CIA

His position seems to cover any bill (or person) imaginable.

The author of a new book on the tool’s legacy describes its almost mythical authority.

The former CIA director is no hero.

The creation of the U-2 reconnaissance plane and its role in two tense Cold War episodes.

Ranking Democrat on the Intelligence committee Mark Warner noted she has widespread support at Langley.

She is expected to get enough support in the full Senate to be confirmed.

Meet the new swamp.

The former clandestine officer said she would not allow the CIA to engage in morally objectionable behavior under her watch.

The nominee to be the agency's first female director helped tear down an old-boys culture.

Haspel has ringing endorsements from top former intelligence officials, but Democrats aren’t impressed.

If Democrats love the United States and loathe Donald Trump as much as they claim—and we have no reason to doubt their sincerity in these regards—they ought to express delight and gratitude when the president appoints someone with none of his own odious qualities to a high-level position. Instead,…

The secretary of state nominee faced repeated questioning about Mueller.

Arizona senator John McCain is asking the president’s pick for CIA director to expand on her involvement in the agency’s enhanced interrogation program, amid adamant objections to her nomination from one other Republican lawmaker.

The opening shots in the battle over Gina Haspel's nomination to lead the CIA badly missed their target Thursday, when ProPublica corrected a report that featured a number of false allegations about Haspel's involvement in the CIA's enhanced interrogation program. Senator Rand Paul, who repeatedly…

The conventional wisdom on the firing of Rex Tillerson congealed quickly: He was an ineffective secretary of state who played a crucial role in constraining the president’s reckless foreign policy instincts.

On March 13, President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson—via Twitter—and replaced him with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo. The choice of Pompeo to lead the State Department is an excellent one. At Langley, he earned the respect of a bureaucracy deeply…

Kentucky senator Rand Paul said he would oppose the president’s picks for secretary of state and CIA director, criticizing one over what he described as support for regime change and both for their links to torture.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that he would be disappointed if Democrats raised fresh objections to the nomination of Gina Haspel as CIA director.

This story is developing and will be updated as necessary.

“You dirty son of a bitch.  .  . somebody’s got to beat you up and I hereby appoint myself.” Thus Edward Lansdale recalled addressing the CIA station chief in Saigon in the mid-1950s, when Lansdale was a CIA operative under cover of assistant air attaché at the American embassy. Whether or not his…

CIA director Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that the agency had, until a year ago, not been paying enough attention to North Korea, even as the Hermit Kingdom worked to advance its weapons capability.

The world has not seen the last of the anti-regime protests that have swept Iran in recent weeks, the Trump administration’s intelligence chief said Sunday.

The Obama administration hobbled a covert initiative that tracked Hezbollah’s web of criminal activities, allowing millions of dollars to fall into the hands of the Iran-backed militia, according to a Politico report. Efforts to stymie the initiative, former officials told Politico, were fueled in…

A job shuffle that would put Senator Tom Cotton in charge of the CIA is one of the worst ideas to come out of the Trump administration.

Discussions to remove Rex Tillerson from the State Department and replace him with CIA director Mike Pompeo have been going on for months, even if State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert says White House chief of staff John Kelly is telling State the “rumors are not true.”

The White House is moving forward with a plan to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA director Mike Pompeo. The New York Times reports Tillerson could be forced out “within the next several weeks.”

The trial of Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the first person to be publicly charged in connection with the 2012 Benghazi attacks, is becoming mired in discord, as the government and defense appear at odds over explosive intelligence that could put a dent in the government’s portrayal of Khatallah as the…

Ned Price is not happy.

More than 16 years after the September 11, 2001, hijackings, America remains at war with jihadist groups around the globe. From South Asia through the heart of the Middle East and into West Africa, American forces are battling terrorist organizations that seek to control territory while threatening…

Vice President Mike Pence made a relatively quiet visit to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday. According to the White House schedule, the visit consisted a series of briefings with CIA officials, but Pence also delivered prepared remarks to agents and employees there.

CIA director Mike Pompeo described the connection between Iran and al-Qaeda as an “open secret” Thursday, a relationship that he and others criticized the Obama White House for downplaying.

