Rep. Rush Holt and the House Intelligence Committee

Now that the Democrats have gained control of Congress, I am overwhelmed by only one thought: Don't Blow It! A very dangerous opportunity to blow it seems to be looming on the horizon already. Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be confronted with the problem of choosing the new Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

It has been widely reported in the press that Speaker Pelosi intends not to appoint Rep. Jane Harman of California, who had been the ranking Democrat on the Committee, to the position of Chair. While the media has generally spun this as some sort of "cat fight" between two California female representatives, there are in fact good substantive reasons to oppose Rep. Harman's appointment as Chair of this very sensitive Committee. Rep. Harman has generally supported the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq, and it is known that she frequently clashed with Rep. Pelosi over policy issues when they both served on the Intelligence Committee. Moreover, there is a general feeling in the Democratic Party that Rep. Harman gave inappropriate cover to the Bush Administration's illegal warrantless electronic surveillance program, as she appears to have been one of the only Democrats in Congress who was generally briefed about the program at an early stage, but she raised no objections notwithstanding the clear-cut illegality of the program (see "September 11, 2001: A Day That Will Long Live In Infamy"). Thus, there are good reasons for concluding that choosing Rep. Harman as the new Chair of the House Intelligence Committee will not send the message that the Democratic Congress intends to forge a new, independent path over the next two years.

Because of the sensitivity of the post, selection of the Chair of the Intelligence Committee is not governed by the rules of seniority that normally dictate selection of Committee Chairs. After Rep. Harman, the next ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee is Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida. In the past, Rep. Hastings had been a Federal Judge who was indicted for conspiring to receive a bribe in exchage for giving a lenient sentence to an organized crime defendant. While Judge Hastings was found not guilty by a jury at the criminal trial, he was subsequently impeached by a House of Representatives then controlled by the Democratic Party, and convicted by the Senate. Thus, Rep. Hastings stands as one of only seventeen Federal Judges in over 200 years who has been impeached and removed from office. Thereafer, Hastings was elected to Congress, and constitutionally, an elected Representative cannot be removed from office. While Rep. Hastings has maintained that the evidence against him was fabricated (even though the evidence included taped conversations and damning testimony from the Judge's own law clerk), it would be extremely difficult for the Democratic Party today to ignore the significance of Judge Hastings' impeachment. The Democratic House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment (the vote was 413 to 4), and the vote was supported by such progressive stalwarts as Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Charles Rangel, and most importantly, by Rep. Nancy Pelosi herself.

In short, the choice of Rep. Hastings to Chair the House Intelligence Committee would, at the very least, be a public relations disaster for the new Democratic Congress. Indeed, given the serious questions that can legitimately be raised about Rep. Hastings' integrity, there are extremely sound reasons for concluding that elevating him to Chair of this Committee not only looks bad, it is bad.

Fortunately, there is a third possibility. As recently advanced by David Corn, Washington Editor of The Nation, Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey is the ideal choice to serve as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. See "Pelosi's Next Big Problem", in The Nation, www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames (Nov. 21, 2006). Rep. Holt is a Ph.D. physicist who has taught at Swarthmore and Princeton. Most importantly, Rep. Holt has served in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and he is a recognized international expert on the subjects of nuclear proliferation and problems associated with maintaining the security of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and in other nuclear nations such as Pakistan that may be subject to political instability. Rep. Holt's stance on the crucial issues of the day is picture perfect. He opposed the Iraq War from the outset and he voted against legislation giving Bush authority to commence the war. He has persistently spoken out against Bush Administration practices relating to detention and torture.

Most significantly, Rep. Holt has been in the forefront of the critique of the Bush Administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program. In particular, I would commend a reading of a letter dated December 22, 2005 that Rep. Holt sent to Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency ("NSA"), which is reproduced on Rep. Holt's Congressional website. Rep. Holt had long been suspicious that the Bush Administration was violating the law in connection with electronic surveillance, but he had been assured by NSA officials that "whenever the NSA intentionally targets a 'U.S. person' for surveillance, the agency must obtain an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ["FISA"] Court." However, when the New York Times reported in December 2005 that the NSA was in fact conducting electronic surveillance of "U.S. persons" without obtaining orders from the FISA Court, Rep. Holt responded angrily, vehemently, and publicly in his letter to the NSA's Alexander:

"Were your responses given in a spirit of full cooperation and disclosure with a member of NSA's principal Congressional oversight committee? They were not. Your responses make a mockery of Congressional oversight. At the time it did not seem necessary to remind you that a principal grievance that required that Congress wrest power from the despot George III was that 'he has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civilian power.' Let me be clear: I vehemently reject the notion that the President as Commander in Chief, or in any other capacity, had then or has now the legal or Constitutional authority to order you or any other intelligence agency to conduct such surveillance of Americans outside the bounds of the FISA statute."

