The Latest from Iran (29 June): Grading the Supreme Leader

2000 GMT: The Burning of Baha'i Houses. Radio Farda and BBC Persian Service report that the houses of dozens of Bahais were demolished and/or set ablaze in Mazandaran Province in northern Iran.

Radio Farda has an interview with an eyewitness, and the Baha'i spokeswoman in Geneva, Diane Allai, confirmed the story in a live interview with BBC Persian.

NEW Latest Iran Video: Harassment of Karroubi in Mosque (29 June)
NEW Iran: Can the Green Movement Ally with Workers? (Maljoo)
NEW Iran Snap Analysis: Waiting for the Crumbling?
Thinking Human Rights: Citizens, Technology, and the “Right to Protect” (Mazzucelli)
The Latest from Iran (28 June): Remembering 7 Tir?

1945 GMT: Threat of the Day. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says Britain has a “thick file of biased action” against Iran, so the Foreign Ministry is in agreement with complete severing of all cultural and educational relations with Britain.

Surprisingly, the news has not caused a mass outbreak of fainting and gnashing of teeth in the United Kingdom.

1930 GMT: Today's All is Well Alert. It comes from the head of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, Farid Ameri, who says Iran sees no risks to its gasoline imports.

Up to 10 foreign oil companies have cut shipments to Iran, but Ameri insisted, "Under any conditions we are able to supply the country's gasoline needs and there is no problem in producing or importing gasoline."

1900 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Amir Kabir University student activist Behzad Heydari, detained on 22 Khordaad (12 June), has been freed after 15 days in solitary confinement.

Mahboubeh Karami, a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign, will appear in Revolutionary Court on 28 June , 120 days after her arrest. Association for Women's Rights in Development has further information.

1800 GMT: The Battle over "Neda". The Los Angeles Times picks up on last week's story, noted on EA, of the "official" Iranian state media documentary on the death of Neda Agha-Soltan. The Times summary of Tehran's approach is complemented by Green Correspondents' dissection, in Persian, of the claims (Neda killed by mystery woman, Neda killed by "terrorist" Mujahedin-e-Khalq, Neda killed as part of "Western" plot, and so on).

1730 GMT: We have posted claimed video of Basiji harassment of Mehdi Karroubi --- and Karroubi's reaction --- at a mosque in Tehran today.

1400 GMT: Ahmadinejad  to Rafsanjani "Go". Curious story of the day comes out of the President's latest news conference: he allegedly said, when asked his reaction to Hashemi Rafsanjani's declaration that he was ready to retire, Ahmadinejad replied, "Very grateful".

1210 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. RAHANA reports that journalist Mahboubeh Khansari has been released on bail after four weeks in detention.

Mokhtar Asadi, a teacher’s union activist, was detained yesterday in Karaj.

1200 GMT: Labour Front. We've posted an assessment by Mohammad Maljoo of the relationship between the Green Movement and workers.

Rah-e-Sabz, via Peyke Iran, claims that about 10o oil refinery workers in Abadan held a protest; two were arrested.

0815 GMT: Watching the Diplomats. An important line buried in a Wall Street Journal article on former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian, who is now a visiting scholar at Princeton University....

"Javad Zarif, a pro-engagement former ambassador to the U.N., is under virtual house arrest in Tehran, said Western officials."

Zarif was the key Iranian diplomat in talks, broken off by the Bush Administration in spring 2003, between Tehran and Washington. At one point, he was supposed to join the staff of Tehran University's Institute of North American and European Studies --- now headed by Dr Seyed Mohammad Marandi --- but the post never materialised.

0805 GMT: Regime Spinning. Iranian state media has used comments of Iran's Ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, to declare that the "terrorist" Mujahedin-e-Khalq "is at the end of its line".

But the better entertainment value comes out of the Revolutionary Guard's Javan, which warns, "3000 corrupt tourists from East Asian states heading for Iran".

0745 GMT: The International Front. Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has again drawn Washington's lines on Iran and its nuclear programme.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Mullen said he believes Iran will continue to pursue nuclear weapons, despite sanctions, and that its achievement of that goal would be "incredibly dangerous". However, he asserted that a military strike against Iran would be "incredibly destabilizing" to the region.

0740 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Ali Tabi, a member of Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, has been released from detention.

0730 GMT: Labour Front. Rah-e-Sabz reports on a rally of dismissed and unpaid workers of Tehran's Pars Metal in front of the President's office.

0710 GMT: The Oil Squeeze. Khabar Online takes note of the 10 foreign companies who have halted gasoline exports to Iran.

0655 GMT: Execution Watch. Zahra Rahnavard has issued a statement expressing her hope that reports of the imminent execution of Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish woman sentenced to death for membership of the separatist PKK, are just rumours.

0645 GMT: Budget Front. Reports indicate that a Parliamentary commission will finally approve the details of the President's 5th Budget Plan.

