Saturday, February 16, 2008
Movied
Hi I've moved to WordPress. I wasn't happy with the few template selections on Blogger and am not versed enough in html to make it work. Come visit me there!!!! Maroc Mama http://marocmama.wordpress.com
Traveler's Itch
I'm so ready to go to Morocco, it's been far too long since I've gone overseas and I really just can't wait! I found a great list of travel books on National Geographic Traveler to tide me over!
- Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger (1959). Simply said, a classic. Thesiger journeyed among the nomadic camel-breeding peoples of southern Arabia, fell in love with the desert and the Bedouin, and wrote a rich account of his experiences.
- City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, by William Dalrymple (1993). Although Dalrymple spent only 12 months in Delhi, his tour covers some 3,000 years—from the ancient (temples, palaces, despots) to curses of the modern (ubiquitous pigeons and insane taxi drivers). Part archaeological dig, part travelogue, this book is equal parts authoritative and fun, as is his In Xanadu.
- The Eighth Continent: Life, Death, and Discovery in the Lost World of Madagascar, by Peter Tyson (2000). Tyson writes of an isolated island—the world's fourth largest—that is rich in flora and fauna but threatened by ecological devastation.
- Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey, by Alison Wearing (2000). When Wearing decided to travel through Iran with a male companion—in the guise of a honeymooning couple—she raised a few eyebrows. She also blasted through Western notions of Iran as an anti-American warren of fanatical repression to reveal, instead, a place of compassionate, philosophical people. More cause for the raising of eyebrows in light of recent headlines?
- In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale, by Amitav Ghosh (1993). Indian author Ghosh moved to the Egyptian farming village of Lataifa and became engrossed in the history of an Indian slave in 12th-century Egypt. Through this exploration, Ghosh shares keen insights on ancient Muslim traditions and the modern Egyptian identity.
- Looking for Lovedu: Days and Nights in Africa, by Ann Jones (2001). At the beginning of this axle-smashing road-trip tale is a map depicting Jones's insane route from Tangier to Cape Town, which she undertook in a blue 1980 Land Rover. Her mission was to find the Lovedu people (a tribe guided by "feminine" principles), which she accomplishes in this eye-popping adventure tale.
- Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea, by Eric Hansen
I think that a trip to the library is in line today because I want to read about all of these. There are way more on the National Geographic List.
They also highlighted this book: In Arabian Nights, by Tahir Shah.
Just like a great journey, a great travel book enacts an exploration at once inward and outward. Tahir Shah's mesmerizing new memoir is just such a journey: It brings the sights, sounds, and smells of modern Morocco to vibrant life, and at the same time, it indelibly evokes the country's heart and soul.
Inspired by and grounded in that exemplary collection of Arab tales, The Thousand and One Nights—also known as the Arabian Nights—Shah interweaves descriptions of his adventures and encounters in his adopted Casablanca and around the country as he pursues a time-honored Berber quest: to find the story in his heart. In Arabian Nights, Shah's follow-up to the acclaimed The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca, is steeped in the storytelling tradition. On the one hand, Shah's father appears and reappears throughout the book, telling favored folk tales and teaching his children that such stories are "an instruction manual to the world," all the while grooming his son Tahir to carry on the family's storytelling responsibilities; on the other hand, the contemporary Moroccans Shah encounters all affirm the central educational role of the storyteller and bemoan the waning power of storytelling in their own culture.
Woven around this frame, Shah's search for the story in his heart takes him from the teeming streets of Tangier in the north, through the medieval medinas of Marrakech and Fez, to the solitary sands of the Sahara in the south. Along the way he meets a succession of colorful characters and hears their tales, from the cobbler who reverently recites "The Tale of Maruf the Cobbler" to the near-blind storyteller who entrances him with the story of Mushkil Gusha, the remover of obstacles.
Simply as a work of art and imagination, In Arabian Nights is an enthralling triumph, but in our lamentably divided modern world, it assumes an even greater importance, for Shah's account poignantly humanizes Arab culture, penetrating deep into usually unseen social and psychic layers. Like the bearer of a precious key, Shah leads us along meandering alleyways to an ancient door, which he unlocks and throws open onto the rich courtyard of traditional Arab custom and belief.
