Afghanistan & US Politics: National Interests and Ending the War (Mull)

Josh Mull is the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. He also writes at Rethink Afghanistan:

By now, the full implications of the data contained in the 91,000 Wikileaks files are starting to sink in. Americans have been questioning the war for some time now, and they're finally putting their foot down and demanding an end. Thousands of calls are pouring in to Congress from around the country, all demanding a NO vote on today's war funding vote, and thousands more are signing a petition declaring "the Wikileaks ‘War Logs’ are further evidence of a brutal war that’s not worth the cost. I vote, and I demand my elected officials end this war by Dec. 2011."

Afghanistan: At Least 45 Civilians Killed in Rocket Attack

Sure, war supporters gave it the old college try. The White House and other political leadership stressed that the leaks contained no new information, incidentally clearing up once and for all the confusion we had over whether they were ignorant or merely incompetent and negligent prosecutors of US foreign policy. Some even tried to deflect the argument on to Wikileaks operator Julian Assange, as if the leak coming from him --- or Paris Hilton or Spider-Man --- has anything to do with the information it contained.

But their arguments are for naught, the war is now simply indefensible. These leaks confirm and validate the criticism so far levied against the war in Afghanistan. The headline in an article by Gareth Porter, "Leaked Reports Make Afghan War Policy More Vulnerable", seems like the understatement of the century:

Among the themes that are documented, sometimes dramatically but often through bland military reports, are the seemingly casual killing of civilians away from combat situations, night raids by special forces that are often based on bad intelligence, the absence of legal constraints on the abuses of Afghan police, and the deeply rooted character of corruption among Afghan officials.

The most politically salient issue highlighted by the new documents, however, is Pakistan's political and material support for the Taliban insurgency, despite its ostensible support for U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

You could pick just one of those things Porter mentions and it could spell catastrophe for the war. Instead we have all of them. It does more than make the war policy more vulnerable, it puts any war supporting politician in Washington in serious electoral peril.

Left to their own devices, the mainstream media will craft their own stupid and obnoxious narratives about "lefty insurgencies" or "anti-incumbent fever," and this will poison the eventual policy outcome. However, if we understand the facts now, and see this as not only a US political dilemma but as part of a global anti-war movement finally winding up at President Obama's doorstep, then the US can begin to accelerate its withdrawal more responsibly than the standard media narratives might allow (Get out now! No, stay forever!).

This is not simply a reaction to a failed policy, it is an articulation of an independent vision of selfish foreign and domestic policy interests. Americans, our NATO allies, and even our progressive allies in Pakistan are all working to end the war. Domestically, political candidates who are putting ,members of Congress in electoral peril are doing so as a response to outcry from their constituents.

Elaine Marshall, candidate for Senate in North Carolina, has been a strong opponent of the President's escalation in Afghanistan. She says that, throughout her campaign she has been approached by supporters who tell her, "‘I appreciate your stance, I appreciate you talking about it, I appreciate that you’re looking at more than just the headlines." She explained in an interview with the Seminal:

I live in North Carolina, a strong military state. When you talk to people who’ve been [to war], and you understand the sacrifices folks are making, and then you look at the reason why they are stepping up to make that sacrifice, or those maybe joined before the actual situation came up and they now, because they’re good soldiers, become involved in it. In our prior engagements for the most part, we had a goal. We knew who the enemy was, we knew why we were there, we had a line drawn that we knew would be success, achievement, victory. We don’t have any of that in the war in Afghanistan.

The same is true for candidate Tommy Sowers, running for Missouri's 8th congressional district. He recently published an opinion piece questioning the President's strategy of bolstering Afghan security forces, and asking whether or not such a massive, long-term financial commitment was feasible in the economic environment. He has received high praise for his essay, as well as for his position on the war itself, as he conducted town halls across the state. He explained what he was hearing from his constituents in an interview with me and Jason Rosenbaum last week:

First, across the country, districts like this carry the burden of the war in a visceral way. When I’m in a room, I ask folks if they are veterans or if they’re related to people currently serving – it’s almost the entire room. So, on a very personal level, these people are asking, "What are we accomplishing over there?" A lot of families ask their own family members that are over there this question.

