Torturing Democracy - National Security Archive

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The attacks on September 11, 2001 were the catalyst for the "war on terror"– and for a legal revolution in assertions of broad powers for the Commander-in-Chief. In this chronological library of 34 documents, it is possible to chart the decision-making that led to interrogations of prisoners in U.S. custody that were "at a minimum, cruel and inhuman treatment and, at worst, torture," in the words of the former general counsel of the United States Navy, Alberto Mora.

1. Declaration of National Emergency
DATE: September 14, 2001
SUBJECT: Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks
AUTHOR: President George W. Bush
President Bush signs a military order declaring a national emergency.

2. Memo from John Yoo to Tim Flanigan
DATE: September 25, 2001
SUBJECT: The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorist and Nations Supporting Them
AUTHOR: John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
This memo lays out an expansive vision of presidential power, arguing that Congress cannot "place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make."

3. Memorandum from John Yoo to David S. Kris
DATE: September 25, 2001
SUBJECT: Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the "Purpose" Standard for Searches
AUTHOR: John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, OLC
In this opinion, Yoo discussed possible changes to the laws governing wiretaps for intelligence gathering, and signaled that the government's interest in keeping the nation safe following the terrorist attacks might justify warrantless searches.

4. Memorandum from John Yoo & Robert J. Delahunty to Alberto Gonzales & William J. Haynes
DATE: October 23, 2001
SUBJECT: Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States
AUTHOR: John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, OLC & Robert J. Delahunty, Special Counsel, OLC
The United States, it was argued, was in a “state of armed conflict.” The scale of violence, the authors added, was unprecedented and “legal and constitutional rules” governing law enforcement – such as the Fourth Amendment prohibition on "unreasonable" searches and seizures did not apply. "The President has both constitutional and statutory authority to use the armed forces in military operations, against terrorists, within the United States."

The authors added that, “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.”

5. Memorandum from Patrick Philbin to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: November 6, 2001
SUBJECT: Legality of the Use of Military Commissions to Try Terrorists
AUTHOR: Patrick Philbin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
A legal opinion issued just a week before President Bush signed an order establishing military commissions to try prisoners who were deemed enemy combatants. In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled – in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld – that those military commissions were inconsistent with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

6. Military Commissions Order
DATE: November 13, 2001
SUBJECT: "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War on Terrorism"
AUTHOR: President George W. Bush
This military order declares the Commander-in-Chief's unilateral authority to hold prisoners in the war on terror indefinitely.

7. Memo from John Yoo to Jim Haynes
DATE: December 28, 2001
SUBJECT: Possible Habeas Jurisdiction over Aliens Held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
AUTHOR: John Yoo & Patrick Philbin, Deputy Assistant Attorneys General, Office of Legal Counsel
This memo concludes that federal district courts would lack jurisdiction to accept habeas petitions from prisoners who were held at Guantanamo.

8. Amnesty International Letter to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
DATE: January 7, 2002
SUBJECT: N/A
AUTHOR: Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International
The president of Amnesty International writes an urgent letter concerning detainees in U.S. custody, warning against the "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," noting hooding and blindfolding detainees is a violation of the Convention Against Torture.

9. Memo from John Yoo to Jim Haynes
DATE: January 9, 2002
SUBJECT: "Application of Treaties and Laws to Al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees"
AUTHOR: John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
In this memo, Yoo writes "We conclude that these treaties [including Geneva] do not protect members of the al Qaeda organization. We further conclude that that [sic] these treaties do not apply to the Taliban militia."

10. Memo from William Taft to John Yoo
DATE: January 11, 2002
SUBJECT: "Your Draft Memorandum of January 9th"
AUTHOR: William Taft IV, Legal Adviser to the State Department
Describing Yoo's legal analysis as "seriously flawed," the memorandum also warns that "this raises the risk of future criminal prosecution for U.S. civilian and military leadership and their advisers."

11. Memo from Donald Rumsfeld to Joint Chiefs of Staff
DATE: January 19, 2002
SUBJECT: "Status of Taliban and al Qaeda"
AUTHOR: Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld declares that "The United States has determined that Al Qaida and Taliban individuals under the control of the Department of Defense are not entitled to prisoner of war status for purposes of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."

12. Memo from Jay Bybee to Jim Haynes
DATE: January 22, 2002
SUBJECT: "Application of Treaties and Laws to Al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees"
AUTHOR: Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
Jay Bybee signs off on John Yoo's January 9th draft, sending it in its final form to Pentagon General Counsel Jim Haynes and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. The memo explains that "certain deviations from the text of Geneva III may be permissible, as a matter of domestic law, if they fall within certain justifications or legal exceptions, such as those for self defense."

