Powers: Internal War between CIA and Pentagon as bad as External Wars
Mark Follman at Salon.com profiles Thomas Powers, author of “Intelligence Wars: American Secret History From Hitler to Al Qaeda.” Powers argues that the war between the CIA and the Pentagon is a third war for the US after Afghanistan and Iraq. He gives as an example the CIA raid on the house of Ahmad Chalabi, a Pentagon asset who had been set up in that house by the Department of Defense, which had the effect of destroying Chalabi politically. Powers also sees the Abu Ghuraib prison torture scandal in the context of this internal war. He believes that Rumsfeld authorized military intelligence to “turn up the heat.” He also thinks it likely that the Pentagon took Israeli advice on how to humiliate and break Arab prisoners.