CIA director Mike Pompeo cancelled a scheduled appearance at Harvard Thursday after the university hired Chelsea Manning, a former Army private and leaker who Pompeo described as an “American traitor.”

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell resigned Thursday from his position at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, one day after the school announced it would bring Chelsea Manning to its Institute of Politics as a visiting fellow for the upcoming year.

The cache of al-Qaeda documents captured in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin-Laden will soon be released to the public, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Monday.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump was shown a disturbing video of Syrian rebels beheading a child near the city of Aleppo. It had caused a minor stir in the press as the fighters belonged to the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, a group that had been supported by the CIA as part of its rebel…

William Faulkner once mused that the past is never dead, in fact it’s not even past. The story of the coup that toppled Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 may not be dead, but it is unhinged from history. Tall tales by a scion of the American establishment—former CIA agent and…

Intelligence agencies are supplying the House Intelligence Committee with information about unmasking requests made by three former Obama administration officials, a spokesman for the committee chairman told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

For most of last week, the report on enhanced interrogations produced by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dominated headlines. To the extent that there was a debate at all, it was one-sided. News coverage routinely described the findings as the “Senate torture report,” often…

When President Donald Trump visited the CIA Saturday, he had hoped that CIA Director Mike Pompeo would accompany him. But when Trump arrived at the Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the Agency, he was instead accompanied by Congressman Mike Pompeo.

When the secret military documents stolen by former Army private Chelsea Manning were released by WikiLeaks, the official position of the Pentagon was that Manning's illegal actions had endangered the lives of American soldiers.

During Monday's edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, THE WEEKLY STANDARD editor at large Bill Kristol sided with CIA Director John Brennan's assessment that President-elect Donald Trump "[did not have] a full appreciation of Russian capabilities … intentions and actions." Trump tweeted his…

It was an appropriate, if inauspicious, beginning to Thursday's confirmation hearing for Mike Pompeo that the lights suddenly went out during opening statements. The Kansas congressman is Donald Trump's selection to head the Central Intelligence Agency, which operates in the shadows. But even this…

Testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA director nominee and Kansas Republican Mike Pompeo, was grilled by newly elected Senator Kamala Harris of California over the Central Intelligence Agency's human resources and employee benefits policies regarding gays and lesbians…

Arizona senator John McCain criticized President Obama's response to Russian attempts to influence the presidential election and doubled down on calls for a congressional select committee to investigate the Kremlin's involvement.

Is the CIA, or some part of it, angry with Donald Trump? Even before the president-elect perhaps unwisely insulted the agency by citing its failures to assess correctly the status of Saddam Hussein's WMD program, someone high up at the CIA seemed to have it in for the incoming commander-in-chief.

A veteran intelligence official slammed the Obama administration for ignoring a range of Iran's destructive activities in order to preserve the nuclear deal, and advised the incoming Trump administration to harshly retaliate against Tehran's illicit pursuits.

When the new casts out the old, an incoming administration has the opportunity to review its predecessor’s approach to the Central Intelligence Agency. When this is done, the focus is usually on the ethics of Langley and politically disturbing covert action. The Obama administration was…

Three-term U.S. House member Mike Pompeo of Kansas has been selected by Donald Trump to head the Central Intelligence Agency. A cursory glance at his biography shows he's eminently qualified. Pompeo was first in his class at West Point, served as an Army officer during the cold war in Europe, and…

When Evan McMullin was growing up just outside of Seattle, he wanted to be a filmmaker. He and his friends would film their own movies around the neighborhood and edit them on his VCR. “Some of them were pretty good," he says.

Not long ago, a slick, viral video appeared in my Facebook feed. Produced by Al Jazeera Plus, it featured a woman named Amaryllis Fox talking about what she had learned working for the CIA. I was frankly alarmed by a lot of what she said.