13. Memo from Alberto Gonzales to President Bush
DATE: January 25, 2002
SUBJECT: "Application of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War to the Conflict with al Qaeda and the Taliban"
AUTHOR: Alberto Gonzales, White House Counsel
This memo for the President outlines the benefits of opting out of the Geneva Conventions and lists the benefits of such a finding. Gonzales notes that non-compliance with Geneva "would create a reasonable basis in law that Section 2441 [War Crimes Act] does not apply, which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution."

14. Memo from Colin Powell to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: January 26, 2002
SUBJECT: Draft Decision Memorandum for the President on the Applicability of the Geneva Convention to the Conflict in Afghanistan
AUTHOR: Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Colin Powell warns of the consequences of opting out of the Geneva Convention. "It will reverse over a century of U.S. policy . . . and undermine the prosecutions of the law of war for our troops . . ." He adds, "it may provoke some individual foreign prosecutors to investigate and prosecute our officials and troops."

15. Letter from John Ashcroft to President Bush
DATE: February 1, 2002
SUBJECT: N/A
AUTHOR: John Ashcroft, Attorney General
John Ashcroft concludes that opting out of Geneva "would provide the highest assurance that no court would subsequently entertain charges that American military officers, intelligence officials, or law enforcement officials violated Geneva Convention rules relating to field conduct, detention conduct or interrogation of detainees."

16. Memo from Jay Bybee to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: February 7, 2002
SUBJECT: Status of Taliban Forces Under Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949
AUTHOR: Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
In this memo, Jay Bybee states that the President has the power to ignore Geneva's requirement that prisoners be given "Article 5" hearings to establish their status as POWs. "The President. may use his constitutional power to interpret treaties and apply them to the facts, to make the determination that the Taliban are unlawful combatants.. We therefore conclude that there is no need to establish tribunals to determine POW status under Article 5."

17. Memo from President Bush to Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, et. al.
DATE: February 7, 2002
SUBJECT: Humane Treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees
AUTHOR: President George W. Bush
President George W. Bush declares that the United States will not be bound by the Geneva Convention's protections for prisoners of war.

18. Memo from Jay Bybee to Jim Haynes
DATE: February 26, 2002
SUBJECT: "Potential Legal Constraints Applicable to Interrogations of Persons Captured by U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan"
AUTHOR: Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
In the wake of the capture of the "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, questions about the rights of American citizens captured in the war on terror became a new issue. In conclusion, Bybee notes "even if the Government did in fact violate Rule 4.2 by having military lawyers interrogate represented persons (including Mr. Walker) without consent of counsel, it would not follow that the evidence obtained in that questioning would be inadmissible at trial."

19. Memorandum from Jay Bybee to William J. Haynes
DATE: March 13, 2002
SUBJECT: The President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations
AUTHOR: Jay S. Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC
This memorandum appears to underpin the so-called "extraordinary rendition" program. It argues that the President has an unfettered right to transfer prisoners captured in the war on terror to governments around the world without regard for whether they would be tortured.

It further argues that "so long as the US does not intend for a detainee to be tortured post-transfer…no criminal liability will attach to a transfer, even if the foreign country receiving the detainee does torture him."

20. Memorandum from Patrick F. Philbin to Daniel J. Bryant
DATE: April 8, 2002
SUBJECT: Swift Justice Authorization Act
AUTHOR: Patrick Philbin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, OLC
The author concludes that Congress cannot interfere with the President's exercise of his authority as Commander-in-Chief to control the conduct of operations during war, including his authority to promulgate rules to regulate military commissions.

21. Memorandum from Jay Bybee to John Ashcroft
DATE: June 8, 2002
SUBJECT: Determination of Enemy Belligerency and Military Detention
AUTHOR: Jay S. Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC
Arguing that “the military has the legal authority to detain (Jose Padilla) as a prisoner captured during an international armed conflict,” this opinion was issued one day before Padilla – an American citizen arrested on American soil – was designated an “enemy combatant.”

The authors further concluded that the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that had long limited the powers of the government to use the US military for law enforcement within the United States could be suspended; it “presents no statutory bar” to Padilla’s military imprisonment.

