Bush's America is engaged -- right now -- in a $400 million undercover campaign against Iran, thanks to a Presidential Finding issued a little over six months ago. Congress went along, albeit with misgivings. All of this was done behind closed doors.
In the latest New Yorker, Sy Hersh recounts the background of the deal and its likely effect. Certainly, he writes, much of the covert activity Congress has funded is being done without Congress having any oversight. Of course we rush to any account which might give us a clue about whether an overt military attack on Iran will occur before the upcoming election. But what Hersh's report reveals is no less important: another lethal attack on the Constitution and the ability of the American people to know about the policies and actions of their government and use their votes to affect those policies.
"The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”
Senior Democrats in Congress told me that they had concerns about the possibility that their understanding of what the new operations entail differs from the White House’s. One issue has to do with a reference in the Finding, the person familiar with it recalled, to potential defensive lethal action by U.S. operatives in Iran.
This is as good an example of how a claim of executive privilege has exceeded even the most basic requirements of a checks and balances system. Bob Barr, former member of Congress and now presidential candidate of the Libertarian party said the other day in an interview with Jane Hamsher that incoming presidents unfortunately tend to use the outgoing president's legacy of executive privilege as the "floor," not the ceiling, for their own presidency. That means a McCain or Obama presidency could bring with it even more outrageous violations of the Constitutional balance among three parts of our self-government, taking away the power of the people (expressed through Congress and the ballot box) and reserving it to the executive.
When Admiral William Fallon stepped down from CENTCOM, it was largely because of his disagreement with the White House about Iran policy and the prospect of an invasion. But there was something else hiding under that publicly acknowledged dissent. His position as strategist was severely compromised by White House secrecy and privilege. In short, he was being asked to command without having full knowledge of what was doing on within his command.
Fallon’s early retirement ... appears to have been provoked not
only by his negative comments about bombing Iran but also by his strong
belief in the chain of command and his insistence on being informed
about Special Operations in his area of responsibility. One of Fallon’s
defenders is retired Marine General John J. (Jack) Sheehan, whose last
assignment was as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command,
where Fallon was a deputy. Last year, Sheehan rejected a White House
offer to become the President’s “czar” for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. “One of the reasons the White House selected Fallon for CENTCOM
was that he’s known to be a strategic thinker and had demonstrated
those skills in the Pacific,” Sheehan told me. (Fallon served as
commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific from 2005 to 2007.)
“He was charged with coming up with an over-all coherent strategy for
Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and, by law, the combatant commander is
responsible for all military operations within his A.O.”—area of
operations. “That was not happening,” Sheehan said. “When Fallon tried
to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the
military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White
House leadership shut him out.”
Bush and Cheney, two men who had gone out of their way to duck real military service and whose judgment is demonstrably poor, bypassed the set rules of chain of command and engaged in secretive micromanagement of military strategy -- with neither the skills nor the appropriate power to do so.
“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue
civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military
operations,” Sheehan said. “If you have small groups planning and
conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the
combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military
strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts
in Iraq.”
Bottom line: The White House is engaged in secretive, destabilizing operations inside Iran, operations which include assassination. Hersh describes in his report at least some of the details of those operations and their political outflow. Needless to add, John McCain goes along with the current policy.
Laura Rozen has what I think is a surprising response to Hersh's article. Even naive. But Rozen is one of the best and most scrupulous analysts around. Her reaction to Hersh's piece is important -- and definitely worth a read and real consideration.
