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Loose Canons
The Petraeus Passport Puzzle
Shouldn’t he mind that the State Department is denying “country clearances” to CIA operatives?
Hillary Clinton’s State Department bureaucrats are interfering with current CIA operations by denying passports to agents, according to intelligence community sources.
Though this has happened in the past, these denials were until recently a rare occurrence. There has been a surge in the State Department’s denial of “country clearances” in recent months. Because the State Department has legal control over the issuance of all U.S. passports — including those diplomatic and other special passports often used by active CIA operatives — its refusal to issue passports in recent months has denied the CIA the ability to mount planned operations in several nations. My sources did not reveal which countries are involved but — given the turmoil in Egypt and Pakistan, and the U.S.’s tenuous relationship with both countries — they would likely be among those nations for which the passports are being denied.
The State Department’s decreasing cooperation with the CIA may have begun as early as January 2011 when CIA contractor Raymond Davis got into a shootout with Pakistanis on a street in Lahore, killing two men who Davis said were attempting to rob him. Davis was arrested for murder and his diplomatic passport was deemed ineffective by the Pakistanis, who held him in prison until the U.S. government paid “blood money” to the relatives of the dead.
These events come at a time when rumblings about the effectiveness of new CIA Director, Gen. David Petraeus, are also being heard. If the passport denial is as great a problem as my sources indicated, why would Petraeus not be fighting the State Department’s usurpation of his job?
The denial of passports to CIA agents would most affect those who are going abroad to gather intelligence under an official cover of other U.S. government employment. Covert operations, logically, would not be affected as the agents involved would not be traveling on U.S. government passports, though “case officers” who run the covert agents might be.
The need for the intelligence those agents would gather is too obvious to explain at length here. In short, the instability in nations such as Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, and others enjoying the Islamist fruits of the “Arab spring” has reduced America’s ability to influence events in those nations to a dangerous degree. More — and more accurate — intelligence is essential to maintaining what little influence we have.
The urgent need for intelligence from inside those nations raises three large questions: is Hillary Clinton behind these actions? Is the president not interested in what advantages we could gain from having it? What is DCI Petraeus doing about the problem?
One source questioned whether Clinton was behind it. This person reminded me of Attorney General Eric Holder’s war against the CIA. Holder, before he was confirmed as AG, promised several Republican senators that he would not try to prosecute current and former intelligence agents who were involved in using the “enhanced interrogation methods” that were highly effective when used during the Bush presidency. Obama banned them soon after he was inaugurated. Holder is known to have favored the ban and broke his promise to the Senate members. Though the cases have not yet been pressed, his Justice Department has an open investigation into the conduct of CIA interrogators. That source expressed skepticism that Clinton would be behind the passport denials, pointing instead to Holder.
But Clinton is now in Egypt, delivering praise of its new Islamist president. She might have wanted to bar CIA operations in Egypt to gain favor with Morsi.
Whether Holder or Clinton is behind the State Department’s action, Gen. Petraeus is the man who has the responsibility of gathering, analyzing, and passing to the president and other top intelligence consumers the information they need to function in all matters of foreign affairs and conflict. But, as one source said, Petraeus’s political nature may be preventing him from insisting that the State Department issue the clearances and passports his operatives need.
Petraeus is ambitious and when his term as CIA Director ends it is highly unlikely that he would simply disappear from the political world. More likely is that he would use the CIA post as a stepping stone to a bigger position in a second Obama administration or to pursue political office on his own.
But nothing would excuse his acquiescing in even a temporary reduction in the CIA’s ability to gather intelligence. Petraeus — as U.S. commander in Iraq and then Afghanistan — saw first-hand how crucial intelligence is to every U.S. action in those nations. It is no less crucial in learning what the capabilities and intentions of our adversaries are elsewhere.
The CIA has taken a battering over the past few years. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, when she was speaker of the House, accused the CIA of lying to Congress over the use of the “enhanced interrogation” methods. Pelosi falsely denied being briefed on the use of waterboarding when she was on the House Intelligence Committee. Her accusation has not been withdrawn.
