Ex-Spy Alleges Effort to Discredit Bush Critic

[cal04]

Source: NY Times

A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him.

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.

In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted “to get” Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

It is not clear whether the White House received any damaging material about Professor Cole or whether the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies ever provided any information or spied on him. Mr. Carle said that a memorandum written by his supervisor included derogatory details about Professor Cole, but that it may have been deleted before reaching the White House. Mr. Carle also said he did not know the origins of that information or who at the White House had requested it.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16cole.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[SoapBox]

1. Would there even be any question that there was something dirty going with BushCo?

...MORE dirt bags.

[Lasher]

3. Not from me, but I like seeing specifics like this. EOM

[defendandprotect]

2. RWcan only rise and hold onto power through violence and intimidation --

unfortunately, we have too few "Mr. Carle's" protecting us and too many rightwingers

who have assassinated their way into government -

[tblue37]

4. Remember Nixon's "enemies list"? nt

[buckrogers1965]

5. Remember how people said if Bush did anything illegal

That people would come out and report it. There you go.

Using the government to go after your "enemies" is absolutely illegal. It is a combination of civil rights violation, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, using public monies for private gain, and whatever they charge mob bosses with.

[Judi Lynn]

6. The conservatives were still able to abort his appointment to Yale's faculty. From the article:

~snip~
Around the time that Mr. Carle says the White House requests were made, Professor Cole’s conservative critics were campaigning to block his possible appointment to Yale University’s faculty. In 2006, conservative columnists, bloggers and pundits with close ties to the Bush administration railed against him, accusing Professor Cole of being anti-American and anti-Israeli. Yale ultimately scuttled the appointment.

So they were able to inflict some damage to this man, a triumph for them to celebrate in yet another circular festival of the flesh.

[2banon]

7. Something is odd about this story

Juan Cole is someone I have held in very high esteem, and some other occasions that I have praised a couple of other journalists, I know I had forgotten to give Cole his just praises and accolades due. I have absolutely no doubt that Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog would have been a severe thorn in the Bush administrations side to say the least.

But he was certainly not alone.

Indeed he would have been in outstanding company with a plethora of others who was just as vocal and critical of Bush admin's policies domestic and foreign, especially wrt to the ME, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

So I'm puzzled as to why Cole was being specifically singled out in the story. Just find it quite puzzeling.

Wonder if that question came to any readers here?

[w4rma]

8. Dick Cheney happened to run across his blog, while missing others? (nt)

[formercia]

9. "So I'm puzzled as to why Cole was being specifically singled out in the story"

From first-hand experience, I'm sure there were many others. Their stories just have not been disclosed yet.

[2banon]

13. ahh. good point.

And after I posted I wondered over to Informed Comment and Juan Cole essentially posed the question himself.

And the conclusion you posit is logical given the way these operations seem to be handled.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. As he suggests, perhaps because some parts of the govt were willing to listen to him

I should point out that my blog was begun in 2002 with an eye toward analyzing open source information on the struggle against al-Qaeda. In 2003 I also began reporting on the unfolding Iraq War. My goal was to help inform the public and to present sources and analysis on the basis of my expertise as a Middle East and South Asia expert. In 2003-2005 and after I on a few occasions was asked to speak to military and intelligence professionals, most often as part of an inter-agency audience, and I presented to them in person distillations of my research. I never had a direct contract with the CIA, but some of the think tanks that every once in a while asked me to speak were clearly letting analysts and field officers know about the presentations (which were most often academic panels of a sort that would be mounted at any academic conference), and they attended. I should underline that these presentations involved small travel expenses and a small honorarium, and that I wasn’t a high-paid consultant but clearly was expected to speak my views and share my conclusions frankly. It was not a regular gig. Apparently one of the purposes of spying on me to discredit me, from the point of view of the Bush White House, was ironically to discourage Washington think tanks from inviting me to speak to the analysts, not only of the CIA but also the State Department Intelligence and Research and other officials concerned with counter-terrorism and with Iraq.

It seemed likely to some colleagues, according to what they told me, that the Bush administration had in fact succeeded in having me blackballed, since the invitations rather dropped off, and panels of a sort I had earlier participated in were being held without my presence. I do not know if smear tactics were used to produce this result, behind the scenes and within the government. It was all the same to me– I continued to provide what I believe was an important service to the Republic at my blog and I know for a fact that not only intelligence analysts but members of the Bush team continued to read some of what I wrote.
http://www.juancole.com/2011/06/retd-cia-official-alleges-bush-white-house-used-agency-to-get-cole.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29

[boppers]

27. "I never had a direct contract with the CIA"

"I never had a direct contract with the CIA, but some of the think tanks that every once in a while asked me to speak were clearly letting analysts and field officers know about the presentations (which were most often academic panels of a sort that would be mounted at any academic conference), and they attended."