Hillary Clinton is running her first national television commerical, and amidst a cloud of scandal and falling poll numbers, she’s already playing defense. The ad claims that the House Republicans’ committee to investigate Benghazi “was created to destroy her candidacy.” That was hardly the purpose…

Earlier this summer, we learned the Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating allegations that the intelligence on ISIS was manipulated. Analysts at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, formally complained to the IG that analysis contradicting the Obama administration’s narrative on ISIS was…

Antisemitism has never been an easy subject for America’s foreign-policy establishment. Read through State Department telegrams and Central Intelligence Agency operational and intelligence cables on the Middle East and you will seldom find it discussed, even though Jew-hatred—not just…

Republican members of the House intelligence committee say the Obama administration should release more of the one million-plus documents found after the 2011 raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The U.S. government released Wednesday morning an additional 86 documents from the vast collection of documents captured during the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The new disclosures bring the total number of documents released to 120 – a tiny fraction of the more…

A new book set to be released next week alleges that the CIA took steps to prevent anti-American tirades from Chinese Communist officials from being heard in America. The details are revealed in Michael Pillsbury's The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global…

I hereby nominate Dick Cheney's answer to Chuck Todd's question about a United Nations official who's called for the criminal prosecution of U.S. interrogators, as the 2014 Sunday Show Answer of the Year:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the CIA, the Senate report, and enhanced interrogation techniques.

Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey, writing in USA Today:

An interesting interview with retired Air Force psychologist James Mitchell on the enhanced interrogation program from Vice News:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the CIA interrogation report, and how it fails to report the facts.

President Obama responds to the Senate report on the CIA:

What follows is the document written by Jason Beale -- a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized a forthcoming report,…

The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by…

The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by…

What follows is the document written by Jason Beale -- a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized in a forthcoming report…

Yesterday, the Washington Post had a lengthy report on how former CIA director Leon Panetta was sending out copies of his book nearly a month before it cleared the CIA's internal revue process to ensure that no sensitive national security information was being revealed. According to the Post,…

After nearly four years of procedural delay, the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling is set to open shortly. Sterling was indicted at the end of 2010 for leaking information about a top-secret CIA operation to James Risen of the New York Times in violation of the espionage statutes. It is…

On June 29, 2011, John Brennan, who was then a senior adviser to the president and is currently the CIA director, explained the Obama administration’s counterterrorism strategy.  

In line with President Obama's official proclamation of June as "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month," the banner headlining the website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Wednesday proclaims the agency's celebration of the same, noting, "It’s also about…

Reporting on the administration’s bungle that blew the cover of the CIA’s Afghanistan station chief, Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times does a little egregious falsifying of the historical record.  The objective, apparently, was to remind readers of how nasty the Bush administration was by…

When Hillary Clinton tweeted her support for the more than 200 Nigerian girls held by the extremist group Boko Haram, she probably did not expect that her tenure as secretary of state would soon be critically examined by the press through the lens of that very same mass kidnapping. But examined it…

My review of former top CIA lawyer John Rizzo’s book Company Man appears in the current issue of this magazine. A friend in a high place who read the review pointed out to me that the book adds something significant to our understanding of the Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, Richard Armitage, Judith…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the Benghazi testimony in Congress by former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell.

Former CIA deputy director Mike Morell, who also served a stint as acting director of Langley, is testifying before House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence today. The hearing focuses on the Obama administration’s response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

NBC reporter Chuck Todd shouted a question to President Obama about whether he still has confidence in the CIA director. The president refused to answer the question.

Two leading Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence say that Michael Morell, then acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, gave an account of his role on Benghazi that was often misleading and sometimes deliberately false.

Two leading Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence say that Michael Morell, former deputy director and twice acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, provided an account of his role on Benghazi that was often highly misleading and at times deliberately false.

For five years, the Obama administration has touted its success in the war against al Qaeda. In formal addresses, daily press briefings, and campaign speeches top administration officials have celebrated the “decimation” of al Qaeda and predicted its imminent extinction.