Holder’s actions in bringing and continuing the investigation of CIA interrogators put the CIA, as one source said, into the “CYA mode.” Obama has done nothing to help the CIA recover from Holder’s actions, but has been all too willing to take credit for its successes such as finding Osama bin Laden.
The State-CIA conflict comes at a time when our intelligence community should be focusing on a great many threats to vital U.S. national security interests. It’s been years since the Russians loaded up ships with weapons and sent them to places such as Syria. What, precisely, are they sending to aid Bashar Assad, and how will that affect the stability of those nations adjacent to Syria? How is Pakistan aiding the Taliban to ensure it can return to govern Afghanistan when we leave? What will the Egyptian army do to help its new Islamist government aid terrorists organizing attacks on Israel?
About the Author
Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies. You can follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (40) | Leave a comment
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Gary B| 7.16.12 @ 6:51AM
"Petraeus is ambitious and when his term as CIA Director ends it is highly unlikely that he would simply disappear from the political world."
Petraeus is a coward who betrayed his soldiers when he was theater commander in Afghanistan. Instead of enforcing the impossible rules of engagement that are killing our troops and protecting that criminal, Karzai, he should have resigned. Instead, he placed his personal gain ahead of the lives our young troops and the cost has been high. He, Karzai and his drug-dealing brother are birds of a feather. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Petraeus has a large Swiss bank account.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 8:21AM
Well. There goes what I was gonna write.
Like Gary B says: WTF is ANY Honourable Serviceman doing still in uniform, under this POS MFer? This TRAITOR, who sees Our People in Uniform, as less than Cannon Fodder? Who Handcuffs their ability to Fight the Enemy ala Johnson/McNamara.
This Traitor who seeks to PUNISH the Men and Women, who got the Invaluable Information outta that Goat Licking, Cckscking, Ape Looking Bag a Vomit - Khalid Shit Mohammed.
He went after them on Day 1. And, he's still trying to get'em.
The LEFT hates this Country, and anyone who would wear the Uniform in Service to it.
(And, that includes THE COPS!)
I keep wondering if somebody in the Secret Service is gonna WAKE UP to the FACT that, The "Domestic Enemy" that he Swears to "Protect The Constitution" from, is standing right in front him.
I wonder how many Catastrophic Conflagrations in Man's History, could have been prevented, if only ONE MAN had followed his Heart, and Obeyed his Oath?
Not since the Praetorian Guard, have there been such men.
jaytrain| 7.16.12 @ 8:23AM
The tophat and tails crowd at State have had it in for HumInt for generations : "Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail " . The whole mindset looks at geoploitics as if it were one big Model UN confab and the nation is the worse , far worse , for it . HumInt is dirty and dangerous work where one must, perforce, associate withe some v nasty types and the fancy boys,and now girls ,at State just don't get it .
Gary B| 7.16.12 @ 8:43AM
Don't get me started on the striped pants gang of pukes at the State Dept.
Occam's Tool| 7.16.12 @ 11:50AM
The great Keith laumer, a former State department functionary, put it best---The State Department is a backstabbing treasonous organization. (I am paraphrasing, but he would say I got it in one.)
For an idea of how the State Department works, read his magnificent science fiction Retief series. Laumer, alas, is "Late."
Occam's Tool| 7.16.12 @ 11:52AM
Gary: correct as usual, you fabulous American, you. Thanks for your comments! Love reading them.
Alej| 7.16.12 @ 9:10AM
"Like Gary B says: WTF is ANY Honourable Serviceman doing still in uniform, under this POS MFer?"
Sad to say, few flag officers display the idealistic fervor they probably did as company-grade officers... politics eventually infects most of them.
Gen. McChrystal was immune.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 10:07AM
I know it.
The Dark Side is filled with Big Offices, Secretaries, Executive Washrooms, Big Fat Paychecks, and Fancy Cars with Personal Drivers.
Power Corrupts.
And, you can count on it happening, like you can count on the Sun coming up in the East.
Ce la vi.
Occam's Tool| 7.16.12 @ 11:51AM
TLP: right on,as usual. Check out Retief!
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 4:50PM
You want me to check out Retief Goosan?
