The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Chinese hackers gained access to Google’s surveillance database –- potentially obtaining years worth of data related to search warrants and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders — in a counterintelligence operation several years ago known as Operation Aurora. While this recent revelation is troubling in and of itself, the fact that this sensitive, and presumably well-secured, information was breached may also serve to validate concerns about the security risks of a proposed update to a wiretapping law.

According to the Post, Google discovered the surveillance database had been compromised in the course of investigating the 2009 Aurora hackings and the company alerted the FBI. Although Google publicly disclosed a breach and identified China as the source of the assault in 2010, it was identified then as an attempt to spy on Chinese human rights activists.

The new revelations suggest Aurora was a Chinese counterintelligence operation, similar to the one exposed in a report from cybersecurity firm Mandiant earlier this year, and one of its goals was to discover which Chinese agents were under surveillance by U.S. law enforcement. Aurora reportedly targeted at least 34 companies, including other major tech companies that likely maintain similar databases such as Yahoo. A Microsoft official speaking at a conference this April suggested they were facing attacks in the same time period, and identified the Chinese as “trolling” for information about surveillance orders.

Michael M. DuBose, former chief of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, declined to comment on either the Microsoft or Google cases to the Washington Post, but said these type of intrusions should serve as “a wake-up call for the government that the overall security and effectiveness of lawful interception and undercover operations is dependent in large part on security standards in the private sector” which “clearly need strengthening.” But despite those concerns, the government continues to pursue policies that put a great deal of responsibility in the the hands of private sector actors.

For instance, proposed updates to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) would charge companies like Google with the creation and security of secret backdoor access points in communications software. CALEA is a wiretapping law that requires telecommunications companies to provide a way for law enforcement to snoop on communications as it happens. It was originally passed in 1994 to ensure that law enforcement maintained access to wiretapping capabilities as the telephone infrastructure went digital, and has since been expanded to include VoIP and broadband internet traffic. But the law currently doesn’t apply to third party non-telecom companies, like Google and Facebook. Officials say that when those companies started using end-to-end encryption (ironically, after Google’s systems were compromised during Operation Aurora) it became prohibitively difficult to carry out real-time snooping on some targets. That’s because end-to-end encryption basically creates a protected tunnel information can flow through without being directly accessed by the telecom companies that are required to have intercept capabilities.

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China and Iran have shared a position as cyber-bogeymen over the past year, but a new report from the Wall Street Journal about Iranian infiltration of U.S. energy firms shows why their cyber-assaults could pose a greater immediate threat to U.S. national security.

While China pursues aggressive cyber-espionage campaigns against major U.S. companies and news sources, Iranian-backed hackers are more overtly hostile — targeting critical infrastructure vulnerable to sabotage or engaging in disruptive economic actions, like when Iranian-backed hackers leveraged data centers to wage a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against financial institutions.

From a strategic standpoint, the differences between the Chinese and Iranian strategies make sense. The Chinese government is interested in the long game and is a key player in the global market, while as Tom Kellerman, Vice President of cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, told the Wall Street Journal, “Iran has been successfully ostracized from global economics” so destructive cyber attacks serve “not only empower themselves but to signal to the Western world they are capable in cyberspace.” Proving that capability may be especially important to Iran because its nuclear program was the target of Stuxnet malware, reportedly jointly developed by U.S. and Israeli cyber-forces.

The more recent Iranian-backed attacks go a step further than outside disruptions like the DDoS attacks according to U.S. officials, showing that hackers penetrated the computer networks running energy companies and gained access to the software controlling oil and gas pipelines. With access to that control-system software, hackers could potentially manipulate the flow of fuel, possibly even trigger power outages — something that could have truly devastating national security implications, especially considering that about 85 percent of the energy infrastructure the Department of Defense depends on is commercially owned.

In a March worldwide threat assessment statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Director of National Intelligence identified cybersecurity threats as the top threat facing the United States, specifically noting while “advanced cyber actors” like Russia or China were unlikely to launch a devastating attack on our power grid, but “less advanced but highly motivated actors could access some poorly protected U.S. networks that control core functions, such as power generation, during the next two years.”

A report on the vulnerability of the electric grid released by the offices of Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) last week suggests a substantial number of those networks are poorly protected, with many only implementing mandatory cybersecurity measures from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) that are often several years behind the current cyber-threat landscape.