When I first read Rep. Holt's letter to the NSA on this subject, my reaction can be summed up in one word: Wow! Here is somebody in Congress who really gets it. This is what Congressional oversight is supposed to be all about, and Congressional oversight, more than anything else, is what this country desperately needs from its new Democratic Congress over the next two years.

So here is my question to incoming Speaker Pelosi: Why not the best? The selection of the next Chair of the House Intelligence Committee need not be an occasion to cause all Democrats to wince. On the contrary, Speaker Pelosi can send a loud and clear message to the country that she is not going to carry on business as usual. She is going to pick the best person for the job. The new Chair of the House Intelligence Committee should be a Representative who is not only willing to kick ass, but whose knowledge and expertise enable him to understand precisely whose ass ought to be kicked and where to apply the boot.

I urge everyone to write to Speaker Pelosi and your individual Representative in support of Rep. Rush Holt's selection as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

The Need For A New Congress

I recently read a great book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a reporter from the Washington Post. The book is a first-hand report about the utter chaos in Iraq in the days following the invasion, and the complete lack of preparation displayed by the Coalition Provisional Authority ("CPA") under the "leadership" (using the term very loosely) of Bush's Viceroy, L. Paul Bremer III. If every voter read this book, the Democrats would enjoy a clean sweep in the upcoming Congressional elections.

There is one particular audience to whom I would recommend this book - those who supported the Iraq War and who sincerely believe that an attempt to democratize the Middle East is a noble cause. This book makes it clear that the Bush Administration completely trashed that cause. There was no serious effort to re-build Iraq. The reconstruction efforts - which have cost American taxpayers billions of dollars - were mired in political cronyism, incompetence, and corruption. The book recounts how experienced career soldiers and State Department Middle Eastern specialists were removed from their jobs and replaced by Republican Party hacks. Prospective employees of the CPA were questioned about their voting habits, their loyalty to Bush, and their opinions about Roe v. Wade. The job of reconstructing the Baghdad stock exchange was given to a politically-connected 24-year old with no experience in finance. Accounts of such seemingly limitless outrages abound.

The book also offers a glimpse into some of the rampant waste and corruption being perpetrated in Iraq by government contractors. Aside from such well-known profiteers as Bechtel and Halliburton, the book describes the activities of some lesser known fraudsters who have been feasting at the trough in Iraq. One case is that of the company with the unlikely name of Custer Battles that was given the contract to provide security for the Baghdad Airport. The company had no prior experience in doing such security, and several companies that did have experience made it known that they could not even have calculated a bid for a contract to provide such services given the chaotic state of affairs in Baghdad. Lack of experience, however, presented no obstacle to Custer Battles, whose principals had connections in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Republican Party (as well as right-wing media circles such as Fox News), and it got the contract from the CPA to provide airport security. Ultimately, Custer Battles' abilities turned out to have nothing to do with providing security services and everything to do with fraudulent billing practices. A former employee brought a whistleblower lawsuit against the company, and a jury in Federal Court in Virginia returned a $3 million verdict for fraud against the company. A retired General testified at the trial that the company's billing practices were the worst he had ever seen in his thirty years in the Army. The Judge in the lawsuit later vacated the verdict, not because of lack of evidence of fraud but only because the victim of the fraud was the CPA, which does not technically qualify as the type of Federal Government agency to which the civil whistleblower statute applies. There are, however, numerous Federal criminal statutes that could apply to the case. The Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzales Justice Department, however, has apparently shown little interest in pursuing the case.

This is precisely why we need new blood in Congress. How can anything possibly be accomplished in Iraq if the money spent supposedly for reconstruction is actually being poured down a rat-hole of incompetence and corruption. If nothing else, a Democratic Congress can at least be counted upon to ask the one question that no Republican has yet had the guts to ask: What the hell is going on over there?

There are many, many reasons to vote Democratic on Tuesday. Reason Number One is the crying need for accountability in Iraq.