Bob K| 7.16.12 @ 9:43AM
According to his wiki biography he married the daughter of General William A. Knowlton, who was the Superintendent of West Point, 2 months after he graduated from the Academy. His career has continued it's giant leaps since then.
He learned his lessons early, it seems, and has done very well for a "non-legacy" graduate of West Point.
His father was a Dutch Sea Captain who immigrated to the USA in the early years of WWII.
John786| 7.16.12 @ 10:59AM
Mr Babbins lives in a parallel universe of conspiracies to feed his relentless islamophobia. Wake up mr Babbins and smell the cofee.
Gary B| 7.16.12 @ 11:06AM
Islamophobia is one of the few phobias that makes sense.
Drunken Sailor| 7.16.12 @ 11:42AM
A phobia (from the Greek: φόβος, Phóbos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear") is, when used in the context of clinical psychology, a type of anxiety disorder.
Now what in the world could ever have possible made Mr. Babbin have a phobia about Islam? Surely not the terrorist tactics used, the suicide bombings, the holy war's, the 18th century brutality, the treating of women as second class citizens, the beheadings or stonings.
I hate to paint people with a broad brush as there are quite suredly good people of the Islamic faith, but they seem to be in the minority. Don't blame Mr. Babbin for his concerns, blame your radical brothers and their methods. Perhaps if more Islamist stood up against the radicals, you would have less to fear.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 7.16.12 @ 2:25PM
I believe in its current English language usage, "phobia" means irrational fear. As you ably point out, any "fear", such as it is (others might call it "awareness") certainly appears to have a rational basis.
Skippy| 7.16.12 @ 6:38PM
"Islamophobia" is a synonym for "common sense" or "survival instinct".
Occam's Tool| 7.16.12 @ 11:48AM
786, so good to have you back to pummel you for being a child rape supporting scumbag! There is no such thing as Islamophobia, as no decent human would want to live in a sharia state.
John786| 7.16.12 @ 12:34PM
You already live in a state that is 99.999% sharia compliant. Think before typing. It really does help.
Gary B| 7.16.12 @ 12:45PM
He didn't say we aren't living the sharia dream. He said no decent human would want to live the sharia dream. So it's up to us decent human beings to stomp it out. And, don't you think 99.999% is just a little high?
Drunken Sailor| 7.16.12 @ 1:51PM
That's like saying we share 96% of the same DNA as chimps. It may be true but that small percentage difference is huge.
Who Knows?| 7.16.12 @ 11:30AM
Petraeus looks like Douglas MacArthur.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 4:51PM
I don't get it.
Occam's Tool| 7.16.12 @ 11:47AM
Hillary "I hate the Jews and love Mrs. Arafat" Clinton (the only time she was pro-Israel in her entire career was as Senator from New York) interfering with anti-jihadist operations? The Cubs NOT winning the pennant every year? Surprise, surprise!
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 4:54PM
Let's not forget the time she SCREAMED about those "Jew sons of Bitches" when she was in the White House, dressing down underlings for Looking Her In The Eyes as she passed by.
C*NT!
nathan| 7.16.12 @ 12:10PM
TLP: Who supported the Torture Convention? No less a person than St. Ronald himself. Do we really really have to go through this again? During the PI Insurrection several US soldiers were courtmartialed and convicted for waterboarding people. WB was named in a number of the bills of indictment for Japanese war criminals. We courtmartialed soldiers in Vietnam for doing it. There's a hundred years of precedents for this country calling it exactly what it is, torture. The torture convention which again St. Ronald fully supported makes it clear that actors cannot rely on the laws or legal opinions of their own countries. This was to specifically stop once and for all the "I was obeying orders" defense, or I was acting within the laws of my country. The Bybee and Yoo "findings" did not shield these people from future proscecutions. They had an obligation to make individual determinations at to the legality of the actions they were being asked to take and given the 100 years of precedents, the conventions themselves, and US law which categorically prohibits American personnel anywhere in the world from abusing people under their control (Fox Judge Napolitano makes this really clear in one of his books) the decision to pursue cases against those interrogators is very appropriate. And whether they got good "information" or not (highly debatable by the way) is absolutely irrelevant. Good intentions do not excuse illegal behavior.