But for now I'm reading Morocco Bound: Disorienting America's Maghreb from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express by Brian T Edwards. And A Basic Course in Moroccan Arabic by Richard Harrell. I can always use more books though.....Friday, February 15, 2008
Friday and I'm skipping out of work!
That's right no work. Y is leaving Tuesday and there's too much last minute shopping to do so I had to take the day off today. We're headed out to have breakfast somewhere as we stayed home for dinner last night. We like going out to breakfast more anyway. Dinner last night was really great, we both enjoyed it so much. Very low key and relaxing here at home.
Shrimp with Limoncello Bruschetta
Chicken Scallopini
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Valentine's Day
This year is sort of a special year for me and my husband. This is our fourth Valentine's Day together and so much has changed in our lives. When we think of the first Valentine's Day we had we were seperated by thousands of miles at the beginning of our love story. Now here we are living on our own with our own little family. Seems like such a long way to come in such a short time. We're not doing anything extravagant tonight, instead I am planning our own little "lovey" dinner at home. So far my menu consists of :
Shrimp and Limoncello Bruschetta
Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Scallopini with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Herbed Orzo with Peas
Chocolate Covered Strawberries
So I'll have to add some pictures tomorrow hopefully. We'll see how it all turns out!
On another note - I found out about this conference in Rabat Morocco this April. It's called The Young Leaders Forum: Democratic Development in the Middle East and North Africa. There are conferences in Morocco, Egypt and Jordan. However it's for two days only and I doubt I could convince my boss or my husband that two days is a worthwhile trip to Morocco *sigh*
Shrimp and Limoncello Bruschetta
Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Scallopini with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Herbed Orzo with Peas
Chocolate Covered Strawberries
So I'll have to add some pictures tomorrow hopefully. We'll see how it all turns out!
On another note - I found out about this conference in Rabat Morocco this April. It's called The Young Leaders Forum: Democratic Development in the Middle East and North Africa. There are conferences in Morocco, Egypt and Jordan. However it's for two days only and I doubt I could convince my boss or my husband that two days is a worthwhile trip to Morocco *sigh*
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Why I hate Driving in DC
Tell me how fun does that look??? Not very let me tell you. I was stuck in this mess for FOUR hours last night. That's right FOUR hours to get from my office to the babysitter. I left at 4:45 and didn't get Khalil until after 9pm. Disgusting. Here's another little visual to show the distance - it's all of 10 miles.
I didn't even get to vote (which was probably the biggest heartbreak of the night for me. It's still raining with snow for tonight's communte. Let's just say I'm leaving at 3pm!!!! In case you want to read the "Ice Storm of 2008"story I'm going to add it too.
Freezing Rain Shuts Major Highways
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2008; Page A01
A sheet of ice that covered much of the Washington region late yesterday closed major highways, caused dozens of accidents, left commuters stranded for hours and caused some would-be voters to miss making it to the polls.
"It's a mess,'' said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller, who said police had 55 accidents to investigate at 8:30 p.m.
The freezing rain started just after 3 p.m., and it didn't take long to create one of the region's most miserable commutes in recent memory, with reports of scores of accidents, the closure of the region's largest highway interchange and motorists stuck for hours on roads that were as slick as a frozen lake. The freezing rain was expected to continue overnight, but temperatures were forecasted to rise by the morning rush hour.
One motorist left work an hour early to vote and ended up stuck in traffic for two hours; he missed voting by three minutes. For other commuters, icy roads, accidents and closed ramps made trips long and dangerous. There were reports of hours-long backups across the region. Route 50 was backed up from the Bay Bridge to Crofton. A trip from Ashburn to Springfield took 1 1/2 hours. Many of the 50 ramps and bridges of the Springfield interchange, which handles 430,000 vehicles a day, were closed to traffic for hours.