22. Memo from Jay Bybee to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: August 1, 2002
SUBJECT: "Standards for Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. 2340 - 2340A"
AUTHOR: Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
In what has become notorious as the "torture memo," Jay Bybee signs off on an opinion authored by John Yoo. The memorandum systematically dismisses numerous U.S. federal laws, treaties and international law prohibiting the use of torture, essentially defining the term out of existence.

23. Letter from John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: August 1, 2002
SUBJECT: N/A
AUTHOR: John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
John Yoo writes to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales warning of potential threats of international prosecution regarding the administration's interrogation policies. Yoo notes that "Interrogations of al Qaeda members ... cannot constitute a war crime" because of the Presidential determination that Geneva's protections do not apply.

24. Memo from Jay Bybee to the CIA
DATE: August 1, 2002
SUBJECT: Memorandum for [REDACTED] Interrogation of [REDACTED]
AUTHOR: Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
Written by the Office of Legal Counsel's Jay Bybee and sent to the Central Intelligence Agency, this heavily redacted document was released to the ACLU in 2008. It details "advising the CIA regarding interrogation methods it may use against al Qaeda members," and in one un-redacted portion, argues that "to violate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering. Based on the information you have provided us, we believe those carrying out these procedures would not have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering."

25. Guantanamo Trip Report
DATE: September 27, 2002
SUBJECT: Trip Report, DOD General Counsel Visit to GTMO
AUTHOR: Office of the Staff Judge Advocate
A one page summary of Pentagon General Counsel Jim Haynes, and Vice President Cheney's legal counsel David Addington's trip to Guantanamo on September 25, 2002. The report notes that their stated purpose was to "receive briefings on Intel successes, Intel challenges, Intel techniques, Intel problems and future plans for facilities."

26. Guantanamo Meeting Minutes
DATE: October 2, 2002
SUBJECT: Counter Resistance Strategy Meeting Minutes
AUTHOR: N/A
A senior CIA lawyer meets with military officials at Guantanamo, and states that laws banning torture are "basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong." The Pentagon's top legal adviser at the camp responds, "We will need documentation to protect us." When the military's top criminal investigator reads the minutes, he forwards them to other senior personnel, noting "This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of." Waterboarding, for example, would "shock the conscience of any legal body looking at the results of the interrogations or possibly even the interrogators. Somebody needs to be considering how history will look back at this."

27. Memo from Major General Michael Dunlavey
DATE: October 11, 2002
SUBJECT: "Counter-Resistance Strategies"
AUTHOR: Major General Michael Dunlavey
General Michael Dunlavey sends a formal request for approval of harsh interrogation techniques based on SERE up the chain of command to General James T. Hill, commander of USSOUTHCOM. The most extreme "Category III" techniques mirror "those used in U.S. military interrogation resistance training or by other US government agencies."

28. Memo from General James T. Hill
DATE: October 25, 2002
SUBJECT: "Counter-Resistance Strategies"
AUTHOR: General James T. Hill
General James Hill, commander of USSOUTHCOM, forwards the request to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but worries that, "I am particularly troubled by the use of implied or expressed threats of death of the detainee or his family."

29. Action Memo from Jim Haynes to Donald Rumsfeld
DATE: November 27, 2002
SUBJECT: "Counter-Resistance Techniques"
AUTHOR: William J. Haynes, General Counsel, Department of Defense
Secretary Rumfeld's General Counsel Jim Haynes, sends an "action memo" for the Secretary's signature advising Rumsfeld to approve a list of harsh interrogation techniques. On December 2, 2002 Rumsfeld signs off, and authorizes all the Category I & II techniques, including 20 hour interrogations, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli, removal of clothing, the use of phobias such as dogs, and stress positions for up to four hours. Haynes notes that Category III techniques, including waterboarding, "may be legally available" but "as a matter of policy a blanket approval. is not warranted at this time." As Secretary Rumsfeld signs the action memo, he adds a post-script "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?"

30. FBI Legal Analysis
DATE: November 27, 2002
SUBJECT: Legal Analysis
AUTHOR: N/A
An FBI agent warns his superiors that several of the techniques being considered "are not permitted by the U.S. constitution" and others are "examples of coercive interrogation techniques that may violate 18 U.S.C. § 2340 (Torture Statute)."

31. Draft Guantanamo SERE SOP
DATE: December 10, 2002
SUBJECT: JTF GTMO "SERE" Interrogation Standard Operating Procedure
AUTHOR: Lt. Col. Ted Moss
This draft memo, never before released in its entirety, directly links the tactics being used at Guantanamo to the U.S. military's torture resistance training: "These tactics and techniques are used in SERE school to 'break' SERE detainees. The same tactics and techniques can be used to break real detainees during interrogation operations."

