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TechnoratiTry These on Your CIA Briefer, Mr. President-Elect
After a week lecturing at Kansas State University and in Kansas City, Missouri, and environs, I could not shake the feeling that what Kansas and Missouri need most is the equivalent of Radio Free Europe, which was so effective in spreading truth around inside Eastern Europe during the Cold War. (Truth in advertising: during the late Sixties, I served for two years as substantive liaison officer between the RFE and Washington.)
So I was amused while still in Kansas to get a call from Mike Caddell of "Radio Free Kansas" asking me for an interview. Broadcasting from rural northeastern Kansas, Caddell does his own part in spreading truth around and has garnered quite a respectable audience.
Most of his fellow Kansans are malnourished on the right-wing media gruel that helps re-elect enablers like see-no-evil Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Roberts did President George W. Bush's bidding by hiding the fact that the attack on Iraq was based on "false pretences." That's the phrase used by current chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA) to describe the bogus intelligence used to "justify" the war, when he announced the bipartisan findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Caddell called me on Friday, expressing excitement at the beginning of daily intelligence briefings of President-Elect Barack Obama by the CIA. Aware that I helped prepare the President's Daily Brief for Presidents Nixon and Ford, and that I conducted one-on-one PDB briefings of Reagan's most senior advisers during the latter's administration, Caddell asked me to tape a telephone interview to run on his show this weekend. He suggested that I focus on what I would tell President-Elect Barack Obama if I were Mike Morell, CIA's Director of Intelligence, whom CIA Director Michael Hayden has assigned to brief Obama daily.
What fun, I thought. On more sober reflection, it seemed more useful to prepare questions of the kind President-Elect Obama might wish to ask Morell, since the briefings are supposed to be a two-way street. Obama is no shrinking violet. Just the same, it may be useful to warn him not to succumb to the particular brand of "shock and awe" that can be induced by ostensibly sexy intelligence and color the reactions of briefees-even presidents. I have seen it happen.
The president-elect needs to start asking hard questions. Now.
Here are some he might want to select from for the next briefing:
1-The lead story in Friday's New York Times undercuts the claims of Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili that he was acting in self-defense when he ordered his troops to fire artillery and rockets at the city of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia on the night of August 7-8. The Times' information comes from international monitors of the highly respected Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and, oddly, is much closer to the Russian version of what happened.
Task: A two page memo on who started the fighting and why
Deadline: Nov 12
2-As you are aware, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced last November concluded that Iran's work on the nuclear-weapons part of its nuclear development program was suspended in mid-2003. National Intelligence Council director, Thomas Fingar repeated that judgment publicly on Sept. 4, 2008.
I want to know how that squares-or doesn't-with the claim by Norman Podhoretz, just hours after the NIE's key judgments were made public, that Iran is "hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons," and why Podhoretz would go on to charge that the intelligence community was trying to "undermine George W. Bush." I notice, incidentally, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has parroted Podhoretz' "hell-bent" phraseology, and that your boss, Michael Hayden, has also publicly volunteered his "personal opinion" that this is so.
Task: A memo updating the judgments of the Nov. 07 NIE, as necessary
Deadline: Nov. 14
3-My aides have been telling me that, when speaking of the recent decrease in violence in Iraq, I have been mis-overestimating, so to speak, the success of the "surge" while mis-underestimating factors like the sectarian cleansing in Baghdad, the decision to pay Sunnis not to shoot at U.S. forces, and the decision by Muqtada al-Sadr to hold Shia fire pending the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which the Shia see as just a matter of time.
Task: A memo ranking the reasons for the downturn in violence in order of relative importance. It should address all these factors; it should also explain why the U.S. has several thousand more troops in Iraq now than were there before the insertion and subsequent withdrawal of our "surged" troops.
Deadline: Nov. 19
4-Confusion reigns with respect to what is likely to happen when U. S. forces withdraw from Iraq. The notion that administration officials know better what to expect than the Iraqis themselves strains credulity. It has become increasingly clear that the Iraqi government and people believe they can handle whatever comes, once we depart, and that they consider the large U.S. troop presence part of the problem, not the solution. And I remember Generals Abizaid and Casey testifying to Congress in the fall of 2006-just before the president decided to "surge," that an infusion of additional troops would simply postpone the day when Iraqi political leaders would recognize that they have to work things out among themselves.
Task: A memo addressing why the Iraqis are more relaxed about a U.S. troop withdrawal than most U.S. officials and pundits.
Deadline: Nov. 21
5-No outsiders have been able to prevail in Afghanistan. What makes us think the U.S. can change that history?
Task: A formal National Intelligence Estimate on prospects for Afghanistan
Deadline: January 9, 2009
6-Nuclear nonproliferation: The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently proposed a nuclear-free zone as the best way to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. I want to know why this familiar proposal never seems able to get off the ground. What are the obstacles?
Task: A memo addressing this in historical perspective
Deadline: Nov 26
7-Peak Oil: the juncture at which demand keeps growing sharply while supply stagnates/recedes. Some say we are already there. What does the intelligence community think? Related question: Is it likely that China, India, and other key countries regard the invasion of Iraq as the first resource war of the 21st Century?
Task: A memorandum addressing these questions
Deadline: Dec 1
8-My advisers tell me that senior intelligence officials, including the principal deputy to National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, have been briefing the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a creature of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Task: Please ask McConnell to let my staff know what other policy advocacy institutes his subordinates have briefed.
Deadline: Nov. 10
9-Mike, one of my aides has read carefully through the memoir of your former boss, ex-CIA director George Tenet, who speaks very highly of you. The memoir reader got the clear impression you were one of Tenet's protégés; for example, he appointed you personal briefer to President George W. Bush.
The next two questions are for you, Mike:
(1) Tenet told his British counterpart, Sir Richard Dearlove, on July 20, 2002 at CIA Headquarters that the intelligence on Iraq was being "fixed around the policy" of regime change." (I refer, of course, to the so-called "Downing Street Minutes" recording Dearlove's briefing of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others at 10 Downing Street on July 23, 2002. I'm told that Blair himself has acknowledged that the minutes are authentic.) Did you know, Mike, that the intelligence was being "fixed?"
(2) Tenet also says in his memoir that you "coordinated the CIA review" of Colin Powell's speech at the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003. Your comment?
Do not take this personally, Mike. But with all due respect, you will be able to understand why I would like to start with a fresh slate. Please inform your management that I would prefer an intelligence briefer untainted by the debacle on Iraq. Add that I am offended that they would send me someone so closely associated with George Tenet, the consummate "fixer," representing the antithesis of the kind of honest intelligence analysis I shall require.
Do not forget to pass along to your successor the requests I have made. Admittedly, some of the tasks carry tight deadlines, but surely your analysts are already at work on these front-burner issues.
Thank you. And best of luck if we do not meet again.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publications arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His career as a CIA analyst spanned seven administrations and included responsibility for chairing NIEs, as well as preparing and presenting the President's Daily Brief. He is now a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
The original of this article appeared on Consortiumnews.com.
27 Comments so far
Show AllObama's first press conference (Hilton hotel, Chicago, November 7 2008):
> "Iran's development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable."
Barack Obama beating his wife I believe is unacceptable.
> "Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease."
Barack Obama's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease.
Inventing facts, asserted as an implied premise, this is the fingerprint of a large cabal of liars, some, Obama has drawn into his circle.
I offer two more hard questions, for Ray McGovern's excellent list, for the president-elect to ask his intelligence briefer ("Try These on Your CIA Briefer, Mr. President-Elect"):
1. The IAEA later investigated and dismissed every factual assertion, promoted by the U.S., which prompted the IAEA board of governors (2006) to refer Iran's uranium enrichment program to the U.N. Security Council. And, Mohammad ElBaradei recently said, the IAEA has seen no credible evidence that Iran has ever worked on a nuclear weapon.
Yet, the U.S. NIE on Iran (2007) asserts high confidence that Iran did just that, prior to 2003.
What evidence have we concealed from the IAEA which accounts for this NIE assertion.
Task: Full NIE on Iran, plus transcript, audio, list of participants, of each meeting leading to the drafting and adoption of this NIE assertion. Deadline: Nov. 30.
Task: A written summary of this evidence, with the names of all those approving, and dissenting from, the summary. Deadline: Dec. 31.
Task: A presentation of all raw intelligence, supporting the NIE assertion, each analysis of each item of such intelligence, with the name of its analyst(s), including dissenter(s). Deadline: Jan. 21.
2. The U.S. designation that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism (January 19 1984) is mainly grounded on its support for Hezbullah (Lebanon) and Hamas (Palestine), each U.S. designated (1997) a "terrorist organization." Iran first offered financial support for Hamas in 2006, after Hamas won the Palestine election (Jan. 25), Israel confiscated Palestine's tax revenues, and the U.S. threatened any bank which transferred foreign donations to Hamas.
Task: A report on who and when decided that the law of belligerent reprisals was to be disregarded when making these designations (this law legalizes violence normally termed "terrorism"). Deadline: March 15.
Task: A copy of all documents on the law of belligerent reprisals, every legal opinion (every unissued draft opinion), transcript, audio, written memo, or record of any description -- in every part of the government and every contractor and consultant whenever in the pay of the government -- pertaining to this question, including a complete list of every participant including every dissenter. Deadline: May 15.
snydly
EVERYONE FORWARD THIS CD BY MR MCGOVERN TO THE OBAMA TEAM THROUGH ANYONE AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW. BHO IS BEING AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE SUBJECT TO ELITE OBFUSCATION EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. AND FOR god's SAKE KEEP HIM FROM DRINKING THE TEA AT HIS WHITEHOUSE MEETING WITH BUSH, TOMORROW.
IT MUST MAKE IT THROUGH TO HIM.
RAY, IT WOULD BE NIFTY IF HE COULD BE BRIEFED AS WELL ON THE DRUG CONNECTIONS RE AFGHAN AND COLUMBIA...
The CIA and even more so the NSA are not compatible with the Constitution or any level of liberty and democracy.
Spying on potential enemies is not the same as taking actions to change the intentions, generate lies about or subvert the governments of friends and foes especially for domestic political advantage.
It is clear that the current level of Presidential power is too corrupting to be tolerated. No enemy can do as much to damage our liberty than our own unchecked government already has. Bu$h the inferior has killed more Americans than terrorists by the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq pursuing terrorists that do not exist in a form that can be successfully eliminated by military means in a country that had no significant connection to terrorists.
Wait, that is a lot of information. It sounds like the CIA was working alone.......There are so many "Off Book" operations that no one has a clue as to who is running what Black Op and where.
First we have InfraGard the FBI and Corporate connection established in 1996. The purpose was to share information....If the FBI knew of any pending terrorist acts, cooperating companies would get the early warning. Could that be why companies knew of 9/11 and were able to complete some fast financial activities that were never investigated? Just a question.
How about the CIA´s In-Q-Tel Investment Firm. Who are they investing with and do those companies wind up with billion dollar government contracts and are the profits used to fund Black Ops? Just a question!
Then there was Blackwater and the up and coming company which hired Cofer Black, CIA Counterrorism Director, to be its Vice Chairman. Did Blackwater get Government Contracts and were some of the profits used to fund Black Ops? Just a question!
DOD had "Able Danger Group" and all the information on that Intelligence Group was destroyed. Was that an "Off Book Operation" and were its employees following Mohammed Atta around Florida as he was taking flying lessons? Just a question!
Dear Ray,
Suggest that it is not helpful to repeat in the parlance of our devious and insane establishment. Ray wrote, "5- No outsiders have been able to prevail in Afghanistan." 'Prevail' at what? 'Prevail' as gunning down all opposition to our occupation? Prevail at removing the Taliban from the power it still holds over most of the country?
