La riforma della sanità ha subito un rinvio, la situazione finanziaria ed economica è sempre difficile, Barack Obama è sceso per la prima volta al di sotto del 50 per cento nei sondaggi, fra i repubblicani c’è chi vede un riscatto già nelle elezioni di mid-term, ma… c’è il commander-in-chief che non ti aspetti. Perché il taglio del bilancio della difesa e il varo di una nuova dottrina della guerra procedono come un treno. Il Pentagono deve dimagrire, subito. I problemi del bilancio non concedono tempo a Obama, che ha l’obiettivo di fissare la spesa annua militare tra il 4 e il 5 per cento del pil.
Il problema è che gli Stati Uniti sono impegnati su due teatri di guerra (Iraq e soprattutto Afghanistan) e devono mantenere la loro supremazia. Se guardiamo i dati del 2008 sulle spese in armamenti pubblicati dal Sipri di Stoccolma, gli Stati Uniti sono saldamente in testa alla classifica del budget: 607 miliardi di dollari, pari al 41,5 per cento della torta  mondiale. Lontanissima, al secondo posto c’è la Cina, con una stima di 84,9 miliardi di dollari, il 5,8 per cento del totale. Distanze siderali. Ma il rischio, che la Casa Bianca non ignora, è che l’arsenale diventi obsoleto nel giro di pochi anni e la supremazia in termini di spesa si riduca in misura esponenziale, se non resta al top della tecnologia e della ricerca. Che fare? L’orchestra cambia spartito, inserisce qualche nuovo elemento, ma si arrangia con gli strumenti che ha.
Così, mentre i soldati americani sono impegnati in Afghanistan nella prima grande operazione militare della presidenza Obama, i critici puntano il dito su Robert Gates, ex direttore della Cia, già segretario della Difesa. Globetrotter della politica autodefinitosi come una sorta di Forrest Gump, l’uomo che il 28 luglio ha  compiuto una visita lampo in Iraq è passato dall’amministrazione Bush a quella di Obama: nessuna soluzione di continuità per il primo presidente nero della storia americana, che con tale scelta ha voluto seguire le orme di un illustre predecessore, quel John Fitzgerald Kennedy, democratico, che scelse il repubblicano Robert McNamara per guidare il Pentagono.
Gates è un formidabile esecutore delle politiche di Obama. Non un semplice uomo macchina, ma la mente delle mosse che stanno rivoluzionando il Pentagono. Gates rappresenta la continuità con la strategia del secondo mandato di Bush jr. Così il generale David H. Petraeus, inventore del «surge» in Iraq, è diventato il responsabile del Centcom, il comando che controlla le operazioni militari in Medio Oriente. La revisione del bilancio si è accompagnata a un ripensamento generale della strategia militare: meno investimenti su progetti hi-tech di dubbia efficacia, più attenzione alla guerra di fanteria (che da Iraq e Afghanistan ha tratto lezioni importanti) e all’assistenza dei soldati e delle loro famiglie durante e dopo i conflitti. È l’ennesima rivoluzione negli affari militari? Forse no, ma che il Pentagono in fatto di forniture sia ancora in piena guerra fredda è provato da molti ciclopici (e spesso fantasiosi) programmi di spesa e ricerca. È anche certo che fra i repubblicani la svolta di Gates non piace.
La Heritage Foundation, centro studi repubblicano, ha addirittura lanciato il mese per la «protezione dell’America», sottolineando proprio i tagli al bilancio della difesa. Le forbici del duo Obama-Gates non convincono il presidente della Heritage, Edward Feulner, che ha rispolverato un vecchio detto dei tempi della presidenza di John Adams: «Milioni per la difesa, non un centesimo per le tasse». Secondo i repubblicani, Obama ha scelto invece la via del fisco. Soluzione proposta dall’ex senatore James Talent, specialista in affari militari della Heritage: «Occorre un budget della difesa non inferiore al 4 per cento del pil, se gli Stati Uniti vogliono mantenere la loro superiorità militare».
Nel campo opposto, oltre ai pensatoi vicini ai democratici, è da leggere con attenzione Slate, rivista del gruppo Washington post, e soprattutto la rubrica «War Stories» dove Fred Kaplan (al Boston Globe vinse il premio Pulitzer per un’inchiesta sulla corsa al nucleare tra Stati Uniti e Russia) applaude Gates a scena aperta e dice che il voto contro il rinnovo del programma per costruire il caccia F-22 «è l’inizio di una nuova fase nella politica della difesa, un ridimensionamento dell’influenza che i contractor hanno sulla politica e sul budget» del Pentagono.
Mentre si discute Gates va avanti come un rullo compressore (vedere schede qui sopra). Oltre ad avere tagliato il programma per l’aereo da caccia F-22, preferendo il più collaudato caccia multiruolo F-35, ha pigiato il tasto reset sulla costruzione del supercacciatorpediniere Ddg-1000 Zumwalt (nave da guerra avveniristica, ma secondo alcuni esperti vulnerabile); ha archiviato il progetto del soldato del futuro (una cosa buona al massimo per una pellicola in stile Starship Troopers).
Ciliegina sulla torta, il nuovo trattato di disarmo nucleare siglato a Mosca dal presidente Obama e dal presidente russo Dmitri Medvedev, un’ulteriore revisione della dottrina della deterrenza. Non piace né ai nixoniani né ai neoconservatori, né agli esperti di giochi nucleari. Questi ultimi, tra cui il Lexington institute, temono che un taglio troppo netto possa fare crescere l’appetito dei paesi che fanno già parte del club nucleare o che la bomba la cercano e vogliono moltiplicarla.
Dai tagli non si salva nessuno: aviazione e marina, settori dove gli investimenti in tecnologia sono enormi, sono a dieta forzata. Le difficoltà nel ricambio della fanteria in Iraq e Afghanistan e la situazione critica della Guardia nazionale hanno convinto il trio Obama-Gates-Petraeus a puntare sulla quantità e qualità delle truppe di terra, sul loro addestramento e sulla logistica. La ricerca in campo militare ne esce ridimensionata? Forse, ma Gates non è un pacifista travestito da segretario della Difesa e Obama non vuole mettere i fiori nei cannoni.
La visione della guerra al Pentagono è cambiata, ma sempre di conflitto si tratta. Sono cambiati i toni e le risorse si stanno spostando su altri settori. L’Air Force avrà l’opportunità di sviluppare un piano massiccio di investimenti sugli aerei senza pilota (i Predator e i Reaper 9), una delle armi su cui la Casa Bianca punta per assestare colpi decisivi alle cellule terroristiche in Medio Oriente.
Il piano per lo sviluppo degli aerei senza pilota, in gergo Uav (unmanned aerial vehicle), è una lettura affascinante. Parte dal 2009, arriva al 2047 e prevede lo sviluppo di una flotta costituita da centinaia di velivoli. Prima saranno guidati da uomini a terra, ma in futuro alla cloche (anzi, al joystick) ci sarà un computer. Il risparmio economico sui costi dei piloti e la prospettiva mitica dello «zero perdite» (è dai tempi della guerra del Golfo nel 1991 condotta magistralmente dal generale Norman Schwarzkopf che se ne parla) favoriscono questa scelta strategica.
Questa è la guerra che più o meno si vede, però ce n’è un’altra: invisibile, fatta di operazioni coperte (e, a detta di non pochi, i fondi riservati sarebbero addirittura aumentati), affidata alla comunità dell’intelligence di cui la Cia è lo specialista. Un po’ logorato a dire il vero dai continui scandali sugli interrogatori e dalla battaglia di fine mandato tra il vicepresidente Dick Cheney e il presidente George W. Bush. C’è chi parla di una vera e propria «caccia alle streghe» non solo sul personale Cia, ma anche sui consiglieri della Casa Bianca che hanno gestito la fase post 11 settembre. Ecco, alla fine del tutto, si torna alla data chiave da cui non solo ha origine la guerra di Bush, ma anche quella di Obama.

