CIA

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Fearing Syria Spillover, CIA Ups Iraq Presence

Al-Nusra Front and al-Qaeda in Iraq closely tied, experts say

(Newser) - The US military may have pulled out of Iraq in December 2011, but now the CIA is going back in, reports the Wall Street Journal . In a series of secret decisions in 2011 and 2012, the White House directed US intelligence to take over from the military in supporting Iraq'...

Senate Confirms Brennan for CIA

Rand Paul's filibuster delayed it but didn't derail it

(Newser) - John Brennan has won Senate confirmation to head the CIA after a late struggle that had more to do with presidential power to order drone strikes than with the nominee's credentials to lead the spy agency. The vote this afternoon was 63-34. Brennan will replace Mike Morrell, the acting...

CIA Nabs bin Laden's Son-in-Law

With a little assist from Turkey

(Newser) - The CIA quietly captured Osama bin Laden's son-in-law last week and spirited him away to the US, a Turkish newspaper reported today. Turkish authorities first seized Sulaiman Abu Ghaith last month at a luxury Ankara hotel thanks to a CIA tip-off, the AFP reports. The CIA had asked Turkey...

Rand Paul Staging Old-School Filibuster

Senator holds up vote on CIA nominee over drone strategy

(Newser) - It's possible the Senate will get a chance to confirm John Brennan as the next CIA chief tomorrow—unless Rand Paul's voice holds out. The Kentucky Republican began a genuine filibuster about 11:45am today, reports USA Today . That is, he's not taking advantage of the modern...

Italian Spy Boss Gets 10 Years for Helping CIA

Niccolo Pollari sentenced over imam's 'extraordinary rendition'

(Newser) - Italy's former head of military intelligence has been sentenced to a decade in prison for helping the CIA kidnap a Muslim cleric in Milan, Reuters reports. Three Americans have also been convicted in absentia over the plot, though they're not likely to serve their sentences. Egyptian imam Abu...

US Might Expand 'Kill List' Into North Africa

Officials debate adding Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar

(Newser) - Amid the debate about whether US drone strikes go too far, the Wall Street Journal reports that US officials are considering a "significant" expansion of the nation's targeted-killing program into northwest Africa. Specifically, the powers-that-be are debating whether to add Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar to the Pentagon's...

CIA Drone Strikes Are Just Educated Guesses

Dexter Filkins: Information used to select targets 'nowhere near adequate'

(Newser) - The recent drone headlines , along with the testimony of CIA nominee John Brennan, prompt Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker to reiterate a key point about drone strikes he learned first-hand from reporting overseas: The CIA can never be positive about the targets it strikes. "Our ignorance is not...

Brennan: Always Better to Capture, Not Kill, Terrorists

Dianne Feinstein has to clear the room as CIA nominee testifies on drones

(Newser) - John Brennan, President Obama's nominee to run the CIA, went to Capitol Hill today and defended the US drone strategy he helped engineer as Obama's top counterterror adviser. The drone strikes are necessary, he testified, because the US remains "at war" with al-Qaeda and other terrorists bent...

Brennan's CIA Hearing: How Dramatic Will It Get?

Drones, torture hang over proceedings

(Newser) - John Brennan will head to Capitol Hill today for his CIA confirmation hearing, and everyone's wondering the same thing: How dramatic is this going to get? Questions are hanging in the air about the Obama administration's drone strikes, classified information, and torture, but there's a chance lawmakers...

Obama to Give Congress Classified Drone Info

White House to hand over rationale on when it's OK to target Americans

(Newser) - President Obama has directed the Justice Department to give Congress' intelligence committees access to classified legal advice providing the government's rationale for drone strikes against American citizens working with al-Qaeda abroad, a senior administration official said today. A drumbeat of demands to see the document has swelled on Capitol...

54 Countries Aided CIA in Post-9/11 Interrogations

US helpers ranged from UK to Syria: report

(Newser) - The US was far from alone in its controversial counterterror practices after 9/11: More than a quarter of the world's countries helped the agency, a new report says. Some partners hosted secret interrogation prisons; some arrested suspects; others let the CIA refuel its planes at their airports, the New ...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu Leaving, Too

He will leave as soon as his successor gets confirmed

(Newser) - President Obama has another Cabinet post to fill: Energy Secretary Steven Chu is stepping down as soon as a successor is confirmed by the Senate, reports Politico . Chu is a Nobel winner in physics who made green spending a priority, even if it occasionally backfired, as in the Solyndra debacle...

The CIA&#39;s Hypocrisy on Secrets
 The CIA's Hypocrisy on Secrets 
OPINION
Jan 9, 2013 12:43 PM CST

The CIA's Hypocrisy on Secrets

Author Ted Gup says the agency's only secretive when it wants to be

(Newser) - On Thursday, ex-CIA deputy director Jose Rodriguez publicly protested that agents had only used water bottles when waterboarding detainees, not the buckets shown in Zero Dark Thirty. Disclosures like that must chafe John Kiriakou , the ex-agent facing 30 months in prison for passing info to a reporter. "The contrast...

Obama Taps Hagel, Brennan for Pentagon, CIA

He praises both men at White House event

(Newser) - President Obama officially announced his nominations of Chuck Hagel as secretary of Defense and John Brennan as CIA director today, praising both men for their records of service at a press event in the East Room of the White House. Hagel, Obama said, "knows that war is not an...

Obama Will Tap John Brennan for CIA Director

Will nominate Brennan, Chuck Hagel today

(Newser) - President Obama will make two potentially controversial nominations this afternoon: Chuck Hagel as defense secretary and John Brennan as CIA director, the AP reports. Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, has a close relationship with the president and was very involved in planning the Osama bin Laden raid. He was...

CIA Chief Pans Zero Dark Thirty

Morell complains about emphasis on interrogation

(Newser) - Add none other than acting CIA chief Michael Morell to the list of critics of Zero Dark Thirty. In a memo to employees, Morell says the movie about the capture of Osama bin Laden gives too much weight to the use of harsh interrogation, reports E! Online . "The film...

CIA Agent Who Tracked Osama a Complicated Heroine

She's described as ambitious but prickly in 'WaPo' profile

(Newser) - It's the stuff of movies—quite literally. The Washington Post today takes a fascinating look at the minefield-filled career of the undercover agent who was key to tracking down Osama bin Laden and at the center of the Kathryn Bigelow film chronicling the manhunt. Described by the Post as...

How CIA's 94 Words on Benghazi Got It So Wrong

'WSJ' looks at how the CIA's consulate-attack talking points came to be

(Newser) - The Wall Street Journal today takes a look at the life and death of 94 little words: the heavily edited and ultimately faulty Benghazi talking points compiled by the CIA in the wake of the consulate attack.
  • Just a day after the attack, the CIA's reports were already referencing
...

Pentagon Spy Agency Sending Out Hundreds of Agents

Details emerge on the Defense Clandestine Service

(Newser) - The Pentagon's new spy agency will send up to 1,600 agents overseas to report on military matters in close cooperation with the CIA—and possibly beyond the reach of Congressional oversight, the Washington Post reports. But the agency's director, Michael Flynn, promises to keep Congress "in...

Family Sues Over Scientist's Cold War LSD Death

Sons claim CIA killed their father in 1950s

(Newser) - The sons of a Cold War scientist who plunged to his death in 1953 several days after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA mind-control experiment sued the government today. They claim the CIA murdered their father, Frank Olson, by pushing him from a 13th-story window of a hotel and that...

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