The accountability of Rumsfeld
is the real issue touched upon in Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article, according to Take it as Red:
There has been a lot of left blog commentary on Hersh’s report, but what commentary I have read so far seems to miss the main thrust of the article. Instead they’ve concentrated on the whole Iran thing. I think this is a mistake. What comes over most clearly from the article is the way in which the normal checks and balances, such as they were, that kept the Pentagon from operating secretly have now been dismantled, that the CIA has become a busted flush and is now nothing more than an echo chamber for the administration, and that Rumsfeld has the power to send Special Forces anywhere at all, to do anything at all, with apparently no executive, judicial or legislative oversight. Humint is no longer within the purview of the CIA but that of Defence Intelligence ( that was what the whole Porter Goss purge was about, and aren’t secret Executive Orders handy?) ; thus Defence Intelligence, directly overseen by Rumsfeld, is now in control, is free from reporting and not subject to the Freedom of Information Act or subject only when it suits.