gives the impression that he enjoys this kind of thing."

http://the-spark.net/other/wardebat.html

[LittleApple81]

10. kick!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. "...the Pentagon's operation..."...I've been telling anyone that would...

...listen that this was NOT the CIA's operation.

The operation belongs to Rumsfeld and the OSP, the Pentagon-based, NeoCon "intelligence" group that was formed about two years ago when Rummy could not gain outright control of the CIA.

Thanks, Mr. Hersh...you're a true patriot.

[Sophree]

48. "Copper Green" was an operation w/ CIA approval and support

When it was designed to hunt down terrorists in Afghanistan. They withdrew their support when Rummy/Cambone approved it for Iraqi prisoners:

***SNIP***

By fall, according to the former intelligence official, the senior leadership of the C.I.A. had had enough. “They said, ‘No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan—pre-approved for operations against high-value terrorist targets—and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets’”—the sort of prisoners who populate the Iraqi jails. “The C.I.A.’s legal people objected,” and the agency ended its sap involvement in Abu Ghraib, the former official said.

The C.I.A.’s complaints were echoed throughout the intelligence community. There was fear that the situation at Abu Ghraib would lead to the exposure of the secret sap, and thereby bring an end to what had been, before Iraq, a valuable cover operation. “This was stupidity,” a government consultant told me. “You’re taking a program that was operating in the chaos of Afghanistan against Al Qaeda, a stateless terror group, and bringing it into a structured, traditional war zone. Sooner or later, the commandos would bump into the legal and moral procedures of a conventional war with an Army of a hundred and thirty-five thousand soldiers.”

The former senior intelligence official blamed hubris for the Abu Ghraib disaster. “There’s nothing more exhilarating for a pissant Pentagon civilian than dealing with an important national security issue without dealing with military planners, who are always worried about risk,” he told me. “What could be more boring than needing the coöperation of logistical planners?” The only difficulty, the former official added, is that, “as soon as you enlarge the secret program beyond the oversight capability of experienced people, you lose control. We’ve never had a case where a special-access program went sour—and this goes back to the Cold War.”

********

[Media_Lies_Daily]

51. From your own quote, only against "high-value terrorist targets"....

...not against potentially everyone in Iraq, including innocent people dragged in off the streets.

I'm also betting that more than half of the Gitmo prison population are there as a result of non-CIA "intelligence" activity.

[Sophree]

57. right, exactly

I wasn't trying to contradict ya. I just thought it was interesting that the CIA bailed when they found out it was being used in Iraqi prisons. (Worried about the legality and hopefully the morality. And worried that it would compromise the secrecy of the legitimate anti-terror operation. oops- guess that concern was warranted.)

[KittyWampus]

15. Randi Rhodes Had A Caller Thursday Who Said He Was Elite Doing Special Op

Randi Rhodes Had A Caller On Thurday Who Mentioned Operations Like This:

Edited on Sat May-15-04 05:07 PM by cryingshame

The people assigned to the program worked by
the book, the former intelligence official told me.
They created code words, and recruited, after
careful screening, highly trained commandos and
operatives from America’s élite forces—Navy
SEALs, the Army’s Delta Force, and the C.I.A.’s
paramilitary experts. They also asked some basic
questions: “Do the people working the problem
have to use aliases? Yes. Do we need dead
drops for the mail? Yes. No traceability and no
budget. And some special-access programs are
never fully briefed to Congress.”


Some guy called Randi and said he was part of an elite force (he said every branch of military has elite).

Apparently guys are temporarily "retired" and put on special operations.

This fellow also said about the huge amounts of money going for Iraq "you'll never find out what happened to that
money".

[loudsue]

20. I remember that thread! We were all going "huh?". Whadidee mean?

Now it comes full-circle with this article.

Good catch!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

52. The term for this used to be "sheep-dipped"...

...whereby a person in the military gets reassigned to clandestine ops while bogus entries are made in his or her record to cover the time they are gone on that assignment. Usually, the CIA uses a "201" personnel file to document the person's secret activities.

[LittleApple81]

19. Now that Rumsfeld "IS NOT READING newspapers", who will tell his pants

are down!!!!

[Bluebear]

21. "Sorry, I don't read the newspapers" Rummy says

nt

[loudsue]

22. Bush won't let it go any higher than Cambone...unless the Senate

Intelligence Committee gets hammered by the CIA guys. Only then would it get to rummy, IMHO.

It should REALLY fall in dubya's lap, however. After all, who is the head of the military? Who is the Commander in Chief? And did he know this was going on? You betcha he did.