Truth to tell, The Scrapbook has gotten as good a laugh as anyone out of the saga of John C. Beale, the retired Environmental Protection Agency official—Princeton grad, onetime deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation, congressionally certified expert on global warming—who…

Two former CIA officials who fought in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, were asked to sign additional nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) more than six months after those attacks. The two officials, who will testify Thursday before a subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,…

It is often remarked that espionage is the second-oldest profession. Written records from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Iran suggest that spying and civilization sprang up together. In antiquity, spies could be the hidden bureaucrats of tyranny or good governance (a ruler needed to know whether a satrap…

On September 3, 2013, CIA director John Brennan sent a letter to House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers responding to questions about CIA-affiliated personnel who were on the ground during the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The letter is below:

One year after the terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, the survivors may finally begin to talk.

Various sites are reporting that the CIA has finally come clean about its role in the 1953 coup that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadeq. Monday, on the sixtieth anniversary of the coup, the National Security Archive published on its website The Battle for Iran, a report prepared in…

Even with all eyes turned toward Egypt and the increasingly violent rifts pulling that society apart, the region’s active civil war in Syria burns on. Last Thursday, the two-and-a half-year-long conflict touched neighboring Lebanon, again, when a bomb detonated in the Hezbollah-held southern…

In a May 30, 2013, letter to CIA officers on the ground last fall in Benghazi, Libya, CIA director John Brennan notified survivors of those attacks that congressional oversight committees remain interested in hearing from them.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained a copy of the letter CIA director John Brennan sent to survivors of the Benghazi terror attack:

John Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, sent a letter to each of the CIA employees who were on the ground during the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012, inviting them to share information with Congress, according to three sources familiar with the missive. Brennan sent the…

NBC reports on a "love letter" from American father to his son written on Hitler's stationery:

The Los Angeles Times reports: 

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of Operation Ajax—the notorious CIA plot that is supposed to have ousted Iranian prime minister Muhammad Mossadeq. In the intervening decades, the events of 1953 have been routinely depicted as a nefarious U.S. conspiracy that overthrew a nationalist…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with contributing editor Reuel Marc Gerecht on his piece on the Iranian regime and its apologists.

After nearly two days of editing, then CIA director David Petraeus was sent the revised Benghazi talking points on September 15, 2012. He was less than impressed, to put it mildly.

Steve Hayes on the Benghazi emails, last night on Sean Hannity's Fox News show:

Jay Carney aggressively defended the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks and the revision of CIA talking points Friday in an uncharacteristically hostile White House press briefing. But in his attempts to protect himself and his administration colleagues, Carney offered a series…

At a White House press briefing on May 1, Barack Obama spokesman Jay Carney attempted to frame new reporting on the Benghazi attacks as old news by noting that the attacks had taken place "a long time ago." 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Stephen F. Hayes on his recent piece, The Benghazi Talking Points. 

Top U.S. intelligence officials revealed new details about the exploitation of Osama bin Laden’s extensive archive during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday. The officials revealed that at least several hundred intelligence reports have been generated based on an analysis of bin…

The House Intelligence Committee will be holding a hearing on “Worldwide Threats” today. The most senior U.S. intelligence officials are scheduled to testify.

During a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center on April 30, 2012, John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, discussed “The Ethics and Efficacy of the U.S. President’s Counterterrorism Strategy.” Brennan explained that President Obama has “pledged to share as much information with the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, hosted by Michael Graham, with Jim Swift on Senator Rand Paul's filibuster of John Brennan's nomination to be director of the CIA..

Rand Paul, who is currently on the Senate floor filibustering President Obama's pick to be the next CIA director, invoked Hitler: 

In accepting the best movie award last night at the Oscars, Ben Affleck thanked Canada. 

John Brennan’s nomination to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency has sparked another debate about Langley’s priorities and deficiencies. Brennan, the king of drones at his counterterrorist perch in the White House, could accelerate, some critics fear, the agency’s transformation…

Two officials from the Obama administration are on the hot seat today on Capitol Hill: John Brennan, who is the president'a chief counterterrorism advisor and who has been nominated to lead the CIA, and Leon Panetta, the retiring defense secretary. For Brennan, the issue is whether he should be…

President Obama’s nominee for CIA director, John Brennan, has been one of the president’s closest advisers over the last four years. So it should come as no surprise that Obama wants him to run Langley. And Brennan’s boosters lay out a compelling case.

