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January 14, 2006
Friendly Leaks

The Cheney administration is pushing leaks to the German media to discredit the former and the current German government.

The new German ‘grand coalition’ government between the socialdemocratic party and the Merkel’s conservative block was expected to lead to better U.S.-German relations.

But in early December, when Condi Rice was traveling to Germany, her meeting with Merkel ended in a clash. Merkel told the press:

"The American administration has admitted that [Khaled al Masri, a German,] was erroneously taken"

Upps … Condi’s staff went ballistic.

A few days before Merkel’s recent meeting with Bush, she criticized the existence of Guantanamo.

Payback: leaks appeared in the German press alleging the German foreign secret service (BND) helped the U.S. with targeting information in Baghdad during the Iraq war.

Main witness is a "US defense official" claiming the BND gave "direct support" in "selecting targets".

Of course the German opposition parties have a field day with this and it is used to drive some personal attacks on foreign minister Steinmeier. In the old administration, he was chief of staff for Schröder and responsible for coordinating foreign intelligence and the BND.

There is so far no evidence for this to have happened, except anonymous U.S. sources. Given the very cold relations at that time between the U.S. and Germany I find this highly unlikely and even my rightwing local paper, which loves to beat on Steinmeier, is today expressing doubts and suspects manipulations.

Says a journalist with knowledge of the involved organizations:

We’re experiencing a sort of psychological attack on the part of the American intelligence agencies against the old Social Democratic-Green party coalition government, but also against the new government following Merkel’s demand that the US close Guantanamo Bay. The Americans want to make clear — especially in light of their bad image following the CIA torture allegations — that Germany isn’t as pure as assumed, because they were more involved in the Iraq war than they said they were.

Nobody is pure, but when a supposedly friendly U.S. leaks negative disinformation about an allied foreign intelligence service, there is a serious break of trust. 

Even though there was a "warm welcome"for Merkel by Bush, the political good will and  public support for the U.S. in Germany did just take another drop and Merkel’s poll ratings reached new highs.

Is this just stupid behaviour? What are the plans and expectations when doing this? Qui bono?

Posted by b on January 14, 2006 at 16:01 UTC | Permalink
Comments

there’s enough swiftboating to go around. mess w/the big guy expect to get a little egg in the face.

Posted by: annie | Jan 14 2006 16:52 utc | 1

An amazing argument: “You did not help us as we wanted, so we’ll punish you. However, you helped us more than you have publicly admitted. We will use that to punish you for not helping us enough.”
Now THAT should teach all others to either help the US gov – or not help at all. A good lesson among the very best of friends.

Posted by: teuton | Jan 14 2006 17:50 utc | 2

The phrase is actually cui bono? (dative)
.

Posted by: Brian Boru | Jan 14 2006 17:57 utc | 3

To my mind, Germans wouldn’t know of any targets that Americans didn’t. This doesn’t really pass the sniff test.
As far as Qui bono, two theories, not mutually exclusive come to mind: One, our government and foreign policy are run by emotional five year olds. No surprise here.
Two, Merkel’s increased popularity will only help her push through neo-liberal reforms calculated to dismantle the German social welfare state. Very crafty five year olds. The bickering is only spectacle for the masses, the neo-liberal reforms are for the ultra-rich, or as Bush (and probably Merkel) calls them, my base.

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 14 2006 18:05 utc | 4

Bernhard there is a third and my opinion more likely option than either the BND wasn’t involved or the BND was involved right up to the level of ministers of govt. That is the BND was involved without the knowledge of the government.
One of the problems that western Countries tend to have with their intelligence organisations is that if there is a falling out with the ‘team’ ie US point of view the agencies often imagine they know better and do their own thing.
The reasons are complex and to be found chiefly in the ‘I know what’s best for my country/world’ attitude that is so prevalent amongst spooks.
NZ had numerous problems with this right from the moment it banned nuclear weaponed or nuclear propelled vessels from it shores.
There is a school of thought which believe that not only did the SIS know about the Rainbow Warrior bombing, it assisted with logistics during the reconnaissance phase.
The french were caught thanks to the police who had primary responsibility for the investigation. The spooks were trapped in a buereuacratic netherworld for nearly a decade after that.
One of the first things that happens following a major falling out is the US becomes reluctant to ‘share the product’. Usually their intelligence in the suddenly ‘suspect’ nation remains accessible because it is sewn up with treaties and no one in the Govt really wants to get more offside with the US lest things get worse.
I won’t prattle on about this anymore than to say that the best lies are half truths and if there is a plot to get the new govt or at least to make it more ‘reasonable’ ie pliant the tricks will be sufficiantly credible to withstand pretty close scrutiny.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 14 2006 19:59 utc | 5