"It's 'motorist beware' out there," said Lon Anderson, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, as he came to a rolling stop on the Beltway about 6:30 p.m. "The biggest surprise was when I turned on my wipers and it just spread a sheet of ice across the windshield, and I couldn't see a thing. I had to put my window down and stick my head out the window."
In Maryland, a six-car pileup shut down the northbound ramp of Route 210 leading to Interstate 295 in Oxon Hill for several hours, Maryland State Police spokesman Cpl. Anthony Washington said. Washington said there were no serious injuries in the accident.
Earlier in the day, the Virginia Department of Transportation was monitoring reports of storms that were expected to hit well west and north of the Washington area. But, in part because of the presidential primary, the agency sent out 278 trucks to salt major roads and highways anyway. Morris said the speed and amount of the precipitation caught everyone by surprise. "Things just went to hell in a handbasket with the roads," she said. "It started sleeting over and icing very quickly."
Things seemed to fare better in the District, where crews were out earlier treating the roads. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) who took heat for poor snow removal in the first storm of his administration, pledged to do better. Still, there were about 15 accidents in the District between 2 and 6 p.m., injuring 12 people, authorities said.
Brandon Peloquin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling, said the freezing rain was caused by warmer air on top of colder Arctic air.
"We have warm air aloft. That's why rain is falling. But near the ground, the temperatures are below freezing," he said. Peloquin said he expected more freezing rain overnight until the Arctic air is pushed from the region this morning.
Virginia State Police noted about 10 mid-afternoon accidents near the Springfield interchange, where Interstate 395, Interstate 95 and the Beltway meet. Within a half-hour, spokeswoman Geller said, the number of accident reports spiked to 50.
Prince George's County police said that by 5:30 p.m., they were working at least 10 accidents across the county, one with serious injuries. Eastbound Route 50 was shut down in Anne Arundel County due to icy conditions on an overpass.
Other roads, ramps and interchanges closed or partially closed included Interstate 66 and the Beltway, I-66 and Route 29, and I-95 and the Prince William Parkway. In Maryland, Bladensburg Road was closed for a time. Most were reopened by late evening.
In Montgomery County, Route 355 was closed in both directions between Chestnut Street and Fulks Corner Avenue in Gaithersburg. Police also closed Great Seneca Highway between High Gables Drive and Kentlands Boulevard after a collision that might have been caused by ice, Montgomery Police Officer Melanie Hadley said. A portion of Route 29 near the border between Montgomery and the District in Silver Spring was closed because of an icy bridge, police said.
Prince William County police said they dealt with numerous accidents and road closures, which police spokeswoman 1st Sgt. Kim Chinn blamed on ice on ramps and bridges.
The same was true in Loudoun County, where school officials dismissed classes an hour early because of the weather. Icy conditions caused multiple accidents on several roads, including Route 28 and the Loudoun County Parkway, said Kraig Troxell, spokesman for the Loudoun Sheriff's Department. "Between, like, 3 and 4 we worked, like, 10 accidents, basically in the Sterling area . . . mostly fender benders," he said. "That's unusual, because usually we have issues in the west, with some of the more rural roads. You can't treat the roads before anything falls, and then it was unexpected."
The weather also created problems for voters heading to the polls after work. The drive to the polling place at Leisure World of Maryland in Silver Spring was "scary," said Joan Reynolds, 67. "But I was determined to vote."
In Arlington County, a regularly scheduled School Board meeting was cancelled, but polling stations at schools remained open.
Maryland State Highway Administration spokesman David Buck said crews were out all day salting Maryland roads, but bridges and overpasses were 2 to 3 degrees colder than surface roads and froze quickly when precipitation started to fall. "The reality is: The sun started going down, it clouded over and those couple degrees made all the difference,'' Buck said.
"The timing in the Washington region can't be any worse."
By late evening, conditions seemed to be improving, and road officials were getting a better handle on the situation. Route 50 eastbound had been completely opened, and VDOT had opened the high-occupancy-vehicle lanes.
The treacherous conditions led some to give up on voting altogether.
