23-05-2010, 12:51 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/pol...intel.html
Quote:Dispute Over France a Factor in Intelligence Rift
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: May 21, 2010
In recent months, Mr. Blair had also made a push to rein in covert activities carried out by the C.I.A., reflecting his view that the United States had become too enamored over stealth activities.
He even developed rules to guide policy makers before they approved a covert action. Among them were guidelines that covert activity should never be employed “for the purpose of circumventing a lack of U.S. public support for any particular overt policy,” according to one American official.
Officials said that some in the White House and C.I.A. bristled at Mr. Blair’s efforts to exert greater oversight over covert action. The reaction, they said, puzzled Mr. Blair, who had thought he had been given a degree of authority over these activities.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Joseph Fouche
Joseph Fouche