32. SERE Instructors' Guantanamo Report
DATE: January 15, 2003
SUBJECT: After Action Report Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay (JTF-GTMO) Training Evolution
AUTHOR: John F. Rankin, SERE Training Specialist & Christopher Ross, SERE Coordinator
Responding to a "high level directive," two SERE instructors travel to Guantanamo, where they lead a class of 24 Guantanamo interrogators on the use of SERE techniques based on "Biderman's Principles." Principles include death threats, degradation, and "induced debilitation."

33. Memo from Donald Rumsfeld
DATE: January 15, 2003
SUBJECT: "Counter Resistance Techniques"
AUTHOR: Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rescinds his authorization of the Category II and III techniques authorized by his December 2, 2002 order.

34. Memo from Donald Rumsfeld Establishing Working Group
DATE: January 15, 2003
SUBJECT: Detainee Interrogations
AUTHOR: Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld orders a Working Group comprised of senior military lawyers to study the legality of various interrogation techniques.

35. The JAG Memos
DATE: February 5 - March 13, 2003
SUBJECT: N/A
AUTHORS: Military Judges Advocate General
Top military lawyers in the Working Group issue a series of vigorous dissents to many of the proposed techniques being discussed.

36. Memo from John Yoo to Jim Haynes
DATE: March 14, 2003
SUBJECT: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States
AUTHOR: John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
Written at the request of DoD General Counsel William Haynes, the memo is an expansion of John Yoo's August, 2002 "torture memo" and lays out in more expansive detail what would be permitted under the administration's interrogation policy. Haynes makes it clear that the memo is the "controlling authority" for the Working Group.

37. Working Group Report
DATE: April 4, 2003
SUBJECT: "Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism"
AUTHOR: N/A
The report of the Working Group on interrogation policy is signed out. In 85-pages, it endorses a series of 35 interrogation techniques including "fear up harsh," "emotional love," "emotional hate," "hooding," and "sleep adjustment." Though it is signed out in their names, members of the Working Group were not informed of its final contents.

38. Memo from Donald Rumsfeld
DATE: April 16, 2003
SUBJECT: "Counter-Resistance Techniques in the War on Terrorism"
AUTHOR: Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld issues a memorandum to the commander of US Southern Command authorizing 24 of the 35 techniques for use at Guantanamo.

39. Interrogation "Wish List" E-mail
DATE: August 14, 2003
SUBJECT: N/A
AUTHOR: N/A
This memo issued by a U.S. Army military intelligence officer requests that interrogators come up with a "wish list" of interrogation techniques for use in Iraq. The memo notes, "The gloves are coming off gentleman regarding these detainees. [REDACTED] has made it clear that we want these individuals broken." Responding, another interrogator suggests, "... a baseline interrogation technique that at a minimum allows for physical contact resembling that used by SERE instructors. Sleep deprivation. Fear of dogs and snakes appear to work nicely. I firmly agree that the gloves need to come off."

40. Memo from General Sanchez
DATE: September 14, 2003
SUBJECT: "CJTF-7 Interrogation and Counter Resistance Policy"
AUTHOR: General Ricardo Sanchez, Commander of US Forces in Iraq
General Ricardo Sanchez issues guidelines for the interrogation of Iraqi detainees. The techniques he authorizes are almost a verbatim copy of those authorized for Guantanamo by Secretary Rumsfeld in April, 2003.

41. Memorandum from Jack Goldsmith to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: March 18, 2004
SUBJECT: “Protected Person” Status in Occupied Iraq under the Fourth Geneva Convention
AUTHOR: Jack L. Goldsmith III, Assistant Attorney General
Written by the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the opinion declared that the Geneva Conventions protected “citizens and permanent residents of Iraq,” including those “who commit hostile acts against the occupying power.” This opinion provoked the ire of the Vice President’s general counsel, David Addington, an incident described in detail in “The Terror Presidency” by Goldsmith.

42. Memorandum "for the files"
DATE: October 6, 2008
SUBJECT: John Yoo’s October 23, 2001 OLC Opinion Addressing the Domestic Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities
AUTHOR: Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, OLC
This memorandum repudiates John Yoo's secret October 23, 2001 opinion asserting that the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution must give way when the President deems it necessary in defense of the nation.