"I've been doing this commute for 20 years, and all the signs look really bad," said Marc Bergeron, a computer programmer who works in Herndon and lives in Bethesda. "When you walk where there's no salt, you slip."
He made it to the car, but, after seeing backups on the Dulles Toll Road, he gave up on the drive and on voting. He decided to take in a movie instead. "I was thinking I might be able to sneak it in," Bergeron said. "I would have voted for John McCain.Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A Fresh Start
I've been reinvigorated to start blogging again after being pointed in the direction of some really interesting and great blogs. I've added you to my links! Today is primary day here in the Chesapeake area and I've yet to get myself over to the ballots but never fear I will be! It will be interesting to hear what the results will be tonight. Valentine's Day is coming up and I happened to grace our local grocery store last night to find a huge arch of red heart balloons, I may have to take a picture later just to show you all how impressive this structure is haha! And the best part is that they are hand-dipping chocolate covered strawberries *buckling knees*. This is definetely not on the Biggest Loser Club diet of which I have been trying to remain on. But maybe just one?? In other news the husband and baby are gearing up for their trip across the pond. Yes, that's right my husband will be flying solo with our 13 month old to Morocco next week. I must say I have a bit of apprehension about the whole process but I trust that things will go well. He will be meeting his brother in London so at least he will have some back up at that point. We've done almost all the shopping, so some suitcase pictures will be added soon! As for me I will be preparing for 10 whole days of time alone. This will be the first time in 4 years I have had so much time alone. I am not sure what I will do with myself, but I have a sneaky suspicion much time will be spent in the library. I too will be joining them on February 29th. T minus 17 days until I'm in Marrakech again!!! I have so many plans for this visit and just can't wait!!
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Reflections of a British Muslim Extremist
American Public Media
Speaking of Faith
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/britishradical/kristasjournal.shtml
A Clash of Ideas, Not Civilizations
I heard Ed Husain being interviewed on the radio in London last summer, and knew I wanted to have him on our show. His memoir has not yet been published in the U.S., but it has put him at the center of an historic moment of debate and soul-searching in his native Britain. As our conversation goes to air, tragically, the news is full of analysis of suicide bombers and Islamism, the term political analysts seem to have settled on to describe a defining current religio-political reality. Ed Husain sheds fresh and unfamiliar light on this, and some of his insights do not fit comfortably into our usual cultural dialogue. Husain is 33 years old, and on the surface his story has the marks of a classic, coming-of-age tale — seduction by revolutionary ideas, estrangement from immigrant parents, and a true love that jolts him back to what matters in life. But his intellectual dalliance was with radical, politicized Islam flourishing at the heart of educated British culture. He shrank back only after coming close to a murder. People he loved and admired became suicide bombers.
He now lives something of a mission — a "solemn duty" — to speak out and embolden public conversations that he sees as critical to our common future: the internal dialogue among Western Muslims and the shared vocabulary of thought and action they must develop with fellow citizens of Western nations. Ed Husain's most challenging assertion, perhaps, is that in a fervor to prevent and punish terrorist acts in these years since September 11, 2001, Western governments have failed to comprehend and address the real nature of the deeper, long-term threat. He sees Al Qaeda, which so dominates American imaginations, as fragmentary at best. Behind it, powering it and other future organizations, is a "complex and subtle" mentality to which many are susceptible globally. Some themes of this conversation echo a program from the early days of Speaking of Faith that was formative for me, "The Power of Fundamentalism." I interviewed three men — a Christian seminary president, a Jewish journalist, and a Muslim lawyer and humanitarian. Each had been drawn into fundamentalist thought and camaraderie for a time in his youth. Using different words, these now erudite, accomplished men all recalled the "exhilaration" and "intoxication" of that experience, a sense of empowerment and belonging that perfectly met the longing and irascibility of youth. Ed Husain describes this too, and adds new nuance to my understanding of contemporary Islamism in particular.