He's so naive it's cute.

[nichomachus]

21. Maybe he wasn't the only one

just the one we know about.

[boppers]

26. Cole was getting inside information from the CIA.

Neither side of the story disagrees with that part of the account... Cole wasn't some blogger, or some professor, or some random CIA conference member, or some critic, he was all four.

[SpiralHawk]

10. Republicon facism (r)

Not surprised to learn this...what a pack of GooseStepping FAIL Freaks the Republicons are...

[Octafish]

11. Cole was turned down for a job he wanted at Yale in 2006

http://www.correntewire.com/the_power_of_right_wing_slime_juan_cole_turned_down_for_yale_job

Small world.

[formercia]

17. Junior, the illustrious Yale graduate.

Probably threatened to make them name a building after him. :rofl:

[Octafish]

18. They loved the smirking turd at Harvard, too.

Harvard Prof: Bush was a Total Shit (my paraphrase) of a Student, Person...

[mainer]

12. Mr. Carle and Mr. Gordon are heroes in this story.

And now that this is out in the open, Yale should be ashamed it didn't give Professor Cole that appointment. In fact, students there should be protesting LOUDLY.

[L. Coyote]

14. But, but, they did not sex message, so not to worry!

We need to keep focused on important "crimes" like getting naked.

[RainDog]

15. I hope those who worry about weiner are equally worried about this abuse of power

and spend as much time posting about this topic.

[Arctic Dave]

16. K&R

You just know there are more stories like this one.

[gratuitous]

19. I wonder if this criminal allegation will be investigated?

Or would that be too much lookin' backwards to the past when we're all supposed to be lookin' forwards to the future. It's a funny thing, voting for the guy who promised more transparency and integrity in government, seeing him win, and then watching turds like this continue to float in the national punchbowl.

[fascisthunter]

20. the GOP has been using our intelligence agencies for their partisan agendas

[Kaleko]

22. Or is it the other way around?

Looks like the CIA/NSA keeps the GOP in power and uses it as its political arm.

[fascisthunter]

23. ahhh... great point!!!!

[TomCADem]

25. This Story Will Quickly Be Buried Since It Disses On Republicans

Even after Valerie Plame, it is impermissible to suggest that the Bush White House engaged in a massive fraudulent effort to lead us into war.

[Judi Lynn]

28. Juan Cole: The Bush administration's CIA smear campaign

The Bush administration's CIA smear campaign
It is shocking to discover that the Bush White House would stoop to suborning the CIA to try to discredit a critical blogger like me
Juan Cole guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 June 2011 15.33 BST

Eminent national security correspondent at the New York Times James Risen has been told by a retired former official of the Central Intelligence Agency that the Bush White House repeatedly asked the CIA to spy on me with a view to discovering "damaging" information with which to discredit my reputation. Glenn Carle says he was called into the office of his superior, David Low, in 2005 and was asked of me, "'What do you think we might know about him, or could find out that could discredit him?'"

Low actually wrote up a brief attempt in this direction and submitted it to the White House, but Carle says he intercepted it. Carle later discovered that yet another young analyst had been tasked with looking into me. It seems to me clear that the Bush White House was upset by my blogging of the Iraq war, in which I was using Arabic and other primary sources, and which contradicted the propaganda efforts of the administration attempting to make the enterprise look like a wild shining success.

Carle's revelations come as a visceral shock. You had thought that with all the shennanigans of the CIA against anti-Vietnam war protesters and then Nixon's use of the agency against critics like Daniel Ellsberg, that "the Company" and successive White Houses would have learned that the agency had no business spying on American citizens.

I believe Carle's insider account and discount the glib denials of people like Low. Carle is taking a substantial risk in making all this public. I hope that the Senate and House intelligence committees will immediately launch an investigation of this clear violation of the law by the Bush White House and by the CIA officials concerned. Like Carle, I am dismayed at how easy it seems to have been for corrupt White House officials to suborn CIA personnel into activities that had nothing to do with national security abroad and everything to do with silencing domestic critics. This effort was yet another attempt to gut the fourth amendment of the US constitution, in this case as part of an effort to gut the first amendment of the US constitution.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/17/juan-cole-cia-george-bush