Back in 2004, in a video addressed to the American people, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden described his “bleed until bankruptcy” strategy. “All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits to their private companies,” bin Laden taunted. “So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

The twin goals of this strategy were to drain the U.S. of resources by baiting it into expensive, open-ended military interventions like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the resulting anger over those interventions causing more people to join Al Qaeda’s cause.

I was reminded of that by these specific remarks from President Obama’s speech on counterterrorism yesterday:

The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states. So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

There was a lot to chew on in the president’s speech, and obviously we’ll have to wait and see how much weight the president actually puts behind some of the reforms he suggested, but I think this core passage represents another important shift away from the rhetorical construct of a “Global War on Terror.”

Meanwhile, on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, four of the Senate’s leading hawks — Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Kelly Ayotte (NH) — responded as you might expect to the prospect of the loss of that rhetorical construct, which has proven extremely politically beneficial to hawks over the last decade.

“I believe we are still in a long, drawn-out conflict with Al Qaeda. to somehow argue that Al Qaeda is ‘on the run’ comes from a degree of unreality that, to me, is really incredible,” said McCain, adding: “Al Qaeda’s ‘on the run’ is expanding all over the Middle East from Mali to Yemen and all places in between and to somehow think that we can bring the authorization of the use of military force to a complete closure contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground. Al Qaeda will be with us for a long time.”

“The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,” Chambliss declared.

Graham took the chance to ding the president on Iraq: “Iraq is a country that went through hell, was inside the 10-yard line, the surge did work and it’s falling apart because the president chose not to leave any American soldiers behind when 10,000 or 12,000 would have made a difference.”

Leaving aside why Graham thinks 10,000 or 12,000 U.S. troops would have made a difference in Iraq when over 100,000 couldn’t stop it from descending into civil war in 2006 (not to mention the tension between claiming to support democracy in Iraq while bashing the president for not working harder to circumvent democracy in Iraq in order to keep U.S. troops there), it’s remarkable that these Congressional leaders essentially want America to keep playing into Al Qaeda’s “bleed until bankruptcy” strategy.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said on Wednesday that he does not think there needs to be a special select committee to investigate the Obama administration’s handing of the terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya last year.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) is leading the House Republican effort for a select committee and Boehner has said in the past that the lower chamber’s established committees can handle Benghazi oversight. On Fox News Wednesday night, the Ohio Republican, despite pressure from his own caucus, said he continues to stand by that position:

HOST GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: Would you be in favor of a select committee at this point to try to sort of narrow it, so it’s not several committees that are doing this investigation?

BOEHNER: Four committees that are heavily involved in this. Probably the most significant committee involved would be the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, headed by Darrell Issa. I think Darrell Issa, Jason Chaffetz, Trey Gowdy and the members of the committee, are doing a good job.

I don’t think at this point in time that it’s necessary. Now, we may get to a point where it is. But at this point, I think our committees are doing a very good job, and I’m going to be supportive of them.

The Senate’s top Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), is also starting to back away from “Benghazi-gate” and so are Republican staffers on Capital Hill. “Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of this stuff. It’s just — I mean, you’ve got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff,” one GOP aide told Roll Call this week.

“This issue is not a sure-fire winner politically for the Republicans unless there is some bombshell that can be surfaced through a hearing in a select committee that has not already been surfaced by the multiple hearings that have been held so far,” said Christopher Preble of the libertarian Cato Institute. “If you spend a lot of time and there’s no additional information that comes out through the process, then you have the appearance of having, at a minimum, wasted a lot of time on a fairly insignificant matter,” he added.

However, it doesn’t seem like Boenher’s friends will give up any time soon. Wolf said recently that the House Speaker would be “complicit” in the (now totally debunked charge of a) Benghazi “cover-up” if he doesn’t ok the special Benghazi committee.

President Obama on Thursday in a major speech outlining his administration’s counterterrorism policies also detailed plans on how to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Amid a growing hunger strike among Gitmo detainees that gained national attention after one described the harrowing process of being force-fed, Obama said last month that he would renew his administration’s efforts to close Guantanamo.

“I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from Gitmo,” Obama said in his speech today. And while some media outlets previously reported that part of Obama’s plan would involved authorizing the transfer of Yemeni detainees that have been cleared for release, the president expounded on some of the initial details of his plan:

OBAMA: I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I am appointing a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries. I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries. Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and military justice system. And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.