So will that stop the sniping against Ahmadinejad by a number of high-profile MPs?

0530 GMT: We start this morning with a quick analysis of signs of stagnation and even crumbling in the Iranian regime.

Meanwhile, more signs....

Secularism and the Supreme Leader

Two articles to note from the opposition Rah-e-Sabz. The website ventures into new ground with a commentary from Arash Naraghi, on the question, "Is it possible to be a secular Muslim?" The reply: "Yes, secularism is an appropriate condition for a good Muslim in a civil society."

And, in a rare English article, Rah-e-Sabz turns from secularism to Iran's top religious figure. It reports that a poll of readers shows 82% marked the Supreme Leader's performance as "very bad" (77.56%) or "bad" (4.52%) while only 4% thought he had been "good".

Keyhan and the CIA v. The Green Movement

Rah-e-Sabz also features a notable and "cheeky", as the British would call it, intervention by Ataollah Mohajerani, a minister in the Khatami Government and ally of Mehdi Karroubi.

Turning the regime's standard argument of foreign support for regime change,Mohajerani links the "hard-line" Keyhan to none other than the Central Intelligence Agency. He notes a provocative editorial by former CIA operative Reuel Marc Gerecht in The New York Times and claims, "Gerecht and those like him [including former Presidential candidate John McCain] support the Green Movement in order to hurt it."

Parliament v. President

The fallout from the dispute over control of Islamic Azad University, complete with demonstrations in front of Parliament, continues. MP Akbar Aalami asserts that the retreat of the Majlis retreat in front of uproars "is a novelty".

The Government Warns Its Own Officials

An advisor in the President's office has declared that officials who are challenging the Government, by creating blogs and not working enough, will be identified.

Earlier this spring, Government outlets said a special unit would be established to monitor officials for inappropriate behaviour.

Khabar Online adds that the main sites for Ahmadinejad supporters are www.valatarin.net and www.nasrclub.com.

US Foreign Policy Video & Analysis: CIA Director Panetta from Afghanistan to Iran (27 June)

The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, was interviewed by Jake Panetta of ABC's This Week this morning. The 24 minutes proved a depressing illustration both of the illusions and self-constructed evasions of US foreign policy and the failure of a mainstream media to offer any meaningful interrogation. Tapper would put up a headline question on a topic. After Panetta offered his set-piece answer --- which was usually a deflection or even a half-truth rather than a response to the enquiry --- there would be no follow-up or further consideration.

Three examples....

1. AFGHANISTAN: Tapper's simplistic questions are "Are we winning?" and "Are the Taliban getting stronger?". Panetta's answer is an extraordinary shift: "We are disrupting Al Qaida's operations in the tribal areas of the Pakistan,", which of course says nothing about the Afghan conflict.

Tapper misses/ignores this and puts a set-piece follow-up, "What does winning look like?", allowing Panetta to go on about defeat of Al Qa'eda even though --- at another point in the interview --- the Director of the CIA has said there are no more than 100 members of the organisation in Afghanistan.

2. TARGETED KILLINGS: Asked about the US targeting of an American citizen, cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, Panetta offers the suspect claim, "We have no assassination list" and then makes the startling assertion, "He's a U.S. citizen, but he is first and foremost a terrorist and we're going to treat him like a terrorist." In effect, all questions of law and due process have been swept away by the CIA director in a single sentence.

And there's more. When Tapper tosses up the claim of a United Nations official that the CIA's target killings by drone aircraft in Pakistan may be suspect, Panetta simply declares, "There is no question that we are abiding by international law and the law of war" and then, rather than explaining what law the US is observing, invokes, "Look, the United States of America on 9/11 was attacked by Al Qaida."

Tapper does not follow up on either sweeping statement, despite the political and legal implications.

3. IRAN: Inevitably, Tapper's concern is whether Tehran has The Bomb. And Panetta feeds him with soundbites both vague to the point of irrelevance ("They continue to develop their nuclear capability") and specific to the point of being misleading ("We think they have enough low-enriched uranium right now for two weapons.")

At the same time, Panetta sneaks in one of his few substantial points in the interview: "There is a continuing debate [inside Iran] right now as to whether or nor they ought to proceed with the bomb....We would estimate that if they made that decision, it would probably take a year to get there, probably another year to develop the kind of weapon delivery system in order to make that viable."

Tapper misses the key point --- that the CIA has no firm evidence on the intentions of the Iranian Government --- and thus offers no space to develop the point.

TRANSCRIPT

TAPPER: Good morning. When the President takes a look at the world, he's confronted with threats literally all over the map. In Afghanistan, U.S. and international forces struggle to make headway against the Taliban. Iran moves ahead with a nuclear program in defiance of international condemnation.