Second, on a fiscal level, this district has suffered under Republican incumbent rule in terms of infrastructure. There’s great concern about the debt, and people ask, "Why are we spending so much money over there?"

Sowers served in combat during the Iraq war, and many in Marshall's family chose to serve their country in the military, so it's clear where their personal convictions are rooted. And the overflow of public outcry and support from their constituents gives them the momentum to go from average anti-war candidates to populist juggernauts.

Did you catch Sowers' comment about "suffering under incumbent rule"? The electoral peril is not a hypothetical, it's very real. Sowers is coming directly at his opponent on this issue. He told us:

My opponent sits on the NATO parliamentary assembly, so you’d think she’d have an interest in the issue, but I’m not certain she’s even visited Afghanistan. The only thing I’ve heard from her is we need to do everything over there – more troops, more money. That’s what you get with a former lobbyists trying to influence military policy.

His opponent doesn't even have much chance to reverse her position, her hands are already all over this war. Now she's staring down the barrel of Tommy Sowers, all because she couldn't even hedge her bets on an exit timetable. She had to do the lobbyist thing and give it all away, "more troops, more money". Marshall's opponent in North Carolina is no better, refusing to fund a $32 billion one-year extension for teachers on one hand while on the other having plenty of freebie money for Wall Street and the war-makers.

It's too late to change positions or blow this off as some kind of far-left anomaly in the primaries. These folks have had their resumes scrutinized, they've won their nominations, and now they've moved on to delivering a spirited beating to their opponents.

But what happens when they do get to Washington? That's where we truly see the selfish national interests laid out. They will not simply block the war and call it a day. Marshall has talked about expanding international cooperation in terms of developing Afghanistan, as well as reforming our port/border security with an eye on counter-terrorism. Sowers also has a definite objective in mind when it comes to securing US interests in Afghanistan.

I’m a secure our nation sort of guy, an ass-kicking Democrat. I think we should pursue and kill and capture terrorists where they are. That’s the problem in Afghanistan, we’re pursuing them where they were. For every special forces team tied up training an Afghan police force that one day won’t be paid is a special forces team that can’t operate in Yemen, Pakistan or Somalia. [...]

My strategy is informed by history. We are fighting an ideology. I’ve seen first hand when I had price on my head in Iraq. But there’s ways to fight this war much more intelligently.

Look back to the history of the cold war, how did we combat that? We contained, we deterred, we used trade, aid, proxies. And we occasionally sent guys like me to kill and capture the real bad folks. Overall, we let the system collapse in on itself.

Sowers is putting forward his own strategy for fighting terrorism. I've made my reservations about that strategy clear, but these candidates are not mirror images of activist bloggers; they are independent political actors. Sowers and Marshall are not conforming to any ideological constraints. They are putting forward their own, selfish national security strategies and are backed by popular momentum.

Pakistan is where we see those same selfish interests replicated. Just as our candidates look out for the United States, Pakistanis are looking out only for their country. Take, for example, their reaction to the Wikileaks' "War Diary" confirmation of the involvement of Pakistani army and intelligence services with the insurgency. Mosharraf Zaidi writes:

Virtually no serious commentator or analyst anywhere, even those embedded deep in the armpit of the Pakistani establishment, claims that the Pakistani state was not instrumental in the creation, training and sustenance of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Given the nature of the relationship between the Pakistani state and the Afghan Taliban, one that goes right to the genetic core of the Taliban, it is hard to imagine that all ties can ever be severed. Again, for serious people, this is an issue that is done and dusted. Pakistan's state, and indeed, its society, had, has and will continue to have linkages with the Afghan Taliban. Moral judgments about these linkages are external to this fact.