“I know the politics are hard,” Obama said of closing Gitmo. Indeed, the president is already facing fierce resistance from Republicans in Congress. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said Obama’s plan amounted to a “victory” for terrorists. “GITMO must stay open for business,” he said. Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in a press conference after Obama’s speech said they want Guantanamo closed but said they wanted a plan (and didn’t appear eager to offer one themselves). House and Senate Democrats, however, are sounding a more supportive.

“Imagine a future – ten years from now, or twenty years from now – when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not a part of our country,” Obama said, seemingly pre-empting those who will resist his plan. “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike. Is that who we are? Is that something that our Founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children?”

Obama’s major speech outlining the Administration’s counter-terrorism policy on Thursday marked a win for al-Qaeda, according to Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA).

Chambliss’ comments referred to the president’s proposed changes to detention policy, which included asking the Department of Defense to find a place to conduct trials of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay inside the United States, lifting a moratorium on transferring Gitmo detainees to Yemen, and attempting to transfer all of the prison’s detainees that’ve been cleared for departure back to their home countries as part of an ultimate plan to shut down the Cuban site.

The senator suggested these measures constituted capitulation to terrorists:

The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory. Rather than continuing successful counterterrorism activities, we are changing course with no clear operational benefit. We knew five years ago that closing Guantanamo was a bad idea and would not work. Yet, today’s speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen. With the recidivism rate now at 28% and the increased threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates, including in Yemen, GITMO must stay open for business.

There is clear evidence that the military prison makes for an effective recruiting tactic for al-Qaeda, even in 2013. As former Air Force interrogator Matthew Alexander puts it, “the longer it stays open the more cost it will have in U.S. lives.”

Chambliss’ reference to “harassment” likely referrs to recent hunger strikes over conditions in the military prison. So far, the military’s response to the hunger strikes has been force-feeding the prisoners; detainees describe “the experience of having the [force-feeding] tube snaked down your throat as being like having a razor blade pulled down.” The detainees are striking in responses to searches of cells that they say involved guards mishandling Qu’rans.

The DNI’s office has only “confirmed” that 16.1 percent of released detainees (97 people) have engaged in terrorist activities after release, while it “suspects” another 11.9 percent have. The New America Foundation’s independent estimate finds, by contrast, that the confirmed number is only four percent, and the suspected number a scant 4.7 percent. Most of these transfers occurred during during the Bush Administration, with Congess’ consent.

The label “recidivism” is also somewhat misleading, as it implies that all released inmates were definitively engaged in some form of terrorist activity before being thrown in Guantanamo. Former Bush Administration official Lawrence Wilkerson estimates that 50-60 percent of Guantanamo inmates were innocent of any crime before being detained indefinitely without charge.

President Obama delivered a wide ranging speech on Thursday, laying out his vision for countering terrorism in his second term, including announcements on the use of drones, the future closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and the eventual end of the long war against al Qaeda.

Most importantly, Obama announced that he intends to work closely with Congress to “refine, and ultimately repeal” the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Passed in the aftermath of 9/11, the AUMF gave the president broad authority to carry out military action against “those nations, organizations, or persons” who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 2001 attack.

“Groups like [Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula] must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States,” Obama said. “Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.”

Congress recently began its first set of hearings into possible revisions of the AUMF, which is about to enter its twelfth year in force. Currently, there are competing proposals in the Senate and House to either repeal the authorization in its entirety or revise it to allow for the use of force beyond the perpetrators of 9/11. Obama, however, refused to go along with any broadening of the AUMF, saying he “will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.”

CAP expert Ken Gude hailed Obama’s commitment to repealing the AUMF as the “beginning of the end” of the war against al Qaeda. While remnants of al Qaeda and new groups remain threats, “the extraordinary military response that followed the attacks of 9/11 embodied in the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force can now be wound down, the permanent war footing retired, and we can rebalance our efforts to fight terrorism to rely more on our effective and efficient law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” Gude told ThinkProgress.

In his speech today, Obama continued: “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.” The clear declaration builds upon previous statements from former members of Obama’s administration that the battle against al Qaeda cannot go on indefinitely.

