Today's Headlines and Commentary
The New York Times and The Washington Post report that Pakistan's top intelligence agency has arrested five CIA informants involved with the raid on the bin Laden compound. These arrests seem to signify a growing rift between U.S.
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The New York Times and The Washington Post report that Pakistan's top intelligence agency has arrested five CIA informants involved with the raid on the bin Laden compound. These arrests seem to signify a growing rift between U.S. and Pakistani priorities, at a time when American-Pakistani cooperation is critical to bringing the war in Afghanistan to a close.
The CIA is building a secret air base in the Middle East to support its planned drone strike campaign in Yemen, reports the New York Times.
A former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Adel al-Gazzar, was arrested on his way home to Egypt. Al Jazeera details his trajectory from an Afghanistan refugee camp to a U.S. prison in Kandahar to Guantanamo Bay, and upon release, to a Slovakian immigration detention center (U.S. authorities deemed it unsafe for him to return to Egypt when he was cleared for release).
Last night Jack analyzed Speaker Boehner's letter to President Obama challenging the president to justify continued operations in Libya. Roll Call also reported on this letter last night, and Politico's Jonathan Allen notes that back in 1995, Boehner voted to repeal the War Powers Act in favor of a weaker Congressional mandate. The White House plans to release a report that will justify military action in Libya today.
In case you missed this last week, Mark Landler reported that members of Congress who have criticized U.S. involvement there received thank you letters from Col. Qaddafi.
The Pentagon Papers have been released in full. The National Archives explains that:
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force", was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. In June of 1971, small portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed. However, the publications of the report that resulted from these leaks were incomplete and suffered from many quality issues. On the 40th anniversary of the leak to the press, the National Archives, along with the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential Libraries, has released the complete report. There are 48 boxes and approximately 7,000 declassified pages. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time. What is unique about this, compared to other versions, is that:Please continue to share noteworthy headlines and commentary with me at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com.
- The complete Report is now available with no redactions compared to previous releases
- The Report is presented as Leslie Gelb presented it to then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford on January 15, 1969
- All the supplemental back-documentation is included. In the Gravel Edition, 80% of the documents in Part V.B. were not included
- This release includes the complete account of peace negotiations, significant portions of which were not previously available either in the House Armed Services Committee redacted copy of the Report or in the Gravel Edition
Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT.
Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.
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