The term Ummah — the ideal of the global Islamic community, which is meaningful for many Muslims — has been in the news in recent days as analysts retrace the history and reemergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. An exclusionary, politicized concept of a revolutionary Ummah — aggressively transcending other identities, allegiances, and balances of power — was a galvanizing principle for soldiers who originally came from many lands to aid in Afganistan's struggle against the Soviet army. The Ummah was also a galvanizing concept for Ed Husain between the ages of 16 and 22, as he became a progressively active member of Hizb ut-Tahrir — an organization with a prominent presence in British mosques and universities. Hizb ut-Tahrir is fully sanctioned by the British government as an expression of multiculturalism, and Ed Husain is quick to add that it is not a terrorist organization. But in the absence of a larger context of societal integration, he says, a group like this can incline vulnerable young people to a separatist and potentially violent path. He describes the compellingly political, ideological appeal of today's Islamism, which "exploits Islam's adherents" though it is "remote from Islam's teachings." In fact, Islamic scholarship and spirituality themselves provided a corrective to Ed Husain's Islamist mentality.
Through digging deeper into Islam he came to see the Ummah not as a political ideology but a spiritual community of vital diversity. And he insists that Islamic devotion can be reconciled with vigorous, responsible citizenship in Western democracies. He points to the North American Muslim community as an evolving model of this idea. I take much away from this conversation that helps me assess unfolding events. And Ed Husain's story on the whole underscores the most urgent conclusion I've drawn from the sweep of my conversations with diverse Muslims these past years — a message that starkly contradicts the language of the "clash of civilizations" that took hold in the immediate days after September 11, 2001 and has distorted our collective vision ever since. At risk of repeating myself, I'll offer it here in his words:
"This is the key," Husain says, "and this is where I don't think most non-Muslims — including most Americans — simply don't understand the stakes that we're playing for here. This phenomenon, whatever you want to call it — political Islam, extremism, Al Qaeda world view, Wahhabism — it threatens Muslims first and foremost, before it goes out and tries to undermine the West… And that's why it's not a cliché to say that the West and normal Muslims, moderate Muslims, have a common cause in defeating this extremist mindset. It threatens both of us."
Speaking of Faith
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/britishradical/kristasjournal.shtml
A Clash of Ideas, Not Civilizations
I heard Ed Husain being interviewed on the radio in London last summer, and knew I wanted to have him on our show. His memoir has not yet been published in the U.S., but it has put him at the center of an historic moment of debate and soul-searching in his native Britain. As our conversation goes to air, tragically, the news is full of analysis of suicide bombers and Islamism, the term political analysts seem to have settled on to describe a defining current religio-political reality. Ed Husain sheds fresh and unfamiliar light on this, and some of his insights do not fit comfortably into our usual cultural dialogue. Husain is 33 years old, and on the surface his story has the marks of a classic, coming-of-age tale — seduction by revolutionary ideas, estrangement from immigrant parents, and a true love that jolts him back to what matters in life. But his intellectual dalliance was with radical, politicized Islam flourishing at the heart of educated British culture. He shrank back only after coming close to a murder. People he loved and admired became suicide bombers.
He now lives something of a mission — a "solemn duty" — to speak out and embolden public conversations that he sees as critical to our common future: the internal dialogue among Western Muslims and the shared vocabulary of thought and action they must develop with fellow citizens of Western nations. Ed Husain's most challenging assertion, perhaps, is that in a fervor to prevent and punish terrorist acts in these years since September 11, 2001, Western governments have failed to comprehend and address the real nature of the deeper, long-term threat. He sees Al Qaeda, which so dominates American imaginations, as fragmentary at best. Behind it, powering it and other future organizations, is a "complex and subtle" mentality to which many are susceptible globally. Some themes of this conversation echo a program from the early days of Speaking of Faith that was formative for me, "The Power of Fundamentalism." I interviewed three men — a Christian seminary president, a Jewish journalist, and a Muslim lawyer and humanitarian. Each had been drawn into fundamentalist thought and camaraderie for a time in his youth. Using different words, these now erudite, accomplished men all recalled the "exhilaration" and "intoxication" of that experience, a sense of empowerment and belonging that perfectly met the longing and irascibility of youth. Ed Husain describes this too, and adds new nuance to my understanding of contemporary Islamism in particular.