@brian – search google: qui bono 900,000; cui bono – 500,000 – both are dativ.
@Malooga – increasing popularity to then push reform might be the intent, but in the current coalition she is quite restricted through a coaltion contract and a win in a new ballot attempt may look reasonable today but could be a desaster three month down the road.
That is what exactly happened to the conservatives last time. They expected near 50%, the ballot gave them 35%.
Merkel is smart enough to be careful there.
@DiD – there may be here something like a gone wild secret service, but I doubt it. There is no tradition of that with the BND and it is not an “operational” service like the CIA, but a much more observe and analyse type of thing.
The BND has been in Baghdad since the early 80s and I am sure they gave GPS coordinations to the U.S. to what NOT to bomb, i.e. their position. Anything else do I have serious doubts. I don´t know, but going wild would not fit their history.

Posted by: b | Jan 14 2006 21:56 utc | 6

Super War Preview
The Iranian Suicide Bombers vs. The American Crusaders
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a world that doesn’t want to get smarter, doesn’t want to press harder for knowledge, and doesn’t want to know the truth about itself.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 14 2006 22:21 utc | 7

@uncle scam,
bumpersticker philosophy works here.
Those who learn from the past are condemned
to watch others repeat it.

Posted by: gylangirl | Jan 15 2006 0:13 utc | 8

@b: Your post makes me suspect you don’t know what “dative” actually means, which is odd — the dative case is a form in declined languages which indicates a direct object, just as “nominitive” indicates a subject. Latin is a declined language, and therefore there is a definite correct spelling in this case, and it’s “cui”. It doesn’t matter what Google says; all you’ve proved is that more people get a question wrong than right. (And even then, you didn’t search right. If you put the words in quotes, which makes Google look for the words in sequence instead of separately, there are only 30,500 “qui bonos” against 175,000 “cui bonos”.) “Qui bono” doesn’t parse. It’s like changing the word order in an English sentence — “Him hurts” is wrong, and a gajillion million Google hits for it won’t change that.

Posted by: Grammarian | Jan 15 2006 0:51 utc | 9

@bernhard I think you are far too trusting of your intelligence services, but I must defer to your opinion since they are german intelligence services and as such you must be more familiar with their techniques than I.
Coincidentally there was an an article in one of the NZ Sunday fishwraps today.
It is based on some of David Lange’s papers which the newspaper managed to obtain under the Official Information Act following Lange’s death.
Here’s a few bits to give an idea of what happens intelligence wise when an ally of the US has a falling out with the US:

Lange papers reveal US spy threats
15.01.06 1.00pm
Private papers revealing the United States had threatened to spy on New Zealand and including a top secret report by New Zealand’s electronic spy agency were published today.
Former Prime Minister David Lange’s private papers include a top-secret report by the Government Communications Security Bureau that casts new light on the NZ-US intelligence relationship after the anti-nuclear policy and breakdown of Anzus.”….
….”Among them is a letter from former minister David Caygill, written on March 21, 1986, in which he describes a lunch with United States ambassador Paul Cleveland.
“The ambassador asked me if I realised what was at stake in the dispute between the two countries,” Mr Caygill writes.
“I asked him what he meant. He replied trust. I asked him what he meant by that and he said that until now the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand had had a unique relationship. ‘We have not spied on each other. If you go ahead with your policies we will not be able to trust you’.
“I took the clear implication from his remarks that if our relationship with the US deteriorated further, then the US would no longer feel any inhibition in conducting intelligence gathering operations against us.”
In another letter a fortnight later, the newspaper reported Mr Lange’s chief of staff, John Henderson, said he also lunched with the ambassador, who raised the same issues “and it was difficult not to reach the same conclusions as Caygill reached”. “….
….”The report shows that while the intelligence flow to New Zealand from the US dropped after the anti-nuclear policy, the GCSB maintained significant links with American intelligence agencies.
GCSB director Colin Hanson describes the relationship as “a mixed state of official cautiousness and private cordiality”, and the volume of overseas intelligence reports increased by 33 per cent on the previous year.
The report lists the countries and agencies on which New Zealand was spying. They include targets that have never been officially acknowledged, including UN diplomatic communications, Argentine naval intelligence, Egypt, Japan, the Philippines, Pacific Island nations, France, Vietnam, the Soviets, North Korea, East Germany, Laotia and South Africa.”