North Korea becomes even more unpredictable as it prepares for a new supreme leader. New terror threats from Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia. No one knows these threats better than the president's director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta. He's been in the job for 16 months, and he's here with me this morning, his first network news interview. Mr. Panetta, welcome.

PANETTA: Nice to be with you, Jake.

TAPPER: Now, this was a momentous week, with President Obama relieving General [Stanley] McChrystal of his command. When this was all going down, you were with General [David] Petraeus at a joint CIA-CENTCOM conference. And I want to ask you about the war in Afghanistan, because this has been the deadliest month for NATO forces in Afghanistan, the second deadliest for U.S. troops, with 52 at least killed this month. Are we winning in Afghanistan, and is the Taliban stronger or weaker than when you started on the job?

PANETTA: I think the President said it best of all, that this is a very tough fight that we are engaged in. There are some serious problems here. We're dealing with a tribal society. We're dealing with a country that has problems with governance, problems with corruption, problems with narcotics trafficking, problems with a Taliban insurgency. And yet, the fundamental purpose, the mission that the president has laid out is that we have to go after Al Qaida. We've got to disrupt and dismantle Al Qaida and their militant allies so they never attack this country again.

Are we making progress? We are making progress. It's harder, it's slower than I think anyone anticipated. But at the same time, we are seeing increasing violence, particularly in Kandahar and in Helmand provinces. Is the strategy the right strategy? We think so, because we're looking at about 100,000 troops being added by the end of August. If you add 50,000 from NATO, you've got 150,000. That's a pretty significant force, combined with the Afghans.

But I think the fundamental key, the key to success or failure is whether the Afghans accept responsibility, are able to deploy an effective army and police force to maintain stability. If they can do that, then I think we're going to be able to achieve the kind of progress and the kind of stability that the president is after.

TAPPER: Have you seen any evidence that they're able to do that?

PANETTA: I think so. I think that what we're seeing even in a place like Marjah, where there's been a lot of attention -- the fact is that if you look at Marjah on the ground, agriculture, commerce is, you know, moving back to some degree of normality. The violence is down from a year ago. There is some progress there.

We're seeing some progress in the fact that there's less deterioration as far as the ability of the Taliban to maintain control. So we're seeing elements of progress, but this is going to be tough. This is not going to be easy, and it is going to demand not only the United States military trying to take on, you know, a difficult Taliban insurgency, but it is going to take the Afghan army and police to be able to accept the responsibility that we pass on to them. That's going to be the key.

TAPPER: It seems as though the Taliban is stronger now than when President Obama took office. Is that fair to say?

PANETTA: I think the Taliban obviously is engaged in greater violence right now. They're doing more on IED's. They're going after our troops. There's no question about that. In some ways, they are stronger, but in some ways, they are weaker as well.

I think the fact that we are disrupting Al Qaida's operations in the tribal areas of the Pakistan, I think the fact that we are targeting Taliban leadership -- you saw what happened yesterday with one of the leaders who was dressed as a woman being taken down -- we are engaged in operations with the military that is going after Taliban leadership. I think all of that has weakened them at the same time.

So in some areas, you know, with regards to some of the directed violence, they seem to be stronger, but the fact is, we are undermining their leadership, and that I think is moving in the right direction.

TAPPER: How many Al Qaida do you think are in Afghanistan?

PANETTA: I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaida is actually relatively small. I think at most, we're looking at maybe 60 to 100, maybe less. It's in that vicinity. There's no question that the main location of Al Qaida is in tribal areas of Pakistan.

TAPPER: Largely lost in the trash talking in the Rolling Stone magazine were some concerns about the war. The chief of operations for General McChrystal told the magazine that the end game in Afghanistan is, quote, "not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win. This is going to end in an argument."

What does winning in Afghanistan look like?

PANETTA: Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That's really the measure of success for the United States. Our purpose, our whole mission there is to make sure that Al Qaida never finds another safe haven from which to attack this country. That's the fundamental goal of why the United States is there. And the measure of success for us is do you have an Afghanistan that is stable enough to make sure that never happens.

TAPPER: What's the latest thinking on where Osama bin Laden is, what kind of health he's in and how much control or contact he has with Al Qaida?

PANETTA: He is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding. He's in an area of the -- the tribal areas in Pakistan that is very difficult. The terrain is probably the most difficult in the world.

TAPPER: Can you be more specific? Is it in Waziristan or--

PANETTA: All i can tell you is that it's in the tribal areas. That's all we know, that he's located in that vicinity. The terrain is very difficult. He obviously has tremendous security around him.

But having said that, the more we continue to disrupt Al Qaida's operations, and we are engaged in the most aggressive operations in the history of the CIA in that part of the world, and the result is that we are disrupting their leadership. We've taken down more than half of their Taliban leadership, of their Al Qaida leadership. We just took down number three in their leadership a few weeks ago. We continue to disrupt them. We continue to impact on their command-and-control. We continue to impact on their ability to plan attacks in this country. If we keep that pressure on, we think ultimately we can flush out [Osama] bin Laden and Zawahiri and get after them.