Trying to discount this, in their own cruel minds, as nothing heinous, dubya and rummy are both guilty as sin. I wish they'd be tried for their crimes.

[tishaLA]

24. FAUX (the only network without celeb gossip right now)

is spinning its wheels trying to protect Rummy from this one! They're saying the CIA denies it, it's all allegations, etc etc etc. Worst of all was that I had to hear the load Greg Jarret saying all this bullshit.

They also had Hoeffel, the Dem for Senate in PA, on and started with "well, how can we pay attention to this when an American was BEHEADED this week? Do you think this really matters to the American people."

They are desparate. You just know it's over for Rummy now.

[LittleApple81]

26. I have not posted to even ONE of the Berg theory threads. But now...

Remove tinfoil hat... I think the special ops people might have done him in preparing for something like this. Unfortunately, the execution was not clean enough, too many tinfoilers out there, too many people with photoshop, too many people who don't believe a word coming out of this people's mouths... So even if special Ops didn't do Berg in, EVERYBODY IS GOING TO BELIEVE THEY DID.

[Kira]

25. Are any of the main stream networks

covering this story yet? (I just asked this in the other thread about this) I can't wait to hear people talking about it.

[LittleApple81]

28. There was a link to a Reuters coverage of this. I don't know of

American media links yet.

[KittyWampus]

29. It's On Yahoo & In NYTimes Tomorrow

so it's hitting the fan.

[deek]

69. Yahoo link for rating:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040516/w...

Headline: Rumsfeld's secret OK led to Abu Ghraib interrogations: report

[NYC]

59. ABC televison news at 6:30 p.m. EDT

covered this portion of the Hersh article:

In 2003, Rumsfeld’s apparent disregard for the requirements of the Geneva Conventions while carrying out the war on terror had led a group of senior military legal officers from the Judge Advocate General’s (jag) Corps to pay two surprise visits within five months to Scott Horton, who was then chairman of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on International Human Rights. “They wanted us to challenge the Bush Administration about its standards for detentions and interrogation,” Horton told me. “They were urging us to get involved and speak in a very loud voice. It came pretty much out of the blue. The message was that conditions are ripe for abuse, and it’s going to occur.” The military officials were most alarmed about the growing use of civilian contractors in the interrogation process, Horton recalled. “They said there was an atmosphere of legal ambiguity being created as a result of a policy decision at the highest levels in the Pentagon. The jag officers were being cut out of the policy formulation process.” They told him that, with the war on terror, a fifty-year history of exemplary application of the Geneva Conventions had come to an end

Edited to change from EST to EDT.

[iamjoy]

27. Wanna Know What The Freepers Are Saying?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1136300/posts

:puke

[LittleApple81]

30. But this is not in reply to Hersh's latest article, is it? n/t

[iamjoy]

32. Not Really

Just what they think of the torture.
So, it wouldn't matter who ordered it. If Rummy ordered it, then Rummy is a hero.

Sick.

[jokerman93]

72. These people

They're living on another planet. It gives me the willies to see firsthand how naive they are about what's happening here.

[kentuck]

33. Time to throw Cambone to the "sharks"....

in a futile attempt to save the ass of Rumsfailed...

[deacon]

74. This goes back to the very top now though--bush has given all americans

a major black eye. He has given the world a view of us they make us appear we approve of torture. This goes way beyond politics now. He has destroyed any positive image we may have had.

[WilliamPitt]

35. Scariest paragraph in the whole story

"According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A."

[kentuck]

36. And would that be possible without the knowledge of one GWBush???

[LittleApple81]

39. Remember he said he is CIC and IN CHARGE, THE WAR PRESIDENT.

so there... take it like a man now, Mr. Bush.

[TacticalPeek]

40. "to wrest control" - that's OSP, the scariest thing I've seen since Nixon.

A full investigation of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans would destroy the administration and everyone around it.

[TacticalPeek]

41. Just heard, Sy Hersh to be on CBS Face the Nation tomorrow.

[kaitykaity]

42. Yowza!!

I gotta be awake for that one. Bob Schieffer
is not a 'friend' of the Bushies. He's pissed,
you can tell.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

44. see also

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?021223fa_fact

[Sophree]

54. I don't even want to think about the possibility

Of Rumsfeld winning that battle.

Hopefully this will finally frost Rummy.

[deacon]

71. Bush didn't learn about this on the news as he said or neither did rice

They are busted. It's not just rummy.