43. Testimony of Spc. Brandon Neely
DATE: December 4, 2008
SUBJECT: Conditions at Guantanamo
AUTHOR: Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas
On December 4, 2008, Specialist Brandon Neely approached CSHRA with testimony he wished to contribute to the Guantánamo Testimonials Project. He believed that insufficient attention had been paid to 'the hell that went on at Camp X-Ray.'"

44. Executive Summary, Senate Armed Services Committee
DATE: December 11, 2008
SUBJECT: Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody
AUTHOR: Senate Armed Services Committee
In December, 2008, the Senate Armed Services Committee completed a classified 250-page report outlining its 18-month investigation into U.S. detention and interrogation policies. The report’s Executive Summary concludes that “(t)he abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

Senator John McCain, ranking Republican on the Committee, added, “The Committee’s report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody.”

45. Memorandum "for the files"
DATE: January 15, 2009
SUBJECT: Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001
AUTHOR: Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, OLC
Stating that “certain propositions stated in several opinions issued by the Office Legal Counsel from 2001 – 2003 respecting the allocation of authorities between the President and Congress in matters of war and national security do not reflect the current views of this Office,” this memorandum disowns the broad claims of constitutional law reflected in the OLC opinions. It does not comment upon or disown the specific policies regarding surveillance, detention and interrogation.

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Jackson Diehl - Where are Obama's foreign confidants?

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By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 8, 2010; A13

I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office. A lot of hemming and hawing ensued.

One official mentioned French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is scheduled to bring his glamorous wife to the White House residence this month for a couples dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama. But in France, Sarkozy's bitterness toward Obama, the product of several perceived snubs, is an open secret, reported widely in the French press. In a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in September Sarkozy appeared to mock Obama's signature disarmament initiative, saying "we are living in a real world, not a virtual world."

Angela Merkel's name also came up: Obama and the German chancellor, I was told, share a down-to-business pragmatism. But Merkel, too, has been conspicuously cool toward Obama ever since he made Berlin a stop on his 2008 election campaign. She stopped him then from appearing at the Brandenburg Gate and was said to be miffed last November when Obama didn't show for ceremonies celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Anyway, diplomats say that Merkel has a much warmer relationship with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

No one named Gordon Brown. That's fairly remarkable: The relationship between the sitting British prime minister and U.S. president has been consistently close over the past 30 years. Think Reagan and Thatcher, Clinton and Blair, Bush and Blair. But Obama has been portrayed as dissing Brown ever since he presented him with a set of DVDs as a gift during their first meeting in Washington a year ago. Last fall the British press reported that the White House had turned down five requests for Obama to meet Brown one-on-one at the United Nations or the G-20 summit.

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Finally, I was offered a name I didn't expect: Dmitry Medvedev. Obama, I was assured, has built a solid relationship with the Russian president during their several bilateral meetings, which have focused in part on a new nuclear arms control agreement that both could count as a distinctive achievement. But the deal hasn't been clinched -- maybe because Vladimir Putin, whom Obama has held at arm's length, doesn't like it. And could it really be that an American president has found his closest foreign partner in the Kremlin?

The paradox here is that Obama remains hugely popular abroad -- from Germany and France to countries where anti-Americanism has recently been a problem, such as Turkey and Indonesia. His following means that, in democratic countries at least, leaders have a strong incentive to befriend him. And yet this president appears, so far, to have no genuine foreign friends. In this he is the opposite of George W. Bush, who was reviled among the foreign masses but who forged close ties with a host of leaders -- Aznar of Spain, Uribe of Colombia, Sharon and Olmert of Israel, Koizumi of Japan.

Jealousy or political rivalry may play a part -- Sarkozy is one of several Europeans who have wanted to assume the role of Obama's closest ally and reacted poorly when he didn't respond. But another big cause seems to be lack of interest on Obama's part. Focused intently on his domestic agenda, the president is said to be reluctant to take time to build relationships with foreign leaders. If something has needed to be done or decided, he has readily picked up the phone. If not, he generally hasn't been available.

Obama also hasn't hesitated to publicly express displeasure with U.S. allies. He sparred all last year with Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu; he expressed impatience when Japan's Yukio Hatoyama balked at implementing a military base agreement. He has repeatedly criticized Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai, and he gave up the videoconferences Bush used to have with Iraq's Nouri al-Maliki.

An argument can be made that none of this matters. Bush, after all, was often criticized for depending too heavily on personal relationships -- remember how he looked into Putin's soul? -- and his pals didn't save his administration from being universally condemned as "unilateralist." The Obama administration, in contrast, can argue that it has done pretty well in lining up European support on key matters such as Afghanistan and Iran. And Obama's personal popularity continues to provide leverage with leaders around the world, whether they hit it off with him or not.