TAPPER: When was the last time we had good intelligence on bin Laden's location?

PANETTA: It's been a while. I think it almost goes back, you know, to the early 2000s, that, you know, in terms of actually when he was moving from Afghanistan to Pakistan, that we had the last precise information about where he might be located. Since then, it's been very difficult to get any intelligence on his exact location.

TAPPER: We're in a new phase now of the war, in which the threat can come from within, the so-called homegrown terrorists or the lone wolf terrorists. I'm talking about Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Christmas Day bomber; Lieutenant (sic) Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter. What do these incidents and the apparent increased occurrences of these types of attacks say about the nature of the threat we face?

PANETTA: I think what's happened is that the more we put pressure on the Al Qaida leadership in the tribal areas in Pakistan -- and I would say that as a result of our operations, that the Taliban leadership is probably at its weakest point since 9/11 and their escape from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Having said that, they clearly are continuing to plan, continuing to try to attack this country, and they are using other ways to do it.

TAPPER: Al Qaida you're talking about.

PANETTA: That's correct. They are continuing to do that, and they're using other ways to do it, which are in some ways more difficult to try to track. One is the individual who has no record of terrorism. That was true for the Detroit bomber in some ways. It was true for others.

They're using somebody who doesn't have a record in terrorism, it's tougher to track them. If they're using people who are already here, who are in hiding and suddenly decide to come out and do an attack, that's another potential threat that they're engaged in. The third is the individual who decides to self-radicalize. Hasan did that in the Fort Hood shootings. Those are the kinds of threats that we see and we're getting intelligence that shows that's the kind of stream of threats that we face, much more difficult to track. At the same time, I think we're doing a good job of moving against those threats. We've stopped some attacks, we continue to work the intelligence in all of these areas. But that area, those kinds of threats represent I think the most serious threat to the United States right now.

TAPPER: All three of those individuals were tied in some way to an American cleric who is now supposedly in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki. He has said to be on an assassination list by President Obama. Is that true and does being an American afford him any protection that any other terrorist might not enjoy?

PANETTA: Awlaki is a terrorist who has declared war on the United States. Everything he's doing now is to try to encourage others to attack this country, there's a whole stream of intelligence that goes back to Awlaki and his continuous urging of others to attack this country in some way. You can track Awlaki to the Detroit bomber. We can track him to other attacks in this country that have been urged by Awlaki or that have been influenced by Awlaki. Awlaki is a terrorist and yes, he's a U.S. citizen, but he is first and foremost a terrorist and we're going to treat him like a terrorist. We don't have an assassination list, but I can tell you this. We have a terrorist list and he's on it.

TAPPER: "The New York Times" reported this week that Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaida, who runs a major part of the insurgency into Afghanistan into a power sharing arrangement. In addition, Afghan officials say the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies with Pakistani General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership. Do you believe Pakistan will be able to push the Haqqani network into peace negotiations?

PANETTA: You know, I read all the same stories, we get intelligence along those lines, but the bottom line is that we really have not seen any firm intelligence that there's a real interest among the Taliban, the militant allies of Al Qaida, Al Qaida itself, the Haqqanis, TTP, other militant groups. We have seen no evidence that they are truly interested in reconciliation, where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce Al Qaida, where they would really try to become part of that society. We've seen no evidence of that and very frankly, my view is that with regards to reconciliation, unless they're convinced that the United States is going to win and that they're going to be defeated, I think it's very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that's going to be meaningful.

TAPPER: I know you can't discuss certain classified operations or even acknowledge them, but even since you've been here today, we've heard about another drone strike in Pakistan and there's been much criticism of the predator drone program, of the CIA. The United Nations official Phil Alston earlier this month said quote, "In a situation in which there is no disclosure of who has been killed for what reason and whether innocent civilians have died, the legal principle of international accountability is by definition comprehensibly violated." Will you give us your personal assurance that everything the CIA is doing in Pakistan is compliant with U.S. and international law?

PANETTA: There is no question that we are abiding by international law and the law of war. Look, the United States of America on 9/11 was attacked by Al Qaida. They killed 3,000 innocent men and women in this country. We have a duty, we have a responsibility, to defend this country so that Al Qaida never conducts that kind of attack again. Does that make some of the Al Qaida and their supporters uncomfortable? Does it make them angry? Yes, it probably does. But that means that we're doing our job. We have a responsibility to defend this country and that's what we're doing. And anyone who suggests that somehow we're employing other tactics here that somehow violate international law are dead wrong. What we're doing is defending this country. That's what our operations are all about.