That desire to eventually repeal the AUMF makes up the cornerstone of the counterterrorism strategy Obama laid out today. The current Obama administration approach to conducting targeting killing and other portions that strategy were only just recently codified, as Obama acknowledged in his remarks. In it, the use of drone strikes and other applications of force will be streamlined to a more limited set of targets, with a higher level of scrutiny applied when determining those targets, while a renewed focus on the other elements of preventing terrorism will be implemented.
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Military and civilian lawyers representing terror suspect detainees at Guantanamo Bay are sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging him to improve conditions as authorities there crack down on detainees engaging in a hunger strike.

“While the hunger strike continues to increase in scope and severity, there is much you can do, right now, to improve the quality of life for all the prisoners,” the lawyers said in their letter to Hagel, Reuters reports.

Conditions at the camp have reportedly deteriorated since detainees started their hunger strike in February. Now, the military says 103 detainees are refusing food and 31 are being force-fed. Gitmo authorities have restricted communal living and taken away amenities in a effort to break the hunger strike.

“[I]t’s very clear that individual isolation is to break the hunger strike,” said Army Captain Jason Wright in a recent interview with ThinkProgress, adding that moving the detainees back to communal living might help end the mass fast. Indeed, Guantanamo’s Standard Operating Procedure on dealing with hunger strikes says “in the event of a mass strike, isolating hunger striking patients from each other is vital to prevent them from achieving solidarity.”

While Obama is expected to announce in a major national security speech on Thursday that his administration will begin transferring some detainees out of Gitmo, lawmakers are also increasing pressure to close the prison. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Obama urging him to appoint a special envoy to close Gitmo, and Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) is circulating a letter for signatures demanding Guantanamo’s closure.

The Pentagon’s former top lawyer said on Wednesday that the death of a 16-year old American in a drone strike in Yemen was effectively an accident, the first time any current or former Obama administration official has made such an admission.

On Wednesday afternoon, Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to members of Congress for the first time publicly acknowledging that U.S. drones had killed four American citizens. One of those citizens was Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16 year-old son of radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who on Wednesday the government also for the first time admitted was killed in a U.S. drone strike for his role in al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and alleged participation in attempted terror attacks on the United States.

Jeh Johson, who served as the Department of Defense’s general counsel during President Obama’s first term, appeared on MSNBC last night to discuss Holder’s letter, speaking with host Rachel Maddow. In Holder’s letter, Abdulrahman and two other U.S. citizens are described as not “specifically targeted” in the strikes that took their lives — suggesting that perhaps they were killed in a so-called “signature strike” that targets behavior. But Johnson said he thought Holder’s letter could have been more explicit:

JOHNSON: I think you could remove the word specifically from that sentence.

MADDOW: Not targeted at all?

JOHNSON: Not targeted.

MADDOW: They are effectively saying it was an accident.

JOHNSON: We are effectively saying that they were not targeted as part of those specific operations.

MADDOW: But killed anyway.

JOHNSON: But they were, obviously, killed.

Maddow wondered whether Johnson believed that U.S. culpability meant the family of those killed deserved recourse. “That is a very good question,” Johnson said, “I think you should put that to the Department of Justice.”

Nassar al-Awlaki, the father of Anwar and grandfather Abdulrahman, is in the midst of a lawsuit against the U.S. government, alleging that the killing of his son and grandson was unconstitutional. After yesterday’s revelation, a federal judge asked that government lawyers within the next week file a memo on how Holder’s acknowledgement affects the lawsuit.

Prior to Johnson’s statement, the assumption was that Abdulrahman and his friends were killed in what is known as a “signature strike” or “profile strike.” Under the practice, groups of men between 16-55 who meet a certain profile are often considered legitimate targets, often with the U.S. having no concrete knowledge of their identities. There are indications that the practice will be sharply curtailed moving forward, however, as it seems that the same standards applied to the targeted killing of American citizens will be applied to suspected terrorists writ large.

In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that a set of rules codifying the administration’s counterterrorism policies, including its targeted killing program, have been completed and President Obama has approved it.

The letter also confirms for the first time that the United States killed four American citizens in drone strikes since President Obama took office in 2009.

But the completion of the Obama administration’s codification of how it conducts targeted killings and other counterterrorism policies — or the “playbook” as it has been called — has much further reaching implications for future U.S. policy. Begun as a project of then-White House Counterterrorism Director John Brennan, and accelerated due to fears of Obama not serving a second term, the playbook was meant to put into writing many of the ad hoc processes the administration had developed to facilitate the targeted killing of suspected terrorists.