These linkages do, however, deserve the scrutiny of the Pakistani parliament. If somehow, Pakistanis are involved in supporting any kind of violence against anyone, that kind of support had better be couched in a clear national security framework that articulates why it is okay for Pakistanis to underwrite such violence. Absent such a framework, the violence is illegal, and the space for speculation and innuendo about Pakistan is virtually infinite. It is that space that Pakistan's fiercest critics exploit when they generate massive headlines out of small nuggets of insignificant and stale information that implicates Pakistan in anti-US violence in Afghanistan (among other things).

Zaidi is representative of a broader progressive movement in Pakistan, the closest parallel and ally that Americans have there, and yet what is his response? It is not a call for an immediate end to Pakistan's "Strategic Depth", its support of militants, and there is no mourning the loss of American lives because of that policy. There is only acknowledgement that the relationship with militants --- specifically the Afghan Taliban ---  is deeply embedded in Pakistani society, as well as a call for the government to better articulate this relationship in a "national security framework".

Zaidi is not looking out for our best interests --- refraining from support to militants who kill American soldiers --- he's looking out for Pakistan's best interests, and that includes their historic ties to militancy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jammu & Kashmir, etc. Seems harsh, but it is a parallel to the US. When was the last time an American pundit, even a liberal one, shed a tear for the thousands of Pakistani soldiers and policemen killed doing our selfish American bidding? The answer would be never.

But there's also the actual Pakistani anti-war movement. Appealing directly to the principles of the "American Founding Fathers", the group calling itself the Coalition of Conscience put forward this list of demands:

1. The foreign presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is part of problem rather than the solution; > The coalition Governments must immediately order a cessation of all military and sting operations in the region and allow peace to be negotiated.


2. Al-Qaeda is a convenient tool to blanket all opposition to US policies in the region and impose unilateral policies; > All efforts to use this pretext to prolong the presence in the region and to pursue an international agenda other than peace must cease.


3. On going coalition operations have a fragmenting effect on both Pakistan and Afghanistan; > All coalition operations with divisive effects must be stopped.


4. The entire spectrum of violence and instability in Pakistan is a backwash from Afghanistan created by the presence of foreign forces. Support to insurgent and terrorist groups in FATA and Balochistan originate from Afghanistan. If this is not stopped, the instability will spread to other regions as well; > We demand the Government of Pakistan to make its own independent policies to ensure peace and development in the region; the mother of all civilizations.


5. Afghan movement is led by leaders who are indigenous to Afghanistan and legitimate representatives of resistance to foreign occupation; > These leaders must be treated as party to peace and brought into a comprehensive dialogue process as reflected in Pak-Afghan Jirga of 2007.


6. Failing a clear timetable from the coalition for the cessation of war; > The Government of Pakistan will be urged to exercise this nation’s legitimate right to secure its interests against all hostile bases inside Afghanistan, supporting and funding terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan.


7. In order to ensure long term stability and prosperity in the region; > The Government of Pakistan must carry forward the inconclusive negotiations of 1996 and assist all Afghans (Resistance and Northern Alliance) to mediate peace. We welcome support from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and China with no covert agendas.


8. It is not Pakistan’s responsibility to ensure logistics for coalition forces in Afghanistan knowing well that much of it is used to destabilize and terrorize Pakistanis; > This support must stop unless approved by UN and conducted under transparent international safeguards and inspections.


9. Gross violations and exercise of human rights on selective bases are widely documented; > All Pakistani prisoners kept by coalition countries, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in illegal detention centers must be brought back immediately and subjected to Pakistani courts.


10. Rendition centers, trials under duress and extra judicial killings including drones and blanket air strikes violate basic human rights; > War reparations and criminal trials of coalition leaders who have knowingly falsified evidence in support of war before their own people; their Parliaments; and before the UN Security Council must be brought before Law. All Pakistani leaders guilty of same must be tried under Pakistan laws.