The term Ummah — the ideal of the global Islamic community, which is meaningful for many Muslims — has been in the news in recent days as analysts retrace the history and reemergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. An exclusionary, politicized concept of a revolutionary Ummah — aggressively transcending other identities, allegiances, and balances of power — was a galvanizing principle for soldiers who originally came from many lands to aid in Afganistan's struggle against the Soviet army. The Ummah was also a galvanizing concept for Ed Husain between the ages of 16 and 22, as he became a progressively active member of Hizb ut-Tahrir — an organization with a prominent presence in British mosques and universities. Hizb ut-Tahrir is fully sanctioned by the British government as an expression of multiculturalism, and Ed Husain is quick to add that it is not a terrorist organization. But in the absence of a larger context of societal integration, he says, a group like this can incline vulnerable young people to a separatist and potentially violent path. He describes the compellingly political, ideological appeal of today's Islamism, which "exploits Islam's adherents" though it is "remote from Islam's teachings." In fact, Islamic scholarship and spirituality themselves provided a corrective to Ed Husain's Islamist mentality.
Through digging deeper into Islam he came to see the Ummah not as a political ideology but a spiritual community of vital diversity. And he insists that Islamic devotion can be reconciled with vigorous, responsible citizenship in Western democracies. He points to the North American Muslim community as an evolving model of this idea. I take much away from this conversation that helps me assess unfolding events. And Ed Husain's story on the whole underscores the most urgent conclusion I've drawn from the sweep of my conversations with diverse Muslims these past years — a message that starkly contradicts the language of the "clash of civilizations" that took hold in the immediate days after September 11, 2001 and has distorted our collective vision ever since. At risk of repeating myself, I'll offer it here in his words:
"This is the key," Husain says, "and this is where I don't think most non-Muslims — including most Americans — simply don't understand the stakes that we're playing for here. This phenomenon, whatever you want to call it — political Islam, extremism, Al Qaeda world view, Wahhabism — it threatens Muslims first and foremost, before it goes out and tries to undermine the West… And that's why it's not a cliché to say that the West and normal Muslims, moderate Muslims, have a common cause in defeating this extremist mindset. It threatens both of us."
The Spymaster
Can Mike McConnell fix America’s intelligence community?
by Lawrence Wright January 21, 2008 The New Yorker
Last May, the director of National Intelligence, a soft-spoken South Carolinian named Mike McConnell, learned that three U.S. soldiers had been captured by Sunni insurgents in central Iraq. As a search team of six thousand American and Iraqi forces combed through Babil Province, analysts at the National Security Agency, in Fort Meade, Maryland, began examining communications traffic in Iraq, hoping to pick up conversations among the soldiers’ captors. To McConnell’s consternation, such surveillance required a warrant—not because the kidnappers were entitled to constitutional protections but because their communications might pass electronically through U.S. circuits.
The kidnappings could have been just another barely noticed tragedy in a long, bloody war, but at that moment an important political debate was taking place in Washington. Lawmakers were trying to strike a balance between respecting citizens’ privacy and helping lawenforcement and intelligence officials protect the country against crime, terror, espionage, and treason. McConnell, who had been in office for less than three months when the soldiers were captured, was urging Congress to make a change in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which governs the process of eavesdropping on citizens and foreigners inside the U.S. and requires agencies to obtain a warrant within seventy-two hours after monitoring begins. The act was a response to abuses of the Nixon era, when the U.S. government turned its formidable surveillance powers against peace activists, reporters, religious groups, civil-rights workers, politicians, and even members of the Supreme Court. Over the years, the act had been amended many times, but McConnell believed that FISA—a law written before the age of cell phones, e-mail, and the Web—was dangerously outmoded. “If we don’t update FISA, the nation is significantly at risk,” McConnell told me. He said that federal judges had recently decided, in a series of secret rulings, that any telephone transmission or e-mail that incidentally flowed into U.S. computer systems was potentially subject to judicial oversight. According to McConnell, the capacity of the N.S.A. to monitor foreign-based communications had consequently been reduced by seventy per cent. Now, he claimed, the lives of three American soldiers had been thrown onto the scale.