A Washington Post article on Brennan from 2012 revealed that the playbook is meant to “cover the selection and approval of targets from the ‘disposition matrix,’ the designation of who should pull the trigger when a killing is warranted, and the legal authorities the administration thinks sanction its actions in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond.” The “disposition matrix” is the benign-sounding name for the process used to approve targets for strikes. Far from being limited to drones, these strikes include the use of missiles fired from Naval warships and manned aircraft, and special operations forces.

According to Holder’s letter to Congressional leaders, the playbook has been completed, though it won’t be available to the public anytime soon:

This week the President approved and relevant congressional committees will be notified and briefed on a document that institutionalizes the Administration’s exacting standards and processes for reviewing and approving operations to capture or use lethal force against terrorist targets outside the United States and areas of active hostilities; these standards and processes are already in place or are to be transitioned into place. While that document remains classified, it makes clear that a cornerstone of the Administration’s policy is one of the principles I noted in my speech at Northwester: that lethal force should not be used when it is feasible to capture a terrorist suspect.

Among the changes rumored to be put into place in the playbook is the shifting of authority for agencies to use drones in carrying out lethal strikes. Reports indicate that while the CIA will retain control of the drone program in Pakistan, other theaters will see drones placed under the sole purview of the Department of Defense.

Despite the increased attention they’ve received, the number of drone strikes has reportedly dropped in recent years. President Obama is due to deliver a speech on Thursday at the National Defense University laying out his vision for how counterterrorism goals will be pursued in the second term, including the use of drones and the closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The latest report from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog shows that Iran continues to process nuclear fuel, it is making sure to keep its total amount low enough to not cross Israel’s so-called “red-line.”

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, since its last report Iran has continued to disregard demands that it halt enrichment of uranium at its nuclear facilities, instead processing another 689 kilograms of the nuclear fuel to the 5 percent level. Of greater concern to the international community is the uranium Iran has processed to 20 percent, compromising an additional 44 kilograms since February.

Iran’s known enriched uranium stockpile is not currently usable in a nuclear weapon — for that it would need to be enriched to 90 percent level, making it highly-enriched. However, the technology required to produce 90 percent enriched uranium is a small step from that required to reach the 20 percent threshold. Approximately 250 kilograms of 90 percent uranium is required to create one nuclear weapon, and Tehran seems to have been careful not to reach 250 kilograms worth of 20 percent enriched uranium in its stockpile.

To keep it below that level, Iran has continued its efforts to convert some of its 20 percent stockpile into uranium gas, which are then used in constructing fuel plates. These plates are extremely difficult to process further, making them effectively out of the running for being considered part of any possible weaponization. In the latest IAEA update, Iran reported converting 58 kilograms worth of 20 percent enriched uranium into uranium oxide between the end of September and May. Thus, the IAEA reported 182 kilograms of declared material still in the form of uranium hexafloride.

The report also indicates that Iran continues its efforts to install new centrifuges into its facilities, with nearly 700 installed since the start of the year.

There are also troubling portions of the report dealing with the Agency’s concerns over the Parchin military base. To date, the IAEA has been denied access to the facility, which is suspected to have been involved with earlier regime efforts to design a trigger for a nuclear weapon. Since first requesting access, it appears a cover-up of the facility’s work has been taking place:

55. Since the Director General’s previous report, Iran has conducted further spreading, levelling and compacting of material over most of the site, a significant proportion of which it has also asphalted. There have also been indications of activity within the chamber building.

56. As previously reported, Iran has stated that the allegation of nuclear activities at the Parchin site is “baseless” and that “the recent activities claimed to be conducted in the vicinity of the location of interest to the Agency, has nothing to do with specified location by the Agency”. Iran’s explanation for the soil displacement by trucks is that it was “due to constructing the Parchin new road”.

Iran’s lack of cooperation over Parchin proved a stumbling block in Iran’s ongoing talks with the U.N. over its nuclear program. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano warned back in December that the site could soon be cleared of any evidence that could have been uncovered. The IAEA, which has been issuing quarterly reports on Iran’s nuclear activities since 2003, still concludes though that none of Iran’s declared nuclear material has been diverted towards producing a nuclear weapon.

Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies also still believe that Iran has not made a decision to pursue a nuclear weapon at this time. This has not precluded Congress from beginning to pursue a slew of new action against Iran in recent weeks, with bills in both the House and Senate to increase sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Several experts have questioned the wisdom of ratcheting up sanctions on Iran without end, given the still ongoing pursuit of a diplomatic solution to the stand-off.

