(Christopher) Mellon, a former Clinton administration official, is part of a network of liberal operatives within the Pentagon and CIA who reportedly are seeking to discredit and politically disable some of the nation's most important architects of the war on terrorism and their efforts to keep weapons of mass destruction from falling into terrorist hands. Mellon already was a SSCI staffer when the Clinton administration tapped him to work as a deputy to the assistant secretary of defense for C3I (command, control, communications and intelligence), where he was responsible for security and information operations. In the C3I office, where he held a civilian rank equivalent to a three-star general, Mellon worked on intelligence-policy issues, or in the words of a former colleague, Cheryl J. Roby, "things like personnel, training and recruiting for intelligence." The office is under the purview of the undersecretary of defense for policy, a post now held by conservative Douglas J. Feith.
Clinton-era personnel reforms allowed officials of his administration to burrow into vital Pentagon posts as careerists, administration officials say, where they have been maneuvering to keep Bush loyalists out of key positions and/or undermine their authority while pushing their own political agendas that run contrary to those of the president. This network, Insight has discovered, extends to the Pentagon's outer reaches such as the National Defense University and far-flung academic and influential policy think tanks, or "CINC tanks," serving the commanders ("CINCs") of the U.S. military theaters around the world [see "Clinton Undead Haunting Pentagon," June 17, 2002].
Senate and Department of Defense (DoD) colleagues say Mellon has a beef against Feith and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, under whom he served briefly until the new Bush administration made its full transition into office. Intelligence sources say he tried to keep conservatives out of key Pentagon posts and to undermine tough antiterrorism policies after 9/11. Back at the SSCI, Mellon's chief targets for criticism have been Feith and his like-minded State Department colleague, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who holds the nonproliferation portfolio. Both Feith and Bolton are strong supporters of President Bush's advocacy of "regime change" for rogue states and are considered to be among the most faithful advocates in the administration of his personal policy positions.
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In his first tour on the Senate intelligence committee, he served as an appointee of the late liberal Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.) when George Tenet, a Democrat who now is director of the CIA, was committee staff director. Mellon then took the C3I post at the Pentagon when William Cohen, the liberal Republican senator from Maine, became secretary of defense for Clinton.
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"Viseon Names Christopher Mellon to Advisory Board
5/11/2004
Tuesday May 11, 11:17 am ET
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2004--Viseon, Inc. (OTCBB:VSNI - News), a global developer of broadband personal video communications solutions, today announced that Christopher Mellon, former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, has joined the Viseon Advisory Board. Mr. Mellon is also an adjunct Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
snip
Mr. Mellon served on Capitol Hill, including 10 years as a staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and within the Defense Department for almost five years until April 2004.
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Christopher Mellon
Christopher Mellon has served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence since November of 1999. From June 1998 through November 1999, Mr. Mellon served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security and Information Operations. In that capacity he was responsible for policy and programmatic oversight of information assurance, critical infrastructure protection, security, counterintelligence, and information operations strategy and integration. Mr. Mellon went to the Pentagon as a member of Secretary Cohen's transition team on January 2, 1997. Following the transition, Mr. Mellon was appointed as the Coordinator for Advanced Concepts and Program Integration, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, concentrating on encryption and information assurance issues. From November 1997 to June 1998, he served as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Policy, providing advice on a range of intelligence issues. Before joining the Department of Defense, Mr. Mellon served for 12 years in a variety of positions on Capitol Hill including nearly 10 years as a professional staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Mellon received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics at Colby College. He earned his Masters Degree from Yale University in International Relations, with a concentration in finance and management.
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Friday, Nov. 7, 2003 11:49 a.m. EST
Clinton Appointee Linked to Bombshell Anti-Bush Intel Memo
A former member of the Clinton administration is being linked to a bombshell Senate Intelligence Committee memo outlining a strategy to use Iraq war intelligence gathered by the committee to help drive President Bush from office in 2004.
In an editorial Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported:
"[Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V.] refuses to denounce the memo, which he says was unauthorized and written by staffers. If that's the case, at the very least, some heads ought to roll. A good place to start would be minority staffer Christopher Mellon, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton administration."
One of Mellon's former bosses, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Last week she accused the White House of trying cover up battlefield casualties and said Bush's decision to invade Iraq was "the antithesis of the rule of law."
The Journal recommended that until those responsible for the Democrats' decision to politicize intelligence are fired, the intelligence committee should be "shut down, cleaned out and reconstituted later, preferably after the next election."
On Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia said that attempts by committee Democrats to undermine an American president during a time of war were "perhaps treasonous."
"If what has happened here is not treason, it is its first cousin," Miller charged in a statement released by his office.
Still, elected Republicans both on and off the Senate Intelligence Committee have expressed nothing like Miller's outrage.
Instead of confronting Democrats over what may be the most serious breach of national security since the Clinton administration allowed a Democratic Party donor to provide missile guidance technology to China, Republicans have urged further bipartisan cooperation with Rockefeller and his staff.
Asked on Thursday what needed to be done to address the security breach, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said only: "The answer is simple. We go back to work. We have documents yet to review."
Is Mellon the scum that's doing all the leaking of stuff. He seems to be really connected within the DOD - he needs to be FIRED!!
"reforms?" more like the workings of a person who would start his tenure by firing every U.S. Attorney in the country. I believe that the many Clinton loyalist appointees who got civil service protection by these "reforms" are responsible for many leaks and for sabotage of the current administration.