ESERCITO E MARINES. La vecchia-nuova dottrina di guerra elaborata da Obama, Robert Gates e David Petraeus prevede un impiego massiccio della fanteria. Per esercito e marines sono stati, quindi, stanziati 11 miliardi di dollari in più. Le guerre in Iraq e in Afghanistan hanno mostrato l’importanza di sostenere i feriti, aumentare l’efficienza degli ospedali, aiutare le famiglie. Così Gates ha chiesto e ottenuto che siano stanziati 400 milioni di dollari per la ricerca medica, 200 milioni per i figli e le spose dei soldati. Intanto il 14 luglio il Pentagono ha confermato che in autunno comincerà il turnover di 7.500 militari in Afghanistan. Saranno coinvolte la 101ª e la 173ª brigata in partenza da Fort Campbell e da Vicenza.

CACCIATORPEDINIERE. Stop alla costruzione  del cacciatorpediniere multiruolo Ddg-1000 Zumwalt. La flotta si ferma a tre unità invece delle previste 32. Il costo di ogni nave si aggirava ormai intorno ai 2,5-3 miliardi di dollari. Troppi, come i dubbi sulla loro effettiva necessità. Così il Pentagono ha deciso di tornare a produrre gli affidabili Ddg-51 classe Arleigh Burke, concepiti in origine per fronteggiare attacchi sovietici e oggi dotati di sistemi elettronici Aegis, missili Tomahawk e tecnologia stealth per renderli meno visibili ai radar. La Difesa ha anche incrementato il programma 2010 Litoral combat ships: le navi per operazioni antiterrorismo salgono da due a tre.

AEREI DA CACCIA. Il senato Usa ha bocciato un finanziamento di 1,75 miliardi di dollari per produrre altri caccia F-22 Raptor (del costo di circa 140 milioni di dollari l’uno). Il segretario della Difesa Robert Gates è d’accordo perché preferisce il più economico e flessibile  F-35 Lightning costruito dal Joint strike fighter program  (al quale partecipa anche l’Italia) e i velivoli di quinta generazione con le caratteristiche dei bombardieri invisibili Stealth.

ARMI NUCLEARI. Il 6 luglio a Mosca Barack Obama e Dmitri Medvedev hanno annunciato un nuovo trattato per la riduzione dei rispettivi arsenali nucleari. Ciascun paese taglierà le testate atomiche a 1.500-1.675 unità contro le 1.700-2.200 previste dal vecchio trattato Start 1. I missili che trasportano le testate saranno ridotti a 500-1.000 rispetto ai 1.600 del passato. Il nuovo accordo durerà 7 anni e per ora non solleva proteste, ma il Lexington institute ha osservato che se le due superpotenze tagliano troppe testate   altri paesi produrranno più ordigni nucleari per trarne un vantaggio strategico.

IL SOLDATO DEL FUTURO. Il programma Future combat systems, uno dei pallini di Donald Rumsfeld, primo segretario alla Difesa del governo di George W. Bush, è di fatto morto.  L’insieme di hardware e software che avrebbe dovuto costituire la corazza e le armi dei militari del Terzo millennio aveva un costo di 150 miliardi di dollari. Poche le applicazioni pratiche immediate e nessuna delle 15 brigate previste attiva. L’obiettivo era dare al soldato e al suo comandante la piena disponibilità sul campo di battaglia di tutti i mezzi e le informazioni possibili, attraverso l’integrazione degli attori su mare, aria e terra. Insomma, la fusione in rete di 18 componenti  a disposizione del fante. Per ora resta un miraggio.

CIA. Il futuro della Cia è un punto delicato dell’agenda di Obama. Dopo l’11 settembre George W.Bush ha cercato   di non destabilizzare l’agenzia lasciando al suo posto il direttore George Tenet e, attraverso il vicepresidente Dick Cheney, ha dato via libera alla distruzione delle cellule terroristiche all’estero. Il dossier sulle torture e le «extraordinary rendition» (clamoroso in Italia il rapimento di Abu Omar) ha gettato molte ombre sull’operato della Cia. Obama ha ammorbidito, non cancellato, gli interrogatori coercitivi e con il nuovo direttore Leon Panetta sta gestendo una difficile transizione.

DRONI. Gli aerei senza pilota si stanno rivelando efficaci  in Afghanistan e il capo del Pentagono Robert Gates    il 23 luglio ha presentato il piano per l’espansione dei Predator, dei Reaper e in generale di tutti i velivoli  teleguidati sui teatri di guerra. Erano cinque nel 2004, oggi sono 38, nei prossimi due anni dovrebbero salire a 50. L’obiettivo del piano dell’Air Force per il 2009-2047 è arrivare a 185 Predator e 319 Reaper. Il vantaggio non è solo quello di poter lanciare missioni senza pilota, ma anche quello di poter affidare a un solo uomo  il controllo a terra di molti aerei. Fino ad arrivare a un sistema controllato totalmente da un computer.

© Panorama

By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton

On June 23, 2009, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta learned of a highly compartmentalized program to assassinate al Qaeda operatives that was launched by the CIA in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. When Panetta found out that the covert program had not been disclosed to Congress, he canceled it and then called an emergency meeting June 24 to brief congressional oversight committees on the program. Over the past week, many details of the program have been leaked to the press and the issue has received extensive media coverage.

That a program existed to assassinate al Qaeda leaders should certainly come as no surprise to anyone. It has been well-publicized that the Clinton administration had launched military operations and attempted to use covert programs to strike the al Qaeda leadership in the wake of the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. In fact, the Clinton administration has come under strong criticism for not doing more to decapitate al Qaeda prior to 2001. Furthermore, since 2002, the CIA has conducted scores of strikes against al Qaeda targets in Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like the MQ-1 Predator and the larger MQ-9 Reaper.