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee in a letter to President Obama on Tuesday praised the president’s renewed commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but urged Obama to appoint a senior official charged with working to close the facility.

“I write to add my strong support to your efforts to re-engage with Congress on this issue,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said. “I will do everything I can to aid those efforts.”

The State Department in January reassigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy for closing Gitmo, and did not replace him. Attorney General Eric Holder said this month that the administration is “in the process now” to fill the position, and Smith is urging action:

I ask you to appoint a senior official, either to your White House staff or to a senior position within the Department of State, charged with leading the renewed efforts to transfer those detainees held at GTMO who have been cleared for transfer by the Guantanamo Detainee Review Task Force. The appointment of a senior leader to negotiate and effectuate international detainee transfers is fundamental to a renewed effort to close GTMO.

Obama can order Defense Secretary Hagel to start transferring detainees out of Guantanamo, particularly 59 Yemenis who have been cleared for release. Not only would that begin the process of closing Gitmo — and perhaps even end the ongoing hunger strike there — but it’s relatively non-controversial because, as the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the Yemenis’ “new government wants them back.”

Smith agrees:

I also ask you to make several efforts to expedite the transfer of detainees whose transfer from GTMO will not hurt the security of the United States. First, request Secretary of Defense Hagel to study the feasibility of using the national security waiver to transfer low-risk detainees. Second, implement a limited waiver of your ban on transfers to Yemen.

While the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), has also written Obama offering support for closing Gitmo, getting the rest of Congress, particularly Republicans, to sign on is going to be a tough sell. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he wants the prison closed but has so-far just complained that Obama has “never come up with a viable plan.”

“Congress has blocked it, so he’s going to have to find a way to remove the blockages of Congress, and hopefully he’ll let us know how he’ll do that,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said Tuesday, according to the Hill.

More than 100 detainees are officially on hunger strike at Gitmo, and 31 are being force-fed — a practice rights groups have condemned as a violation of international law and possibly torture. “It’s getting uglier and uglier at Gitmo,” Smith told the Hill.

“The level of embarrassment is growing and the cost is growing, so is that enough to persuade [Members of Congress] that it’s time to change positions?” Smith added. “We’re going to have that debate.” (HT: Carol Rosenberg)

Civil rights leaders slammed an amendment added to the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill that would subject immigrants from Muslim countries for extra scrutiny.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and added to the bill with the support of at least two Democrats, would require additional review for undocumented immigrants applying for legal status who are from “a region or country known to pose a threat, or that contains groups or organizations that pose a threat, to the national security of the United States.” Under the underlining bill, all undocumented immigrations are required to undergo three separate background checks before obtaining legal status. In defending his amendment during the Senate Judiciary Committee mark-up on Monday, Graham argued for an additional screening from regions of the world “where terrorists operate.”

“I mean, it’s pretty clear what I’m trying to do,” Graham said. “I’m trying to make sure that in addition to looking at your criminal background, when you adjust status, that if there are certain parts of the world or countries — like Yemen — that you’re adjusting from, I want to know a little more about you, given the world we live in.”

Under the provisions of the amendment, the Secretary of Homeland Security would have the broad authority to target any “alien or alien dependent spouse or child” from any region or country that they deem, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to house threats to the United States for additional scrutiny before becoming citizens. “I’m not dictating that [the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State] have to pick any region or country over the other,” Graham said, attempting to deflect criticisms that the amendment focuses specifically on the Middle East.

But a coalition of civil rights groups disagreed with Graham’s approach, arguing that the measure was similar to the now-defunct National Security Entry-Exit System (NSEERS), a largely ineffective program set up under the the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11. As part of the program, immigrants from twenty-four Muslim majority countries were forced to register into the system, which tracked their entry and exit from the country. The coalition — including the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, Arab American Institute, and National Council of La Raza — signed onto a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to condemn the amendment as being the NSEERS reborn:

Graham amendment #3 seems to do little more than revive the failed approach taken by the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), in which nonimmigrants from countries designated as national security concerns were subject to special screening. NSEERS was widely discredited, as it resulted in unjust racial and ethnic profiling of individuals from mainly Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities. While NSEERS resulted in the detention and deportation of thousands of people, it cost $10 million annually and failed to result in any successful counter-terrorism prosecutions. The Department’s Inspector General reported that the program was inefficient and burdensome. There is no reason to believe that the approach in Graham amendment #3 would be any more successful in rooting out national security threats.