Still, it's worth wondering: Would Sarkozy have fought French public opinion and sent more troops to Afghanistan (he has refused) if he had been cultivated more by Obama? Would Israel's Netanyahu be willing to take more risks in the (moribund) Middle East peace process if he believed he could count on this U.S. president? Would Karzai cooperate more closely with U.S. commanders in the field if Obama had embraced him?

The answers seem obvious. In foreign as well as domestic affairs, coolness has its cost.

Tax Pledge Is a Target As Deficits, Debt Grow - washingtonpost.com

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By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 29, 2009

During last year's campaign, President Obama vowed to enact a bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a severe recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is swelling toward a 50-year high have only made his promise harder to keep.

The Obama administration has insisted that the pledge will stand. But the president's top economic advisers have refused to rule out broad-based tax increases to close the yawning gap between federal revenue and government spending and are warning of tough choices ahead.

Republicans are already on the attack, accusing Obama of plotting to break his no-tax vow, the same political transgression that cost Democrats control of Congress under former president Bill Clinton and may have cost president George H.W. Bush his job. Democrats say Obama is highly unlikely to break the pledge before next year's congressional election and observe that it would be safer to wait until his second term if a tax increase becomes unavoidable.

Some lawmakers are focused instead on setting up an independent commission to solve the deficit problem. Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) plans to hold hearings on the topic when Congress returns to Washington this fall.

Obama, meanwhile, has vowed to pay for any new initiatives and to draft an overhaul of the health-care system that eventually would save the government money, driving deficits down. But effective health reforms would take decades to produce savings. In the meantime, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag acknowledged, "there are additional steps that will be necessary."

"The administration is very concerned about these [future] deficits, and getting those deficits under control is a top priority of the administration," Orszag told reporters this week as he rolled out a new economic forecast that added $2 trillion to deficit projections from 2010 to 2019.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers have both delicately sidestepped the tax question on Sunday talk shows. Orszag has also refused to discuss what steps Obama might take to reduce the deficit in the budget blueprint he will present to Congress in February. But budget analysts say he has few real options.

"If you rule out inflating our way out of the problem and defaulting on the debt, there are two ways: Cut spending or raise taxes," said William G. Gale, an expert on fiscal policy at the Brookings Institution. With more than 80 percent of federal spending devoted to politically untouchable programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he said, "it's going to be really hard to make significant headway on the spending side. So that means you've got to think about taxes."

Spending cuts were a big part of the solution the last time the nation faced such a towering debt. In the aftermath of World War II, with the debt exceeding the country's entire economic output, the government slashed military expenditures. Within two years, Washington was spending less than it took in. Fifteen percent inflation also helped by reducing the real value of the debt. When the country went to war again in Korea and then Vietnam, tax increases helped keep the budget largely in balance and the debt continued to fall.

Today's problem is more complex. Obama not only faces the fallout from the worst economic downturn in 30 years, but also inherited the debt piled up by his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush. Bush invaded Iraq and approved an expensive new prescription drug benefit for the elderly while pushing through one of the biggest tax cuts of the post-war era -- worth an estimated $1.6 trillion in foregone revenue by the time the provisions expire next year. This was the first time the United States had not adjusted its fiscal policy to meet its wartime needs, according to "The Price of Liberty," a book on war financing by Goldman Sachs vice chairman Robert D. Hormats.

After running surpluses in the late 1990s, the government began spending far more than it took in, forcing the Treasury to increase borrowing from China and other creditors. During the Bush administration, the portion of the debt held by the public jumped from just over $3 trillion to nearly $6 trillion. Federal rescue efforts in the face of last fall's financial meltdown have rapidly driven the debt higher. Today it stands at nearly $7.4 trillion, or about 52 percent of the overall U.S. economy.

"There's no question in my view that Bush was the most fiscally irresponsible president in the history of the republic," said David M. Walker, the comptroller general under Bush who now advocates for deficit reduction. Obama "was handed a bad deck," he said. "But the question is, are you making it better or not? And so far the answer is no."

Obama campaigned on a promise not to raise taxes for anyone earning less than $250,000 a year -- about 97 percent of taxpayers. As part of the pledge, he said he would keep some of the Bush tax cuts, including a new 10 percent rate for the lowest bracket, a higher tax credit for children and a lower penalty for married couples filing jointly. He planned to let other Bush tax cuts that benefit mainly the wealthy expire, a move that would raise rates for the top two income brackets. He also proposed to finance a major expansion of health coverage by placing new tax increases on the rich. When he unveiled his first budget, Obama predicted that his fiscal policies would stabilize the debt at around 70 percent of the economy.

