From http://www.penraker.com/archives/2005_11.html:
Dana Priest is married to William Goodfellow, who is director of the "Center for Interntional Policy", which has people like Mel Goodman, (former CIA analyst and State Department Analyst working for it). Goodman goes on pacifica radio and says things like "George Tenet said to the President, ‘Oh, that's a slam dunk, Mr. President. If you want phony intelligence, I can get it for you.’
Of course, Goodman made up the part about "making up phony intelligence".
The Center also has a new initiative to revise the CIA. Among its goals: reverse the "militarization" of the intelligence community. And to stop the appointment of a CIA intelligence czar, and to keep intelligence analysis from being centralized.
That is the real story here: What in the world has gotten into the CIA? What connections does the CIA have to the Post, or Post reporters? After all those years of seeing Hollywood movies about plots by the CIA to overthrow our own government, here they are - some in the CIA seem to be working along those lines. And the Washington Post knows this, and does nothing.
None of those are my own comments. However, they could be.
VIEWPOINT: America's Home-Grown Cuba Policy
by William Goodfellow January 1999
It is important to understand that the Clinton administration's policy toward Cuba has nothing to do with foreign policy. Even as a candidate, Bill Clinton courted the right-wing Cuban community for campaign contributions. In 1992 he endorsed a bill sponsored by then-Congressman Bob Torricelli (D-NJ) to tighten the trade embargo. The Bush Administration initially opposed the Torricelli bill, fearful that its extraterritorial reach would antagonize our closest allies. Once candidate Clinton signed on, however, President Bush quickly followed.
Again in 1996 after Cuba shot down two planes sponsored by a Miami exile group, President Clinton outflanked the hard-line right by agreeing to sign a further tightening of the embargo sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN). But even the Helms-Burton position was not extreme enough. Although not pressed by conservatives to do so, the President went further by offering to codify most aspects of the embargo. Up to that point the embargo had been imposed using various executive orders, based on a "state of emergency." By helping the embargo to become a law passed by Congress, the Administration tied its own hands. Now only Congress could dismantle the embargo.
The policy has been driven in part by money, for the Cuban-American community in Miami gives generously to politicians who support their hard-line position. It also is driven by the dream of Democratic candidates to win Florida, the biggest electoral prize in the south. With Jeb Bush in the governor's office, this prize seems likely to be beyond the reach of the Democrats.
Opposition to Helms-Burton has been mounting. Our European and Canadian trading partners resent being told they cannot do business in Cuba, and last year at the UN only Israel voted with the United States in supporting the embargo. Moreover, the U.S. business community has become increasingly vocal in opposing the Cuba embargo, along with the other seventy-two embargoes Congress has imposed over the years. Members of Congress from grain-exporting states as well as traditional Republican free-traders have questioned the embargo, and every major U.S. newspaper has editorialized against the Helms-Burton law.
Policymakers at both the State Department and the National Security Council have been saying that their hands are tied; only Congress can change the policy, and that means that the Republican leadership must be brought along.
In October a group of mostly-Republican foreign policy heavyweights, including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Lawrence Eagleburger and George Shultz, endorsed the idea of a bipartisan commission to conduct a thorough review of US policy on Cuba. Senator John Warner (R- VA), chair of the Armed Services Committee, and twenty-four other senators, again mostly Republicans, signed on to the bipartisan commission idea. The Clinton Administration was being handed a way out of its self-imposed political box. The commission could provide the same kind if political cover for an opening to Cuba that Senators John McCain and John Kerry had provided for the opening to Vietnam.
Rather than run with this political gift, the President decided on January 5 that there would be no commission. Rather, he announced a series of measures that will have little if any impact on the people of Cuba. The embargo will be left intact, but it will be easier to send money to Cubans on the island. The number of direct charter flights will be increased and the licensing procedures will be streamlined somewhat. Americans are not forbidden to travel to Cuba, but it is illegal to spend money there without a license from the U.S. Treasury Department. Only government employees on official business, full-time journalists, and Treasury-approved academics, researchers, and relief workers are granted licenses, and processing applications often takes months. So far the administration has not provided details of the promised easing of travel restrictions.
The only real breakthrough in the January 5 announcement was permission for the Baltimore Orioles to play an exhibition game in Havana and for the Cuban national team to play a game in Baltimore. This idea was first broached by Fidel Castro himself some twenty years ago, and it is welcome.
America's Cuba policy remains hostage to the extreme right in Congress. The three Cuban-American members of Congress, two from Florida and one from New Jersey, along with Senators Helms and Torricelli, are calling the shots. The State Department and the National Security Council are on the sidelines, and there is no immediate prospect that the administration will try to reassert control. And there is no relief in sight. It has been widely whispered in Washington that President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and NSC head Sandy Berger all were willing to allow the commission idea to go forward, but it was Vice President Gore who pulled the plug on the idea. Whether it is President Gore, President Bush or President Dole in two years, it does not bode well for a more rational U.S. policy toward Cuba.
http://www.ffrd.org/interchange/vol9iss1/cuba.html
Here's something on Mel Goodman, who is a Senior Fellow at Dana Priest's husband's place and a former CIA Analyst. Turns out he had his turn in the spotlight for the Post's online readers to worhship.
http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/03/sp_world_goodman061003.htm
War in Iraq
With Mel Goodman
Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy
Tuesday, April 15, 2003; 10 a.m. ET
Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Before U.S. invasion, the Bush administration made a detailed case to the world about Iraq's extensive weapons capabilities. However, there has been no proof of prohibited weapons reported by coalition forces.
Mel Goodman, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and former CIA analyst, will be online Tuesday, April 15, at 10 a.m. ET to talk about intelligence investigations and inspections for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The transcript follows.
And the Washington Post knows this, and does nothing.
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Correction: ...the Washington Post knows this, and supports the efforts.
And the Washington Post knows this, and does nothing.
^^^^
Correction: ...the Washington Post knows this, and supports the efforts.