Government Executive - Authors - John Hudson

Administration fingers start pointing at Petraeus for Benghazi

John Hudson, The Wire — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 13:22:24 -0400

Cracks are beginning to show in the Obama administration's united front on the Benghazi consulate as blame for security failures shifts between the State Department and the CIA. Last night, starting around 6 p.m., the CIA began circulating the most comprehensive timeline yet of its response to the September 11attack to reporters. The timeline showed that within 25 minutes of receiving calls for help, CIA operatives left their compound to assist the besieged consulate. But later on Thursday night, officials in the Obama administration leaked a series of damaging remarks about the CIA's handling of Benghazi to The Wall Street Journal with a slew of grievances directed at CIA Director David Petraeus. The fast-developing story set in place a dispute over who's responsible for the security failure, which remains unclear.

As with everything, the context here is key. According to The Journal's report, the security situation in Benghazi relied on a "symbiotic" relationship between the State Department and the CIA, in which the State Department in Benghazi served as a front for CIA activities while the CIA provided backup security. But on the night of Sept. 11, it became clear that the arrangement was flawed: "The CIA and State Department weren’t on the same page about their respective roles on security, underlining the rift between agencies over taking responsibility," reports the Journal. But here's where things get personal. According to officials speaking with the Journal, Petraeus was phoning it in on the night of the attack:

At one point during the consulate siege, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned the CIA director directly to seek assistance. Real-time intelligence from the field was scarce and some officials at State and the Pentagon were largely in the dark about the CIA's role ... At the State Department that night, officials frantically tried to find out what was happening. In recent interviews, some administration officials criticized the CIA for not being forthcoming with information ...

Some senior administration officials say they were surprised Mr. Petraeus went to that night's private Washington screening of the movie Argo, about a covert CIA operation in 1979 in Tehran.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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This is what the National Unwatering SWAT Team does

John Hudson, The Wire — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:12:29 -0400

Parts of New York City are submerged under 13 feet of water, but help is on the way: As we speak, a specialized unit called the "National Unwatering SWAT Team" is en route to Gotham. Ever heard of 'em?

During a press conference in Manhattan this morning, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo raised eyebrows with his mention of the group sent by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "A National Unwatering SWAT team is on its way to New York and we need them very badly," said Cuomo, seeming "slightly amused by the name" according to one reporter. What is this "unwatering" process and what in the blazes is an "Unwatering SWAT Team?" We asked Rodney Delt, chief of emergency management at the Army Corps of Engineer's Rock Island District in Illinois, where the SWAT team is typically stationed. We started with the basics: What's unwatering?

"It's just removing water from places it's not supposed to be," he said plainly. While his answer was simple, he said the task ahead of the Rock Island District's unwatering team was not.

The team of four expert engineers left for New York City this afternoon and are expected to arrive between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time. Delt said they are the finest unwatering experts in the country, given their experience in dewatering the inundated areas of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. "They're subject experts," he said. "They can't do all of the work themselves but they can advise the other people in New York."

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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Pentagon denies Fox News Benghazi report

John Hudson, National Journal — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 12:00:52 -0400

Following a pair of denials by the CIA and the National Security Council to a Fox News story published Friday, the Pentagon has come under scrutiny for its response to the assault on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. However, in a statement to The Atlantic Wire, a senior defense official says the Pentagon never rejected requests for military intervention in Benghazi. Not only that, the official said no such requests were ever made.

"The Pentagon took action by moving personnel and assets in the region shortly after it learned of the attack on the Benghazi consulate," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There was no request made for military intervention in Benghazi. To be successful, such an operation, if requested, would have required solid information about what was happening on the ground. Such clarity just wasn't available as the attack was unfolding."

The statement follows a loud outcry from conservative critics in wake of a report by Fox News that armed CIA operatives near the U.S. compound in Benghazi were repeatedly told to "stand down" after asking for permission to assist on the night of Sept. 11. According to Fox News national security reporter Jennifer Griffin, former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a CIA outfit one mile away from the U.S. compound housing Ambassador Chris Stevens. "When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out," reported Griffin. "They were told to 'stand down,' ... Soon after, they were again told to 'stand down.'" The report also said that repeated requests for outside military backup were denied.