TAPPER: I'd like to move on to Iran, just because that consumes a lot of your time as director of the CIA. Do you think these latest sanctions will dissuade the Iranians from trying to enrich uranium?

PANETTA: I think the sanctions will have some impact. You know, the fact that we had Russia and China agree to that, that there is at least strong international opinion that Iran is on the wrong track, that's important. Those sanctions will have some impact. The sanctions that were passed by the Congress this last week will have some additional impact. It could help weaken the regime. It could create some serious economic problems. Will it deter them from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability? Probably not.

TAPPER: The 2007 national intelligence estimate said all of Iran's work on nuclear weapons ended in 2003. You don't still believe that, do you?

PANETTA: I think they continue to develop their know-how. They continue to develop their nuclear capability.

TAPPER: Including weaponization?

PANETTA: I think they continue to work on designs in that area. There is a continuing debate right now as to whether or nor they ought to proceed with the bomb. But they clearly are developing their nuclear capability, and that raises concerns. It raises concerns about, you know, just exactly what are their intentions, and where they intend to go. I mean, we think they have enough low-enriched uranium right now for two weapons. They do have to enrich it, fully, in order to get there. And we would estimate that if they made that decision, it would probably take a year to get there, probably another year to develop the kind of weapon delivery system in order to make that viable.

But having said that, you know, the president and the international community has said to Iran, you've got to wake up, you've got to join the family of nations, you've got to abide by international law. That's in the best interests of Iran. It's in the best interests of the Iranian people.

TAPPER: The administration has continually said that Iran has run into technical troubles in their nuclear program. Is that because the Iranians are bad at what they do, or because the U.S. and other countries are helping them be bad at what they do, by sabotaging in some instances their program?

PANETTA: Well, I can't speak to obviously intelligence operations, and I won't. It's enough to say that clearly, they have had problems. There are problems with regards to their ability to develop enrichment, and I think we continue to urge them to engage in peaceful use of nuclear power. If they did that, they wouldn't have these concerns, they wouldn't have these problems. The international community would be working with them rather than having them work on their own.

TAPPER: How likely do you think it is that Israel strikes Iran's nuclear facilities within the next two years?

PANETTA: I think, you know, Israel obviously is very concerned, as is the entire world, about what's happening in Iran. And they in particular because they're in that region in the world, have a particular concern about their security. At the same time, I think, you know, on an intelligence basis, we continue to share intelligence as to what exactly is Iran's capacity. I think they feel more strongly that Iran has already made the decision to proceed with the bomb. But at the same time, I think they know that sanctions will have an impact, they know that if we continue to push Iran from a diplomatic point of view, that we can have some impact, and I think they're willing to give us the room to be able to try to change Iran diplomatically and culturally and politically as opposed to changing them militarily.

TAPPER: There was a big announcement over the weekend. South Korea and the U.S. agreed to delay the transfer of wartime operational control to Seoul for three years because of the belligerence of North Korea. Kim Jong-il appears to be setting the stage for succession, including what many experts believe that torpedo attack in March on a South Korean warship. They believe that this is all setting the stage for the succession of his son, Kim Jong-un. Is that how you read all this and the sinking of the warship?

PANETTA: There is a lot to be said for that. I think our intelligence shows that at the present time, there is a process of succession going on. As a matter of fact, I think the....

TAPPER: Was the warship attack part of that?

PANETTA: I think that could have been part of it, in order to establish credibility for his son. That's what went on when he took power. His son is very young. His son is very untested. His son is loyal to his father and to North Korea, but his son does not have the kind of credibility with the military, because nobody really knows what he's going to be like.

So I think, you know, part of the provocations that are going on, part of the skirmishes that are going on are in part related to trying to establish credibility for the son. And that makes it a dangerous period.

Will it result in military confrontation? I don't think so. For 40 years, we've been going through these kinds of provocations and skirmishes with a rogue regime. In the end, they always back away from the brink and I think they'll do that now.

TAPPER: The CIA recently entered into a new $100 million contract with Blackwater, now called Xe Services for Security in Afghanistan. Blackwater guards allegedly opened fire in a city square in Baghdad in 2007, killing 17 unarmed civilians and since then, the firm has been fighting off prosecution and civil suits. Earlier this year, a federal grant jury indicted five Blackwater officials on 15 counts of conspiracy weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Here's Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, who's a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D), ILLINOIS: I'm just mystified why any branch of the government would decide to hire Blackwater, such a repeat offender. We're talking about murder, a company with a horrible reputation, that really jeopardizes our mission in so many different ways.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your response?

PANETTA: Since I've become director, I've asked us to -- asked our agency to review every contract we have had with Blackwater and whatever their new name is, Xe now. And to ensure that first and foremost, that we have no contract in which they are engaged in any CIA operations. We're doing our own operations. That's important, that we not contract that out to anybody. But at the same time, I have to tell you that in the war zone, we continue to have needs for security. You've got a lot of forward bases. We've got a lot of attacks on some of these bases. We've got to have security. Unfortunately, there are a few companies that provide that kind of security. The State Department relies on them, we rely on them to a certain extent.