This week, after updating the budget to reflect the depth of the recession, the White House conceded its earlier predictions had been wrong. With unemployment now expected to top 10 percent, the government will be forced to spend more on unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid and other safety-net programs. With wages more deeply depressed, tax collections have fallen further than expected. And with the economy likely to rebound more slowly than the White House once thought, those costly conditions will linger for at least the next two years.

The result: deficits of well over $1 trillion through 2011, which will push the debt to 71 percent of the economy by the end of Obama's first term -- the highest since 1954 -- and cause the debt to keep rising in the years beyond.

The sour economy also will increase the cost of some of Obama's initiatives. The economic stimulus package approved in February is likely to cost "tens of billions of dollars" more than $787 billion, Orszag said. Obama's plan to expand federal student loans will cost $27 billion more over the next decade "as more individuals choose to go to college in the weakened labor market," White House budget documents say. And tax increases for the wealthy won't bring in quite as much money as Obama had hoped, budget documents say, because even the wealthy are not earning as much.

Obama could try to cut spending, but his budget is probably already more frugal than politics will bear, budget analysts say. For example, the White House assumes that spending on federal agencies other than the Pentagon will be lower in 2019 than it is next year.

And the fastest-growing budget category is one Obama cannot touch: interest payments on the debt. These are likely to rise as the world demands higher interest rates in return for continuing to sate Washington's voracious appetite for credit. The White House projects interest payments will quadruple by 2019, when debt service will account for nearly the entire budget deficit. At that point, much like a family that has run up big credit card balances, the debt will continue to grow even if the nation all but stops borrowing money.

"We are entering a dangerous debt cycle," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "We don't know when interest rates will go up, but when they do, you can see that they will have a huge impact."

By contrast, Obama could raise taxes without taking any legislative action. If he let all the Bush tax cuts expire next year and refused to enact legislation to restrain the alternative minimum tax, deficits would be about $200 billion a year lower and the debt would stop growing as a percentage of the economy, according to Gale's analysis of new data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But that would mean big tax increases for most American families, violating Obama's pledge.

Whatever course Obama takes, Geithner said earlier this month that the economy cannot fully recover until deficits are brought under control.

"We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically," Geithner told ABC News. "And that's going to require some very hard choices."

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Poll: 4 Percent of Israelis See Obama as Pro-Israel - VOA

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By Robert Berger Jerusalem 29 August 2009

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Tense relations between the United States and Israel are having a negative effect on Israeli public opinion.

President Obama (file photo)

A new Jerusalem Post poll shows that only 4 percent of Israeli Jews see U.S. President Barack Obama's policies as pro-Israel. That is a drop of 2 percent from the previous poll in June.
The survey found that 51 percent of Israelis see the Obama administration as pro-Palestinian, while 35 percent consider it neutral.

Mr. Obama has lost popularity in Israel because of American pressure to halt Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"There's quite a bit of concern and disappointment in President Obama, in the sense that Israel [is] sort of under attack on all of these settlement issues, on Jerusalem," said Israeli analyst Dan Diker. "And I think that many Israelis are saying, 'Well wait a second, where is the friendly U.S. administration that Democratic and Republican administrations have been known to be?'"

President Obama's supporters say he is trying to take a more "even-handed" approach to the Middle East conflict than his predecessors. But his outreach to the Muslim world, and especially his landmark speech in Cairo in June, are seen by many Israelis as an attempt to appease the Arabs at the expense of the Jewish state.

"President Obama has been all over the Middle East, he's been in Turkey, he's been in Saudi Arabia, he's been in Cairo, and giving major speeches, and he has not spoken to or with the Israeli people or really sort of extended his hand as a partner in this entire process," he said.

Israelis had a much more positive view of President George W. Bush. According to a Jerusalem Post poll in May, 88 percent of Israelis considered Mr. Bush's policies to be pro-Israel.

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Atomic Agency Is Pressed on Iran Records

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

The Obama administration and its European allies are pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to make public evidence that they believe points toward an Iranian drive to gain the ability to build a nuclear weapon, part of a broad effort to build a case for far more punishing sanctions against the country.