But the report did not say who denied those requests. Was it the CIA? The Pentagon? The White House? Critics of the administration want to know in their efforts to assign blame for the tragedy. On Monday morning, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough asked that very question to President Obama who said the matter was still under investigation and he couldn't give further comment. "If we find out we that there was a big breakdown, and somebody didn't do their job, they'll be held accountable," he said. Meanwhile, the agencies involved with the Benghazi attack have been issuing independent denials.

On Friday, the CIA was the first agency to issue a denial. "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate," said CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood.

That denial led some to allege that the White House itself denied the requests for backup. On Saturday, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor dismissed those accusations in an email to Yahoo News' Oliver Knox. "Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi," he said.

With the CIA and White House denials in place, speculation shifted to the Pentagon.

Read the rest of this story at The Atlantic Wire.

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Report: CIA requests for backup in Benghazi were repeatedly denied

John Hudson, The Wire — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:05:25 -0400

Update (5:31 p.m.): In response to a Fox News story claiming CIA operatives in Benghazi were prevented from aiding U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens during his time of need, the CIA says it never instructed any of its personnel from helping the four Americans who died on Sept. 11. In an e-mailed statement, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood says "no one at any level in the CIA" told operatives at a local CIA annex in Benghazi not to help Amb. Stevens:

“We can say with confidence that the Agency reacted quickly to aid our colleagues during that terrible evening in Benghazi. Moreover, no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. In fact, it is important to remember how many lives were saved by courageous Americans who put their own safety at risk that night—and that some of those selfless Americans gave their lives in the effort to rescue their comrades.”

Original story:

Here's something that could alter the discussion on the attacks in Benghazi: According to Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, CIA operators on the scene repeatedly transmitted requests for military backup but were denied by U.S. officials. Not only that but the CIA operatives were also told twice to "stand down" rather than assist U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens after shots were heard at about 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

If true, the report would dramatically change the perception of the CIA operatives on the ground there, who've come under fire for the inadequate security provided to State Department officials. According to Griffin's report, "sources who were on the ground in Benghazi," say that former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods and other security officials at a nearby CIA annex were told twice to "stand down" after hearing gunshots the night of the attacks. Refusing to follow orders, Woods and at least two others rushed at midnight to the besieged U.S. compound where Amb. Stevens resided and evacuated everyone they could find. They took fire from militants and retreated back to the compound.

Read the entire story at The Atlantic Wire.

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Italy's top scientists quit their government posts

John Hudson, The Wire — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:10:46 -0400

On Tuesday, some of Italy's top scientists resigned from the government's disaster agency to protest the manslaughter conviction of seven geological experts for failing to predict the devastating earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009. As we noted yesterday, scientists across the world were appalled at the idea of holding scientists criminally responsible for failing to accurately predict the severity of future earthquakes, something that is notoriously difficult to do. Now the Italian government will have fewer scientists to call on to handle disasters.

The biggest name to clock out is one of Italy's top phyicists, Luciano Maiami. A former head of the particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva, Maiami is currently the head of Italy's top disaster body, the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, of which the seven convicted scientists were members. They received sentences of six years in prison for what prosecutors said were "incomplete, imprecise and contradictory" statements about the dangers of the quake. Maiami joined several other top scientists by declaring the verdict a "big mistake," and said he resigned because "there aren't the conditions to work serenely."

"These are professionals who spoke in good faith and were by no means motivated by personal interests, they had always said that it is not possible to predict an earthquake," he told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. "It is impossible to produce serious, professional and disinterested advice under this mad judicial and media pressure. This sort of thing doesn't happen anywhere else in the world." In no uncertain terms, he said, "This is the end of scientists giving consultations to the state."

Read the rest at The Atlantic Wire.

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The White House homebrew is delicious

John Hudson, The Wire — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:53:13 -0400

Remember the public outcry for the release of the White House's secret beer recipe? It eventually led to the release of two beer recipes, White House Honey Ale and Honey Porter, in September. Now, after about a month of boiling, cooling, fermenting and settling— the verdict is in: It's delicious! Cue New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov for a review of the Honey Ale:

The aromas were floral with a touch of orange and a metallic note that I sometimes find in honey. On the palate, it was breezy, fresh, tangy and lightly bitter, not bone dry but not at all sweet. I could sense the honey in the round, rich texture of the beer: thickness without weight, like a chenin blanc wine. The soft carbonation enhanced the texture. It didn’t have the insistent rush of bubbles that you would find in a mass-produced beer, or the snappy twang of a pilsner, but rather the soft fizz of a British hand-cranked cask ale ... The verdict: It was good. Very good.