These strikes have dramatically increased over the past two years and the pace did not slacken when the Obama administration came to power in January. So far in 2009 there have been more than two dozen UAV strikes in Pakistan alone. In November 2002, the CIA also employed a UAV to kill Abu Ali al-Harithi, a senior al Qaeda leader suspected of planning the October 2000 attack against the USS Cole. The U.S. government has also attacked al Qaeda leaders at other times and in other places, such as the May 1, 2008, attack against al Qaeda-linked figures in Somalia using an AC-130 gunship.

As early as Oct. 28, 2001, The Washington Post ran a story discussing the Clinton-era presidential finding authorizing operations to capture or kill al Qaeda targets. The Oct. 28 Washington Post story also provided details of a finding signed by President George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks that reportedly provided authorization to strike a larger cross section of al Qaeda targets, including those who are not in the Afghan theater of operations. Such presidential findings are used to authorize covert actions, but in this case the finding would also provide permission to contravene Executive Order 12333, which prohibits assassinations.

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Bush and the members of his administration were very clear that they sought to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and the members of the al Qaeda organization. During the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections in the United States, every major candidate, including Barack Obama, stated that they would seek to kill bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda. Indeed, on the campaign trail, Obama was quite vocal in his criticism of the Bush administration for not doing more to go after al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan. This means that, regardless of who is in the White House, it is U.S. policy to go after individual al Qaeda members as well as the al Qaeda organization.

In light of these facts, it would appear that there was nothing particularly controversial about the covert assassination program itself, and the controversy that has arisen over it has more to do with the failure to report covert activities to Congress. The political uproar and the manner in which the program was canceled, however, will likely have a negative impact on CIA morale and U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

Program Details

As noted above, that the U.S. government has attempted to locate and kill al Qaeda members is not shocking. Bush’s signing of a classified finding authorizing the assassination of al Qaeda members has been a poorly kept secret for many years now, and the U.S. government has succeeded in killing al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

While Hellfire missiles are quite effective at hitting trucks in Yemen and AC-130 gunships are great for striking walled compounds in the Somali badlands, there are many places in the world where it is simply not possible to use such tools against militants. One cannot launch a hellfire from a UAV at a target in Milan or use an AC-130 to attack a target in Doha. Furthermore, there are certain parts of the world — including some countries considered to be U.S. allies — where it is very difficult for the United States to conduct counterterrorism operations at all. These difficulties have been seen in past cases where the governments have refused U.S. requests to detain terrorist suspects or have alerted the suspects to the U.S. interest in them, compromising U.S. intelligence efforts and allowing the suspects to flee.

A prime example of this occurred in 1996, when the United States asked the government of Qatar for assistance in capturing al Qaeda operational mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was living openly in Qatar and even working for the Qatari government as a project engineer. Mohammed was tipped off to American intentions by the Qatari authorities and fled to Pakistan. According to the 9/11 commission report, Mohammed was closely associated with Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, who was then the Qatari minister of religious affairs. After fleeing Doha, Mohammed went on to plan several al Qaeda attacks against the United States, including the 9/11 operation.

Given these realities, it appears that the recently disclosed assassination program was intended to provide the United States with a far more subtle and surgical tool to use in attacks against al Qaeda leaders in locations where Hellfire missiles are not appropriate and where host government assistance is unlikely to be provided. Some media reports indicate that the program was never fully developed and deployed; others indicate that it may have conducted a limited number of operations.

Unlike UAV strikes, where pilots fly the vehicles by satellite link and can actually be located a half a world away, or the very tough and resilient airframe of an AC-130, which can fly thousands of feet above a target, a surgical assassination capability means that the CIA would have to put boots on the ground in hostile territory where operatives, by their very presence, would be violating the laws of the sovereign country in which they were operating. Such operatives, under nonofficial cover by necessity, would be at risk of arrest if they were detected.

Also, because of the nature of such a program, a higher level of operational security is required than in the program to strike al Qaeda targets using UAVs. It is far more complex to move officers and weapons into hostile territory in a stealthy manner to strike a target without warning and with plausible deniability. Once a target is struck with a barrage of Hellfire missiles, it is fairly hard to deny what happened. There is ample physical evidence tying the attack to American UAVs. When a person is struck by a sniper’s bullet or a small IED, the perpetrator and sponsor have far more deniability. By its very nature, and by operational necessity, such a program must be extremely covert.

Even with the cooperation of the host government, conducting an extraordinary rendition in a friendly country like Italy has proved to be politically controversial and personally risky for CIA officers, who can be threatened with arrest and trial. Conducting assassination operations in a country that is not so friendly is a far riskier undertaking. As seen by the Russian officers arrested in Doha after the February 2004 assassination of former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, such operations can generate blowback. The Russian officers responsible for the Yandarbiyev hit were arrested, tortured, tried and sentenced to life in prison (though after several months they were released into Russian custody to serve the remainder of their sentences).

Because of the physical risk to the officers involved in such operations, and the political blowback such operations can cause, it is not surprising that the details of such a program would be strictly compartmentalized inside the CIA and not widely disseminated beyond the gates of Langley. In fact, it is highly doubtful that the details of such a program were even widely known inside the CIA’s counterterrorism center (CTC) — though almost certainly some of the CTC staff suspected that such a covert program existed somewhere. The details regarding such a program were undoubtedly guarded carefully within the clandestine service, with the officer in charge most likely reporting directly to the deputy director of operations, who reports personally to the director of the CIA.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

As trite as this old saying may sound, it is painfully true. In the counterterrorism realm, leaks destroy counterterrorism cases and often allow terrorist suspects to escape and kill again. There have been several leaks of “sources and methods” by congressional sources over the past decade that have disclosed details of sensitive U.S. government programs designed to do things such as intercept al Qaeda satellite phone signals and track al Qaeda financing. A classified appendix to the report of the 2005 Robb-Silberman Commission on Intelligence Capabilities (which incidentally was leaked to the press) discussed several such leaks, noted the costs they impose on the American taxpayers and highlighted the damage they do to intelligence programs.

The fear that details of a sensitive program designed to assassinate al Qaeda operatives in foreign countries could be leaked was probably the reason for the Bush administration’s decision to withhold knowledge of the program from the U.S. Congress, even though amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 mandate the reporting of most covert intelligence programs to Congress. Given the imaginative legal guidance provided by Bush administration lawyers regarding subjects such as enhanced interrogation, it would not be surprising to find that White House lawyers focused on loopholes in the National Security Act reporting requirements.

The validity of such legal opinions may soon be tested. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, recently said he was considering an investigation into the failure to report the program to Congress, and House Democrats have announced that they want to change the reporting requirements to make them even more inclusive.

