Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama’s Government,

[G_j]

(Seymour) Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama’s Government, Can ‘Still Control Policy Up To a Point'

Source: ThinkProgress Mar 31st, 2009

In an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102495389,
host Terry Gross asked investigative journalist Seymour Hersh if, as he continues to investigate the Bush administration, “more people” were “coming forward” to talk to him now that “the president and vice president are no longer in power.” Hersh replied that though “a lot of people that had told me in the last year of Bush, ‘call me next, next February,’ not many people had talked to him. He implied that they were still scared of Cheney.

“Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward,” asked Gross. “I’ll make it worse,” answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney “put people back” in government to “stay behind” in order to “tell him what’s going on” and perhaps even “do sabotage”:

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/31/hersh-cheney-behind

Former Bush officials avoid speaking out in support of Obama’s policies out of fear of ‘Cheney’s circle.’

Jan 4th, 2010

Reporter Peter Baker has a New York Times Magazine piece out today about “Obama’s War on Terrorism",
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html, Matt Yglesias flags an interesting passage from the article revealing the cowardice of former Bush administration officials:

A half-dozen former senior Bush officials involved in counterterrorism told me before the Christmas Day incident that for the most part, they were comfortable with Obama’s policies, although they were reluctant to say so on the record. Some worried they would draw the ire of Cheney’s circle if they did, while others calculated that calling attention to the similarities to Bush would only make it harder for Obama to stay the course. And they generally resent Obama’s anti-Bush rhetoric and are unwilling to give him political cover by defending him.

Yglesias adds, “It’s really staggering what this says about the ethical caliber of the people we’re talking about. … But some of them don’t want to say he’s doing the right thing because that might make Dick Cheney mad and they’re timid, gutless careerists? And others don’t want to say he’s doing the right thing because their feelings are hurt that a Democrat said bad things about his grossly unpopular Republican predecessor?”


http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/04/cheney-wrath-terrorism/

[chimpymustgo]

1. This story is so scary - and likely. Hope our media will stay on it. Thank God for people like Sy

Hersh.

[tridim]

2. No way this can be swept under the rug now.

Expose, arrest and prosecute all of them.

If true, this is worse than "Worse than watergate".

[Beetwasher]

3. Cheney's Rogue's

n/t

[mopinko]

4. i hope to god someone's head will roll of the 12/24 incident.

this point needs to be brought out into the open for the treason that it is. po is up against something horrendous. he needs to make it clearly visible.

[cadmium]

5. This has been pretty obvious to me. People

have to understand that Cheney has been in Washington manipulating for decades. Loyal career operatives can totally sabotage most anything they want. I worry most about the Justice dept.

[malaise]

9. Cheney and Poppy Bush

They're all in this together

[Are_grits_groceries]

6. This should be no surprise.

If people read 'Angler', it is apparent that he was putting people in places all over the government. He knew all the departments and all the jobs. Cheney knew what places in lower level jobs would be very effective to place people. That he did it in the spy agencies is even less of a surprise.

I wasn't a bit shocked by what Richard Wolfe said on KO's show. The man makes Machiavelli look like an amateur. He and Rumsfeld were stewing and laying plans ever since Nixon resigned. It's no accident that Halliburton was the company he joined.

[Bitwit1234]

7. Most people know that cheney is dangerous.

But a lot of them won't come out and say... look how he got off with ruining a CIA operation that had been in place for 10 years and out that operative. If people were not so darn afraid of him, they would come forward and tell the truth. there is absolute nothing this guy won't do to try to prove he is right in all things.

[90-percent]

8. Rachel Monday night

She nailed it! She covered the Bush appointees in the CIA are pretty happy with how Obama is handling terrorism/security, but THEY WILL NOT EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS PUBLIC ALLY, out of fear of repercussions from Cheney and his minions.

Rachel called them all out for being such cowards - political alliances trump national security and all that.

-90% Jimmy

[Ozymanithrax]

10. Could Cheney's people have been responsible for screwing up the Blackwater trial...

Blackwater Shooting Charges Dismissed By Federal Judge
But in a 90-page opinion, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington wrote that the government’s mishandling of the case “requires dismissal of the indictment against all the defendants.”

Cheney liked Blackwater/Xi/Who know what they are now.

[G_j]

12. I think that may even be probable

somebody sabotaged the case.

[Blue Owl]

11. A little chunk of shit that won't flush

Thanks for leaving that behind, Dickwad.

[myrna minx]

13. K&R n/t

[newtothegame]

14. Speaking of Hersh, still waiting on those 100's of names that were coming forward 1-20-09?? n/t

[troubledamerican]

15. "Stay-behind" is an intel term, and a direct reference to Operation Gladio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio