If I remember correctly, the Hitchens angle is that the CIA should be abolished, not because in the course of duty they routinely render people of interest unto people who torture them with hot irons and broken bottles, nor because they are partial to arranging assassinations and the occasional coup d'etat, nor even because they play a major role in the global heroin and cocaine industries, but because they aren't very good at taking orders from the necocons. He voiced his condemnation quite a while ago, but as far as I can remember, that was Christopher's reason.
Not being nearly as radical or as revolutionary as Hitchens, I've never called for the CIA to be abolished. I think that, like the Catholic Church, Hezbollah, Exon Mobil, the White Fish Authority, and Amnesty International, it does so much good in the world that it outweighs the considerable evil it also perpetrates. But let's not split hairs.
One of the CIA's best points is that it produces a steady stream of insiders who come out with information — much of it clandestine — on the evil doings of the organization itself, the US government, and other evil entities around the world. Our good friend and comrade Stabler has brought to my attention one such instance concerning CIA official and deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan, which he came across at the Huffington Puffington Blow-your-house-downington Post website. We're both wondering what, if anything, Hitchwatchers will make of it. Brennan was a figure in the Bush administration who was subsequently taken on by Obama. He says he objected (privately) to waterboarding while approving other aspects of "enhanced interrogation". The comfy chair and the cushion come to mind. And he's recently been taking on Dead-eye Dick Cheney, calling him either "willfully mischaracterizing" Obama's position or else "ignorant of the fact". With the appearance of one Anthony Blair to answer questions in front of the UK's Iraq Inquiry just a few short weeks away, Harry Shearer is wondering whether anyone can dig up Brennan's self-censored Op Ed piece on US policy in Iraq, just for the sake of comparing notes. After all, who knows what goodies may fall out of it.
The Fantasy Assignment Desk: Where's the Brennan Op-Ed on Iraq? By Harry Shearer
The British have been doing something so deliciously un-American: looking backward. The Chilcot Inquiry into the origins of the Iraq War is back after its Christmas recess, garnering live TV coverage Tuesday when Tony Blair's still-loyal former spin doctor-in-chief, Alistair Campbell, delivered a rousing display of what "loyalty up" means. Britain, he said as he concluded his testimony, should be proud of what it did in Iraq.
Maybe that's why, as I read Peter Baker's generally admiring NYT Magazine piece on deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan, this passage leapt off the computer screen:
"Brennan, unhappy, left government in 2005 and went on to write a proposed Op-Ed essay that he titled, "Mr. President, You're Wrong on Iraq." In keeping with CIA rules, he submitted it for classification review by the agency before distributing it to any newspapers for publication. A copy found its way to the White House, where it angered top officials. Brennan ultimately thought better of the article and withdrew it from CIA review, but it was too late to salvage his standing at the White House."
Sounds like hot stuff -- a CIA guy coming out against a President who, by 2005, was blaming the CIA for what we didn't find in Iraq. Surely a reputable journalist like Baker would follow up, ask Brennan (in one of their many reported chats over the last year) what he said in that self-spiked Op-Ed. Maybe he did, but there's no sign of such questioning, nor of any answers it might have elicited, in the long article.
So I'm reviving a department from the early days of Eat the Press: the Fantasy Assignment Desk. If any journalists are reading this, here's your assignment: find out what was in Brennan's 2005 Op-Ed on Iraq. Better yet, find a copy. Ideally, put it in the public conversation in the next few weeks, before the lines form outside the Queen Elizabeth Conference Center for Tony Blair's appearance before the Iraq Inquiry. In my business it's called "timing".
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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