The "coalition Governments" they refer to are the US and NATO allies. They are demanding "independent policies" from the Pakistani government, a reference to American interference. Most of the rest is pretty mundane, nothing you haven't seen from almost any other peace movement, Pakistani or otherwise. But make a special note of Number Six:

Failing a clear timetable from the coalition for the cessation of war; > The Government of Pakistan will be urged to exercise this nation’s legitimate right to secure its interests against all hostile bases inside Afghanistan, supporting and funding terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan.

That means war with the United States. All of our troops operating supply lines in Pakistan, all of our troops stationed in Afghanistan, all of our intelligence centers and facilities for launching drone and special forces raids --- these are what they are referring to by "all hostile bases." When I warned about the collapse of Pakistan, and our troops getting caught in the middle of it, this what I meant. From their perspective, our war is the root of their terrorism and insurgencies, and they will react to secure themselves.

This is the state of the present anti-war movement, in the United States and in Pakistan. In the US, Americans are putting forward their own policies, an end to the war, revamped port security, as well over-the-horizon counter-terrorism. In Pakistan, they are demanding an end to the war, our war, which is so destabilizing for their country.

None of this is remotely ideological or partisan, nor is it merely reactionary to the existing policy of war. It is an independent calculation of interests.

Ending the war is firmly in our national interests, and any politician who doesn't start supporting the United States will be put in serious danger of losing their seat. How long until our war supporting representatives come to be seen as puppets for Hamid Karzai and General Kayani, much the same as some Pakistani politicians are viewed as puppets of the United States?

With the leaks confirming so much of the criticism about the war, every action the supporters take is automatically drenched in blood. Every time they are voting for more war funding, they are voting for American soldiers to be killed by InterServices Inteligence and Pakistan Army operatives. Every time they vote against an exit timetable, they are voting against the economic interests of the United States.

This is what's happening as we watch the war disintegrate in front of us. The facts show that the war is destroying our economy, it is making us less safe, and continuing it will lead to even further disaster. There is no angry far left, no hippies, no anti-incumbent fever, no bleeding-heart liberals, and no wobbly pacifists. There are only Americans stepping up and taking their country back, back from the catastrophe of war, and setting it on a better path toward securing our interests at home and in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Anyone who still supports the war, after all of our facts have been confirmed by the Wikileaks release, now stands firmly against American national interests, both domestic and foreign. The consequences will be hellish come November.

General Kayani's "Silent Coup" in Pakistan: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Mull)

EA correspondent Josh Mull is the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. He also writes for Rethink Afghanistan:

Pakistan's General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the man over whom our leaders in Washington fawn and who sits atop the intensely destabilizing "Strategic Depth" networks in Afghanistan, has just been handed an extension of his term:

The Pakistani government on Thursday gave the country's top military official, army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, another three years in his post, a move that analysts said would bolster Pakistan's anti-terrorism fight and cement its role in neighboring Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced the extension in a late-night televised address to the nation. "To ensure the success of these [counter-terrorism] operations, it is the need of the hour that the continuity of military leadership should be maintained," he said.

The impact on our war in Afghanistan is obvious.  Call it "strategic depth" or "cementing its role": it all adds up to influence on Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, Al-Qa'eda, and the future of all of these players in Afghanistan.

The crux of the development is that Kayani's extension is bad news for us, due to his cozy relationship with militants and terrorist organizations, as well as his undermining of the democratically-elected civilian government. But the details are important, especially as they could mean the difference between uncontrolled escalation and our planned military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

For the complete picture, a look at what a few experts (read: bloggers) are saying to determine the good, the bad, and the ugly ramifications that Kayani's extension has on the US war in Afghanistan.

For the good news, we have Shuja Nawaz writing for the New Atlanticist [emphasis mine]:

A major advantage that might accrue is that the certainty provided by the new term for the army chief will allow the civilian government to become confident in asserting itself in policy matters, knowing that the army chief will not overtly intervene in its affairs. This may help strengthen political institutions. At the same time, civilians must resist the temptation to turn to the army to lead the battle against militancy (a national endeavor not purely a military one) or to arbitrate differences on the political field.

