Free Republic

Roger Morris: The government is hardening up. And the CIA is arguably worse now than it’s ever been in its history. It’s more far-flung, it’s more powerful. You’ve got this whole shadow world of mercenaries. The Agency always had contract people out there, but it’s true now you’ve got literally a shadow armed forces in the mercenaries, in the Pentagon. You’ve got a shadow intelligence operation in the Pentagon. (snip) It’s a huge shadow world. And the reason it’s come into existence is that it’s occupied a vacuum. There’s no one on the other side to even look at it....

Sunday, April 6, 2003 P-I Focus: The road the U.S. traveled to Baghdad was paved by 'Scoop' Jackson The hawks' hawk ROGER MORRIS America's attack on Iraq started 65 years ago in the wooded curving inlets and gentle fog of Snohomish County. At least that's one genealogy of the war, curling back through closed-door politics where so much of U.S. history happens. Nineteen thirty-eight was the year Henry Martin Jackson, an ambitious 26-year-old Democrat from Everett fresh out of the University of Washington Law School, was elected prosecuting attorney for Snohomish County. As usual, few outside Washington state noticed the...

A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making By ROGER MORRIS SEATTLE — On the brink of war, both supporters and critics of United States policy on Iraq agree on the origins, at least, of the haunted relations that have brought us to this pass: America's dealings with Saddam Hussein, justifiable or not, began some two decades ago with its shadowy, expedient support of his regime in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980's. Both sides are mistaken. Washington's policy traces an even longer, more shrouded and fateful history. Forty years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency, under President John F. Kennedy, conducted...