No More Incumbents Blog

Over the last three months Senator Barack Obama’s private passport information has been accessed improperly by members of Condoleeza Rice’s State Department.

3 separate events people at the State Department accessed Senator Barack Obama’s passport record.

Barack Obama’s Passport records were breeched on

• January 9, 2008
• February 21, 2008
• March 14, 2008

2 people were contractors that were fired

The third person has not yet been fired but has been disciplined.

Actions after Breeches

Monitoring system was tripped when high profile personnel passport files are breeched.

Condoleeza Rice was notified on March 19, 2008 and stated that the systems and the processes worked appropriately.

It would appear that Secretary Rice nor anyone working for her took this seriously enough to contact Barack Obama personally and immediately after the breech in security.

This raises many questions as to why Rice was not notified in January and why no investigation into the pattern of breeches is taking place.

An official from the State Department placed a routine call about the issue to Barack Obama’s Senate office on March 20, 2008, six days after the third breach.

Major Related Events

In 1991, an independent counsel was established to investigate the George H Bush administration when Governor Bill Clinton’s passport files were breeched - supposedly to look into Bill Clinton’s travel history. Some people were looking to see if Bill Clinton had visited Moscow as a student.

It is not illegal for the access to take place unless information from the file is disseminated. If dissemination takes place, then it is protocol for the Justice Department to be notified to consider a criminal investigation by the Inspector General, an office that is currently vacant and being run by a Deputy Inspector General. The Justice Department currently indicates that there is no criminal investigation taking place.

Privacy Act Violations can be criminal when information is passed along.

Minor Related Events

Several months ago, the State Department was under fire for not processing passport applications fast enough. At that time a number of college interns were even brought in to process paperwork.

Reasons Why Notifications should have taken place

• Barack Obama is a national figure
• Barack Obama is a US Senator.
• Barack Obama is a front runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Potential Information in the File

• Information about Barack Obama’s travels while in public office.
• Information about Barack Obama’s travels while living in Indonesia.
• Reports by consulate officials in relation to Barack Obama during all trips abroad.
• Reports by consulate officials about Barack Obama’s mother as a cross reference when Barack Obama was a minor living over seas.

Time to Fire Up an Independent Counsel

It would appear, like a bad scene in Forest Gump,that we are headed for yet another independent counsel investigation.  The Bush Administration will likely be strapping up their skate shoes tonight and hoping to navigate the mine fields of once again failing to control sensitive information on their own watch.  It should surprise no one that if the Bush Administration can not keep their own CIA operatives, keeping a Senators passport files safe or even your information safe is not possible.  The level of incompetence seems to know no bounds.

OK, I admit it.  I am a huge cynic.  I was trained to be a cynic as an intelligence analyst for the military.

So yesterday when I see that the Vice President’s building and his office is on fire, I have to think to myself . . .

NO SURPRISES THERE!

This administration seems to be hiding things left and right, and people do not hide things for no reason. 

I do not buy the excuse that they are hiding things for National Security.  I know how those procedures work, and it is possible to maintain National Security with out hiding things or covering them up.

This week we have seen the scandal about the destruction of the torture tapes grow and grow.  From the admission that they were destroyed, to the admission that they were destroyed a few months after a Federal Judge ordered evidence like this should be secured, to the admission that 4-5 people in the Bush Administration knew that these tapes existed, knew about the Federal Judges order to protect the evidence and knew about the destruction of that evidence.

Now I also do not buy the theory that destroying these tapes protected the people that participated in the torture.  That is protected them from terrorists.  These tapes only needed to be maintained with a high security classification to protect the agents involved.  Even if they were used in court, the court proceedings can be classified as well.

There is one exception to that last point.  I suspect that the CIA no longer has any confidence in the Bush Administration.  Keep in mind that it is the Bush Administration and the offices of the Vice President that outed a covert CIA agent to the world.  The Bush Administration has proven that security classifications do not matter at all, that protecting America’s clandestine agents does not matter, nothing at all matters other than maintaining the political position of the Bush Administration.

So with that in mind, I am not surprised that someone in the CIA destroyed those tapes. 

Was it an illegal act?  Most probably. 

Would the agents have been safe from terrorists?  Probably.

Would the agents have been safe from the Bush Administration?  Probably Not. 

And that is where the rub is here.  The Bush Administration has lost the confidence of the intelligence community.  That is almost as dangerous as the corruptions that the Bush Administration has grown in the Executive Branch of government over the last 7 years.

Before long the VP and the President are going to have to pack up their remaining secret files and like the character Mitch in the movie The Firm, they are going to have to set out taking cruises around the world hoping that justice never catches up to them.  Or they can just burn the rest of the evidence.

The war in the middle east took a step towards escalation this weekend and most news organizations are completely asleep or in denial.

Turkey bombed Kurdish militants and then followed up that bombing raid with artillery strikes.  Reports indicate that the US actually sanctioned this Turkish attack against Iraq that is supposed to be sovereign but is obviously not.

Turkish fighter jets struck targets in the Zap, Avashin and Hakurk regions, in Dohuk Province along the border with Iraq, and troops followed up with artillery strikes, the Turkish military said on its Web site.  Turkey Bombs Kurdish Militants in Northern Iraq

In essence if the US did sanction the strikes, then we have symbolically just weakened Iraq by not only allowing attacks on Iraq but by giving permission.  Both actions indicate that the US is in charge of Iraq and not the government of Iraq.  In many ways our post invasion strategies have only served to round up the pool balls on the Iraqi table into pool ball racks and now we are giving free easy shots to Iraq’s neighbors from the terrorists that invaded first, to Iran and now Turkey.

Iraq’s neighbors and enemies are essentially running the table, and the US is simply calling out their shots for them. 

I have played a lot of pool over the years.  My grandfather taught me how to play when I was about 9 years old.  I played regularly when I was in the military studying warfare strategies.  I learned that there is one important thing to consider in strategy and pool.  Always set yourself up for the next shot, plan not only what you are doing now but what you will leave yourself for your next shot when you do it.  And never set up your opponent(s). 

In Iraq we are not setting ourselves up for a good follow through shot after the surge, and we are leaving our opponents with some very easy shots to clear the table before we ever have a chance to play.

Much attention in the US has focused on Iran in relation to Iraq.  We here many administration lines about the potential power void that will result if the US pulls out of Iraq and how the ‘axis of evil’ player Iran is suited to evilly take charge and fill that power void.

There is another player however that is already positioned to invade Iraq.

Turkey

Turkey has already positioned 140,000 troops on the Iraq border near Kurdistan.  That is very close to the same number of troops that the US could conceivably pull out if you do not count contractors and contractor mercenaries.  Turkey is a fairly close US ally and definitely does not want Iraq to fall into the hands of Iran.

Turkey would also very much like to have some Iraqi oil fields of their own.  Who wouldn’t?

Turkey is probably acting on their own, but they probably also have a secret Bush administration blind eye turned their way as well.  If the Bush administration were to be forced to pull out early, a nice fall back plan might be to have Turkey come in and save the day. 

From a US perspective its not as good as US control or US partner control in an Iraqi government, but Turkey in power is better than Iran in power.