The request has touched off an internal debate in the agency over how directly to confront Iran over its continued refusal, over several years, to answer questions about documents and computer files suggesting military-led efforts to design a nuclear weapon. Iran has charged that the documents, many of which came from American, Israeli and European intelligence services, are fabrications. The agency, according to current and former officials there, has studied them with care and determined that they are probably genuine.

“What we and all the allies are pressing for is for the full case to be laid out, in public,” one senior Obama administration official said last week, speaking anonymously because he was discussing intelligence data.

The administration’s push for an open discussion of Iran’s suspected weapons program, and for tougher sanctions, reflects growing pessimism about efforts to engage with the country’s leaders. Administration officials said that while they had received some communications from the Iranian leadership before the presidential election in June, there had been no communications of substance since.

But agency officials say that Mohamed ElBaradei, the departing director general, resisted a public airing, fearing that such a presentation would make the agency appear biased toward the West in the effort to impose what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently called “crippling” sanctions. Dr. ElBaradei, who has argued for allowing Iran to maintain a token capacity to produce uranium under strict inspection, has said that the evidence does not create an airtight case against Iran.

The Obama administration’s effort to make the case public contrasts with the approach of President George W. Bush. After the intelligence debacle surrounding Iraq, Bush administration officials said they lacked the credibility to make public the evidence about Iran’s nuclear efforts. Mr. Bush admitted as much in 2005, saying that the case would have to be made quietly.

Moreover, American intelligence agencies had balked at publishing some of their most sensitive discoveries, including data stripped from a laptop computer slipped out of the country by an Iranian nuclear engineer.

Some of that information was described to member countries of the I.A.E.A. by the agency’s chief inspector during a closed meeting in February 2008. The official, Olli Heinonen, laid out an array of documents, sketches and video that he said were “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon.” News of that presentation quickly leaked, and the details were denounced by Iranian officials as fabrications.

But before and since Mr. Heinonen’s briefing, Iran has refused to allow the agency to talk with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the scientist believed to lead two secret efforts inside the Iranian government called Project 110 and Project 111. The evidence collected by the agency suggests that each centers on elements of designing and delivering a nuclear weapon, though the United States said in a National Intelligence Estimate published nearly two years ago that it believed those projects were halted, at least temporarily, in late 2003.

A European diplomat familiar with the agency’s internal deliberations said that the United States, Britain, France and Germany were pressing the agency to reveal the strongest information it had gathered.

“There’s multilateral activity under way to ramp up pressure on Iran,” the official said. “It’s not just Israel.”

The agency’s next report on Iran is expected to be released as soon as Thursday or Friday. A senior European official said it contained “no bombshells,” but it was unclear how much analysis of previous information on bomb design and conversations among Iran’s nuclear engineers it might reveal. Much of that information came from the laptop, from a penetration of Iran’s computer networks and from the agency’s own findings, American and European officials said.

One nuclear official familiar with the preparation of the report said that a high-level dispute had broken out in the atomic agency over whether the report should include a toughly worded analysis of Iran’s activities, in hopes of forcing a response from Iran. But Dr. ElBaradei has remained cautious, they said, and it was unlikely that much of the material would be included in the report.

Assessing the progress that Iran has made in the nuclear arena over the past year is difficult, and it has been made more complex by the upheaval that followed the election there.

Next Wednesday, American and European officials are scheduled to meet to discuss their next steps on Iran, and President Obama has said he will use the opening of the United Nations General Assembly later in the month, and perhaps an economic summit meeting in Pittsburgh, to press for far tougher sanctions. Among the penalties under consideration is a cutoff of refined gasoline to Iran, but a senior administration official said last week that such a step “will be a hard sell for China and Russia,” which have extensive economic ties to Iran.

When the inspectors last reported on their periodic visits to Iran’s main nuclear site, at Natanz, they said roughly 7,000 centrifuges had been installed to produce uranium. All of it was low-enriched uranium, which is not suitable for weapons. Iran insists that the fuel is for eventual use in nuclear power plants.

Iran has barred the inspectors from other sites, including some suspected of being part of a nuclear weapons program. It was during such an inspection five years ago that I.A.E.A. inspectors discovered enrichment activities that had been hidden for 18 years.

But last week the agency’s inspectors were allowed to visit the nearly finished Arak heavy water reactor after being barred from the site for nearly a year. That facility has been of intense interest to the inspectors because its technology could aid nuclear weapons development.

Obama administration officials said they suspected that the visit was part of an effort to show cooperation just before the I.A.E.A.’s report. But they said that since Iran’s election, they had not received an Iranian response to Mr. Obama’s invitation to open discussions on nuclear issues.