Now that's some pretty fancy verbiage, but fear not: The 4.89 percent alcohol drink will please a wide-range of drinkers "from novices to aficionados," says Asimov. The Times didn't waste much time in getting its hands on the beer. Last month, it tapped Brooklyn Brewery's brewmaster Garret Oliver to get things going (full disclosure: my brother works there) after the release of the recipe.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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How Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette won the Bin Laden book competition

John Hudson, The Wire — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 17:00:00 -0400

We may know a little more about why former Navy SEAL author Matt Bisonnette rushed to publish his memoir No Easy Day before receiving Pentagon approval: to get his book out before Mark Bowden published his own big Osama bin Laden raid book. Bowden's book, The Finish, comes out tomorrow, just over a month after Bissonnette's book rocked the publishing world and dominated bestseller lists.

Bowden, a national correspondent at The Atlantic, had been trying to get an interview with Bissonnette for months, but had no idea Bissonnette was planning on writing a book of his own. In a move that looks a little sneaky, Bissonnette inquired into the release date of Bowden's book while keeping his publishing plans a secret, according to a Q&A published by The Daily Beast this morning:

Did you know that the book No Easy Day, by former SEAL Team 6 member “Mark Owen,” was being published?

I didn’t, actually ... I was surprised that they put that book out as quickly as they did. Matt called me toward the end of last summer, and he asked me when my book was coming out. And I was still of the mind-set that we were still discussing the possibility of him letting me interview him. So I told him, “Well, as of right now, I think my publisher is trying to get this book out during the election season …

I thought that was a little cheap. I would have told him if he just asked me [and told me] why he wanted to know.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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Weapons going into Syria are arming extremists, U.S. officials warn

John Hudson, The Wire — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:11:45 -0400

For months, the U.S. has been helping Arab allies coordinate arms shipments to rebel fighters in Syria. Unfortunately, most of those weapons are going to radical Islamists instead of secular opposition groups. According to a classified government report uncovered by The New York Times' David Sanger, the flood of Saudi and Qatari weapons into Syria is strengthening the hand of extremist groups in the country, including those with ties to Al Qaeda. “The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” a U.S. official says. Not only is there the fear that the weapons could bolster anti-American insurgent groups, but these extremist groups could hold sway in a future Syrian government should President Bashar al-Assad be removed. “The longer this goes on, the more likely those groups will gain strength,” a Middle East diplomat tells the Times.

It's the sort of dark irony reminiscent of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, in which an influx of foreign militants and weaponry to the mujahideen gave rise to blowback, and even provided a springboard for more ambitious extremists like Osama bin Laden. As it stands, the U.S. is not sending arms directly to Syrian opposition groups, it's reportedly just helping Saudi Arabia and Qatar do it with lighter weapons like rifles and grenades. But this latest assessment, which Sanger says has been delivered to President Obama, calls into question the White House strategy of indirect intervention.

That's not to say that the alternatives are great. So far, 25,000 Syrians have been killed in the conflict, the borders of NATO ally Turkey have been threatened and the opposition has been badly outgunned. But no one can say with any certainty whether giving more sophisticated weaponry to the opposition would allow rebels to overthrow the regime or simply increase the bloodshed.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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Should the CIA share some of the blame for Benghazi?

John Hudson, The Wire — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:37:21 -0400

For the last month, the media and Congress have been grilling the State Department for the security failures during the deadly assault on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. But what if the State Department is the wrong target of scrutiny?

According to a counter-theory advanced last night by The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, the CIA, not the State Department, bears some responsibility for the security lapse that led to the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, but is flying under the radar due to the classified nature of its activities there.

The airing of this theory was prompted by yesterday's House Oversight and Government Reform hearing, in which House Republicans attempted to avoid any mention of CIA activities in Benghazi. As it happened, they failed to avoid veiled disclosures of CIA activities from emerging, and the way Milbank sees it, they "left little doubt" that one of the two U.S. compounds in Benghazi was in fact a CIA base.

