US and Middle East Special: Dangerous Academics --- The Bush Administration's Campaign Against Juan Cole

As we moved from our first on-line analyses to Libertas to Enduring America to EA WorldView, Professor Juan Cole was an inspiration for us. Almost a decade ago, he established in his blog Informed Comment how an academic could move from scholarship to daily reportage and commentary, providing a critique of the news and those --- Governments, journalists, interest groups --- who were trying to shape it. 

At the same time, I had more than a passing interest in how the Bush Administration was trying to shut down dissent before and after the 2003 Iraq War, from its propaganda to its manipulation of "intelligence" to pressure upon critics. Cole was one of those critics, tarred as a defender of Saddam Hussein.

All this came together yesterday, with the revelation in The New York Times:

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.

The article continues that 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", and it set outs the Agency's strenuous denials, "White House officials did ask about Professor Cole in 2006, but only to find out why he had been invited to C.I.A.-sponsored conferences on the Middle East".

Yet it is clear that Carle is not a lone source for the story --- the Times mentions that it "learned of the episode elsewhere" --- and the newspaper goes into great detail about the alleged enquiry from the White House:

In 2005, after a long career in the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, Mr. Carle was working as a counterterrorism expert at the National Intelligence Council, a small organization that drafts assessments of critical issues drawn from reports by analysts throughout the intelligence community. The council was overseen by the newly created Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. Carle said that sometime that year, he was approached by his supervisor, David Low, about Professor Cole. Mr. Low and Mr. Carle have starkly different recollections of what happened. According to Mr. Carle, Mr. Low returned from a White House meeting one day and inquired who Juan Cole was, making clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to gather information on him. Mr. Carle recalled his boss saying, “The White House wants to get him.”

“ ‘What do you think we might know about him, or could find out that could discredit him?’ ” Mr. Low continued, according to Mr. Carle.

Mr. Carle said that he warned that it would be illegal to spy on Americans and refused to get involved, but that Mr. Low seemed to ignore him.

“But what might we know about him?” he said Mr. Low asked. “Does he drink? What are his views? Is he married?”

Mr. Carle said that he responded, “We don’t do those sorts of things,” but that Mr. Low appeared undeterred....

He immediately went to see David Gordon, then the acting director of the council. Mr. Carle said that after he recounted his exchange with Mr. Low, Mr. Gordon responded that he would “never, never be involved in anything like that.”

Mr. Low was not at work the next morning, Mr. Carle said. But on his way to a meeting in the C.I.A.’ s front office, a secretary asked if he would drop off a folder to be delivered by courier to the White House. Mr. Carle said he opened it and stopped cold. Inside, he recalled, was a memo from Mr. Low about Juan Cole that included a paragraph with “inappropriate, derogatory remarks” about his lifestyle. Mr. Carle said he could not recall those details nor the name of the White House addressee.

He took the document to Mr. Gordon right away, he said. The acting director scanned the memo, crossed out the personal data about Professor Cole with a red pen, and said he would handle it, Mr. Carle said. He added that he never talked to Mr. Low or Mr. Gordon about the memo again.

Low denies the claims, "I have no recollection of that, and I certainly would not have been a party to something like that,” but that may not be the end of the story.

Several months later, according to Carle, a CIA analyst was directed the executive assistant to the Deputy Director for Intelligence, John A. Kringen, to collect information on Professor Cole.

“Have you read his stuff?” the assistant supposedly asked Carle. “He’s really hostile to the administration.”

The assistant refused to say who was behind the order to collect information. 

By now, the story had a wider, public dimension, for as the Administration made its enquiries, Cole was on the verge of moving from Michigan to Yale University. He found himself the target of a vicious campaign by columnists and bloggers, some with close ties to the White House. Eventually officials at Yale blocked the appointment.

Cole reacted at the time with public calm. And his response to the latest revelations? While he wrote, "Carle’s revelations come as a visceral shock", he was nonchalant in a comment to the Times: "They must have been dismayed at what a boring life I lead,”