Inadvertent Truths: George Tenet's revealing memoir.

..."the book provides surprising evidence--some of it new--that Bush was right to take the war on terror to Iraq, and that he might be well advised to get more serious about Iran. Tenet offers this evidence inadvertently, for it undercuts the fashionable critique of the Iraq war that he now seeks to associate himself with. But precisely because the evidence cuts against Tenet's polemical thrust, it should be given considerable weight."

..."For instance, Tenet devotes several pages to a reexamination of the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. And though he tries to stake out politically safe middle ground--by arguing against imaginary Bush administration officials who claimed Iraq was behind 9/11--he concludes that Iraq did have a relationship with al Qaeda that the Bush administration was right to be worried about."

..."Tenet also confirms an internal intelligence community dispute, reported in this magazine 18 months ago, over the debriefings of senior al Qaeda terrorist Ibn Shaykh al Libi. The story of al Libi's disputed claims provides an illuminating look at how Michigan senator Carl Levin has dishonestly (and dishonorably) driven mainstream news reporting on the issue of prewar Iraq intelligence."

..."Tenet also discloses new intelligence about the activities of the al Qaeda leadership living under what he calls "loose house arrest" in Iran."

..."In another section of the book, Tenet defends Dick Cheney against the ridiculous claim made in Ron Suskind's book, The One Percent Doctrine, that Cheney urged his colleagues to ignore evidence that did not serve his war- mongering purposes."

..."So there were significant and dangerous al Qaeda-Iraq ties. There were and are al Qaeda-Iran ties. Saddam's WMD programs remained a threat. George Tenet may not have intended to tell these truths. But he has."

..."Tenet had this to say about the CIA view of Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions:

[The CIA] assessed that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and that if he had to make his own fissile material, he probably would not be able to do so until 2007 to 2009. However, we indicated in the NIE that we had only moderate confidence in that judgment. We also indicated that [the Bureau of Intelligence and Research] thought that, although Saddam clearly wanted nuclear weapons, there was inadequate evidence to prove that he had an ongoing integrated and comprehensive program to develop them.

If Saddam could obtain fissile material elsewhere, it would not be hard for the regime to make a weapon within a year. After all, we believed that some terrorist groups could do so if they came into possession of the all-important highly enriched uranium or plutonium.

It's 2007. Fortunately, Saddam is gone."

An Incomplete Field: First impressions of the GOP's 2008 candidates.

How Credit-Card Data Went Out Wireless Door

Biggest Known Theft Came from Retailer With Old, Weak Security

Inside the Inside Story, by Douglas Feith

Reds' OF Hamilton wins NL Rookie of the Month

The Origins of "Geek" and Other Terms of Note

In the circus, a performer who sank sufficiently low would do horrible things (like biting the heads off live chickens) for booze money. That poor soul was called a geek. How it came to describe techies is unknown.

Clinton's PowerPointer

With Data and Slides, a Pollster Guides Campaign Strategy

One Choice in Iraq, by Joe Lieberman

In the two months since Petraeus took command, the United States and its Iraqi allies have made encouraging progress on two problems that once seemed intractable: tamping down the Shiite-led sectarian violence that paralyzed Baghdad until recently and consolidating support from Iraqi Sunnis -- particularly in Anbar, a province dismissed just a few months ago as hopelessly mired in insurgency.

This progress is real, but it is still preliminary...

Indeed, to the extent that last week's bloodshed clarified anything, it is that the battle of Baghdad is increasingly a battle against al-Qaeda. Whether we like it or not, al-Qaeda views the Iraqi capital as a central front of its war against us.

Al-Qaeda's strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. It is trying to kill as many innocent people as possible in the hope of reigniting Shiite sectarian violence and terrorizing the Sunnis into submission.

In other words, just as Petraeus and his troops are working to empower and unite Iraqi moderates by establishing basic security, al-Qaeda is trying to divide and conquer with spectacular acts of butchery.

Notes on a Scandal: How ethical are Paul Wolfowitz's detractors?

Lessons of the Libby Affair

"If there was a conspiracy, then, it was a conspiracy of dunces. At every stage where a top administration official could have exercised authority to ameliorate the problem caused by Wilson’s op-ed and Armitage’s indiscretion, that official failed to do so.

If a lesson about the Bush administration lies buried in this tale, it is close to the opposite of the accepted one. It is a lesson about an administration caught in an uncomfortable position as a result of one State Department official’s indiscreet remark to a skilled columnist, an administration straining to appear to be doing the right thing even at the expense of actually doing anything right. But the real lesson here has nothing to do with the Bush administration, any more than it has to do with prewar intelligence or with the First and Fifth Amendment rights of CIA officers.