In their questioning and in the public testimony they invited, the lawmakers managed to disclose, without ever mentioning [the CIA] directly, that there was a seven-member “rapid response force” in the compound the State Department was calling an annex.

The disclosures came out in a vague sort of way that mostly only Washington experts would realize. For instance, one of the State Department officials revealed that not all of the security personnel in Benghazi "fell under my direct operational control." Who controlled them? An entity members of the hearing described as the "other government agency," which is a typical Washington euphemism for CIA.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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State Department disowns Susan Rice's Libya narrative

John Hudson, The Wire — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:29:30 -0400

In an unusual display of disunity, State Department officials have disowned remarks by one of their top officials, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, regarding her explanation of the deadly terrorist assault on U.S. diplomats in Libya in September. Not only did they say Rice's characterization of those attacks as "spontaneous" was wrong, but also, they said that assessment was never the conclusion of the State Department at any point in time.

In a conference call to reporters on Tuesday, senior State Department officials said they couldn't explain why Rice went on a Sunday talk show blitz last month describing the Benghazi attacks as a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islam film in the U.S. "That was not our conclusion," the officials said. "That is the question you'd have to ask others."

In the Rice version of events, the attacks that led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans began as an anti-film demonstration and devolved into a deadly assault. But State Department officials say there was no anti-film demonstration. "Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m., there is nothing unusual. There had been nothing unusual during the day outside," officials told reporters Tuesday."Then at 9:40 they saw on the security cameras that there were armed men invading the compound."

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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Libya says it has the militants suspected of killing Ambassador Stevens surrounded

John Hudson, The Wire — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:01:59 -0400

Libyan soldiers have surrounded Ansar al-Sharia, the Islamist militia suspected of killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Steves and three other Americans, but say they are in desperate need of back up. Reporting from Tripoli, The Guardian's Chris Stephen reports that the Islamist militia has been blockaded in a remote region in the eastern Libya by government troops. "They have 150 to 200 men and 17 vehicles, Toyotas and four-by-fours," said army task force commander Colonel Hamid Hassi. "These people are very dangerous." The government blockade apparently consists of infantry units with pick-up trucks retrofitted with anti-aircraft guns staked out on a highway near Susah and Derna. But they don't have enough firepower to match Ansar al-Sharia's militants.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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U.S. official goes public with criticism of security policy in Libya

John Hudson, The Wire — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:27:08 -0400

The State Department insists it didn't cut corners on security in the run-up to the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, but a former U.S. security official in Libya is doing his best to torpedo those claims. For weeks, the State Department has been on defense trying to account for why there wasn't more security at the U.S. compound in Benghazi even as U.S. officials in Libya complained of mounting security threats. Last week, these criticisms were vaguely sourced to "whistleblowers" speaking with Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Now, it appears that at least one source of those criticisms is showing his face: Lt. Col Andy Wood.

Wood led the 16-member special forces team tasked with protecting U.S. personnel in Libya. and this morning, two stories critical of the State Department were sourced to Wood, one by ABC News and another by CBS News. The first features Wood hitting the administration hard on its refusal to increase security personnel in the country prior to the attacks. "We tried to illustrate ... to show them how dangerous and how volatile and just unpredictable that whole environment was over there. So to decrease security in the face of that really is ... it's just unbelievable," Wood told Attkisson in a sit-down interview. When Wood discovered that his 16-member team and a six-member State Department elite security team was being pulled from Tripoli in August, he said it felt "like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers. There was concern amongst the entire embassy staff."

Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire

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The party's over at the Secret Service

John Hudson, The Wire — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 10:16:58 -0400

The Secret Service has put the kabosh on late-night alcohol benders and morning-after Facebook posts: The agency issued new policies governing alcohol and social media use this week in wake of the drunken prostitue scandal in Colombia five months ago.