So we bid out some of those contracts. They provided a bid that was underbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice but to accept that contract. But having said that, I will tell you that I continue to be very conscious about any of those contracts and we're reviewing all of the bids that we have with that company.

TAPPER: This month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Assistant United States Attorney John Durham is close to completing a preliminary review of whether or not there's evidence that CIA agents or contractors violated the law when they used brutal methods, some call it torture, to interrogate terrorist detainees. Do you oppose this investigation? Are your officers -- your current officers, concerned about their legal jeopardy in the future under a future administration and what kind of guarantees can you give them?

PANETTA: Well look, CIA is an agency that has to collect intelligence, do operations. We have to take risks and it's important that we take risks and that we know that we have the support of the government and we have the support of the American people in what we're doing. With regards to this investigation, I know the reasons the attorney general decided to proceed. I didn't agree with them, but he decided to proceed. We're cooperating with him in that investigation. I've had discussions with the attorney general. He assures me that this investigation will be expedited and I think in the end, it will turn out to be OK. What I've told my people is please focus on the mission we have. Let me worry about Washington and those issues. And I think that's -- they have and I think frankly the morale at the CIA is higher than it's ever been.

TAPPER: We only have a few minutes left, but I want to ask, you're now privy to information about some of the ugliest, toughest tactics carried out by intelligence agencies with the purpose of defending our nation, stuff that probably as a member of Congress or OMB director of White House chief of staff, you suspected, but didn't actually know for a fact. How rough is it, and does any of it ever make it difficult for you to sleep at night or run to do an extra confession?

PANETTA: Well, I didn't realize that I would be making decisions, many decisions about life and death as I do now. And I don't take those decisions lightly. Those are difficult decisions. But at the same time, I have to tell you that the most rewarding part of this job -- I mean, we had a tragedy where we lost seven of our officers and it was tragic. But at the same time, it also provided a great deal of inspiration because the quality of people that work at the CIA are very dedicated and very committed to trying to help save this country and protect this country. They're not Republicans, they're not Democrats, they're just good Americans trying to do their job and that, I think, is the most rewarding part of being director of the CIA.

TAPPER: What's the flip side? Sleepless nights?

PANETTA: The flip side is you have to spend an awful lot of time worried about what the hell is going to go on our there and that keeps me up at night.

TAPPER: What -- this is my last question for you because we only have about a minute left -- what terrorist threat are we as a nation not paying enough attention to?

Or forget terrorist threat, what threat are we not paying enough attention to?

PANETTA: I think the one I worry about is, again, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the fact that one of those weapons could fall into the hands of a terrorist. I think that's one concern. And there is a lot of the stuff out there, and you worry about just exactly where it's located and who's getting their hands on it.

The other is the whole area of cyber security. We are now in a world in which cyber warfare is very real. It could threaten our grid system. It could threaten our financial system. It could paralyze this country, and I think that's an area we have to pay a lot more attention to.

TAPPER: All right, Director Leon Panetta, thank you so much for coming here today. Really appreciate it.

"Experiments in Torture": Text of Physicians for Human Rights Report

 Physicians for Human Rights have released a 27-page report:

Executive Summary

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration initiated new human intelligence collection programs. To that end, it detained and questioned an unknown number of people suspected of having links to terrorist organizations. As part of these programs, the Bush administration redefined acts, such as waterboarding, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, stress positions and prolonged isolation, that had previously been recognized as illegal, to be “safe, legal and effective” “enhanced” interrogationtechniques (EITs).

War on Terror Analysis: Was Bush Detention Programme “Human Experimentation”? (Leopold)

Bush administration lawyers at the Department of Justice’s (DoJ’s) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) accomplished this redefinition by establishing legal thresholds for torture, which required medical monitoring of every application of “enhanced” interrogation. Medical personnel were ostensibly responsible for ensuring that the legal threshold for “severe physical and mental pain” was not crossed by interrogators, but their presence and complicity in intentionally harmful interrogation practices were not only apparently intended to enable the routine practice of torture, but also to serve as a potential legal defense against criminal liability for torture.



Investigation and analysis of US government documents by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) provides evidence indicating that the Bush administration, in the period after Sept. 11, conducted human research and experimentation on prisoners in US custody as part of this monitoring role. Health professionals working for and on behalf of the CIA monitored the interrogations of detainees, collected and analyzed the results of those interrogations, and sought to derive generalizable inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations. Such acts may be seen as the conduct of research and experimentation by health professionals on prisoners, which could violate accepted standards of medical ethics, as well as domestic and international law. These practices could, in some cases, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The knowledge obtained through this process appears to have been motivated by a need to justify and to shape future interrogation policy and procedure, as well as to justify and to shape the legal environment in which the interrogation program operated.

