Exclusive: New Documents in Zero Dark Thirty Affair Raise Questions of White House-Sanctioned Intelligence Leak and Inspector General Coverup
April 16, 2015 | By: Adam Zagorin
By Adam Zagorin
Critics have assailed the movie Zero Dark Thirty, charging that it fictionalized key elements of the ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden and falsely credited the use of torture as being essential to locating the terrorist. But the factual liberties filmmakers took are only part of the story.
Now, a document newly obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) reveals more about the high-level government access Hollywood filmmakers had during their research—and what happened at the top of the CIA, including the Agency’s use of White House-approved talking points to brief the filmmakers specifically about intelligence used to locate the al Qaeda leader.
That intelligence, according to the CIA and as portrayed in the film, was extracted using coercive techniques including waterboarding, an assertion that has emerged as a major point of contention between the CIA and Members of Congress from both parties. Indeed, leading U.S. Senators have blasted as false the movie’s depiction of torture as key to tracking down bin Laden. Many details are unknown, but the possibility that White House-approved talking points may have been a prime source for the portrayal of how he was located puts Zero Dark Thirty’s inaccuracies in a troubling light.
...there was “[r]emoval of CIA information” from the report on the same day that another document indicates she met with then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and discussed the report.
A little-noticed email citing White House-approved talking points surfaced in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch in 2012, as did what is apparently another White House account of the raid. But it appears the document obtained by POGO references a different White House-approved narrative. The material uncovered by Judicial Watch does not refer specifically to intelligence that led to bin Laden’s location; the document obtained by POGO does.
The additional information appears in a never-issued 15-page draft version of a report prepared by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD IG) and marked “FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY.” The report was requested by then-Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King (R-NY) shortly after bin Laden’s killing in May 2011 to determine whether filmmakers received “top-level access to the most classified mission in history.”
Trouble in a Timeline
Especially disturbing are the lengths to which DoD’s then-Acting Inspector General Lynne Halbrooks went to suppress details of the collaboration between Hollywood and the CIA. POGO also obtained an official timeline of the investigation. It shows
Official Photo of Lynne Halbrooks
there was “[r]emoval of CIA information” from the report on the same day that another document indicates she met with then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and discussed the report. Panetta was CIA Director during the bin Laden raid, and the highest-ranking subject of Halbrooks’ probe. Halbrooks ultimately issued a sanitized account of what happened and withheld the embarrassing material from Congress and the public. That material, uncovered during months of research, led to the conclusion that Leon Panetta, as CIA Director, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers had conveyed ultra-sensitive, legally protected information to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty.
After six years in the DoD IG’s Office, Halbrooks last week announced her resignation effective April 17. Shortly afterward, current IG Jon Rymer sent an email to DoD IG staff hailing her as his “closest advisor.” Rymer has appeared as disinterested as Halbrooks in telling the full story of what happened.
EXTRACT ONLY - FULL @ SOURCE
http://www.pogo.org/our-work/articles/2015/new-documents-in-zero-dark-thirty-affair-raise-questions.html
COMMENT
This stood out as interesting, but I'm not sure why. LOL
The collaboration between Hollywood & the CIA, as well as the falsely credited torture (ie pro torture propaganda) and the cover-up (to hide information from the public) probably sums up the whole Hollywood and CIA / USG collaboration ... which is a propaganda instrument, like something out of Nazi Germany.
In other news:
WikiLeaks Publish
The Sony Archives
in searchable format
ties to White House / TPP
LINK
|
WikiLeaks also recently published an additional chapter (Investor Chapter) of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement ('TPP'):
I'm a bit slow to catch on. Didn't realise until several days after the release how important the WikiLeaks TPP release really is, seeing politicians/governments are actively keeping their 'slave' populations ignorant of matters that impact on them hugely.
Secret negotiations have spanned years, and the free trade agreement is earmarked for secrecy for several years (even after it is adopted). At the same time, this agreement affects 40% of the world's economy, grants corporations sweeping rights, affects national sovereignty / policy making capacity of government at all levels, and impacts detrimentally on matters of public interest in numerous ways; but this has been kept secret while governments prepare to sign away rights to big business and adopt crippling obligations affecting taxpayers.
The TPP free trade agreement only focuses 5 chapters of 29 on trade: the rest of its focus is on corporate protectionism.
Hollywood Swinging Hard for Trans-Pacific Partnership
Hollywood moguls and the vast majority of leftist entertainers have joined forces in a last-ditch effort to bully wavering Democratic lawmakers into backing President Obama’s fast-track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as the centerpiece of what he calls his “pro-trade agenda.”
TPP is so controversial that the Administration has refused to show anyone the document. But what it does do is “trade” the right for U.S. entertainment interests to gain lucrative enhanced-copyright protections with 12 nations, in exchange for the elimination of all tariffs that punish unfair business practices.
EXTRACT
|
EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 
No comments:
Post a Comment