Yours truly clicked on your CommonDreams article for its CIA engaging title, thinking it was addressing the task of the existence of the CIA in its present secret covert criminal activity purpose, its illegal and unethical character, its embarrassing well documented murderous history available to our children to read about in encyclopedias and new archives. and its self-subverting of its great importance as a truthful intelligence gathering agency.
Your appreciative audience participant from the Jan 24, 2006 Bush Trial for Crimes against Humanity at Riverside Church and Columbia University Law School,
jay janson
author of
"Files: Focus On The President Who Ordered Each Specific CIA Crime Against Humanity"
'The Head of the CIA by law executes directives of the President of the United States of America. When we hear of CIA criminality, think of the U.S. President that had to have ordered said covert crimes against humanity. These files give a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde side of two of our most highly regarded Presidents. Speak out if you don't want covert crime presidential power. Suicide bombers target our indifference.' Published initially by OpEdNews, July 5, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070703_files_3a_focus_on_the_.htm
Dear Ray,
Suggest that it is not helpful to repeat in the parlance of our devious and insane establishment. Ray wrote, "5- No outsiders have been able to prevail in Afghanistan." 'Prevail' at what? 'Prevail' as gunning down all opposition to our occupation? Prevail at removing the Taliban from the power it still holds over most of the country?
Yours truly clicked on your CommonDreams article for its CIA engaging title, thinking it was addressing your long dedicated task of altering the existence of the CIA in its present secret covert criminal activity purpose, its illegal and unethical character, its embarrassing well documented murderous history available to our children to read about in encyclopedias and new archives, and its self-subverting of its great importance as a truthful intelligence gathering agency.
Your appreciative audience participant from the Jan 24, 2006 Bush Trial for Crimes against Humanity at Riverside Church and Columbia University Law School,
jay janson
author of
"Files: Focus On The President Who Ordered Each Specific CIA Crime Against Humanity"
'The Head of the CIA by law executes directives of the President of the United States of America. When we hear of CIA criminality, think of the U.S. President that had to have ordered said covert crimes against humanity. These files give a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde side of two of our most highly regarded Presidents. Speak out if you don't want covert crime presidential power. Suicide bombers target our indifference.' Published initially by OpEdNews, July 5, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070703_files_3a_focus_on_the_.htm
The CIA should be eliminated.
Its principal "mission" is to foment spurious charges against countries which have resources the US wants, in order to justify invading them.
And its second "mission" is destabilizing governments of countries which have resources the US wants, and murdering their leaders.
Ray McGovern for CIA Director.
.The truth is out there.
The problem is getting folks to listen to it! Especially folks in office....
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
This is what happens when too much rot is purposely introduced by anti-democratic forces within the executive level of government - rot which then takes hold and is allowed to spread unchecked by equally rotted congressional oversight functions.
RE foreign policy, nothing is more crucial than the Prez receiving veridical intelligence factlines which are clearly and strictly separated from policy advisements by those same or similar officials.
No president in living memory has ordered ideological politicization of his NIE's factlines more systematically or more idiotically and dangerously than Bush II.
Obama will in consequence inherit a central intelligence system he can neither immediately trust nor quickly refashion toward objective reliability.
In a general sense, this can be a blessing in disguise: Obama will have no choice but to entirely trust his day-to-day non-crisis instincts for a while -- instincts which we can only hope are and will remain gut-set toward global peace and situational moral decency.
In a specifically explosive military or 'terrorist' crisis, though, the unprededented intelligence-system mess Obama immediately inherits from Bush could easily produce bogus or sufficiently conflicting infomation, such that would lead even the most decent 'decider' to take disastrous and possibly fatally-wrong action.
It's one job of us citizens, now, to not underestimate the horrendous burden which the insanity of Bush & Co. - and a criminally malfeasant congress - leaves on the new Executive and on We The People.
At this point, Obama would be a hell of a lot better off calling for a total abolition of the CIA. Too bad the Cabinet he's creating ain't letting it come anywhere close to that. So where can I find a real liberal these days?