Under the current version of the National Security Act, with very few exceptions, the administration is required to report the most sensitive covert activities to, at the very least, the so-called “gang of eight” that includes the chairmen and ranking minority members of the congressional intelligence committees, the speaker and minority leader of the House of Representatives and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate. In the wake of the program’s disclosure, some Democrats would like to expand this minimum reporting requirement to include the entire membership of the congressional intelligence committees, which would increase the absolute minimum number of people to be briefed from eight to 40. Some congressmen argue that presidents, prompted by the CIA, are too loose in their invocation of the “extraordinary circumstances” that allow them to report only to the gang of eight and not the full committees. Yet ironically, the existence of the covert CIA program stayed secret for over seven and a half years, and yet here we are writing about it less than a month after the congressional committees were briefed.

The addition of that many additional lips to briefings pertaining to covert actions is not the only thing that will cause great consternation at the CIA. While legally mandated, disclosing covert programs to Congress has been very problematic. The angst felt at Langley over potential increases in the number of people to be briefed will be compounded by the recent reports that Attorney General Eric Holder may appoint a special prosecutor to investigate CIA interrogations and ethics reporting.

In April we discussed how some of the early actions of the Obama administration were having a chilling effect on U.S. counterterrorism programs and personnel. Expanding the minimum reporting requirements under the National Security Act will serve to turn the thermostat down several additional notches, as did Panetta’s overt killing of the covert program. It is one thing to quietly kill a controversial program; it is quite another to repudiate the CIA in public. In addition to damaging the already low morale at the agency, Panetta has announced in a very public manner that the United States has taken one important tool entirely out of the counterterrorism toolbox: Al Qaeda no longer has to fear the possibility of clandestine American assassination teams.

© Stratfor

Questo è il testo dell’intervento che ho tenuto ieri presso la Fondazione Magna Carta in occasione della presentazione del libro “Scritti italiani” di David A. Harris, il direttore esecutivo dell’American Jewish Commitee.

Cari amici,

ho sentito parlare di pace, uguaglianza, libertà. Belle parole. Peccato che poi suonino i cannoni. Ho sentito molte certezze negli interventi precedenti. Beati voi. Io invece nutro un sacco di dubbi e oltre al testo vorrei ricordare a tutti noi che c’è il contesto.  Quale? Ecco, osservate la prima pagina del settimanale Time: Obama e l’Orso Russo. Ora osservate la cover di questo bel mensile, è un prodotto editoriale dell’Eni, si chiama Oil: il titolo è “la scelta”, la mappa visualizzata è quella dell’Iran. L’Italia, bisogna ricordarlo, è uno dei principali partner commerciali dell’Iran. Su questo foglio invece ci sono le news d’agenzia del summit tra Russia e Stati Uniti, il titolo è sull’accordo sul disarmo nucleare, ma la notizia è un’altra: c’è dissenso totale sul sistema antimissile che gli Stati Uniti vogliono piazzare in Polonia. Il casus belli sul quale è ripartita una nuova Guerra Fredda non ha trovato una soluzione, la tensione su questo punto resta. Inoltre, la pur nobile idea del presidente americano di ridurre le armi nucleari, in realtà avvantaggia la Russia che ha un arsenale vecchio, con una scarsa manutenzione, e riduce il potere di deterrenza degli Stati Uniti proprio nel momento in cui sta ripartendo la proliferazione atomica. Tutto questo ha molto a che fare con Israele, è la scacchiera del gioco. E’ il contesto che in realtà produce il testo e questo nostro incontro si svolge alla vigilia del G8 dell’Aquila, mentre a  Mosca Barack Obama e Dmitri Medvevdev cercano un nuovo difficile equilibrio: la Russia deve spuntare l’obiettivo di farsi accettare come potere egemone nella regione (Caucaso, Bielorussia, Ucraina, Georgia, tutta l’Asia centrale).  Gli Stati Uniti cercano al contrario di non perdere lo status di potenza egemone globale in un periodo di crisi economica e di taglio del bilancio della Difesa. Il problema è tutto qui nella sua brutale semplicità. Ho preso le mosse da Obama e Medvedev (e l’ombra gigantesca di Vladimir Putin) per ché è dalla convenienza storica di Russia e Stati Uniti che 60 anni fa nasceva Israele. Entrambi cercavano di trarre un vantaggio geopolitico dalla nascita in Medio Oriente di uno Stato che occupava lo spazio geografico che un tempo era dell’impero britannico. Ecco perché gli esiti del vertice di Mosca e quelli del G8 saranno molto importanti per il futuro di Israele. In passato Russia e Stati Uniti hanno giocato il ruolo di pivot in Medio Oriente grazie a Israele. Si apprestano a farlo ancora. Per Israele si pone, ancora una volta, la questione del suo Essere nel Mondo, o meglio, della sua esistenza e permanenza nella regione del Medio Oriente e in quella zona geopolitica e letteraria che si chiama Levante e che da qui si dispiega in tutta l’Eurasia, l’area del Grande Gioco magistralmente raccontata dal romanziere Ryduard Kipling.

Tre modelli, uno Stato
Tremila anni di storia ci dicono che Israele è giunto fino a noi attraverso tre modelli:
1.    Il modello David. Israele è completamente indipendente e questo avviene in assenza di poteri imperiali nella regione.
2.    Il modello persiano. Israele mantiene la sua autonomia e identità ma non ha più capacità di manovra nella politica estera perché fa parte di un sistema di potere imperiale.
3.    Il modello babilonese. Israele perde completamente identità, autonomia, status giuridico e subisce la deportazione del suo popolo.

Tre dimensioni che giungono ai nostri giorni con gli esiti della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, il declino della Gran Bretagna del suo Impero, l’ascesa di Stati Uniti e Russia che creano le condizioni per la nascita di Israele nella forma del modello David, o meglio un “quasi-David”, perché non dobbiamo dimenticare il ruolo chiave giocato dagli Stati Uniti fin dagli anni Sessanta.

La minaccia esterna
E’ sempre la storia ad offrirci lezioni a piene mani e a dimostrarci che la minaccia vitale per Israele non giunge dai paesi confinanti, ma da poteri lontani che puntano a giocare un ruolo imperiale e per questo guardano all’espansione a Levante e nel Mediterraneo Orientale come una tessera chiave del mosaico di potenza. Ecco perché il problema centrale per l’esistenza di Israele, la sua presenza nella carta geografica, non è il Libano storicamente instabile, non è Gaza né la West Bank con i suoi palestinesi male armati, non è l’Egitto stabile, non è la Siria incapace di manovra autonoma, non è la Giordania, ma è l’Iran, l’antico e mai domato spirito del Persian Power, potere rivoluzionario e non conservatore.

In questo scenario la nascita di Israele non è un fatto religioso, il sionismo non è il punto centrale del nostro discorso, siamo di fronte un fatto geopolitico: il declino del Regno Unito, la comparsa di Stati Uniti e Russia nel Grande Gioco e il loro interesse contrapposto a manovrare nel Mediterraneo Orientale influenzando i destini di Grecia, Turchia e Israele. La Russia con l’ideologia, le radici russe di molti ebrei (e la prima fornitura di armi attraverso la Cecoslovacchia nel 1948), gli Stati Uniti con la politica di difesa (e quando serviva attacco). L’obiettivo è sempre il Levante.