The new policy, obtained by The Washington Post, seems to target the kind of behavior most associated with collegiate life: Co-ed parties and over-sharing on Facebook. The two-pronged policy goes as follows:

Alcohol: No alcoholic beverages 10 hours before clocking in for work and absolutely no drinking in the hotel once the protected person arrives. “Alcohol may only be consumed in moderate amounts while off-duty on a [temporary duty] assignment and alcohol use is prohibited within 10 hours of reporting for duty,” reads the policy. “Alcohol may not be consumed at the protectee hotel once the protective visit has begun.”

Social media: Now agents have to sign a nondisclosure agreement warning of termination of job or prosecution if personal information about the protected persons are revealed or sensitive security information is disseminated.

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U.S. knew about al Qaeda link in Benghazi within 24 hours

John Hudson, The Wire — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:46:40 -0400

long time for the Obama administration to admit an Al Qaeda link to the attacks in Benghazi on Sept. 11, but according to a new report in The Daily Beast, U.S. intelligence officials knew al Qaeda was involved within a day of the attacks. Not only that, but they also knew the attack was planned, instead of some sort of spontaneous assault, as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said on This Week six days after Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed along with three others. Eli Lake has the details:

Three separate U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya ... They said U.S. intelligence agencies developed leads on four of the participants of the attacks within 24 hours of the fire fight that took place mainly at an annex near the Benghazi consulate.

For one of those individuals, the U.S. agencies were able to find his location after his use of social media. “We had two kinds of intelligence on one guy,” this official said. “We believe we had enough to target him.” Another U.S. intelligence official said, “There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address. There are camps of people and a wide variety of things we could do.”

The remark by Rice wasn't just an offhand comment to ABC News' Jake Tapper. That Sunday, she also told Fox News Sunday the attack "was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent." And it contradicted statements by Libyan President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf who said there was "no doubt" it was a planned terrorist attack, and other reports that there was no demonstration in front of the U.S. compound prior to the attack.

Pentagon: Don't tweet about the former SEAL's Bin Laden book

John Hudson, The Wire — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:18:38 -0400

While the Pentagon is still mulling over whether to prosecute Navy SEAL author Matt Bissonnette, it is sure about one thing: it doesn't want any of its employees tweeting about that guy's best-selling book. Today, the Washington Times Rowan Scarborough reports the Defense Department has issued guidelines on handling No Easy Day, the blow-by-blow memoir about the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and employees are prohibited from tweeting, Facebooking, or using their personal email to discuss the book. They are allowed, however, to purchase a copy of it—and the Pentagon doesn't even mind if they put it on a bookshelf rather than, as Scarborough writes, "special containers for classified information." Scaborough describes the four other rules as follows:

Workers “shall not discuss potentially classified and sensitive unclassified information with persons who do not have an official need to know and an appropriate security clearance.”

People with first-hand knowledge of the raid “shall not publicly speculate or discuss potentially classified or sensitive unclassified information outside official U.S. Government channels.”

And, finally, employees “are prohibited from using unclassified government computer systems to discuss potentially classified or sensitive contents of [No Easy Day], and must not engage in online discussions via social networking or media sites regarding potentially classified or sensitive unclassified information that may be contained in [No Easy Day].”

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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What just happened in Islamabad? U.S. embassy latest target in violent wave

John Hudson, The Wire — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:29:33 -0400

Staving off a protest that became as violent as it was quickly subdued, Pakistani police fired off live rounds and shot tear gas into a crowd of more than 1,000 students Thursday as protesters attempted to demonstrate in front of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. Furious over the Innocence of Muslims film thathas sparked blowback across the globe, protesters burned U.S. flags and hurled objects at riot police amid fires and clouds of tear gas in Pakistan's capital.

According to India's NDTV, the protesters were headed toward Islamabad's diplomatic enclave where the U.S. Embassy is located until they were thwarted by police, who set up a barrier of truck containers to block access to the embassy. “I was ordered by my boss to disperse the crowd and that is why I had to open live fire but the aim was nearby trees and not the demonstrators,” Zaman Khan, a police officer, told Dawn newspaper. Russia Today has a video of protesters attempting to penetrate the barrier and brandishing black Islamic flags

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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Soldiers turned anti-government terrorists will face the death penalty

John Hudson, The Wire — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:45:46 -0400

The three Georgia-based Army soldiers accused of killing a young couple and plotting to assassinate President Obama are getting the book thrown at them. In Long Country Superior Court Thursday, District Attorney Tom Durden vowed to seek the death penalty for F.E.A.R. militia members Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, Sgt. Anthony Peden and Pvt. Christopher Salmon, reports the Associated Press. Meanwhile, grieving relatives of the victims tell the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the F.E.A.R. members should be put to death. Though there is much left to uncover about the mysterious milita group, which shocked the public Monday with its alleged terrorist plots, family members of the soldiers and their alleged victims are speaking out about their suspicions and views of the militia group.