Contractors out first at 40% of Iraq budget and then all military and give up the green zone,it is an insult to any occupied people.Tony
Will the U.S. continue to maintain military bases in Iraq even after the withdrawal of combat troops?
Yes, build it and they will stay.
The appointment of Chief of Staff, Rahm Israel Emanuel, suggests the enquiries to Mike Morell, relating to the leaking of American intelligence to AIPAC (Point 8) is unlikely to me made.
Emanuel was a dual US/Israeli citizen, who worked for the IDF in 1991 and whose father fought with the Israeli terrorist group, the Irgun (e.g. blew up and killed 91 people in the King David Hotel)(ref. Wikipedia).
After his first intelligence briefing, Obama gave quick confirmation of this by further sabre rattling about Iran . No call for a nuclear-free Middle East with a call for Israel to destroy their nuclear weapons (point 6). No reiteration of the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran has no nuclear weapons and their development was stopped 5 years ago (point 2).
'The Clean Break' report to Israeli prime Minister in 1996 (written by dual citizens, neocons, anti-Iraq armchair warriors and WMD intelligence manufacturers, David Perle, Wurmser and Douglas Feith), suggested that after conquering Iraq (point 4), Iran was the next threat to Israel's hegemony in the Middle-East.
Good luck on getting this message past the new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. With approximately 40% of Democratic Party funding coming from pro-Israel sources, we can suspect that President Obama's impulse to look at all sides of an issue will be "dealt with": vis-a-vis the Israel Lobby.
And what about Osama bin Laden's obituary in Al Jazeera?
Dear Mr. McGovern,
Please forward your advice to the Obama foreign relations team. Repeatedly.
(In fact, you should be part of that team.)
EVERYONE FORWARD THIS CD BY MR MCGOVERN TO THE OBAMA TEAM THROUGH ANYONE AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW. BHO IS BEING AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE SUBJECT TO ELITE OBFUSCATION EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. AND FOR god's SAKE KEEP HIM FROM DRINKING THE TEA AT HIS WHITEHOUSE MEETING WITH BUSH, TOMORROW.
IT MUST MAKE IT THROUGH TO HIM.
This article needs to be forwarded to the Obama campaign by every supporter on their donor roles, the flood of grassroots support is the only way the the questions will be asked, and an honest internal debate taking place. That however, is only step one, the needs to be forwarded to the editorial pages of every local small town paper (especially the weekly's so that there will be some media outlets following up on these major questions. I am very concerned that in our blind desire to withdraw from Iraq, we have settled for a change of location for our empirical ambition and foreign war based economy. Now is the time to hold Obama to a progressive agenda, and to insist that we will have the change we voted for.
Good point. Let's do it.
When GW said he would have Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff arrange for President-elect Obama's security team, I shuddered.
My immediate thought after that was that Ray McGovern should be appointed to be the new Director of the C.I.A., that is, if President-elect Obama wants to hear the real truth and get real intelligence, including The Shock Doctrine/New Pearl Harbor information that would go a long way toward explaining why 9-11 happened and who was involved in its planning and preparation.
My next thoughts were that the same Cold-war/Iraq-SANCTIONS/INVASION heavies from Bryzynski to Albright ("Oh, yes I think IT [despite the deaths from the original sanctions on Iraq of 600,000 with half of them children dying from malnutrition] was worth it. // [Oh, really]) to Holbrooke and many others are being consulted when their mind sets are already set in concrete. Their advice is partly responsible for how we got to our current ultra-messes in the first place. New thinkers needed here if, as Obama said in his speech, we are to become a more mature humanity.
A more mature humanity or nation does not eye other countries' resources and contrive reasons to bomb and to invade to take or control those resources because, simply, that leads to the insanity of mutual destruction and planetary destruction.
And that leads me to the last thought. For starts, create a Department of Peace with Representative Dennis Kucinich appointed as Director, and maybe we'll be on our way to a little more maturity of thought and action.
Sioux Rose
CEE MIRACLES: The department of peace is to international affairs what green tech is to rebuilding our nation's infrastructure. A timely idea whose necessity could not be argued against.