McConnell is the head of the sprawling assemblage of covert agencies known as the “intelligence community”—a term that first appeared in the minutes of a staff meeting of the Intelligence Advisory Committee, in 1952. That year, President Truman signed a secret memorandum creating the N.S.A., which is still the largest of the sixteen intelligence bureaucracies. The Pentagon has a Defense Intelligence Agency, and each military branch has its own intelligence shop. There are three very expensive technical agencies: the N.S.A., which is responsible for code-breaking, code-making, communications monitoring, and information warfare; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which makes maps and analyzes surveillance photographs; and the National Reconnaissance Office, which provides satellite imagery. The Central Intelligence Agency is in charge of human intelligence on foreign targets, although the Defense Intelligence Agency also conducts “humint” operations for the military. Domestic intelligence is handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and divisions of the Department of Homeland Security. The State Department has its own intelligence-analysis bureau, as do the Energy and Treasury Departments. The intelligence community employs more than a hundred thousand people, including tens of thousands of private contractors. And its official budget, which last year was $43.5 billion, omits the military’s intelligence operations, which, if included, would probably push the total annual cost past $50 billion—more than the government spends on energy, scientific research, or the federal court and prison systems.
To call the disparate intelligence bureaucracies a community suggests that they share a collegial spirit, but throughout their history these organizations have been brutally competitive, undermining one another and even hoarding vital information. Since the establishment of the C.I.A., in 1947, the fractious intelligence community has botched many of the major tasks assigned to it. Its failures include the Bay of Pigs invasion, the unforeseen collapse of the Soviet Union, the inability to prevent the September 11th attacks, and the catastrophic assessment that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction. There have been successes—in 2006, American intelligence helped lead to the arrest in England of twenty-four conspirators who were plotting to blow up at least ten transatlantic airliners—but they don’t begin to outweigh the damage caused by bungled operations and misguided analysis.
Over the past sixty years, frustrated Presidents and lawmakers have commissioned more than forty studies of the nation’s intelligence operations, to determine how to rearrange, reform, or even, in some cases, abolish them. Most of these studies have concluded that the rivalries and conflicting missions of the warring agencies could be resolved only by placing a single figure in charge. Yet, until September 11th, there was no political will to do so. In 2004, after the 9/11 Commission recommended the appointment of a powerful overseer, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or O.D.N.I. Dissenting lawmakers complained that the new office would simply add another tier of bureaucrats to an already congested roster. Indeed, although the 9/11 Commission suggested that the O.D.N.I. needed no more than a few hundred employees, it has quickly expanded to some fifteen hundred. Most of these additions, however, are transfers from other agencies—a maneuver that has rankled senior intelligence managers, especially in the C.I.A., which fiercely opposed the establishment of the new office. Until the 2004 law passed, the nominal leader of the intelligence community was the head of the C.I.A. Now the agency reports to the D.N.I., just as the intelligence branch of the Coast Guard does.
Rest of the story
by Lawrence Wright January 21, 2008 The New Yorker
Last May, the director of National Intelligence, a soft-spoken South Carolinian named Mike McConnell, learned that three U.S. soldiers had been captured by Sunni insurgents in central Iraq. As a search team of six thousand American and Iraqi forces combed through Babil Province, analysts at the National Security Agency, in Fort Meade, Maryland, began examining communications traffic in Iraq, hoping to pick up conversations among the soldiers’ captors. To McConnell’s consternation, such surveillance required a warrant—not because the kidnappers were entitled to constitutional protections but because their communications might pass electronically through U.S. circuits.