These three years should also give Kayani time to assess the present Higher Defense Organization of Pakistan and perhaps come up with a more devolved structure for the army and a better system of command and control at the center. One possible scenario may include regional and centralized commands at four-star rank, appointed by the same authority who selects the service chiefs, and a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs with real powers to regulate all the services while acting as the main military advisor of the government. This approach has been taken by the United States and many other modern militaries, so it would hardly be unprecedented. Without having a stake in the chairman's position in 2013, Kayani may be able to provide a dispassionate plan for the government to decide, well in advance of the next round of promotions in 2013. Any proposal that he presents as a disinterested party will have credibility and will also help override the parochial concerns of the army relative to the other services in Pakistan.

It would be more than good news, it would be great news, if Kayani did work to minimize the role of the military in government, and created a civilian-military relationship similar to the US. But that only works if the first part of the statement is true: Kayani's interference in politics ceases, allowing the civilian government to become more confident.

That's where the bad news comes in. This is not a case of the Army backing away from its role in politics. it is, in fact, a craven arrangement with the ruling political party. Arif Rafiq writes at AfPak Channel [emphasis mine]:

Perceptions aside, three more years of Kayani could conceivably provide continuity to both Pakistan's military and political setup. In recent months, the consensus in Pakistan was that Kayani would receive a two-year extension. Gilani's choice of three years was a surprise. But not by mere coincidence, Gilani's government also has three years remaining in its tenure. And so it's certainly possible that there is a deal between Gilani's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Kayani, perhaps involving foreign guarantors, to let this ship sail for three more years (with Gilani wearing the captain's hat steering an imaginary wheel and Kayani actually in control). Indeed, Gilani alluded to a possible deal when he said today that Pakistan's four major "stakeholders" -- the president, prime minister, army chief, and Supreme Court chief justice -- are in a "secure position" till 2013. [...]

And so for Kayani, who has managed to become the darling of many of Pakistan's nationalists and Islamists, there is some risk involved in continuing for another three years as army chief. If he ties himself too close to the PPP, he -- and more importantly, the Pakistani Army -- could lose a critical support base and sink along with the current government, unless he maintains a political distance and continues to pursue a semi-nationalist security policy.

Gilani projects a false sense of confidence in the viability of Pakistan's current political-military setup. This is Pakistan. The Kayani extension provides a short-term ceasefire between the PPP and the army, but it will also likely produce re-alignments among its fractious power brokers. And another head-on clash between any two of them is not far from reality.

Cutting a deal with the ruling elites of the status quo to stay in power is not the same as Kayani becoming a "disinterested party" in the government. That's not a democratic government, it's a puppet. In that sense Kayani's extension could be considered another in Pakistan's long history of military coups, albeit a silent one. This will agitate the opposition parties, namely the PML-N, and the Islamist party would not be out of line to call for new, early elections, simply as a way of "re-checking" the legitimacy of the PPP-Kayani government.

But that's not the worst part for the US war in Afghanistan. Pakistan's internal politics are important to us, but it's Kayani's national security and foreign policy that have truly ugly implications for the US. B. Raman writes on his blog [emphasis mine]:

In the counter-insurgency operations against the TTP he has had partial successes in the Swat Valley, South Waziristan, Bajaur and Orakzai agencies. Under his leadership, the Army has been able to deny the TTP territorial control in these areas, but has not been able to destroy their capability for terrorist strikes and commando-style raids in tribal as well as non-tribal areas. While arresting some leaders of the Afghan Taliban, who were living in Karachi and other non-tribal areas, he has avoided action against the Afghan Taliban leadership operating from the tribal areas.