Fox News reports that John Brennan is expected to be named the new CIA director, possibly as early as tomorrow:

The Egyptian government has nabbed a major terrorist tied to the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, according to the Wall Street Journal. And that terrorist has direct, longstanding ties to al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.

Iran is claiming to have successfully "hunted" an American drone, according to a piece in the regime organ Fars News Agency. The propaganda outlet claims that this is the first time Iran has shot down an American drone.

Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, a key figure in the scandal that brought down CIA director Gen. David Petraeus, received the "country’s second-highest honor for a civilian," according to the New York Post. The honor was awarded because of the socialite's “selfless contributions” and “willingness to…

Jill Kelly, the Tampa socialite that was instrumental in bringing down CIA director David Petraeus, visited the White House three times over the course of the last year, numerous reports reveal. Kelley's most recent visit was November 4, 2012, two days before President Barack Obama was reelected to…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:

David Petraeus is going to tell members of Congress that he "knew almost immediately after the September 11th attack, that the group Ansar al Sharia, the al Qaeda sympathizing group in Libya was responsible for the attacks," CNN reports.

Marc Thiessen reports that, in fact, the CIA still has "detention authority."

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:

"The FBI probe into the sex scandal that prompted CIA Director David Petraeus to resign has expanded to ensnare Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced early Tuesday," the Washington Post reports.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta seemed not to have extensive knowledge of the Petraeus affair when talking to the press earlier today on board a flight to Australia. 

Over the weekend, New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who was just reelected, sat for a Sunday interview with CNN's Candy Crowley. They discussed the Petraeus affair, the looming fiscal cliff, and the clean-up after Hurricane Sandy.

The New York Times reports that the Petraeus affair has been known about since the summer:

This morning on NBC's Meet the Press, Andrea Mitchell revealed that the Petraeus affair would not have been public had it not been for a whistleblower who approached Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor.

Here's a letter to the New York Times Magazine's "ethicist," which was published over the summer:

A few thoughts on the resignation of David Petraeus as CIA director: Few American leaders had a stronger reputation for integrity and honor, so the reason he cited for his departure – an extramarital affair – comes as a shock to the nation and to those who know him best.

CIA director David Petraeus's statement of resignation:

What did or didn't the president do on the evening of September 11?

In a letter to the White House, four members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asked President Obama whether recent disclosures to the press of classified information on the Benghazi terrorist attacks were authorized by the Obama administration or illegal leaks subject to…

There's an interesting article on Benghazi in the Wall Street Journal, with some useful information, and lots of finger pointing and back-and-forth between the State Department and the CIA, and between Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus. Guess who's nowhere mentioned in the piece: The person who's…

Obama administration officials are feeling the pressure to answer some basic questions about their responsibility for what happened September 11 in Benghazi. As has become very clear, the administration doesn't want to answer the questions, such as what the president did and didn't do that evening;…

The White House continues to offer only this line on Benghazi:

Yesterday, the CIA insisted that "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate." The denial is in reference to the report that the CIA held back forces from helping the Americans who were under attack in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11.

Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. ” 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:

Reuel Marc Gerecht, writing in the Wall Street Journal: 

At the Washington Free Beacon, Bill Gertz has a piece about Jose Rodriguez, the former chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. Rodriguez warns that the CIA is “out of the business” of interrogating senior al Qaeda terrorists and this will eventually lead to a hole in America’s counterterrorism…

It is easy to see why double agents are the source of inspiration for many spy novels and movies. The intrigue involved, including a potentially violent end to their spy games, gives writers low-hanging fruit to pluck. But art frequently mirrors real life when it comes to double agents. Especially…

Jose Rodriguez, a former National Clandestine Service chief at the CIA, recently made the case that the search for Osama bin Laden was long, hard, and full of twists and turns.

The State Department isn't sure whether Jerusalem is the capital city of the state of Israel. In fact, yesterday, spokesman Victoria Nuland was asked, "What is the capital of Israel?" She would not say.

Jonah Goldberg: "Most Boring Guy Wins Most Boring Debate?"