The Obama administration shuttered most of the NSEER’s functions in 2011, leaving the program indefinitely suspended. Graham’s amendment is less explicit than the NSEERS was, but would still place into law the ability for the government to racially profile potential citizens. During debate, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) suggested that a better system should be based on intelligence and law enforcement concerns rather than nation of origin, a suggestion Graham denied was necessary.

Graham’s amendment passed by voice vote and was inserted into the overarching bill with support from Sens. Al Franken (D-MN) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who announced they would back the measure. The overarching bill itself was voted out of committee last night, propelling it to the Senate floor where an effort to remove Graham’s language is likely to take shape.

What was hailed as a landmark ruling in Guatemala has been thrown out, as the country’s high court ordered a former dictator’s case on charges of genocide return to a lower court.

Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt was just less than two weeks ago convicted of committing genocide against his own people during his time in power. According to the charges against him, Rios Montt was aware of the slaughter of at least 1,771 Ixil Mayans during the country’s lengthy civil war, and did nothing to stop it. As punishment, the 86-year old former dictator was sentenced to eighty years in prison, the first time a national court had convicted a former head of state for committing genocide.

Instead of sitting in a cell for the rest of his life, however, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court has overturned the conviction and ordered that the trial jump back down to the tribunal that originally tried the case. Additionally, the trial has to rewind to where it stood back on April 19, to cover what Rios Montt claimed were violations of due process. As a result, it seems that Rios Montt will likely be released from custody in the near future, while many involved with the prosecution have already fled the country for fear of reprisals from those who sought to have the conviction reversed.

When it was first announced, Human Rights Watch called Rios Montt’s guilty verdict an “unprecedented step toward establishing accountability for atrocities.”

“The conviction of Rios Montt sends a powerful message to Guatemala and the world that nobody, not even a former head of state, is above the law when it comes to committing genocide,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, at the time.

The overturning of the ruling should be particularly disappointing for Americans, given the role that the United States played in enabling Rios Montt’s rule and subsequent abuse of power at the height of the Cold War:

When General Ríos Montt was installed in a coup in March 1982, Reagan administration officials were eager to embrace him as an ally. Embassy officials trekked up to the scene of massacres and reported back the army’s line that the guerrillas were doing the killing, according to documents uncovered by [Kate Doyle, a Guatemala expert at the National Security Archive].

Over the next two years, about $15 million in spare parts and vehicles from the United States reached the Guatemalan military, said Prof. Michael E. Allison, a political scientist at the University of Scranton who studies Central America. More aid came from American allies like Israel, Taiwan, Argentina and Chile. In the 1990s, the American government revealed that the C.I.A. had been paying top military officers throughout the period.

President Bill Clinton in 1999 traveled to Guatemala to apologize for the U.S.’ support for the dictator, saying that “support for military forces or intelligence units which engage in violent and widespread repression of the kind described in the [Commission for Historical Clarification] report was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake.”

The most expensive prison in the world recently became even more costly. The Guantanamo Bay prison is badly in need of renovation and it’s going to cost the American taxpayer nearly $200 million to do it.

“The mess hall, the barracks for my military personnel down there are just ramshackle,” Southern Command commander Gen. John Kelly told Foreign Policy this week. “No one thought [Gitmo] would be open this long, so they didn’t build any accommodations for the troops.”

That $200 million is on top of the $150 million it costs each year — setting aside the moral, tactical and strategic costs — to operate the prison and military court system — that’s around $900,000 per detainee. To put that number into perspective, the Federal government pays around $60,000 per inmate, per year in a maximum security prison and an average of $30,000 across all federal prisons.

“That … may be what finally gets us to actually close the prison. I mean the costs are astronomical, when you compare them to what it would cost to detain somebody in the United States,” CAP’s Ken Gude recently told Reuters.

Or perhaps what might move Congress and the President is what the U.S. government could spend that money on otherwise, Reuters has some examples:

Just one inmate from Guantanamo, for example, is equivalent to the cost of 12 weeks of White House tours for the public — a treasured tradition that the Secret Service says costs $74,000 a week and that has been axed under sequestration.