PHR analyzes three instances of apparent illegal and unethical human subject research for this report:

1. Medical personnel were required to monitor all waterboarding practices and collect detailed medical information that was used to design, develop, and deploy subsequent waterboarding procedures;

2. Information on the effects of simultaneous versus sequential application of the interrogation techniques on detainees was collected and used to establish the policy for using tactics in combination. These data were gathered through an assessment of the presumed “susceptibility” of the subjects to severe pain;

3. Information collected by health professionals on the effects of sleep deprivation on detainees was used to establish the “enhanced” interrogation program’s (EIP) sleep deprivation policy.

The human subject research apparently served several purposes. It increased information on the physical and psychological impact of the CIA’s application of the “enhanced” interrogation techniques, which previously had been limited mostly to data from experiments using US military volunteers under very limited, simulated conditions of torture. It served to calibrate the level of pain experienced by detainees during interrogation, ostensibly to keep it from crossing the administration’s legal threshold of what it claimed constituted torture. It also served as an attempt to provide a basis for a legal defense against possible torture charges against those who carried out the interrogations, since medical monitoring would demonstrate, according to the Office of Legal Counsel memos, a lack of intent to cause harm to the subjects of interrogations.

Yet the Bush administration’s legal framework to protect CIA interrogators from violating US statutory and treaty obligations prohibiting torture effectively contravened well-established legal and ethical codes, that, had they been enforced, should have protected prisoners against human experimentation, and should have prevented the “enhanced” interrogation program from being initiated in the first place.

There is no evidence that the Office of Legal Counsel ever assessed the lawfulness of the medical monitoring of torture, as it did with the use of the “enhanced” techniques themselves.

The use of torture and cruel and inhuman treatment in interrogations of detainees in US custody has been well-documented by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and others. The role of health professionals in designing, monitoring and participating in torture also has been investigated and publicly documented. This current report provides evidence that in addition to medical complicity in torture, health professionals participated in research and experimentation on detainees in US custody.

The use of human beings as research subjects has a long and disturbing history filled with misguided and often willfully unethical experimentation. Ethical codes and federal
regulations have been established to protect human subjects from harm and include clear standards for informed consent of participants in research, an absence of coercion, and a requirement for rigorous scientific procedures. The essence of the ethical and legal protections for human subjects is that the subjects, especially vulnerable populations such as prisoners, must be treated with the dignity befitting human beings and not simply as experimental guinea pigs.

The use of health professionals to monitor intentionally harmful interrogation techniques places them in the service of national security objectives which are in conflict with the interests of those who they are monitoring. The result has been a co-opting of health professionals by the national security apparatus and a violation of the highest medical admonition to “do no harm.” Until the questions examined in this paper are answered and, if ethical violations or crimes were committed, those responsible are held accountable, the misuse of medical and scientific expertise for expedient and non-therapeutic goals jeopardizes the ethical integrity of the profession, and the public trust in the healing professions risks being seriously compromised.

Methods and Limitations

This PHR report draws primarily upon US government documents in the public record, including memoranda from the Office of Legal Counsel and the CIA’s Office of Inspector General Special Review of the CIA Enhanced Interrogation Program.

Most of these documents are heavily redacted and many additional, relevant documents remain classified. While the observational medical monitoring data are not publicly available for the instances indicating human experimentation cited by PHR, and while the specific extent to which medical personnel complied with requirements of the CIA’s Office of Medical Services (OMS) monitoring requirements is not known, there is clear evidence that medical personnel were required to monitor and document all EIT practices and that generalizable knowledge derived therefrom subsequently was used to refine harmful EIT practices.

While this report provides evidence that data from human research were compiled, apparently analyzed, and used to affect subsequent interrogations and to set policy, a comprehensive federal investigation is required to answer the questions this evidence raises.

Recommendations

Physicians for Human Rights calls on the White House and Congress to investigate thoroughly the full scope of the possible human experimentation designed and implemented in the post-Sept. 11 period. The War Crimes Act must be amended to restore traditional human subject protections. Those who authorized, designed, implemented and supervised these alleged practices of human experimentation — whether health professionals, uniformed personnel, or civilian national security officials — must be held to account for their actions if they are found to have violated what international tribunals previously have held to constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

If any victims of research and experimentation perpetrated by the United States are found, they must be offered compensation, including health care services, to address ongoing health effects related to the experimentation, and a formal apology. Based on the findings of this investigation, the United States should take the following actions:

1. President Obama must order the attorney general to undertake an immediate criminal investigation of alleged illegal human experimentation and research on detainees conducted by the CIA and other government agencies following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

2. The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services must instruct the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) to begin an investigation of alleged violations of the Common Rule by the CIA and other government agencies as part of the “enhanced” interrogation program.