[Sophree]

82. I know they didn't.

I hope you're right about them being busted. Maybe SOMEONE will actually be held accountable for SOMETHING in this awful, awful misadministration.

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[stevedeshazer]

45. Incredible

It's really happening now.

There's a brand-new giant sucking sound. Can you hear it?

[floda]

46. It's a great story but

Is there any proof to back it up? It's a great story but it it has only anonymous sources and no references to documents or other solid proof.No photographs this time. What if Rumsfeld flatly denies it?

[kentuck]

47. Sy Hersh has the proof if he prints it....

Remember My Lai? He broke that story also.

[LittleApple81]

50. And they know it. None of this mis-administration dared say

anything about him. (of course they left it to their minions in the RW radio, such as Savage eeewwww eeeewwwwww).

[Media_Lies_Daily]

53. Oh, please. Are you serious? We're talking about Sy Hersh here....

...not Ann Coulter.

Rummy denies everything, haven't you noticed? He no longer has any credibility.

[Junkdrawer]

49. Heads will roll ------ literally....

How will Rummy/Al Qaeda distract us this time.

[Junkdrawer]

63. Kick

[OneBlueSky]

55. the United States has unilaterally trashed the Geneva Conventions . . .

what a great legacy for the BushCo administration! . . . these people must be prosecuted as the war criminals they are . . .

[Bleacher Creature]

56. Common sense says this is the end of them.

Somebody please explain to me how this revelation won't turn out to be the smoking gun that does them in once and for all? Seriously, if this came out about any other major world leader, this would be it for them. Yet something tells me that either: (a) people won't seem to care; or (b) people won't notice.

[spotbird]

58. kick nt

[Elidor]

60. There are few people I admire as much as Sy Hersh

The man is actually something of a pariah among the Kool Kids. He's considered to be cranky and a troublemaker. I would gladly sign on to work for free with this man as an apprentice. He is the real deal, and a great American. We need a thousand more just like him, but he's one of a kind.

Choke on it, Rumsfeld!

[Spazito]

61. ABC News is covering this...

I just saw a clip on my Canadian News that was by ABC with Sy Hersh talking about this so it definitely has legs!

[Beetwasher]

62. "Rumsfeld has lowered the bar."

That's an understatement...

So, the names we need to know, Cambone, Miller, Sanchez...

[JohnOneillsMemory]

64. So NOW can we call this admin. Hitlerian without being scolded?

Lots of du-ers scoffed at some of us comparing this admin. to the Nazis because 'it was too outrageous and will hurt our credibility.'

FUCKING NAZIS. NO OTHER WORD IS AS ACCURATE. NAZIS. (ok, FASCISTS.)

[KittyWampus]

65. Kick

[KittyWampus]

66. Kick

[jokerman93]

67. If Rummy goes down

I've been sticking pins in my Rummy doll for three years now! If he goes down, I shall call into work; open a bottle Arak; get drunk, and indulge in the ugly vice of schedenfreud.

Then we work on the rest of those thieving Nazi bastards.

[kentuck]

68. I think they will get rid of Cambone...

and hope the storm will pass over Rummy in about a week....but it's wishful thinking, imo..

[deacon]

70. Bush, Rice + Rummy all lied when then said they just found out about it...

They knew what was going on all along. All 3 should be impeached.

[deacon]

73. btw, rate the story at yahoo folks--link below

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&e=2...

[Sparkle]

75. Damn!

This story broke a couple of hours ago on Yahoo and it's got almost 2000 messages already!

[TacticalPeek]

76. Kick.

[Karenina]

77. Pass the popcorn!

[laylah]

78. Doin' the

"happy dance"...the dam has broken...may these reprehensible low-life scum-buckets rot in hell! Sy Hersch ROCKS!

Jenn

[althecat]

79. Indeed an amazing article...

One thing for sure... it is being picked up like wildfire..

http://news.google.com/news?q=rumsfeld%20hersh&hl=en&lr...

I'm inclined to agree that Rummy at least is now history. And with appointment hearings for a new def sec on the hill Wolfowitz may find it hard to step into his shoes...

And if they actually appoint someone with some integrity to the post lord knows what might happen.

[althecat]

80. Here comes the reaction - Pentagon Denies Everyrthing..

You have to love Google..

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/apmethods/apstory?ur...

[Junkdrawer]

83. They're going to tough it out to buy time...

and, unless I miss my guess, an event will happen soon that will put all this on the back burner,

[Junkdrawer]

81. ^^^^^KICK He's on Face the Nation 10:30 AM Eastern CBS^^^^^^^