Politico has issued an in-depth report on how the Obama administration put the kibosh on a task force against Iranian-backed Hezbollahs cocaine operation, as part of its efforts to make a nuclear deal with the Iranians.
Its a complex story, better read than excerpted. But here are a few quotes, to give you an idea:
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollahs illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies
But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests
This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision, said David Asher, who helped establish and oversee Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst. They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.
The closer we got to the [Iran deal], the more these activities went away, Asher said. So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was [Treasury] designations even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.
As a result, the U.S. government lost insight into not only drug trafficking and other criminal activity worldwide, but also into Hezbollahs illicit conspiracies with top officials in the Iranian, Syrian, Venezuelan and Russian governments all the way up to presidents Nicolas Maduro, Assad and Putin, according to former task force members and other current and former U.S. officials
the damage wrought by years of political interference will be hard to repair.
For Obama-watchers and those who followed the Iranian deal and the years-long leadup to it, there is nothing surprising here. The Obama administration was focused on the Iranian deal from the start, and were doing everything they could to be nice to the powers that be in Iran and not ruffle their feathers. If it took winking at Hezbollah, that would have been considered to be a very small price to pay for the wonderful wonderfulness of the deal.
I havent yet read the entire article; its very long. In fact, I believe its one of the longest articles (if not the longest) ever to appear in Politico. Its certainly the longest I can ever recall. Politico is not a right-wing site, and not a Trump-supporting one. It leans far more to the left, and yet every now and then it puts up something that isnt the usual Democratic party line. This would certainly be one of those things, and I wonder why so much time and effort was put into it.
Whatever the reason, its always refreshing to see something in a publication that goes against the usual talking points. When I see something like that I think it has more of a tendency to be true, because of what the editors and/or authors had to overcome to decide to publish it.
I have little doubt that Obama-supporters will brush it off with assertions that the deal was worth itor, alternatively, that the reports a lie.
[ADDENDUM: More here:
While [according to the Politico article] it looks like the Obama administration neutralized efforts to stop a terrorist group from funding its operations through criminal enterprises in the United States which should be a major scandal itself according to Josh Meyers source-heavy reporting, it also decided to let a top Hezbollah operative named Ali Fayad, who had not only been indicted in U.S. courts for planning to kill American government employees but whom agents believed reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a key supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq, to skate free.
You can, Im sure, imagine what the reaction would be if this story had Trumps administration rather than Obamas secretly released Putins Middle East arms dealer?
This story should be highlighted in every newspaper, as it would be if it concerned Trump. I did a search at the site of the NY Times, and nothing showed up. When I did a Google search to see who was talking about the article, only sites on the right (and RealClearPolitics, which showcases both sides) appeared.]
More here:
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