He has avoided any action against Al Qaeda elements which have taken sanctuary in the non-tribal areas. Under Musharraf, the Army and the ISI were much more active against Al Qaeda in the non-tribal areas than they have been under Kayani. The anger of Al Qaeda and its associates against Musharraf because of the action taken by the Army and the ISI was responsible for the virulent campaign of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri against Musharraf and the Army. They abused Musharraf as apostate, collaborator of the Hindus etc and thrice tried to kill him---once in Karachi and twice in Rawalpindi. Compared to that, there is hardly any Al Qaeda campaign against Kayani. There is a greater threat to Mr.Zardari from Al Qaeda than to Kayani. The Army and the ISI have managed to create an impression in the tribal areas that Mr.Zardari and not Gen.Kayani is responsible for the facilities extended to the US for its Drone (pilotless plane) strikes in the tribal areas. Since Gen.Kayani took over, while many Al Qaeda leaders have been killed in the tribal areas by the Drone strikes, there have been very few arrests of Al Qaeda elements in the non-tribal areas. Al Qaeda feels more secure in the non-tribal areas of Pakistan today than it was under Musharraf.

If you missed that, let me spell it out for you: Kayani's extension is good for Al-Qa'eda. Yes, that Al-Qa'eda. The terrorist guys.

Then there's all that other stuff about the Afghan Taliban - Mullah Omar's Quetta Shura in Balochistan, as well as the Haqqani network, who are responsible for the vast majority of terrorist and insurgent attacks on our US troops in Afghanistan.

How does the US feel about this? Nawaz:

The United States has studiously avoided taking a public position but conversations with U.S. diplomats and military officials over the past few months indicated their deep interest in the future of General Kayani and a noticeable desire to see him remain at the helm of affairs in Pakistan.

Rafiq:

Some of Pakistan's nationalist and Islamist commentators have also reacted with suspicion toward Kayani's extension, describing it as a result of Hillary Clinton's "lobbying"

Raman:

Kayani is thought of well both by the Pentagon and the PLA leadership

And a flashback to Sue Pleming's report on Kayani's visit to Washington:

Guests crowded around Kayani at the annual Pakistani National Day party at the embassy, posing for photos and jostling for the military leader’s ear.[...]

U.S. senators and Obama administration officials lined up to speak to the slim and dapper general, who Pakistani media say rules the roost back home but is also central to U.S. relations with Islamabad.

Damn, we really love this guy. What are we thinking? Whatever it is we like about him --- his style, his centred demeanour, his subtle hand in politics - General Kayani is still just another military dictator, another crook in a long line of corrupt, tyrannical, warmongering thugs. He is not our ally, not our friend, and his extension, now a full-fledged dictatorship complete with a compliant, ruling political party, is just plain bad news for the United States.

The US must immediately end all military aid to Pakistan, and should pursue sanctions against the ruling elites in the PPP until such time as their government can prove its legitimacy by way of free and fair democratic elections. Barring such extreme measures, the US must engage exclusively with Pakistan's civilian government, while working toward greater inclusion of opposition parties like the PML-N (who are presently too close to radical Saudi Arabia, and could stand to be moderated with more international influence).

More importantly, the US must end its war in Afghanistan. Not only is not in our interests to fight a civil war in Afghanistan, but it is even less in our interests to have our US troops used as pieces in Kayani's personal chessboard. Our troops fight and die for our national defense, not for Kayani's insane militarist objectives against India. Pakistan is catastrophically unstable, and US military leaders are moving to escalate our involvement. Further war in the region will prove to be disastrous for the US.

Reforming our relations with the Pakistani government can be slow and doesn't have to be as extreme as an immediate freeze. The PPP government can be allowed time and support to again free themselves of Kayani's control, such as when they tried to grab control of the ISI, Pakistan's terror-supporting spy agency, in 2008. But we cannot wait to end the war in Afghanistan.

The war puts Americans in danger, it is destroying our economy, and now with Kayani's empowerment, our objectives in Afghanistan become all the more hopeless and impossible. We have to bring our troops home, get them out of this civil war in Afghanistan and proxy war with Pakistan, and only then can we move on to accomplishing our objectives, be they counter-terrorism, development, or human rights.

We must end this war now, lest one more US soldier die so that General Kayani can "cement his role" in Afghanistan.