Now the vast bulk of those countries are ones that NZ would have little to gain for itself by spying on them.
The US on the other hand would have found that these nations would accept NZ hanging around with much less suspicion than they would accept the US stumblebums. So presumably we gave the US all the intelligence we could get and in return they would give NZ any intelligence of interest to NZ. Except that latter scenario is unlikely in that the US would only hand over that which it determined was ‘safe’ to relinquish.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 15 2006 4:24 utc | 10

@Malooga and @Bernhard
Having dealt with the BND years ago when I lived in Germany, I too would be surprised if this story were true. Can’t imagine the Schröder government would have okayed this, and doubt also that it could have been done independent of government approval – cowboys aren’t exactly a German tradition.
BTW friends in Germany are pleasantly surprised with Frau Merkel thus far – seems far less of an ideologue than feared and quite bright and capable. Hope she continues as such…..

Posted by: McGee | Jan 15 2006 7:02 utc | 11

@Grammarian – you are right, it’s cui Relative Pronoun

Posted by: b | Jan 15 2006 8:19 utc | 12

The BND dispute ignores the fact that Germany was far from neutral in the Iraq conflict. Although Gerd Scröder made a demostrative play of not sending troops, Germany nonetheless allowed the USA to use its military bases in Germany for logistic support.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jan 15 2006 13:57 utc | 13

yes, ralphieboy.
The US wanted, needed, to destroy the sphere of (ongoing and then ex-) USSR influence. A prime target was Yugoslavia. The US used a wedge strategy, leading to ethnic conflict. The history of US support for Bosnian Muslims, and then the ‘ethnic Albanians’ (in Kosova) is well known. Oops, and the Croats, too! The first seeds of Al-Quaeda, instrumentalised.
The US funded and supported Yugo while Tito was in power (a bulwark of some kind against the Commies) but had no need to continue after the Fall of Wall. ‘Russia’ also lost interest. Then, destroy it…why not?
Ha! M. Albright tripping of for dinner with H. Taci… and more…took him to Rambouillet, right?
And so War returned to Europe.
Germany, that living emblem of the Cold War (the wall), managed its reunification and jumped on the first chance to be able to use its troops once again – in Yugo, aligned to the US. It was allowed to send armed soldiers, exert its influence, and in fact was a prime mover, even instigator. It pressured the EU -out of the blue!- to recognize the independence of Croatia and Slovenia. (1991).
Huh! The Ussr forced the German army to abandon Zagreb and Sarajevo..revenge is a dish best eaten cold…
Schroeder was smart enough to see that publically aligning with the US against Iraq was an impossibility. Part of the difficulty arose from the fact that Saddam was the US’s man, and the rapid switch was a little hard to adjust to (trade, oil, etc.)
Other EU Gvmts. and elites played the same game – Holland (always pro-Israel, amongst other things..), first. Those masks are now dropping.
One can call Germany a smart operator, an aspiring big power set of recuperating some of its former despised and adulated glory, branching out once again, or: a pawn.
Merkel bitching about Gitmo is maybe heartfelt (she may disaprove of its to her clumsy PR aspects) but basically it is for the gallery.

Posted by: Noisette | Jan 15 2006 21:17 utc | 14

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