A single inmate is also the equivalent of keeping open the control tower at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for 45 months. That control tower, another victim of cuts, costs $20,000 per month to run.

The $900,000 also matches the funding for nearly seven states to help serve home delivered meals to the elderly. Sequestration has cost Meals on Wheels a median shortfall of $129,497 per state, the organization says.

Or measured in terms of military spending and national security, the cost of four inmates represents the cost of training an Air Force fighter pilot – based on the Department of Defense’s figure of $3.6 million per pilot.

President Obama agrees. As the hunger strike and force-feeding crises at Gitmo were heating up, the President announced last month that he would renew his administration’s long-stalled efforts to close the prison. “I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” he said, adding: “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”

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The International Crisis Group (ICG) on Tuesday published a new report “Drones: Myths And Reality In Pakistan,” examining the ongoing war against militant groups located in Pakistan. The report calls on both the United States and Pakistan to come clean about the ongoing use of drones against suspected terrorists, saying that more than strikes are needed to end Pakistan’s ongoing problem with militants.

Since 2004, according to the ICG, at least 350 U.S. drone strikes have taken place on Pakistani soil, within the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Complicating operations against militant groups based in the area, the vast majority of Pakistan’s laws simply do not apply to the FATA, with the region instead following its own set of tribal laws and codes. Given the lack of control Islamabad exerts, the FATA has long been a haven for armed groups, including those who strike across the border in Afghanistan, including Mullah Omar’s Taliban and the Haqqani Network, as well as the Pakistani Taliban, which strikes against Pakistan itself.

One of the major issues ICG raises regarding drone strikes in the area is the lack of firm intelligence about precisely who is being targeted. In place of firm data, the U.S. often utilizes what are known as “signature strikes” or “personality strikes.” Groups of men between 16-55 who meet a certain profile are often considered legitimate targets, based on “pattern of life” data including where they’ve traveled while under surveillance and whether or not they were in the vicinity of known targets when the strike occurred.

As the report details, Pakistan and U.S. are locked in delicate dance over the actual use of drones within Pakistan, each concealing the full truth from the public. The U.S. still won’t officially confirm that the CIA-run targeted killing program within Pakistan even exists. The IGC says Pakistan often displays behavior that “borders on the schizophrenic” when it comes to the drone program. The Pakistani government often claims to have no forewarning about the use of drones and publicly denounces many of the strikes, even with ample evidence that they provide permission for the operations to occur, especially when carried out against its enemies.

ICG suggests both Washington and Islamabad become more transparent about the relationship the two have on drone strikes, while shifting their policies away from relying solely on military options, and instead taking a more comprehensive approach to combating militancy:

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GOP aides are criticizing the House Republicans’ partisan witch-hunt over the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya last year, arguing that the Party should focus more on substantive issues, such as lessons learned and how to recalibrate diplomatic security.

Roll Call reports that Republican aides are saying staffers are getting bogged down chasing bogus accusations.

“We have got to get past that and figure out what are we going to do going forward,” a GOP aide told Roll Call. “Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of this stuff. It’s just — I mean, you’ve got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff.” Another aide expressed frustration at accusations that military assets weren’t properly deployed during the night of the attacks and that a team from Tripoli could have been flown in to fight off the attackers:

“There are some real issues there and then there is just some crazy stuff,” the senior House GOP aide said. “The crazy stuff is, you know, the airman in Ramstein [Air Base, Germany,] that knew that the Predator [drone] was armed. There are no armed Predators in the region there. The [status of forces agreement] does not allow us to fly them armed, and everybody knows it.” [...]

GOP aides described another criticism aired at a recent House Oversight Committee hearing that there were four security officers at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli who were ordered to remain in the capital for several hours after the first reports of an attack, rather than being scrambled to assist the consulate in Benghazi.

“The stand-down order was for four guys,” the GOP aide said. “When you step back and say how were the people killed at the annex, they were killed by an indirect fire mortar round. Four more M-4s [rifles] inside the annex doesn’t change that outcome. In fact, they might have just created more casualties. We have got to get down to what really happened on the DoD side and for us the DoD side was not properly postured, why?”

It appears that some Republicans are also beginning to see that the GOP’s Benghazi affair isn’t paying dividends. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell backed away from some Republicans’ baseless claims of an Obama White House cover-up. And Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) in an interview on Fox News on Monday warned his colleagues about taking the issue too far:

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