The kidnappings could have been just another barely noticed tragedy in a long, bloody war, but at that moment an important political debate was taking place in Washington. Lawmakers were trying to strike a balance between respecting citizens’ privacy and helping lawenforcement and intelligence officials protect the country against crime, terror, espionage, and treason. McConnell, who had been in office for less than three months when the soldiers were captured, was urging Congress to make a change in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which governs the process of eavesdropping on citizens and foreigners inside the U.S. and requires agencies to obtain a warrant within seventy-two hours after monitoring begins. The act was a response to abuses of the Nixon era, when the U.S. government turned its formidable surveillance powers against peace activists, reporters, religious groups, civil-rights workers, politicians, and even members of the Supreme Court. Over the years, the act had been amended many times, but McConnell believed that FISA—a law written before the age of cell phones, e-mail, and the Web—was dangerously outmoded. “If we don’t update FISA, the nation is significantly at risk,” McConnell told me. He said that federal judges had recently decided, in a series of secret rulings, that any telephone transmission or e-mail that incidentally flowed into U.S. computer systems was potentially subject to judicial oversight. According to McConnell, the capacity of the N.S.A. to monitor foreign-based communications had consequently been reduced by seventy per cent. Now, he claimed, the lives of three American soldiers had been thrown onto the scale.
McConnell is the head of the sprawling assemblage of covert agencies known as the “intelligence community”—a term that first appeared in the minutes of a staff meeting of the Intelligence Advisory Committee, in 1952. That year, President Truman signed a secret memorandum creating the N.S.A., which is still the largest of the sixteen intelligence bureaucracies. The Pentagon has a Defense Intelligence Agency, and each military branch has its own intelligence shop. There are three very expensive technical agencies: the N.S.A., which is responsible for code-breaking, code-making, communications monitoring, and information warfare; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which makes maps and analyzes surveillance photographs; and the National Reconnaissance Office, which provides satellite imagery. The Central Intelligence Agency is in charge of human intelligence on foreign targets, although the Defense Intelligence Agency also conducts “humint” operations for the military. Domestic intelligence is handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and divisions of the Department of Homeland Security. The State Department has its own intelligence-analysis bureau, as do the Energy and Treasury Departments. The intelligence community employs more than a hundred thousand people, including tens of thousands of private contractors. And its official budget, which last year was $43.5 billion, omits the military’s intelligence operations, which, if included, would probably push the total annual cost past $50 billion—more than the government spends on energy, scientific research, or the federal court and prison systems.
To call the disparate intelligence bureaucracies a community suggests that they share a collegial spirit, but throughout their history these organizations have been brutally competitive, undermining one another and even hoarding vital information. Since the establishment of the C.I.A., in 1947, the fractious intelligence community has botched many of the major tasks assigned to it. Its failures include the Bay of Pigs invasion, the unforeseen collapse of the Soviet Union, the inability to prevent the September 11th attacks, and the catastrophic assessment that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction. There have been successes—in 2006, American intelligence helped lead to the arrest in England of twenty-four conspirators who were plotting to blow up at least ten transatlantic airliners—but they don’t begin to outweigh the damage caused by bungled operations and misguided analysis.
Over the past sixty years, frustrated Presidents and lawmakers have commissioned more than forty studies of the nation’s intelligence operations, to determine how to rearrange, reform, or even, in some cases, abolish them. Most of these studies have concluded that the rivalries and conflicting missions of the warring agencies could be resolved only by placing a single figure in charge. Yet, until September 11th, there was no political will to do so. In 2004, after the 9/11 Commission recommended the appointment of a powerful overseer, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or O.D.N.I. Dissenting lawmakers complained that the new office would simply add another tier of bureaucrats to an already congested roster. Indeed, although the 9/11 Commission suggested that the O.D.N.I. needed no more than a few hundred employees, it has quickly expanded to some fifteen hundred. Most of these additions, however, are transfers from other agencies—a maneuver that has rankled senior intelligence managers, especially in the C.I.A., which fiercely opposed the establishment of the new office. Until the 2004 law passed, the nominal leader of the intelligence community was the head of the C.I.A. Now the agency reports to the D.N.I., just as the intelligence branch of the Coast Guard does.
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