Within days of President Obama’s inauguration last January, I began writing of a military attempt to “bump him” on three fronts: preventing the closure of Guantanamo Bay, getting more troops in Afghanistan, and delaying the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
Well, the commanders, backed by key individuals in the Executive and the complications of Congress, succeeded on the first two matters. And, days before Iraq’s national elections, they are pressing again on the third. General Raymond Odierno, the commander of US forces in Iraq and a man who (a la General David Petraeus) has learned how to work the press, started telling favoured reporters that Obama’s August date for removal of most combat troops might not be tenable. Prominent columnists like Thomas Friedman and Thomas Ricks soon rolled out the arguments for sticking around.
In contrast to last year, this is not yet a head-on clash with the President; Odierno and his allies, possibly including Petraeus, now head of the US Central Command for the region, are working around him through media channels. But it does set up a challenge for Obama, especially if expected political complications with the elections occur: does he again give way on policy to his military brass?
The head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus, appeared on NBC Television’s Meet the Press, first to walk viewers through the US interventions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq and then to take a tour around other issues from Iran to Guantanamo Bay to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gays and lesbians in the military.
In contrast to previous appearances, when Petraeus was fighting his own President to get his version of US foreign and military policy, this was a stay-the-course interview behind agreed approaches. The message on Afghanistan was long-haul effort to win. On Pakistan, it was supporting Pakistani forces to vanquish the Taliban. He spoke in generalities about maintaining pressure on Iran, and beyond his main agenda, on the tricky issues like Guantanamo Bay and “enhanced interrogation” (torture), he evaded any definitive statements.
MR. DAVID GREGORY: General David Petraeus joins us live from U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida.
General, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: Thanks, David. Good to be with you.
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our Armed Services, and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan — the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It’s an extraordinary honor for me to do so here at West Point — where so many men and women have prepared to stand up for our security, and to represent what is finest about our country. Read the rest of this entry »
This article from Nick Baumann at Mother Jones is filled with political-insider information, but I think it is a significant marker of how the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility has moved from an Obama pledge in January 2009 to a site for internal Administration struggle in November.
I learned several weeks ago that the Administration’s top lawyer, Gregory Craig, was going to leave or be pushed out the door, in part because his political position was fixed to the promise to shut Gitmo. I was always sceptical, given the politics of the War on Terror, that the deadline of January 2010 was going to be met, so it was no surprise that Craig would have to walk the plank.
The broader issue is that we are now in a mish-mash of measures. There will be trials in the US for a few detainees (such as 9-11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammad) whom the Administration is sure will be convicted without the use of lost or discredited (i.e., obtained “via duress”) evidence. There will be military commissions for about 75 detainees whose convictions cannot be assured. And the rest of the prisoners will remain in the limbo of a Guantanamo that is open well into 2010.
Liberals have not done enough public wrestling with Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf’s Time article on the ouster of White House counsel Gregory Craig. Perhaps that’s because they don’t want to deal with the article’s troubling implications. As Kevinexplains, Craig was “the White House lawyer tasked with dismantling Bush-era interrogation and detention policies. At first, Obama was on board with Craig’s plans. Then, reality set in.” Read the rest of this entry »
Within hours of the British court order for the release of documents connected with the alleged torture of detainee Binyam Mohamed, and British Foreign Minister David Miliband’s insistence that release of the material would risk the US-UK intelligence relationship, I spoke with Peter Allen of BBC Radio 5 about the case (and, yes, I did use the word “lie” with reference to Mr Miliband). The interview starts just before the 2:20.00 mark.
This afternoon a British court issued an important and long-awaited ruling in the case of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident tortured in Pakistan and then detained at Guantanamo Bay. The court ordered the British Government to present documents, demanded by Mohamed’s lawyers, that established not only the torture but also US and British complicity in the “enhanced interrogation”. The British Government had maintained that, because the documents contained information which originated with their US counterpart, its revelation could jeopardise the US-UK intelligence relationship.
In the last hour, I have heard British Foreign Secretary David Miliband maintain in two radio interviews that he would be happy to release the documents but that Washington has insisted they be withheld. Therefore, before getting into the details and implications of his argument — for example, that any decision of a British court should be set aside because of the demands of the “intelligence” relationship, indeed that torture must not be investigated if there is a US-UK intelligence dimension — let’s re-state:
Miliband is lying.
Reprinted below is our entry from March 2009, after an earlier court decision reluctantly accepted the withholding of the documents. Then as now, Miliband trotted out the line that the decision was up to the Americans; unfortunately, his cover was blown by a State Department official who revealed that the Brown Government had asked Washington to make that statement to the court. That way, the material would still not see the light of day but the British Government could claim that it was not hiding evidence alleging London’s own involvement in the torture of Mohamed.
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is to be questioned by senior MPs over what he and his officials knew about the ill-treatment and secret interrogation of Binyam Mohamed, the former UK resident recently released from Guantánamo Bay. The move was announced yesterday by the Commons foreign affairs committee, which said it also intends to investigate other key issues where recent evidence has thrown up uncomfortable questions for ministers to answer. They are allegations of British complicity in torture in Pakistan, in the US practice of rendering terror suspects to countries where they risked being tortured, and in the transfer of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read the rest of this entry »
JOHN KING: Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us.
We learned as the week came to an end about a new underground secret Iranian nuclear bunker, and the president described it this way. “The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program.”
Tell us more about what we know, and do you have any doubt Iran was using this facility or planned to use this facility to develop nuclear weapons?
GATES: We’ve been watching the construction of this facility for quite some time, and one of the reasons that we waited to make it public was to ensure that our conclusions about its purpose were right. Read the rest of this entry »
CHRIS WALLACE: General, welcome to “FOX News Sunday.”
JONES: Thank you, Chris. Good to be here.
WALLACE: Is Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban inside Pakistan, dead?
JONES: Well, we think so. The Pakistani government has believed — believes that he is, and all evidence that we have suggests that. But there are reports from the Mehsud organization that he’s not. But we think — we think that it looks like he is. Read the rest of this entry »
Within days of President Obama’s inauguration last January, I began writing of a military attempt to “bump him” on three fronts: preventing the closure of Guantanamo Bay, getting more troops in Afghanistan, and delaying the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. 
Within hours of the British court order for the release of documents connected with the alleged torture of detainee Binyam Mohamed, and British Foreign Minister David Miliband’s insistence that release of the material would risk the US-UK intelligence relationship, I spoke with Peter Allen of BBC Radio 5 about the case (and, yes, I did use the word “lie” with reference to Mr Miliband). 
This afternoon 
Update (3 March): The Guardian reports….
Robert Gates on CNN’s “State of the Union”
CHRIS WALLACE: General, welcome to “FOX News Sunday.”
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