E’ dal 1967 che Israele diventa un alleato chiave degli Stati Uniti. Quando Washington controlla il Bosforo per bloccare l’ingresso delle navi sovietiche nel Mediterraneo e quindi ha bisogno della Turchia e Israele per pressare la Siria a Sud e calmare le sue mire espansionistiche a Nord.
Così le mosse di Israele sono sempre tra gli spazi di manovra delle due potenze e il suo modello David sempre limitato da Stati Uniti e Russia. Limitato ma relativamente sicuro. Fino a oggi. Fino a quando l’Iran di Ahmadinejad non si mette di nuovo in marcia per tornare ad essere un potere imperiale, il leader della regione, e comincia a costruire la Bomba.

A questo punto della storia, dopo il cambio di rotta alla Casa Bianca, scopriamo che il modello David appoggiato solamente agli Stati Uniti non basta più. Per questo è fondamentale capire il gioco della Russia. Per questo occorre essere molto più intelligenti e astuti – sì, astuti è la parola giusta – che in passato. I missili di Ahmadinejad verranno puntati a Levante e a Nord, su Israele, sui vicini e sull’Europa.

E qui torniamo al contesto. Ai fatti, alle notizie di oggi. Il vicepresidente degli Stati Uniti Joe Biden di fronte a questo movimento d’arsenali dice che “Israele può colpire” e che ha la sovranità per decidere. Interessante, soprattutto se dal contesto guardiamo al testo che ci tramanda la storia. E qui qualcosa non torna. Obama e Biden forse giocano a fare la parte del poliziotto buono e del poliziotto cattivo, ma potremmo anche leggere le frasi del vicepresidente in un’altra chiave: la certificazione che Israele è tornato nel modello David in full power, senza limitazioni e dunque presenta ora, qui, adesso, Israele come uno Stato libero di arrangiarsi perché non più a sovranità limitata (in politica estera) e di fronte alla sua responsabilità di agire con un preemptive strike.

Curioso ribaltamento no? Siamo forse di fronte al disimpegno dell’agenda militare – e sottolineo militare – degli Stati Uniti nei confronti del problema iraniano? Signori, io mi chiedo e vi chiedo: cosa sta succedendo tra Washington e Gerusalemme? La Casa Bianca riconsegna a Israele il modello David, ma in presenza di un potere imperiale in piena fase di politica di potenza, l’Iran. Quanto può durare l’autonomia e l’indipendenza di una nazione sotto potenziale minaccia nucleare? Ho letto stamattina che i top official dell’amministrazione israeliana sono molto scettici sulla riuscita dei colloqui con l’Iran. E già prospettano un “piano B”, un carico di sanzioni talmente grande da paralizzare l’economia iraniana. Ho anche letto che dalla Casa Bianca rispondono picche, che non è il momento e non si può lavorare in parallelo a un draft di sanzioni con i colloqui in corso. E’ uno scenario molto istruttivo, perché l’intelligence israeliana considera la possibilità di successo del round diplomatico vicina allo zero, mentre Washington va avanti con la mitologica strategia del soft power e nel frattempo a Teheran vedono che la loro tattica di talk and build (la bomba) ha un successo enorme. Prendono tempo. E l’Occidente gli consegna la clessidra.

Nel frattempo in Iran è successo qualcosa: le elezioni sono state vinte ancora dal presidente Ahmadinejad. Certo, ci mancherebbe, so che ci sono state le proteste dell’opposizione e qualcuno in Europa si è strappato persino le vesti perché il regime ha bloccato Twitter e Facebook! Mentre a Busher si arricchisce l’uranio, qualcuno si meraviglia che dei satrapi censurino la rete, arrestino persone, uccidano manifestanti. Il fondamentalismo, che orrore per gli occhi dei colti europei e dell’establishment. Siamo al delirio e navighiamo in un oceano d’ipocrisia.

L’arte (perduta) della guerra
Torniamo alle frasi cripto-illuminanti del vicepresidente Biden e poniamoci la domanda: Israele può agire da solo? Può farlo, certo, ma sono pronto a scommettere che ne conseguirebbe un agghiacciante isolamento internazionale. E inoltre c’è da considerare che la qualità degli interventi militari israeliani – e della sua azione preventiva e successiva di intelligence – è in pesante discussione fin dal 2006.

Dalla campagna militare in Libano e dall’invasione nella striscia di Gaza giungono segnali e lezioni preoccupanti. Israele non è più invincibile. Chi ha letto i report sulle due campagne militari sa di cosa parlo. Hezbollah si è dimostrato un nemico temibile e organizzato in grado di rispondere al fuoco e fronteggiare i tank con missili anticarro, evento imprevisto per l’intelligence israeliana. Hamas un avversario capace di rigirare a suo favore una (semi)sconfitta militare attraverso un uso spregiudicato della percezione della guerra. In entrambi i casi, inoltre, non solo la tattica e la strategia del conflitto sono state sbagliate, sul Libano si è arrivati a costituire una commissione d’inchiesta per capire dove stava l’errore e su Gaza abbiamo assistito a un imbarazzante stop and go dell’operazione Cast Lead, a un assedio incompiuto.

L’obiettivo politico delle due campagne militari è inoltre mancato clamorosamente. Hezbollah è ancora una minaccia, Hamas nel frattempo ha approfittato del caos durante e dopo l’operazione Piombo Fuso per regolare i conti con al Fatah. Non è un bel risultato e non mi pare il caso, in queste condizioni, di lasciare che Israele sia travolto dalla sua crisi di leadership politica e militare, dai suoi errori, dalla cronica mancanza di coraggio dell’Europa e dalla finora contraddittoria risposta della nuova amministrazione americana, incapaci di vedere lo sguardo dei nemici della democrazia, ancora una volta, partire da Levante per mirare a Occidente.

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been carefully watching the fallout from the Obama administration’s decision to release four classified memos from former President George W. Bush’s administration that authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In a visit to CIA headquarters last week, President Barack Obama promised not to prosecute agency personnel who carried out such interrogations, since they were following lawful orders. Critics of the techniques, such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have called for the formation of a “truth commission” to investigate the matter, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry into the matter.

Realistically, those most likely to face investigation and prosecution are those who wrote the memos, rather than the low-level field personnel who acted in good faith based upon the guidance the memos provided. Despite this fact and Obama’s reassurances, our contacts in the intelligence community report that the release of the memos has had a discernible “chilling effect” on those in the clandestine service who work on counterterrorism issues.

In some ways, the debate over the morality of such interrogation techniques — something we do not take a position on and will not be discussing here — has distracted many observers from examining the impact that the release of these memos is having on the ability of the U.S. government to fulfill its counterterrorism mission. And this impact has little to do with the ability to use torture to interrogate terrorist suspects.