Gary B| 7.16.12 @ 12:51PM
Delegate subject. There have been instances where the good information they got in a timely fashion saved American soldiers' lives. Allen West knows a think or two about that.
Needing vital information in a hurry flies in the face of having friendly debates and matching wits with a detainee. And, by the way, just curious what physical damage results from waterboarding? I mean it's part of the regular training some of our own troops get.
nathan| 7.16.12 @ 1:10PM
West got NOTHING. He himself admitted he had ZERO experience or training in interrogation. So why was he doing it? Because watching "24" made him an expert? So he grabs an Iraqi police officer who had worked with the Americans who by the way spoke no English. One of the biggest problems is the lack of language qualified interrrogators. Who knows if what the detainee is saying is correct if you're getting it through a translator?
He let's his troops beat the crap out of him. (They didn't know that was illegal. Why not?) Then he conducts a mock execution. The man is later held for 40 some days and released. Meanwhile the name he gives proves to be useless. By his own admission West got NOTHING. Now let me suggest this to you. Say an Iraqi office did EXACTLY the same thing to one of West's men. EXACTLY. And West catches him. And he tells West, hey, I was looking to save the lives of my men. Does West let him walk, or throw his sorry ass in Abu Ghraib? Abu Ghraib of course and if he does than he shouldn't have done it to the policeman.
Oh please. WB under controlled circumstances by your own men is NOT the same as having your enemy doing it. It DOES mess people up for life. And people have died from it, us doing it. And the Inquisition did it. You want to defend something THEY used? BE MY GUEST. But again, we called it torture for 100 years. How did it magically quit being torture under Bush/Cheney?
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 2:16PM
After 911, and 3,000 Innocent Americans MURDERED in Cold Blood?
I would have started separating this Scum from his SKIN, until he spilled his Guts.
I'da cut off one Finger at a time.
One Toe at a time.
Then a Hand.
Then a Foot.
Then an Arm.
Then a Leg.
Then his Fckng Head ala Danny Pearl.
And, even if I got NOTHING?
It would have been a Good Day.
Grow Up!
nathan| 7.16.12 @ 2:51PM
Me grow up?
Let me make something real clear to you and everyone that thinks like you. Do exactly what you just said and honestly, you're no better than he is. You aren't. Don't fool yourself for a moment. Act evil no matter how you dress it up, no matter how you justify it, no matter how wonderful your "good intentions" are, and you ARE evil. America isn't about the land, it's not about the people, it's the principles enbodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that make is unique that make us special. Throw those away, because you're angry, because it SAVES ONE AMERICAN LIFE (when the gun controllers use that rationale to take your guns from you what do you say to them sir?), because we're THE AMERICANS and the rules don't apply to us, we get to act any way WE PLEASE BECAUSE WE'RE THE SELF PROCLAIMED GOOD GUYS, and we're not us any more.
Matthew Alexander was an interrogator in Iraq. Without ever laying a hand on anyone, he got the information that led to the death of the second leading bad guy there. If he can do it, why not everyone else? We see so many examples in the last 70 years of hands off interrogation that really works. Torture truly is the last refuge of incompetents. Defend this all you want, but then don't attack BHO when he ignores the Constititution because you aren't ANY better than he is.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 5:01PM
I don't wanna be "Better than them".
I wanna do to them, what they would do to YOUR KIDS, if they ever got the chance.
Our Fathers, and Grandfathers, Firebombed Dresden, and Tokyo. They Bombed Berlin, in to the Stone Age. And, they NUKED Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And we call them - THE GREATEST GENERATION.
I'd kill ALL OF THEM, if it meant saving ONE American Life.
So, stick your Sanctimonious Bullshit up your ass.
Skippy| 7.16.12 @ 7:03PM
I *heart* waterboarding.
nathan| 7.16.12 @ 12:26PM
Again let's be clear here. It's not enough to proclaim to the world how noble and wonderful you are. "By their actions ye shall know them." That was true 2,000 years ago when it was written and it's true now. And please don't tell me the other side does it and they do worse things like remove heads, all that stuff. We've been through this before. We do not judge ourselves by what THEY do. Our standards our higher than that. We established principles and standards at Nuremburg and Tokyo which we are obliged to adhere to. Go back to the movie "Judgement At Nuremburg". Tracy says at the end when the enemy is at your throat is when you MOST have to stay true to your principles. He's right.