The two primary victims in the case are former U.S. soldier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend Tiffany York who were murdered in December. According to prosecutors, the militia group "believed it had been betrayed by Roark, who left the Army two days before he was killed, and decided the ex-soldier and his girlfriend needed to be silenced." Today in court, a relative of York's rushed the defense table when Peden took the stand, after which "at least four deputies and officers wrestled the family member to the floor and handcuffed him," reported the AP. Though the relative wasn't identified, there's certainly a lot of anger to go around.

CIA emails show how Hollywood filmmakers got access to bin Laden info

John Hudson, The Wire — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:07:32 -0400

For everyone who didn't get special access to information about the Osama bin Laden raid, today was a little bit discouraging as new e-mails revealed CIA officials gushing over Hollywood filmakers at the expense of trained reporters and documentarians.

The filmmakers given top notch access have been known for months: Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, the team behind the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker and the upcoming film on the mission to kill bin Laden Zero Dark Thirty. But we never got to see who was vying with them for access to details on the bin Laden raid, a group that includes former New York Times reporter Howard Blum, the History Channel and The BBC. Typically, details about deliberations over who wins and who loses in the competitive game of CIA access remains a secret, but thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, those conversations became public today.

From the outset, CIA, White House, and Pentagon officials began discussing the various Osama bin Laden projects with a slight degree of favoritism toward Bigelow and Boal's film. But pretty quickly the Oscar-winning pair blew away the competition and a highly-cordial subject-filmmaker relationship ensued.

Read the full story at the Atlantic Wire

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Soldiers in anti-Obama plot wanted to 'give the government back to the people'

John Hudson, The Wire — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:00:00 -0400

New details are emerging about the four U.S. soldiers accused of plotting to assassinate President Obama and overthrow the U.S. government.

The bizarre story began unfurling on Monday after Pfc. Michael Burnett, dressed in his Army uniform, testified in a southeast Georgia court against his fellow militia members. Prosecutors accused the group F.E.A.R. (Forever Enduring Always Ready) of buying $87,000 worth of assault rifles, bomb materials, and semiautomatic weapons in a plot to bomb a park in nearby Savannah, poison apple orchards in Washington state and blow up a dam with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the government and killing Barack Obama. The group also stands accused of murdering former U.S. soldier Michael Roark and his girlfriend Tiffany York after they learned of the group's plans. In a plea bargain, Burnett plead guilty to manslaughter and illegal gang activity on Monday in connection with Roark and York's murder. Here's what we've learned about the group so far.

The Group

The four U.S. soldiers implicated in the crimes, Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, Sgt. Anthony Peden, Pvt. Christopher Salmon and Burnett, are all active members of the U.S. Army. According to Burnett, the group's rationale behind killing the president was "to give the government back to the people," according to CNN. "The government needed a change, Burnett told the court. 'I thought we were the people who would be able to change it.'" According to Long County Prosecutor Isabel Pauley, “This domestic terrorist organization did not simply plan and talk. Prior to the murders in this case, the group took action” and had the “knowledge, means and motive to carry out their plans.” The Associated Press reports that the group courted current and former soldiers "who were in trouble or disillusioned." Prosecutors said they had no idea of the size of F.E.A.R.'s membership.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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Spielberg passes on Navy SEAL book amid Pentagon scrutiny

John Hudson, The Wire — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 11:05:24 -0400

Sorry patriotic moviegoers, you'll have to settle for two well-financed movies about killing Osama bin Laden instead of three. Last night, Steven Spielberg's spokesman denied that either Spielberg or his DreamWorks production company are in talks to make a movie based on the upcoming book No Easy Day by Matt Bissonnette, a former Navy SEAL who participated in the raid. "Neither Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks Studios or DreamWorks Television will be optioning Mark Owen's book, No Easy Day,” said spokesman Marvin Levy, according to The Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Kilday.