Politics and moral arguments aside, the end effect of the memos’ release is that people who have put their lives on the line in U.S. counterterrorism efforts are now uncertain of whether they should be making that sacrifice. Many of these people are now questioning whether the administration that happens to be in power at any given time will recognize the fact that they were carrying out lawful orders under a previous administration. It is hard to retain officers and attract quality recruits in this kind of environment. It has become safer to work in programs other than counterterrorism.

The memos’ release will not have a catastrophic effect on U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, most of the information in the memos was leaked to the press years ago and has long been public knowledge. However, when the release of the memos is examined in a wider context, and combined with a few other dynamics, it appears that the U.S. counterterrorism community is quietly slipping back into an atmosphere of risk-aversion and malaise — an atmosphere not dissimilar to that described by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) as a contributing factor to the intelligence failures that led to the 9/11 attacks.

Cycles Within Cycles

In March we wrote about the cycle of counterterrorism funding and discussed indications that the United States is entering a period of reduced counterterrorism funding. This decrease in funding not only will affect defensive counterterrorism initiatives like embassy security and countersurveillance programs, but also will impact offensive programs such as the number of CIA personnel dedicated to the counterterrorism role.

Beyond funding, however, there is another historical cycle of booms and busts that can be seen in the conduct of American clandestine intelligence activities. There are clearly discernible periods when clandestine activities are deemed very important and are widely employed. These periods are inevitably followed by a time of investigations, reductions in clandestine activities and a tightening of control and oversight over such activities.

After the widespread employment of clandestine activities in the Vietnam War era, the Church Committee was convened in 1975 to review (and ultimately restrict) such operations. Former President Ronald Reagan’s appointment of Bill Casey as director of the CIA ushered in a new era of growth as the United States became heavily engaged in clandestine activities in Afghanistan and Central America. Then, the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair in 1986 led to a period of hearings and controls.

There was a slight uptick in clandestine activities under the presidency of George H.W. Bush, but the fall of the Soviet Union led to another bust cycle for the intelligence community. By the mid-1990s, the number of CIA stations and bases was dramatically reduced (and virtually eliminated in much of Africa) for budgetary considerations. Then there was the case of Jennifer Harbury, a Harvard-educated lawyer who used little-known provisions in Texas common law to marry a dead Guatemalan guerrilla commander and gain legal standing as his widow. After it was uncovered that a CIA source was involved in the guerrilla commander’s execution, CIA stations in Latin America were gutted for political reasons. The Harbury case also led to the Torricelli Amendment, a law that made recruiting unsavory people, such as those with ties to death squads and terrorist groups, illegal without special approval. This bust cycle was well documented by both the Crowe Commission, which investigated the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, and the 9/11 Commission.

After the 9/11 attacks, the pendulum swung radically to the permissive side and clandestine activity was rapidly and dramatically increased as the U.S. sought to close the intelligence gap and quickly develop intelligence on al Qaeda’s capability and plans. Developments over the past two years clearly indicate that the United States is once again entering an intelligence bust cycle, a period that will be marked by hearings, increased controls and a general decrease in clandestine activity.

Institutional Culture

It is also very important to realize that the counterterrorism community is just one small part of the larger intelligence community that is affected by this ebb and flow of covert activity. In fact, as noted above, the counterterrorism component of intelligence efforts has its own boom-and-bust cycle that is based on major attacks. Soon after a major attack, interest in counterterrorism spikes dramatically, but as time passes without a major attack, interest lags. Other than during the peak times of this cycle, counterterrorism is considered an ancillary program that is sometimes seen as an interesting side tour of duty, but more widely seen as being outside the mainstream career path — risky and not particularly career-enhancing. This assessment is reinforced by such events as the recent release of the memos.

At the CIA, being a counterterrorism specialist in the clandestine service means that you will most likely spend much of your life in places line Sanaa, Islamabad and Kabul instead of Vienna, Paris or London. This means that, in addition to hurting your chances for career advancement, your job also is quite dangerous, provides relatively poor living conditions for your family and offers the possibility of contracting serious diseases.

While being declared persona non grata and getting kicked out of a country as part of an intelligence spat is considered almost a badge of honor at the CIA, the threat of being arrested and indicted for participating in the rendition of a terrorist suspect from an allied country like Italy is not. Equally unappealing is being sued in civil court by a terrorist suspect or facing the possibility of prosecution after a change of government in the United States. Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of CIA case officers who are choosing to carry personal liability insurance because they do not trust the agency and the U.S. government to look out for their best interests.

Now, there are officers who are willing to endure hardship and who do not really care much about career advancement, but for those officers there is another hazard — frustration. Aggressive officers dedicated to the counterterrorism mission quickly learn that many of the people in the food chain above them are concerned about their careers, and these superiors often take measures to rein in their less-mainstream subordinates. Additionally, due to the restrictions brought about by laws and regulations like the Torricelli Amendment, case officers working counterterrorism are often tightly bound by myriad legal restrictions.

Unlike in television shows like “24,” it is not uncommon in the real world for a meeting called to plan a counterterrorism operation to feature more CIA lawyers than case officers or analysts. These staff lawyers are intricately involved in the operational decisions made at headquarters, and legal issues often trump operational considerations. The need to obtain legal approval often delays decisions long enough for a critical window of operational opportunity to be slammed shut. This restrictive legal environment goes back many years in the CIA and is not a new fixture brought in by the Obama administration. There was a sense of urgency that served to trump the lawyers to some extent after 9/11, but the lawyers never went away and have reasserted themselves firmly over the past several years.

Of course, the CIA is not the only agency with a culture that is less than supportive of the counterterrorism mission. Although the prevention of terrorist attacks in the United States is currently the FBI’s No. 1 priority on paper, the counterterrorism mission remains the bureauÂ’s redheaded stepchild. The FBI is struggling to find agents willing to serve in the counterterrorism sections of field offices, resident agencies (smaller offices that report to a field office) and joint terrorism task forces.

While the CIA was very much built on the legacy of Wild Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services, the FBI was founded by J. Edgar Hoover, a conservative and risk-averse administrator who served as FBI director from 1935-1972. Even today, Hoover’s influence is clearly evident in the FBI’s bureaucratic nature. FBI special agents are unable to do much at all, such as open an investigation, without a supervisor’s approval, and supervisors are reluctant to approve anything too adventurous because of the impact it might have on their chance for promotion. Unlike many other law enforcement agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI rarely uses its own special agents in an undercover capacity to penetrate criminal organizations. That practice is seen as being too risky; they prefer to use confidential informants rather than undercover operatives.

The FBI is also strongly tied to its roots in law enforcement and criminal investigation, and special agents who work major theft, public corruption or white-collar crime cases tend to receive more recognition — and advance more quickly — than their counterterrorism counterparts.