The modern American government is a vast and largely self-sustaining bureaucracy. That bureaucracy acts, first and foremost, in its own interest, and not necessarily in the interests of its putative but temporary political bosses. The CIA, its intelligence having been challenged, sold out the White House on the sixteen words—even though that intelligence would later be upheld. The State Department, faced with the knowledge that one of its own was responsible for the Valerie Wilson leak, preferred keeping the White House in the dark to revealing what it knew. The Justice Department did what prosecutors do when ordered to investigate, which is to charge people with crimes.

In other words, the Republican party’s alleged “full control” of government prior to the 2006 midterm elections was more myth than reality. The Bush administration lost control of the Wilson story almost from the beginning, and while on a number of occasions it failed to exercise the control available to it, it was also denied the opportunity to control its fate by entrenched interests that no elected administration can ever fully master without the consent of the bureaucracy that supposedly serves it.

The President, however, does still hold one trump card, left in the hands of the chief executive by the founding fathers. The only unchecked power held by any single person in the federal government is the power to grant a pardon. That power is nothing more than the authority to restore personal liberty to another person—that is, to release a man or woman from the grip of the state.

Within hours of Libby’s conviction, Democrats, led by the Senate majority leader Harry Reid, called on President Bush to preclude the possibility of a pardon. This the President has of course refused to do. Neither has he yet offered a pardon. But there are good reasons, partly political and partly personal, for delay.

A pardon, it is generally agreed and the Supreme Court has ruled, carries with it the taint of guilt, and its acceptance an acknowledgment of guilt. This is something that Libby may yet hope to avoid. While he is due to be sentenced in June, his lawyers have announced their intention to appeal the conviction.

A pardon, whether it comes now or later, will inevitably occasion another round of scab-pulling about the case for the war and the administration’s commitment to the rule of law. It was partly out of a wholly unjustified fear of such criticisms that Libby was put in his current position in the first place. Before the President leaves office, it would be a rough sort of justice to defy those criticisms, and those who level them, by setting him free."

"More Than Enough Evidence"

What George Tenet really says about Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.

On The Move, by Bono

"The one thing, on which we can all agree, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums and in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. 6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality." --Bono

This small book, based upon the speech given by Bono at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast, delivers an inspiring and powerful message. Here, in Bono's own words, is a reflection on his own faith and a challenge to people of all faiths to reach across boundaries and come together on behalf of what the Scriptures call "the least of these."

Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes by U2

A Loser's History: George Tenet's sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace.

Germs and the City

Two centuries of success against infectious disease have left us complacent—and vulnerable.

Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates

America’s first confrontation with the Islamic world helped forge a new nation’s character.

Reading the Constitution Right: Reading the Constitution Right

The Empire of Lies: The twenty-first century will not belong to China.

The long reach and ambitions of al-Qaida - details chilling plots to kill Gore, acquire nuclear weapons

Ask, Tell, Whatever? Gays-in-the-military comes up again

by MACKUBIN THOMAS OWENS

For the first time since the 2000 presidential campaign, the issue of homosexuals’ serving openly in the military has moved to center stage. Encouraged by polls purporting to show that pubic opinion, both civilian and military, is now more receptive to the idea, Rep. Martin Meehan (D., Mass.), chairman of the relevant subcommittee, has revived his 2005 bill that would repeal the Clinton-era policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT). DADT prohibits military commanders from asking about a person’s sexual orientation and allows homosexuals to serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and don’t engage in homosexual acts. Meehan’s bill would replace DADT with “a policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

The timing of this debate is unfortunate. As David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, wrote in a recent letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), “The Global War on Terrorism is far-reaching and unrelenting.” A national debate on gays in the military threatens to cause “divisiveness and turbulence across our country, [compounding] the burden of the war.”

The most interesting aspect of the current debate is the change in tactics on the part of advocates of open homosexual service. In the past, they argued that this was merely the latest episode in a struggle for equal civil rights — often invoking President Truman’s postwar executive order that racially integrated the U.S. military. Boston Globe columnist James Carroll wrote in 2000 that “today’s soldiers and sailors reluctant to serve shoulder to shoulder with homosexuals are the progeny of racist and sexist soldiers and sailors who were told to get over it or get out.”

But now they argue that the exclusion of homosexuals undermines military effectiveness and is at odds with public opinion. This claim is made by both liberals and conservatives. For instance, in a letter to defense secretary Robert Gates asking him to “revisit” DADT, Senator Wyden wrote that the policy “makes absolutely no sense and undermines the fight against terrorism.” Wyden’s office has contended that dozens of homosexual service members with critically needed skills like proficiency in Arabic have been discharged, and that enforcing the policy costs hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Wyden has always opposed the exclusion of open homosexuals, but even some who once favored the exclusion are making the same argument. In January, retired Army general John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Clinton, wrote in the New York Times that he had reconsidered his position and concluded that the current policy should be reversed. He based his change of heart on his belief that the U.S. military has been “stretched thin,” and that public sentiment has shifted in recent years. Former Republican senator Alan Simpson has made essentially the same arguments in a Washington Post op-ed.