Nate Silver: "Perry, Perry, Quite Contrary"

The New York Times reports that al Qaeda's number 2, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed by a CIA drone: 

New York Times: "C.I.A. Demands Cuts in Book About 9/11 and Terror Fight"

Wild Bill Donovan

General David Petraeus, the current commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said today that President Obama’s decision to withdraw over 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by September 2012 is a “more aggressive” plan than the one on which the president’s military commanders had advised.

The New York Times reports: 

Even before the successful raid against Osama bin Laden was announced, news that America’s most admired general, David Petraeus, would take the helm at the CIA while CIA director Leon Panetta would become secretary of defense had induced much discussion about the intertwining of the CIA and…

On Friday, President Barack Obama will visit the CIA’s headquarters in Virginia to thank intelligence professionals for helping to kill Osama bin Laden. According to practically all news reports detailing the operation earlier this month in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the CIA was integral in providing…

In May 2010, in the aftermath of the attempted bombing of Times Square by a jihadist with ties to the Pakistani Taliban, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an interview to 60 Minutes and made a startling claim about the government in Pakistan. “I’m not saying that they’re at the highest…

Thirty-four Republican senators will send a letter to Barack Obama, calling on the president "to finally end the DOJ’s unwarranted investigations of CIA interrogators, whose work led to one of the most defining moments of the Global War on Terror."

In an interview with President Obama on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes, Steve Kroft asked:

Those who actually know what information was gathered from the use of enhanced interrogation techniques by CIA officers are now feeling vindicated. After years of being widely criticized for the program, information that these CIA interrogators learned from their use of enhanced interrogation…

A recently leaked Guantanamo file names Osama bin Laden’s “designated courier.” The file, which summarizes the available intelligence on top al Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al Libbi, reads: 

The Washington Post reports that Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Iraq, will likely be nominated to be the next ambassador to Afghanistan :

When there’s nothing better to do (and even when there is), folks in Washington gossip about the human parade passing through the world’s most powerful jobs. For years, the departure date and replacement for Defense secretary Robert Gates has been a prime source of speculative entertainment, but…

"Has Ryan’s budget boxed in Obama?"

CIA pension plan has $6.4 billion in unfunded liabilities. How am I supposed to sleep at night if these guys can't even suss out the threat posed to their own retirement plans, let alone terrorist plots?

When Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA operative was revealed in 2003, Bush administration critics were adamant that a serious crime had been committed, that American national security interests had been put into jeopardy, and that the exposure warranted nothing less than the prosecution of a wide…

Well, it is pretty clear that more than two years after ordering Gitmo closed, the Obama administration still hasn't come up with a better solution for holding high-value detainees. How do we know? Because Obama’s CIA director, Leon Panetta, says that the U.S. would likely send Osama bin Laden or…

It's one thing that news organizations misread the situation in Egypt today, issuing conflicting reports throughout the day. (Hosni Mubarak will resign, no he won't, yes he will -- that's how today's events were reported, until finally Mubarak made his announcement.) But it's a little disheartening…

In THE WEEKLY STANDARD and on this blog, we’ve taken note of the ongoing Justice Department investigation involving the disclosure of classified information by James Risen in his 2006 book, State of War. The case finally seems to have resulted in an indictment of a former CIA officer:

“Portions of this article were deleted by the Israeli Military Censor.” So begins a fascinating article, “Spies Like Us,” by Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv in Tablet. It goes into considerable detail into the U.S.-Israeli intelligence relationship over recent decades. The story is one of friendship and…

The kingdom of Jordan is widely acknowledged for its internal contradictions. It accepts peace with Israel, and its intelligence service has been praised for its work against al Qaeda. But as disclosed by CIA director Leon Panetta and described in the Washington Post this week, a Jordanian…

A judge's reason for excluding damning testimony against al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ghailani makes no sense.

Since last year, Hezbollah has been rounding up Lebanese who are believed to be spying for the state of Israel. Just yesterday, a senior official at a Lebanese telecommunications firm was arrested, making it the fourth this year. The arrest is part of broader campaign that has led to some 50…