FBI special agents also see a considerable downside to working counterterrorism cases because of the potential for such cases to blow up in their faces if they make a mistake — such as in the New York field office’s highly publicized mishandling of the informant whom they had inserted into the group that later conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It is much safer, and far more rewarding from a career perspective, to work bank robberies or serve in the FBI’s Inspection Division.

After the 9/11 attacks — and the corresponding spike in the importance of counterterrorism operations — many of the resources of the CIA and FBI were focused on al Qaeda and terrorism, to the detriment of programs such as foreign counterintelligence. However, the more time that has passed since 9/11 without another major attack, the more the organizational culture of the U.S government has returned to normal. Once again, counterterrorism efforts are seen as being ancillary duties rather than the organizations’ driving mission. (The clash between organizational culture and the counterterrorism mission is by no means confined to the CIA and FBI. Fred’s book “Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent” provides a detailed examination of some of the bureaucratic and cultural challenges we faced while serving in the Counterterrorism Investigations Division of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.)

Liaison Services

One of the least well known, and perhaps most important, sources of intelligence in the counterterrorism field is the information that is obtained as a result of close relationships with allied intelligence agencies — often referred to as information obtained through “liaison channels.”

Like FBI agents, most CIA officers are well-educated, middle-aged white guys. This means they are better suited to use the cover of an American businessmen or diplomat than to pretend to be a young Muslim trying to join al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Like their counterparts in the FBI, CIA officers have far more success using informants than they do working undercover inside terrorist groups.

Services like the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, the Saudi Mabahith or the Yemeni National Security Agency not only can recruit sources, but also are far more successful in using young Muslim officers to penetrate terrorist groups. In addition to their source networks and penetration operations, many of these liaison services are not at all squeamish about using extremely enhanced interrogation techniques — this is the reason many of the terrorism suspects who were the subject of rendition operations ended up in such locations. Obviously, whenever the CIA is dealing with a liaison service, the political interests and objectives of the service must be considered — as should the possibility that the liaison service is fabricating the intelligence in question for whatever reason. Still, in the end, the CIA historically has received a significant amount of important intelligence (perhaps even most of its intelligence) via liaison channels.

Another concern that arises from the call for a truth commission is the impact a commission investigation could have on the liaison services that have helped the United States in its counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. Countries that hosted CIA detention facilities or were involved in the rendition or interrogation of terrorist suspects may find themselves exposed publicly or even held up for some sort of sanction by the U.S. Congress. Such activities could have a real impact on the amount of cooperation and information the CIA receives from these intelligence services.

Conclusion

As we’ve previously noted, it was a lack of intelligence that helped fuel the fear that led the Bush administration to authorize enhanced interrogation techniques. Ironically, the current investigation into those techniques and other practices (such as renditions) may very well lead to significant gaps in terrorism-related intelligence from both internal and liaison sources — again, not primarily because of the prohibition of torture, but because of larger implications.

When these implications are combined with the long-standing institutional aversion of U.S. government agencies toward counterterrorism, and with the difficulty of finding and retaining good people willing to serve in counterterrorism roles, the U.S. counterterrorism community may soon be facing challenges even more daunting than those posed by its already difficult mission.

© Stratfor

Potenza visionaria: nelle pagine di La morsa ce n’è tanta da essere scagliati in un mondo parallelo che emerge grazie alla penna di Loretta Napoleoni, esperta internazionale di economia e terrorismo. «Distratti da Al Qaeda, derubati da Wall Street. Come ne usciamo?» si chiede il sottotitolo del libro edito dalla Chiare lettere. Napoleoni stabilisce un link diretto fra i due shock dell’inizio del Ventunesimo secolo, l’attacco alle Torri gemelle e il crollo del castello di carta finanziario: 2001-2008, eventi lontanissimi collegati dalla strategia (sbagliata) post 11 settembre e dall’alimentazione di quella risposta attraverso i bassi tassi di interesse e il mercato della cuccagna. Il libro è un ruggito e un fascio di luce sul sogno tenebroso di Osama Bin Laden, dissanguare l’economia americana, che rischia di farsi realtà grazie all’harakiri di Wall Street. Si possono non condividere le premesse e le conclusioni, ma è difficile non restare affascinati e incastrati nella lettura di La morsa.

© Panorama

By George Friedman

The Obama administration published a series of memoranda on torture issued under the Bush administration. The memoranda, most of which dated from the period after 9/11, authorized measures including depriving prisoners of solid food, having them stand shackled and in uncomfortable positions, leaving them in cold cells with inadequate clothing, slapping their heads and/or abdomens, and telling them that their families might be harmed if they didn’t cooperate with their interrogators.

On the scale of human cruelty, these actions do not rise anywhere near the top. At the same time, anyone who thinks that being placed without food in a freezing cell subject to random mild beatings — all while being told that your family might be joining you — isn’t agonizing clearly lacks imagination. The treatment of detainees could have been worse. It was terrible nonetheless.

Torture and the Intelligence Gap

But torture is meant to be terrible, and we must judge the torturer in the context of his own desperation. In the wake of 9/11, anyone who wasn’t terrified was not in touch with reality. We know several people who now are quite blasé about 9/11. Unfortunately for them, we knew them in the months after, and they were not nearly as composed then as they are now.

Sept. 11 was terrifying for one main reason: We had little idea about al Qaeda’s capabilities. It was a very reasonable assumption that other al Qaeda cells were operating in the United States and that any day might bring follow-on attacks. (Especially given the group’s reputation for one-two attacks.) We still remember our first flight after 9/11, looking at our fellow passengers, planning what we would do if one of them moved. Every time a passenger visited the lavatory, one could see the tensions soar.

And while Sept. 11 was frightening enough, there were ample fears that al Qaeda had secured a “suitcase bomb” and that a nuclear attack on a major U.S. city could come at any moment. For individuals, such an attack was simply another possibility. We remember staying at a hotel in Washington close to the White House and realizing that we were at ground zero — and imagining what the next moment might be like. For the government, however, the problem was having scraps of intelligence indicating that al Qaeda might have a nuclear weapon, but not having any way of telling whether those scraps had any value. The president and vice president accordingly were continually kept at different locations, and not for any frivolous reason.

This lack of intelligence led directly to the most extreme fears, which in turn led to extreme measures. Washington simply did not know very much about al Qaeda and its capabilities and intentions in the United States. A lack of knowledge forces people to think of worst-case scenarios. In the absence of intelligence to the contrary after 9/11, the only reasonable assumption was that al Qaeda was planning more — and perhaps worse — attacks.

Collecting intelligence rapidly became the highest national priority. Given the genuine and reasonable fears, no action in pursuit of intelligence was out of the question, so long as it promised quick answers. This led to the authorization of torture, among other things. Torture offered a rapid means to accumulate intelligence, or at least — given the time lag on other means — it was something that had to be tried.

Torture and the Moral Question

And this raises the moral question. The United States is a moral project: its Declaration of Independence and Constitution state that. The president takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. The Constitution does not speak to the question of torture of non-citizens, but it implies an abhorrence of rights violations (at least for citizens). But the Declaration of Independence contains the phrase, “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” This indicates that world opinion matters.