There are several problems with these arguments. First, the numbers used by opponents of DADT to support their position are questionable. For example, the main evidence for the contention that there is greater public acceptance of open homosexual service, both within and outside of the military, is a Zogby International poll published in December 2006. But as Elaine Donnelly’s Center for Military Readiness has pointed out, Zogby chose to highlight the response to an irrelevant question: “Are you comfortable interacting with gay people?” Seventy-three percent of respondents replied that they were. But in response to the central question (“Do you agree or disagree with allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military?”), only 26 percent agreed, while 37 percent disagreed and 32 percent were neutral. That is hardly indicative of overwhelming public support for open homosexual service.

The numbers purporting to show that military members favor open homosexual service are fishy as well. The Zogby news release stated that the poll was designed in conjunction with the Michael D. Palm Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military), an advocacy group that has long pushed for open homosexual service. This fact may or not have an impact on the credibility of the poll. But the polling sample does: It claims to be based on a sample of 545 people “who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan (or in combat support roles directly supporting those operations), from a purchased list of U.S. military personnel.” But, as Donnelly observes, the U.S. military does not sell or provide access to personnel lists.

The Zogby figures are further called into question by a January 2007 Military Times survey of active-duty subscribers, which found that while 30 percent thought that open homosexuals ought to be permitted to serve, 59 percent did not, and 10 percent had no opinion. The 59 percent opposed to open homosexual service was identical to that revealed by a January 2006 survey conducted by the same paper.

Then there is the question of the effect of DADT on the retention of crucial personnel, such as Arabic linguists. Advocates of open homosexual service have made a big deal of this, claiming, for instance, that 54 Arab linguists have been separated from the military because they were homosexual. But the Pentagon has argued that most of those who are counted among the 54 had not achieved linguistic proficiency, and that over a decade only nine qualified Arabic specialists have been separated because of the law.

But let’s address the broadest question: Why prohibit open homosexual service at all? Congress provided the answer in 1993, when it passed the current law: “Homosexuality is incompatible with military service and presents a risk to the morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that underpin military effectiveness.”

An important element of war is “friction,” which Clausewitz described as “the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.” Clausewitz’s friction describes the cumulative effect of the small, often unnoticeable events that are amplified in war, producing unanticipated macro-effects. Military effectiveness aims at reducing the impact of friction and other obstacles to success on the battlefield.

Most research has shown unit cohesion is critical to military effectiveness and battlefield success. The key to cohesion is what the Greeks called philia — friendship, comradeship, or brotherly love. Philia is the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together. Its importance has been described by J. Glenn Gray in The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle:

Numberless soldiers have died, more or less willingly, not for country or honor or religious faith or for any other abstract good, but because they realized that by fleeing their posts and rescuing themselves, they would expose their companions to greater danger. Such loyalty to the group is the essence of fighting morale. The commander who can preserve and strengthen it knows that all other physical and psychological factors are little in comparison. The feeling of loyalty, it is clear, is the result, not the cause, of comradeship. Comrades are loyal to each other spontaneously and without any need for reasons.

The presence of open homosexuals (and women) in the close confines of ships or military units opens the possibility that eros will be unleashed into an environment based on philia, creating friction and corroding the very source of military excellence itself. It does so by undermining the non-sexual bonding essential to unit cohesion as described by Gray. Unlike philia, eros is sexual, and therefore individual and exclusive. Eros manifests itself as sexual competition, protectiveness, and favoritism, all of which undermine order, discipline, and morale. These are issues of life and death, and help to explain why open homosexuality and homosexual behavior traditionally have been considered incompatible with military service.

But can’t these problems be solved by enforcing regulations against fraternization and sexual relations among service members? There are indeed such regulations on the books, but they cannot always be enforced. And when they are not, the consequences extend far beyond the individuals involved. Over the past two decades I have seen the poisonous effects that personal relationships gone wrong can have in an academic setting. But no one died. In combat, the consequences could well be lethal.

Finally, some advocates of open homosexual service — e.g., Senator Simpson — observe that it has not had an adverse effect on other militaries in the world. But where it matters most — in combat units — these other militaries follow pretty much the same policy as the United States.

In the end, it is up to Congress to decide whether to change the law. As Prof. Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, dean of American military sociologists and the primary architect of the DADT policy, pointed out several years ago in the Wall Street Journal, there are foolish reasons for excluding homosexuals from the armed forces, but that does not mean we should ignore the good ones. Chief among the good reasons remains military effectiveness.

Mr. Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations.