By Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 14th, 2013
Pentagon officials may well be engaging in covert actions without a legally required presidential finding andnotification of congressional intelligence committees, according to a recent federal study on the matter.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) released the study on Apr. 10th.
The CRS is a federally-funded ‘think tank’ – U.S. taxpayers shell out more than $112 million every year to fundits research. Its straightforward, non-partisan reports – written for members of Congress – explain currentpolitical events in a manner that is easily grasped by anyone with an American high school education.
But inexplicably, Congress does not allow this agency to release its unclassified publications directly to thepublic.
Below, The American Spark quotes the report’s summary:
“Published reports have suggested that in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Pentagon has expandedits counter-terrorism intelligence activities as part of what the Bush Administration termed the global war onterror. Some observers have [further] asserted that the Department of Defense (DOD) may have beenconducting certain kinds of counter-terrorism intelligence activities that would statutorily qualify as ‘covertactions,’ and thus require a presidential finding and the notification of the congressional intelligencecommittees.
“Defense officials have asserted that none of DOD’s current counter-terrorism intelligence activities constitutecovert action as defined under the law, and therefore, do not require a presidential finding and the notificationof the intelligence committees. Rather, they contend that DOD conducts only ‘clandestine activities.’ Althoughthe term is not defined by statute, these officials characterize such activities as constituting actions that areconducted in secret but which constitute ‘passive’ intelligence information gathering.
“By comparison, covert action, they contend, is ‘active,’ in that its aim is to elicit change in the political,economic, military, or diplomatic behavior of a target.
“Some of DOD’s activities have been variously described publicly as efforts to collect intelligence on terroriststhat will aid in planning counter-terrorism missions, to prepare for potential missions to disrupt, capture or killthem, and to help local militaries conduct counter-terrorism missions of their own.
“Senior U.S. intelligence community officials have conceded that the line separating Central IntelligenceAgency (CIA) and DOD intelligence activities has blurred, making it more difficult to distinguish between thetraditional secret intelligence missions carried out by each.
“They also have acknowledged that the U.S. intelligence community confronts a major challenge in clarifyingthe roles and responsibilities of various intelligence agencies with regard to clandestine activities.
“Some Pentagon officials have appeared to indicate that DOD’s activities should be limited to clandestine orpassive activities, pointing out that if such operations are discovered or are inadvertently revealed, the U.S.government would be able to preserve the option of acknowledging such activity, thus assuring the militarypersonnel who are involved some safeguards that are afforded under the Geneva Conventions.
“Covert actions, by contrast, constitute activities in which the role of the U.S. government is not intended to beapparent or to be acknowledged publicly. Those who participate in such activities could jeopardize any rightsthey may have under the Geneva Conventions, according to these officials.
“In committee report language accompanying…the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization Act, the HousePermanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) expressed its concern that the distinction between theCIA’s intelligence-gathering activities and DOD’s clandestine operations is becoming blurred and called on theDefense Department to meet its obligations to inform the committee of such activities.
“Perhaps in an effort to bring more clarity to the covert action issue, Department of Defense officials early inthe 112th Congress stated that current statute could be updated to reflect U.S. Special OperationsCommand’s list of core tasks and the missions assigned to it in the Unified Command Plan.
“But in doing so, they also noted that Section 167 [of the the Unified Command Plan] includes ‘such otheractivities as may be specified by the President or the Secretary of Defense,’ which, they argued, provides thePresident and the Secretary flexibility to meet changing circumstances.”