At the same time, the president is sworn to protect the Constitution. In practical terms, this means protecting the physical security of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Protecting the principles of the declaration and the Constitution are meaningless without regime preservation and defending the nation.

While this all makes for an interesting seminar in political philosophy, presidents — and others who have taken the same oath — do not have the luxury of the contemplative life. They must act on their oaths, and inaction is an action. Former U.S. President George W. Bush knew that he did not know the threat, and that in order to carry out his oath, he needed very rapidly to find out the threat. He could not know that torture would work, but he clearly did not feel that he had the right to avoid it.

Consider this example. Assume you knew that a certain individual knew the location of a nuclear device planted in an American city. The device would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, but he individual refused to divulge the information. Would anyone who had sworn the oath have the right not to torture the individual? Torture might or might not work, but either way, would it be moral to protect the individual’s rights while allowing hundreds of thousands to die? It would seem that in this case, torture is a moral imperative; the rights of the one with the information cannot transcend the life of a city.

Torture in the Real World

But here is the problem: You would not find yourself in this situation. Knowing a bomb had been planted, knowing who knew that the bomb had been planted, and needing only to apply torture to extract this information is not how the real world works. Post-9/11, the United States knew much less about the extent of the threat from al Qaeda. This hypothetical sort of torture was not the issue.

Discrete information was not needed, but situational awareness. The United States did not know what it needed to know, it did not know who was of value and who wasn’t, and it did not know how much time it had. Torture thus was not a precise solution to a specific problem: It became an intelligence-gathering technique. The nature of the problem the United States faced forced it into indiscriminate intelligence gathering. When you don’t know what you need to know, you cast a wide net. And when torture is included in the mix, it is cast wide as well. In such a case, you know you will be following many false leads — and when you carry torture with you, you will be torturing people with little to tell you. Moreover, torture applied by anyone other than well-trained, experienced personnel (who are in exceptionally short supply) will only compound these problems, and make the practice less productive.

Defenders of torture frequently seem to believe that the person in custody is known to have valuable information, and that this information must be forced out of him. His possession of the information is proof of his guilt. The problem is that unless you have excellent intelligence to begin with, you will become engaged in developing baseline intelligence, and the person you are torturing may well know nothing at all. Torture thus becomes not only a waste of time and a violation of decency, it actually undermines good intelligence. After a while, scooping up suspects in a dragnet and trying to extract intelligence becomes a substitute for competent intelligence techniques — and can potentially blind the intelligence service. This is especially true as people will tell you what they think you want to hear to make torture stop.

Critics of torture, on the other hand, seem to assume the torture was brutality for the sake of brutality instead of a desperate attempt to get some clarity on what might well have been a catastrophic outcome. The critics also cannot know the extent to which the use of torture actually prevented follow-on attacks. They assume that to the extent that torture was useful, it was not essential; that there were other ways to find out what was needed. In the long run, they might have been correct. But neither they, nor anyone else, had the right to assume in late 2001 that there was a long run. One of the things that wasn’t known was how much time there was.

The U.S. Intelligence Failure

The endless argument over torture, the posturing of both critics and defenders, misses the crucial point. The United States turned to torture because it has experienced a massive intelligence failure reaching back a decade. The U.S. intelligence community simply failed to gather sufficient information on al Qaeda’s intentions, capability, organization and personnel. The use of torture was not part of a competent intelligence effort, but a response to a massive intelligence failure.

That failure was rooted in a range of miscalculations over time. There was the public belief that the end of the Cold War meant the United States didn’t need a major intelligence effort, a point made by the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan. There were the intelligence people who regarded Afghanistan as old news. There was the Torricelli amendment that made recruiting people with ties to terrorist groups illegal without special approval. There were the Middle East experts who could not understand that al Qaeda was fundamentally different from anything seen before. The list of the guilty is endless, and ultimately includes the American people, who always seem to believe that the view of the world as a dangerous place is something made up by contractors and bureaucrats.

Bush was handed an impossible situation on Sept. 11, after just nine months in office. The country demanded protection, and given the intelligence shambles he inherited, he reacted about as well or badly as anyone else might have in the situation. He used the tools he had, and hoped they were good enough.

The problem with torture — as with other exceptional measures — is that it is useful, at best, in extraordinary situations. The problem with all such techniques in the hands of bureaucracies is that the extraordinary in due course becomes the routine, and torture as a desperate stopgap measure becomes a routine part of the intelligence interrogator’s tool kit.

At a certain point, the emergency was over. U.S. intelligence had focused itself and had developed an increasingly coherent picture of al Qaeda, with the aid of allied Muslim intelligence agencies, and was able to start taking a toll on al Qaeda. The war had become routinized, and extraordinary measures were no longer essential. But the routinization of the extraordinary is the built-in danger of bureaucracy, and what began as a response to unprecedented dangers became part of the process. Bush had an opportunity to move beyond the emergency. He didn’t.

If you know that an individual is loaded with information, torture can be a useful tool. But if you have so much intelligence that you already know enough to identify the individual is loaded with information, then you have come pretty close to winning the intelligence war. That’s not when you use torture. That’s when you simply point out to the prisoner that, “for you the war is over.” You lay out all you already know and how much you know about him. That is as demoralizing as freezing in a cell — and helps your interrogators keep their balance.

U.S. President Barack Obama has handled this issue in the style to which we have become accustomed, and which is as practical a solution as possible. He has published the memos authorizing torture to make this entirely a Bush administration problem while refusing to prosecute anyone associated with torture, keeping the issue from becoming overly divisive. Good politics perhaps, but not something that deals with the fundamental question.

The fundamental question remains unanswered, and may remain unanswered. When a president takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” what are the limits on his obligation? We take the oath for granted. But it should be considered carefully by anyone entering this debate, particularly for presidents.

© Stratfor

Battute parlamentari: «La voluminosa biografia di von Verdini racconta che un giorno il centrodestra italiano passò dal Parteienstaat teorizzato da Hans Kelsen al Gazebostaat…». Evocato al cospetto dei gonfi arancini di riso della buvette di Montecitorio, il von Verdini (per la storia contemporanea di nome fa Denis), ultimo coordinatore dell’età di mezzo di Forza Italia, prossimo triumviro con Sandro Bondi (sì, a volte ritornano) e Ignazio La Russa dell’età del partito unico, il Popolo della libertà che il 27 marzo prossimo alla Nuova Fiera di Roma celebra il congresso fondativo. Sarà un venerdì, giorno dedicato a San Ruperto, predicatore itinerante dell’Ottavo secolo, a tenere a battesimo il Pdl. Due i padrini: Silvio Berlusconi e Gianfranco Fini, tanti gli invitati a un evento che però è più interessante nella preparazione piuttosto che nella celebrazione.