The Trick Was On Us
(GETTY)
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October 31, 2009 10:56 AM And so it came to pass that on the day before Halloween 2009 we all were reminded that most of the biggest tricks of the past decade were on us.
September 21, 2009 10:13 AM 
It’s been fascinating over the past week to watch federal agents and lawyers, working with state and local counterparts 1,600 miles away, choreograph the events leading to the arrests late Saturday night of Najibullah Zazi and his father, Wali Mohammed Zazi, on federal "false statement" charges. Is this the "first al-Qaeda terror cell" discovered in the United States since 9/11 or is it something far less sinister? Even the feds don’t really know for sure.
That didn’t stop them, however, from clicking off all of the elements of their perennial song-and-dance number in terror-plot cases; this time from New York to Denver to Washington and back. The prejudicial leaks from law enforcement; the prompt (and promptly repeated) links to al Qaeda; the dramatic headlines, the identification of a "person of interest;" the assurances that no particular target had been specified; the intercession of an overwhelmed defense attorney; the denials, the meetings, the breakdown in talks, and, finally, the arrest (late at night, but with the tipped-off news cameras hovering above and about).
We’ve seen various iterations of the perp-walk parade hundreds of times before, in cases that merited the attention or not, and certainly dozens of times since Sept. 11, 2001. Often, way too often, the government has in the end been able or willing to prove far less than the initial (and often hysterical and hysterically received) allegations — distributed (typically without challenge) via cable television and the Internet — suggested.
Snazzy Zazi Plot But No Terror Charges
(AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
That didn’t stop them, however, from clicking off all of the elements of their perennial song-and-dance number in terror-plot cases; this time from New York to Denver to Washington and back. The prejudicial leaks from law enforcement; the prompt (and promptly repeated) links to al Qaeda; the dramatic headlines, the identification of a "person of interest;" the assurances that no particular target had been specified; the intercession of an overwhelmed defense attorney; the denials, the meetings, the breakdown in talks, and, finally, the arrest (late at night, but with the tipped-off news cameras hovering above and about).
We’ve seen various iterations of the perp-walk parade hundreds of times before, in cases that merited the attention or not, and certainly dozens of times since Sept. 11, 2001. Often, way too often, the government has in the end been able or willing to prove far less than the initial (and often hysterical and hysterically received) allegations — distributed (typically without challenge) via cable television and the Internet — suggested.
August 24, 2009 3:27 PM 
This hot August day really is a dog for the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Justice Department releases a declassified report (drafted in 2004 by the CIA's Inspector General) which contains brutally embarrassing details about past interrogation tactics. The White House announces the formation of a new, elite, highly-complex interrogation team that places the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Council and not the CIA at the core of future questioning sessions of terror suspects. And then the Justice Department comes back with its own internal report recommending the renewal of a criminal probe into past prisoner abuse by CIA agents.
It's been such a tough day in the spy world that CIA Director Leon Panetta had to draft and circulate a "cheer up, buck up" memo to his staff, reminding them in self-serving bureaucratic fashion that what some of them did to those detainees back in 2002 and 2003 was pre-approved by Bush-era lawyers through those Office of Legal Counsel "torture memos."
"For the CIA now," Panetta wrote today, "the challenge is not the battles of yesterday, but those of today and tomorrow. It is there that we must work to enhance the safety of our country. That is the job the American people want us to do…"
This confluence of events over prisoner abuse and the CIA's role in it has been coming for a long, long time. And yet there are still so many moving parts, so many unanswered questions, that perhaps the best course now is simply to identify a few of the most important themes and issues sure to play out over the next few days, weeks and months. Here are the first 10 angles that come to mind.
1. Just because the Justice Department's Office of Personal Responsibility has rejected Bush-era conclusions and recommended a second look at criminal prosecutions doesn't necessarily mean we'll see any current or former CIA agents as defendants anytime soon. The final call still rests with Attorney General Eric Holder and there are as many political reasons not to proceed as there are legal ones warranting trials.
10 Things About the CIA's Bad Day
(AP)
The Justice Department releases a declassified report (drafted in 2004 by the CIA's Inspector General) which contains brutally embarrassing details about past interrogation tactics. The White House announces the formation of a new, elite, highly-complex interrogation team that places the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Council and not the CIA at the core of future questioning sessions of terror suspects. And then the Justice Department comes back with its own internal report recommending the renewal of a criminal probe into past prisoner abuse by CIA agents.
It's been such a tough day in the spy world that CIA Director Leon Panetta had to draft and circulate a "cheer up, buck up" memo to his staff, reminding them in self-serving bureaucratic fashion that what some of them did to those detainees back in 2002 and 2003 was pre-approved by Bush-era lawyers through those Office of Legal Counsel "torture memos."
"For the CIA now," Panetta wrote today, "the challenge is not the battles of yesterday, but those of today and tomorrow. It is there that we must work to enhance the safety of our country. That is the job the American people want us to do…"
This confluence of events over prisoner abuse and the CIA's role in it has been coming for a long, long time. And yet there are still so many moving parts, so many unanswered questions, that perhaps the best course now is simply to identify a few of the most important themes and issues sure to play out over the next few days, weeks and months. Here are the first 10 angles that come to mind.
1. Just because the Justice Department's Office of Personal Responsibility has rejected Bush-era conclusions and recommended a second look at criminal prosecutions doesn't necessarily mean we'll see any current or former CIA agents as defendants anytime soon. The final call still rests with Attorney General Eric Holder and there are as many political reasons not to proceed as there are legal ones warranting trials.
