The secret arm ,A.G. NOORANI ,A well-documented expose of the CIA’s record in covert operations.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20081010252007700.htm

THE rake’s career which is the Central Intelligence Agency’s record reflects the United States’ pursuit of its interests in the Cold War. No one is better qualified to record it than John Prados. He is one of the foremost historians of national security affairs. Author of books like Presidents’ Secret Wars and The Hidden History of the Vietnam Wars, he is a senior fellow of the National Security Archive, the scourge of official secrecy and skulduggery.


This is a thoroughly researched and well-documented expose of the CIA’s record in covert operations. The book contributes important new detail to the understanding of many CIA operations, including those in Italy, Korea, Poland, Iran, Guatemala, Hungary, China, Tibet, the Philippines, Indonesia, Syria, Iraq, Cuba, Bolivia, the Congo, Ghana, Vietnam and Laos, Kurdistan, Chile, Angola, Afghanistan and Nicaragua.

It provides a first-hand view of actions in Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, and other more recent activities. All this is related to specific presidential decisions by the White House and moderated by congressional oversight procedures.

“The conclusions of this inquiry tend to bear out the critics. American undercover actions have resulted in upheavals and untold suffering in many nations while contributing little to Washington’s quest for democracy. Despite considerable ingenuity, technological wizardry, operational flexibility, and an impressively competent cadre of secret warriors, the results of covert operations have been consistently disappointing. Yet the very drive to maintain and use these capabilities has had consequences – often unforeseen – both for America’s image around the globe and for constitutional control of the United States Government by its own people.”

The record which the author sets out of the CIA’s doings over the decades in various parts of the world is riveting. From bribing and assassinating politicians to interfering in elections and the democratic process, it has left little undone.

The results are dismal. On the other hand, it has failed to provide intelligence when its masters had a right to the intelligence, on Pokhran II, for instance.

As a result, it has debased the political process at home as well and undermined democratic accountability. “The worst aspect of direct White House involvement in a covert action was the squandering of a President’s political capital on a marginal issue. The prestige of the presidency, openly committed to an effort at the very margins of legality in international relations, left Ronald Reagan damaged. Project Democracy muddied the waters further by skirting the law of the land. There are many wise reasons for eschewing such a policy.”

This, in a country where there is a statute governing the CIA and where Congressional Committees perform the duty of oversight.

The author’s conclusion is damning:

“In making the world safe for democracy, the resort to covert means almost immediately calls into question the disinterestedness and sincerity of American purpose. The United States has never felt itself able to take issues involved in a secret war to the United Nations. In those cases where matters went to the U.N. in the face of U.S. inaction – Burma, Tibet, Cuba – Washington actively discouraged public debate or even vetoed resolutions in the Security Council. The secret war in Nicaragua led Washington – for the first time in history and in violation of its own international undertakings – to reject the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. That same event led to the casting of a veto at the U.N. Security Council, again the first time in history that the veto was employed to protect a covert operation. None of this advanced the cause of democracy. In all the secret wars from 1947 to the present, no covert operation ever led to a vibrant democracy, and quite a few resulted in dictatorships. Many political actions had the effect of inhibiting the free expression of democratic beliefs.” The Court, in fact, censured the U.S. It had little effect on American behaviour.