The denial follows a report in The New York Post Saturday that Owen (the pen name for Bissonnette) was currently in talks with Spielberg and DreamWorks as well as HBO. Levy gives no indication for why Spielberg isn't interested in the project but the denial follows a Monday report by The Associated Press' Kimberly Dozier that the book is coming under scrutiny from Pentagon and the CIA, which have just received their copies and are riffling through it in search of unauthorized disclosures of classified information. The book will not be submitted to the Defense Department prior to its Sept 11 release date, which may be a violation of Pentagon policy. Bissonnette reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement while he served as a Navy SEAL requiring him to submit all manuscripts related to classified missions. As a result, he could facesevere legal ramifications.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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The document that might spell trouble for ex-Navy SEAL author

John Hudson, The Wire — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:00:00 -0400

If ex-Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette discloses classified information in his upcoming tell-all on the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, he could be subject to criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act, as we noted earlier. But even if he doesn't divulge any secrets, he's still got major legal problems. That is, according to a document surfaced by Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists.

That's because Special Forces personnel like Bissonnette are typically required to sign non-disclosure agreements that require them to submit manuscripts to the government before they publish books for the general public. These documents pertain to authors who had access to "sensitive compartmented information," or in laymen's terms, classified intelligence information, which the Osama bin Laden mission certainly qualifies as. And according to Aftergood, the precedent for the government going after author's like Bissonnette is fairly straightforward. "The government’s authority to enforce a non-disclosure agreement in this way was affirmed by a federal court most recently in the case of USA v. Ishmael Jones," he writes. "In that case, Jones (the pseudonym of a former CIA officer) published his manuscript without completing the prepublication review process." You can see a copy of this type of Pentagon non-disclosure agreement here.

Read the entire story at The Atlantic Wire here.

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Prosecutors: U.S. soldiers plotted to kill President Obama

John Hudson, The Atlantic — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:15:16 -0400

In a disturbing report out of Georgia, prosecutors say four U.S. soldiers plotted to overthrow the government and assassinate President Obama. Details remain slim about the case, but the AP's Russ Bynum says the soliders allegedly bought $87,000 worth of "guns and bomb-making materials and plotted to take over Fort Stewart, bomb targets in nearby Savannah and Washington state, as well as assassinate the president." The plot was apparently uncovered in relation to a murder case surrounding the killing of former soldier Michael Roark and his girlfriend Tiffany York in December. On Monday, Pfc. Michael Burnett, one of the accused soldiers, plead guilty to manslaughter and gang charges in the murder case. "Burnett told a Long County judge that Roark, who had just left the Army, knew of the militia group's plans and was killed because he was 'a loose end,'" reports Bynum.

As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jay Bookman notes, "Sometimes these things get blown out of proportion, but $87,000 in weaponry suggests otherwise. And when you’re willing to murder two people to keep the plot secret, you’re pretty serious about it." The news follows a controversial report published by Reuters' Daniel Trotta last week that the U.S. Army is battling soldiers within its ranks who enlist in the Army and Marine Corps "to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG - the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war." At the time, Business Insider's Geoffrey Ingersoll pushed back against the report in a piece titled "Don't Believe the Report Going Around About Veterans Flocking to Right Wing Extremist Groups." The AP report doesn't say if the motivations to overthrow the government were racial or anti-semitic in nature in this case but much more details are likely to come.

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White House keeps mum on request for beer recipe

John Hudson, The Wire — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:26:54 -0400

The Tea Party was right: This is the most secretive White House in modern history—at least when it comes to beer recipes. By now, thousands of beer geeks across America have petitioned the White House to reveal the recipe to President Obama's White House Honey Ale, a honey-infused home-brew that the president brought on the campaign trail in Iowa last week. Today, the determined beer lovers finally got a boost from the Fourth Estate, which questioned White House press secretary Jay Carney on the issue in the briefing room Thursday, per The Washington Examiner's Charlie Spiering:

A reporter asked Jay Carney if the White House would release the “secret beer recipe” for their home-brewed Honey ale ... “I am not aware of any plans at this time to divulge the secret recipe,” Carney replied.

What are you hiding, Obama!?

