Why did Leon Panetta visit the Middle East?
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Last week, CIA chief Leon Panetta apparently made a quiet trip to Jerusalem and Cairo. While there, news reports indicate Panetta met Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, defense minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak and Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
Then, days later, Panetta told Congress a terrorist attack by al-Qaeda or its allies is “certain” in the near future. Did the CIA chief learn something while he was in the Middle East? According to Israeli intelligence news site Debkafile (who have been incorrect in the past), the meetings centered primarily on Yemen:
They discussed an Egyptian expeditionary force for Yemen to fight al Qaeda combatants alongside US special forces. Panetta requested for the use of Egyptian military airfields as jumping-off bases for US air strikes against the terrorist strongholds. In Jerusalem, the CIA chief exchanged evaluations on the Yemen front with Israel’s intelligence leaders.
Politico’s Laura Rozen states that the main conversation subject between Panetta and the Israelis, however, was Iran.
Egyptian paper al-Masr al-Youm speculates that Panetta may also have spent extensive amount of time discussing Iran with officials in their country.
Panetta’s last official visit to Israel took place in May 2009.
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WASHINGTON — Leon E. Panetta, the White House nominee to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, earned more than $1 million last year serving on corporate boards, consulting and delivering speeches, including some given to imploding banks at the height of the financial crisis.
Merrill Lynch gave Mr. Panetta $56,000 for two speeches in 2008, and Wachovia paid his standard fee of $28,000 for an appearance last October, according to financial disclosure forms Mr. Panetta submitted to the Office of Government Ethics.
Both financial institutions are now owned by other banks
see…the great thing about phantom threats like dirty foreskin bombers (thanks coulter!) and terrorist events, (I don’t know if anyone caught the name change but the guys in PR work-shopped it and it turns out with “terror-event” you can still generate the fear without actually having had an attack of some sort) is that they serve as such excellent distractions.
It’s not like anyone would ever be accused of “taking their eye off the ball” for a myopic focus on exploding underpants. For fuck’s sake, nothing could be more important.
There are only the minor exceptions: Public policy, finance, and the sustainability of the nation-state.
How come no one ever says, “Well yes Senator, there is good chance “we” will be “attacked” at some point down the road. The Cubs might win the world series too. But my guess is we’ll be waiting for at least another nine years before another diaper bomber, let alone a Cubs title.
[...] Cross Posted from True/Slant [...]
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