3. Congress must amend the War Crimes Act to eliminate changes made to the Act in 2006 which weaken the prohibition on biological experimentation on detainees, and ensure that the War Crimes Act definition of the grave breach of biological experimentation is consistent with the definition of that crime under the Geneva Conventions.

4. Congress should convene a joint select committee comprising members of the House and Senate committees responsible for oversight on intelligence, military, judiciary and health and human services matters to conduct a full investigation of alleged human research and experimentation activities on detainees in US custody.

5. President Obama should issue an executive order immediately suspending any federally funded human subject research currently occurring in secret — regardless of whether or not it involves detainees.

6. The Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility should commence an investigation into alleged professional misconduct by OLC lawyers related to violations of domestic and international law and regulations governing prohibitions on human subject
experimentation and research on detainees.

7. President Obama should appoint a presidential task force to restore the integrity of the US regime of protections for human research subjects. This task force, comprising current and former officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the human rights community, and leading health professional associations, should review current human subject protections for detainees, and recommend changes to ensure that the human rights of those in US custody are upheld.

8. States should adopt policies specifically prohibiting participation in torture and improper treatment of prisoners by health care professionals. Such participation is considered professional misconduct and is grounds for loss of professional licensure. Proposed legislation in New York State provides a model for such policy.

9. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture should undertake an investigation of allegations that the United States engaged in gross violations of international human rights law by engaging in human subject research and experimentation on detainees in its custody.

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War on Terror Analysis: Was Bush Detention Programme "Human Experimentation"? (Leopold)

Jason Leopold write for Truthout:

High-value detainees captured during the Bush administration’s “war on terror” who were subjected to brutal torture techniques were part of a Nazi Germany-type program involving illegal human experimentation, the purpose of which was to collect research “data,” according to a disturbing new report that calls on President Barack Obama, Congress and other government agencies to immediately launch inquiries and Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the allegations.

"Experiments in Torture": Text of Physicians for Human Rights Report

The findings contained in the 27-page report, “Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Program,” is based on extensive research of previously declassified government documents that shows the crucial role medical personnel played in in establishing and justifying the legality of the Bush administration’s torture program.


The report said the research and experimentation of detainees its authors have documented is not only a violation of the Geneva Conventions, but is a grave breach of international laws, such as the Nuremberg Code, established after atrocities committed by Nazis were exposed in the aftermath of World War II.

“Health professionals working for and on behalf of the CIA monitored the interrogations of detainees, collected and analyzed the results of [the] interrogations, and sought to derive generalizable inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations,” states an executive summary of the report, prepared by Physicians for Human Rights. “Such acts may be seen as the conduct of research and experimentation by health professionals on prisoners, which could violate accepted standards of medical ethics, as well as domestic and international law. These practices could, in some cases, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

For example, PHR said the drowning method known as waterboarding was monitored in early 2002 by medical personnel who collected data about how detainees responded to the torture technique. The data was then used by Steven Bradbury, the former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), to write a legal opinion in 2004 advising CIA interrogators on how to administer the technique, referred to in the PHR report as “Waterboarding 2.0.”

“According to the Bradbury memoranda, [CIA Office of Medical Services] teams, based on their observation of detainee responses to waterboarding, replaced water in the waterboarding procedure with saline solution ostensibly to reduce the detainees’ risk of contracting pneumonia and/or hyponatremia, a condition of low sodium levels in the blood caused by free water intoxication, which can lead to brain edema and herniation, coma, and death,” the report says. In Bradbury’s torture memo, he wrote that “based on advice of medical personnel, the CIA requires that saline solution be used instead of plain water to reduce the possibility of hyponatremia (i.e. reduced concentration of sodium in the blood) if the detainee drinks the water.”

PHR noted that the presence of CIA medical personnel during the waterboarding sessions “could represent evidence of human experimentation” because it underscores “the danger and harm inherent in the practice of waterboarding and the enlistment of medical personnel in an effort to disguise a universally recognized tactic as a ‘safe, legal and effective’ interrogation tactic.”

CIA medical personnel also obtained experimental research data by subjecting more than 25 detainees to a combination of torture techniques, including sleep deprivation, according to the report, as a way of understanding “whether one type of of application over another would increase the subjects’ susceptibility to severe pain.” The information derived from the research informed “subsequent [torture] practices.”

“This investigation had no direct clinical health care application, nor was it in the detainees’ personal interest, nor part of their medical management,” the report says. “It appears to have been used primarily to enable the Bush administration to assess the legality of the tactics, and to inform medical monitoring policy and procedure for future application of the techniques.”

Frank Donaghue, PHR’s chief executive officer, said the report appears to demonstrate that the CIA violated “all accepted legal and ethical standards put in place since the Second World War to protect prisoners from being the subjects of experimentation.”

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