But given the physiology of torture which Napolitano and others discuss, at what point do you quit getting useful information and start getting the guy's elementary teacher's name, sheer junk. That's why the Pentagon itself says torture is totally unreliable. Understand virtually all the JAG's disagreed with Bybee and Yoo and were appalled at their "findings". I'm not alone in this.
Which is why we don't do it. The best interrogators DON'T touch detainees and never have to. We can't defend these people and we shouldn't nor the people who authorized what they did and that includes Cheney.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 2:20PM
We DO do it.
And, we always have.
Like I said before.
Grow Up.
If we had been Hit Again?
You would have been First In Line, DEMANDING why the Dots weren't connected.
STFU.
nathan| 7.16.12 @ 3:41PM
No. West and those interrogators INCLUDING CHENEY took an oath to do what? defend the people of the United States? NO. Defend the country of the United States? NO. They took an oath to defend THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES! Do you all get that? It means that no matter where they are, that oath travels with them is binding on them. It means that they don't get to violate it TO SAVE ONE LIFE or a lot of them. That you look for ways to do your job that doesn't involve violating that oath. And honestly if we're as bloody good as we keep saying we are, we should be able to protect the country without violating our principles. And people like Alexander and others did just that. The interrogation unit in the Pacific never touched those Japanese prisoners and yet look at how successful they were. Don't tell me after looking at the Luftwaffe interrogation unit that never touched a single downed pilot that we can't do it right. That is sheer bloody nonsense.
I'll say what I did last week. What's with you folks?
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 5:07PM
Like any Liberal.
Our boy, nathan, needs HIS LOVED ONES to be Slaughtered, before he Gets It.
Hopefully, the next attack by these MFers, takes out Your Loved Ones.
Then, MAYBE, you'll pull your stupid Head outta your ass.
Skippy| 7.16.12 @ 7:11PM
Since war is...war, victory is the only goal.
We don't do what our enemies do(real torture), we make our enemies very uncomfortable without harming or killing them.
That will always be just fine with me.
Somebody tell Nathan that the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
nathan| 7.16.12 @ 7:43PM
No less a person than Washington himself insisted on the proper treatment of detainees even knowing that Americans in Philadelphia were being mistreated. I challenge you find a single quote from any of the Founders that supports anything you are advocating here. YOU CAN'T and that makes you the liberals here not me. And do not throw WWII at me. Read Max Hasting's Bomber Command and other books.. Those raids against purely civilian targets were immensely controversial and more than a few high ranking officers questioned their morality. And as we see today the indiscriminate use of the drones and the civilian casualties are causing us all sorts of problems.
@Skippy: Tying a person to a shower head and beating him to death to the point where his face can't be recognized doesn't meet your definition of torture? (Abu Ghraib.) Ask the Canadian that was Ghost Planed" to Egypt? and horribly tortured and was totally innocent. And the hundreds like him. I'm sure they'll tell you we do real torture. It's not MY fault you and others like you are so badly mis informed. DO YOUR HOMEWORK.
Anthony| 7.16.12 @ 1:49PM
Hey, let's give the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood their due, they do have a sense of humor.
I love to be a fly on the wall when the she- bitch gets back to Chappaqua, and tells Slick Willie, when he asks "how was your day dear", as she screams: " it f''n stank because those Muslim bastards keep shouting out Monica's name as I drove by, you f'n bastard!!!
Gary B| 7.16.12 @ 11:49PM
LOL
sharms| 7.17.12 @ 7:47AM
yeah, have Congress demand it be solved "forthwith". Ha! We have a lawless Pres. A Lawless AG. Pres declared Congress in recess when it wasnt, refuses to follow welfare law or enforce immigration law. He is making a MOCKERY of Congress and now the CIA. Jed honey, times have changed. Buy ammo. Things are gonna get ugly.