If you're not convinced this issue has real momentum behind it, just look at the efforts of Brody Burks, the assistant district attorney of Limestone County, Texas. Burks filed a Freedom of Information Act request earlier this week and we caught up with him this afternoon asking him if he was frustrated by the White House's stonewalling. He responded:

Who wouldn't be? In an era of open government, it shouldn't take this level of media coverage to get a response. The White House likes to talk about the home brew, but only on their terms.

Burks, who posted his FOIA request to Reddit, said he's a big supporter of the president's home-brewing predilection, but wants to see more transparency out of him:

President Obama has joined a great tradition of Presidential brewing going back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Part of that tradition is helping other home brewers. It's past time for the White House to fulfill their obligations to home brewers and the country. There should be nothing to hide. Share the recipe!

The people have spoken, Mr. President. Will you answer?

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Fox News outs Navy SEAL Team 6 author

John Hudson, The Wire — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:00:00 -0400

The former Navy SEAL Team 6 member and anonymous author of a soon to be released tell-all book about the mission to kill Osama bin Laden better hire a security guard and a good lawyer: He's just beenouted by Fox News. Today, the network's Justin Fishel cites "multiple sources" identifying the author of No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden as Matt Bissonnette, a 36-year-old recently retired Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed bin Laden. Fishel is quick to point out the legal quagmire this puts Bissonnette in, given that the OBL mission is classified, but the implications for Bissonnette's safety should probably be considered as well.

If you're just catching up to this, the book is a big deal because it promises to deliver the first firsthand account of the bin Laden raid from the perspective of a SEAL Team 6 member. As The New York Times' Julie Bosman reported, the book's publisher Dutton, a division of Penguin Group, planned on releasing the book under the pseudonym Mark Owen, citing "security reasons." It also planned a big media reveal for the book, scheduled for a September 11 release, which included a range of precautions to conceal Bissonnette's identity, per Bosman:

The author will appear in disguise during television interviews to promote the book, and his voice will be altered. At least one major network prime-time appearance has been planned, a publishing executive familiar with the plans said.

But Bissonnette can forget the voice scrambler because his name is now public information, which should raise concerns about reprisals from the many jihadists who still consider Osama bin Laden a holy figure. Still, that may not be Bissonnette's only concern. There's also the possibility that the Justice Department could prosecute him for attempting to disclose classified information.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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Obama's Navy SEAL critics are failing

John Hudson, The Wire — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:34:17 -0400

They were the Republicans' best chance at swift-boating President Obama, but they're unraveling at the seams. The four-month assault by former Navy SEALs and Special Forces operatives against President Obama's handling of the Osama bin Laden raid had the potential to discredit the president's signature foreign policy achievement, but the veterans' partisan excesses and absurd public remarks are turning them into a laughingstock within the special forces community.

The attacks on Obama began surfacing in April when Ryan Zinke, a former Navy commander and Republican state senator, aired his grievances to The Daily Mail. "The President and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition," he said. "I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call." At the time, BuzzFeed's Michael Hastings began hearing similar grumblings from other SEALs and identified the sentiment as a highly dangerous threat to Obama's re-election platform. "The frustration—or, even anger—within the SEAL community is real, and has been brewing for months," he wrote in May. He compared the situation to 2004's Swift Boats Veterans for Truth campaign, which succeeded in raising doubts about Sen. John Kerry's war hero status. "Like Kerry’s war record, the vulnerability to the president’s Bin Laden story isn’t so much from [Republicans], as it from those who can claim the mantle of veteran." In Obama's case, many former SEALs claimed that mantle, but they're doing a terrible job carrying it.

The fall from grace began with Larry Bailey, a retired 27-year veteran of the Navy SEALs who founded the anti-Obama political group Special Operations Speaks. Bailey's military career placed him in a unique position to attack the president, but it didn't take him very long to get off message, as Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin found out. "I have to admit that I'm a Birther," Bailey told Rogin. "If there were a jury of 12 good men and women and the evidence were placed before them, there would be absolutely no question Barack Obama was not born where he said he was and is not who he says he is." In the interview, he also said Obama was a socialist who was raised by communists, which caught the attention of Obama campaign official Ben LaBolt who gleefully distributed the article to Washington reporters.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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