Britain & the US: Scott Lucas on the Prime Minister's Trip to Washington

I chatted with BBC Radio Wales today about Prime Minister David Cameron's talks in the US this week. Asked if the visit was significant, my answer? "Not much."

[This conversation took place before Cameron's gaffe this afternoon in which he said that Britain was the "junior partner" in the World War II fight against the Germans "in 1940".]

The discussion starts about the 1:49:30 mark.

UPDATED US "National Security": Revealing the Sprawl of "Top-Secret America"...in 2007 (Shorrock)

UPDATED 1030 GMT: The Washington Post has now published the third and final part of its series, a look at the "intelligence complex" in Fort Meade, Maryland.



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On Monday, as The Washington Post launched its high-profile three-part series, "Top Secret America", on the vase intelligence network not only within the Government but amongst private contractors, we noted: "Much of this was known by close observers of US politics and foreign policy years before that, soon after — and indeed before — a US invasion of Iraq which was marked by faulty intelligence, wayward covert action, and a distortion of effective (and legal) policy at home and abroad."

For all the information put forth by Dana Priest and William Arkin, it is worth noting --- since the series does not do so --- those who had already documented the expanding sprawl of "intelligence" in and beyond the National Insecurity State. One of those reporters is Tim Shorrock, who published articles in Salon, Mother Jones, and The Nation between 2003 and 2007 and then the book Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.

Shorrock's view of the Post series?

[They] their best to obfuscate what contractors really do for US intelligence. They're eight years behind and still haven't caught up. Basically their stories are throwing big numbers at readers—such as the fact that of 854,000 people with top security clearances, 265,000 are contractors. But that's work that can be done by interns; there's virtually nothing in their series about the broader picture—like what it means to have private for-profit companies operating at the highest levels of our national security."

UPDATED The Perils of US Intelligence: A “Top-Secret World” Beyond Control (Priest/Arkin)
US “National Security”: More on the Sprawling “Top Secret America” (Priest/Arkin)

This is Shorrock's article, "The Corporate Takeover of US Intelligence",  from Salon in June 2007:

More than five years into the global "war on terror," spying has become one of the fastest-growing private industries in the United States. The federal government relies more than ever on outsourcing for some of its most sensitive work, though it has kept details about its use of private contractors a closely guarded secret. Intelligence experts, and even the government itself, have warned of a critical lack of oversight for the booming intelligence business.

On May 14, at an industry conference in Colorado sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. government revealed for the first time how much of its classified intelligence budget is spent on private contracts: a whopping 70 percent.

The DNI figures show that the aggregate number of private contracts awarded by intelligence agencies rose by about 38 percent from the mid-1990s to 2005. But the surge in outsourcing has been far more dramatic measured in dollars: Over the same period of time, the total value of intelligence contracts more than doubled, from about $18 billion in 1995 to about $42 billion in 2005.

"Those numbers are startling," said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and an expert on the U.S. intelligence budget. "They represent a transformation of the Cold War intelligence bureaucracy into something new and different that is literally dominated by contractor interests."

Because of the cloak of secrecy thrown over the intelligence budgets, there is no way for the American public, or even much of Congress, to know how those contractors are getting the money, what they are doing with it, or how effectively they are using it. The explosion in outsourcing has taken place against a backdrop of intelligence failures for which the Bush administration has been hammered by critics, from Saddam Hussein's fictional weapons of mass destruction to abusive interrogations that have involved employees of private contractors operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Aftergood and other experts also warn that the lack of transparency creates conditions ripe for corruption.

Trey Brown, a DNI press officer, told Salon that the 70 percent figure disclosed by Everett refers to everything that U.S. intelligence agencies buy, from pencils to buildings to "whatever devices we use to collect intelligence." Asked how much of the money doled out goes toward big-ticket items like military spy satellites, he replied, "We can't really talk about those kinds of things."

