THE INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT GIVE'S THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AN "F"

We expected that it would be bad, but the IGR has confirmed some of our worst nightmares.

...The Federal Inspector General's Logo

Well, itīs taken longer than anyone expected, but the Inspector Generalīs Report (IGR) on "the intelligence and law-enforcement community of President George W. Bush" is in, and itīs even worse than expected.

The report has concluded that the Bush administration ignored and broke the law inappropriately and repeatedly in the false name of "national security". The IGR also showed that most of the Bush Administration illegalities could have been avoided and the programs could have been implemented well within the law. In fact, per the IGR: "the legal activities could have been done more efficiently and with much less damage to the system and to Americaīs attitude toward their government".

The first area that becomes glaringly apparent is that President Bush and his top aides panicked after the Sept. 11th attacks. They also manufactured the idea that they needed to repeatedly break the law in order to implement what eventually became the warrantless wiretapping program.

The IGR clearly shows that not only were laws broken unnecessarily, but the CIA could point to little direct benefit. The IGR also says that the FBI stated that most of the leads that the wiretaps produced were false and any real leads never led to an arrest.

The IGR shows that the longstanding requirement that the government obtain a warrant did not hinder any effort to gather intelligence on terrorists after the 9/11 attacks. In fact, the argument that the law was an impediment was concocted by the Bush White House and Justice Department lawyers after President Bush had already authorized spying on Americansī international communications.

The IGR confirms that the legal memo justifying warrantless wiretapping was in fact, written by John Yoo, who was the then deputy head of the Justice Departmentīs Office of Legal Counsel and the author of other memos that twisted the law to justify torture

Vice President Cheney and his ideologues have a long history against any legal constraints on the executive branchesī power, and they preyed on Americaīs 9/11 panic to advance their agenda. In this case, the IGR said, Yoo misrepresented both the law and the details of the wiretapping operation. He made it seem as if the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was outdated and that the president could ignore it. And, according to the report, Mr. Yoo bypassed all of his bosses at the Justice Department and instead, delivered his reports directly to Vice President Cheneyīs office. (Now why doesnīt that surprise me!)

Unfortunately, from the IGR, as itīs still classified, we know less (so far) about the Bush administrationīs plan to send covert paramilitary teams to assassinate al Qaeda leaders. What is abundantly clear by the IGR is that there was no legal or rational justification for Vice President Dick Cheneyīs order to conceal the program from Congress. Even though millions of dollars were spent on the program over almost 8 years, the plan was never put into full operation, apparently because it was unworkable. But itīs hard to imagine that Congress would have argued about killing terrorists or their leaders.

Until the New York Times revealed the warrantless wiretapping, for four years President Bush reauthorized the eavesdropping operation every 45 days based on memos from the intelligence community and Justice Department. The IGR states that when the "scary memos," were determined to not be "sufficiently scary", Justice Department lawyers under the direction of Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, revised them to order up additional "threat information." Each memo ended with a White House-written paragraph asserting that communications were being intercepted from terrorists who "possessed the capability and intention" to attack this country. However, there was never any real evidence provided in order to back up those White House statements.

Today, Mr. Cheney continues to claim that the warrantless wiretapping saved thousands of lives. But the IGR states that both the FBI and the CIA refute that claim, and the former vice president has produced no proof of his own to date.

The IGR shows that after Mr. Yoo and his boss, Jay Bybee, had left the Bush Justice Department, their replacements determined that the wiretapping program was totally illegal. The White House then changed parts of the program and demanded that Congress legalize it. This however, only occurred after the White House failed in forcing the new Justice Department officials to ignore their latest conclusions and after Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI threatened to resign.

Per the IGR, the Bush teamīs normal operation procedure became: "to break the law". It also became that any means was justified for ordering the nationīs intelligence agents to torture prisoners; to send innocents to be tortured in foreign countries and to create secret prisons where detainees could be held illegally without charge.

It now appears that the Bush illegalities could go well beyond the findings of the IGR. However, the majority of the memos from Mr. Yoo and others from the Bush White House are still classified. It therefore remains to be seen if the results of the IGR will become the proverbial "tip of the iceberg".

But hopefully, between the Democratic Congress and President Obama, there will eventually be a full investigation. Maybe this will eventually occur after the president is done with following through on his social programs and dealing with the jobs, education and the nationīs economy.

However, letīs hope that the "powers that be" realize that it is imperative that something must be done so that this can never happen again.

Copyright G.Ater 2009

Follow me on Twitter: gater01