From Wikipedia; “In United States v. Libby, the jury convicted Libby on four of the five counts in the indictment: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements to federal investigators.” Before the ink had dried on the sentencing documents President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s prison sentence. I have little doubt that Libby will also receive a pardon in the wee hours of January 19th 2009.
The Plame outing also compromised the Brewster Jennings and Associates, covert weapons of mass destruction intelligence gathering organization. No specific details have been released on the impact of destroying the covert cover operation but informed sources suggest that a very large and important intelligence gathering organization was destroyed and deaths of covert operatives or their contacts ensued in the aftermath of Robert Novak’s public disclosure.
If this breach were the only affront to the intelligence gathering capacity of the United States from this administration they would be guilty a grievous affront to the nation’s security in destroying the Brewster Jennings covert intelligence gathering apparatus.
However the Valerie Plame-Brewster Jennings and Associates affront is but one of MANY EGERGIOUS BREACHES OF VITAL INTELLIGENCE GATHERING CAPABILITIES BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION THAT ALL FIT TWO SIMILAR PATTERNS.
FIRST, THE BREACHES OF INTELLIGENCE SOURCES;
Breach # 1; In December of 2001 the Bush administration released a video tape of Osama bin Laden talking with a crippled Saudi Sheik about the attacks of 9/11/2001. The stated purpose of the release of the tape was to prove to the Islamic world that bin Laden was indeed responsible for the attacks. The tape had been filmed by a Saudi Arabian agent that was attempting to set up an operation to take out bin Laden. By releasing the tape the Bush administration tipped bin Laden of the Saudi operation causing bin Laden to change security methods preventing bringing bin Laden to justice.
Breach # 2; To justify a bogus amber terror alert* a few weeks before the 2004 elections National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice disclosed information on an arrest in Pakistan that lead to the disclosure in the press of the identity of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani computer expert and communications agent for the highest levels of al Qaeda. After Khan’s arrest the Pakistanis had turned Khan into becoming a double agent, giving them a direct window into the inner workings of al Qaeda. Imagine had this source been allowed to come to fruition bin Laden’s location might well have been determined and the plans of al Qaeda could have been disrupted. *(The alert on financial centers in New Jersey and New York was based on information that was over two years old found on one of Khan’s captured computers.)
Breach #3: A drunken member of the Bush administration told NeoCon darling Ahmed Chalabi that the NSA had broken the Iranian diplomatic code and the code breakers at the NSA were reading the diplomatic dispatches to their embassies around the world. Chalabi, who sat with Laura Bush during the 2003 State of the Union address, promptly told the Iranians who then stopped using the system we’d compromised. I have little doubt that the combination of hardware, software and human input in cracking the Iranian diplomatic code cost the American taxpayers many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. What’s Chalabi’s most recent job, aside from being Iraq’s Oil Minister? Promoting President Bush’s Baghdad surge.
There is also no doubt that when news of the Iranian diplomatic code intercepts broke into the news every other nation on the planet also reviewed their communication and encryption systems.
Like in the Valerie Plame, Brewster Jennings breach, not one person has been disciplined for the breaches in the Khan case, the Chalabi case, or the bin Laden tape case. All of these breaches of national security advance the cause of Bush’s endless Global War on Terrorism, and all of these breaches have reduced America’s abilities to gather accurate and timely intelligence on America’s adversaries.
Advancing the NeoCon foreign policy agenda of regime change requires faulty intelligence that another nation presents a dire threat to America’s security. The Bush administration pattern of compromising America’s intelligence gathering capabilities to advance their unAmerican NeoCon agenda crosses the threshold of treason and has left Obama with a very weakened CIA..
snydly
Which would make the pieces fall into place if 911 and Iraq war were all part of the same pie, cooked by the samecooks...each act makes sense only if meant to cover the trail of the perps, does it not?
I would hope that he gets some better analysis on Afghanistan than he's had to date.
He obviously has only received propaganda, and not analysis, on Afghanistan.