The media has reported on some contracting figures for individual agencies, but never before for the entire U.S. intelligence enterprise. In 2006, the Washington Post reported that a "significant majority" of the employees at two key agencies, the National Counterterrrorism Center and the Pentagon's Counter-Intelligence Field Activity office, were contractors (at CIFA, the number was more than 70 percent). More recently, former officers with the Central Intelligence Agency have said the CIA's workforce is about 60 percent contractors.

But the statistics alone don't even show the degree to which outsourcing has penetrated U.S. intelligence --- many tasks and services once reserved exclusively for government employees are being handled by civilians. For example, private contractors analyze much of the intelligence collected by satellites and low-flying unmanned aerial vehicles, and they write reports that are passed up to the line to high-ranking government officials. They supply and maintain software programs that can manipulate and depict data used to track terrorist suspects, both at home and abroad, and determine what targets to hit in hot spots in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such data is also at the heart of the National Security Agency's massive eavesdropping programs and may be one reason the DNI is pushing Congress to grant immunity tocorporations that may have cooperated with the NSA over the past five years. Contractors also provide collaboration tools to help individual agencies communicate with each other, and they supply security tools to protect intelligence networks from outside tampering.

Outsourcing has also spread into the realm of human intelligence. At the CIA, contractors help staff overseas stations and provide disguises used by agents working under cover. According to Robert Baer, the former CIA officer who was the inspiration for the character played by George Clooney in the film "Syriana," a contractor stationed in Iraq even supervises where CIA agents go in Baghdad and whom they meet. "It's a completely different culture from the way the CIA used to be run, when a case officer determined where and when agents would go," he told me in a recent interview. "Everyone I know in the CIA is leaving and going into contracting whether they're retired or not."

Read rest of article....

US "National Security": More on the Sprawling "Top Secret America" (Priest/Arkin)

The Washington Post has published the second part of the high-profile series by Dana Priest and William Arkin, based on two years of investigation, of the sprawling US "national security state", which now takes in hundreds of thousands of private personnel as well as Government employees:

In June, a stone carver from Manassas chiseled another perfect star into a marble wall at CIA headquarters, one of 22 for agency workers killed in the global war initiated by the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The intent of the memorial is to publicly honor the courage of those who died in the line of duty, but it also conceals a deeper story about government in the post-9/11 era: Eight of the 22 were not CIA officers at all. They were private contractors.

US “National Security”: Revealing the Sprawl of “Top-Secret America”…in 2007 (Shorrock)
UPDATED The Perils of US Intelligence: A “Top-Secret World” Beyond Control (Priest/Arkin)

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post.

What started as a temporary fix in response to the terrorist attacks has turned into a dependency that calls into question whether the federal workforce includes too many people obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest -- and whether the government is still in control of its most sensitive activities. In interviews last week, both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta said they agreed with such concerns.

The Post investigation uncovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

It is also a system in which contractors are playing an ever more important role. The Post estimates that out of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. There is no better example of the government's dependency on them than at the CIA, the one place in government that exists to do things overseas that no other U.S. agency is allowed to do.

Private contractors working for the CIA have recruited spies in Iraq, paid bribes for information in Afghanistan and protected CIA directors visiting world capitals. Contractors have helped snatch a suspected extremist off the streets of Italy, interrogated detainees once held at secret prisons abroad and watched over defectors holed up in the Washington suburbs. At Langley headquarters, they analyze terrorist networks. At the agency's training facility in Virginia, they are helping mold a new generation of American spies.

Through the federal budget process, the George W. Bush administration and Congress made it much easier for the CIA and other agencies involved in counterterrorism to hire more contractors than civil servants. They did this to limit the size of the permanent workforce, to hire employees more quickly than the sluggish federal process allows and because they thought - wrongly, it turned out - that contractors would be less expensive.

Nine years later, well into the Obama administration, the idea that contractors cost less has been repudiated, and the administration has made some progress toward its goal of reducing the number of hired hands by 7 percent over two years. Still, close to 30 percent of the workforce in the intelligence agencies is contractors.

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