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Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post on got geoint? We hope you all had a relaxing weekend and are ready to start the most productive week that will surely change the course of your careers and lives. Ahh, if only we were all that inspired on Mondays! For this week’s post, we have covered the latest in political fighting within the intelligence community, along with some strong arguments proving that the Iranian election was rigged (come on, how could it not be??), and much more. Grab that second cup of coffee and scroll down.

Panetta Suggests Dick Cheney Wants Another Terrorist Attack on the U.S.
Over the past several months, former VP Dick Cheney has thrown around some strong rhetoric claiming that President Obama is making the United States less safe by ordering the closure of the Guantánamo Bay facility, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration. Well, Leon Panetta shot back by telling New Yorker Magazine that Cheney wishes that the nation would be attacked — just to make his point. Here’s what he said: “When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics.” Not sure that anybody would want to go that far to make a point. What do you all think?

Five Reasons to Suspect Iran’s Election Results
It was announced on Saturday in Iran that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won 63.29% of the vote in the country’s presidential election — what many consider a landslide. However, opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi says he won and that the result had been rigged and his supporters have taken their protests to the streets. What do you all think? Was it rigged? We are certainly not experts on Iranian election politics, but we did find this article from Time Magazine that makes a strong case for it BEING RIGGED. Read more here.

Stop Playing Politics With Career Intelligence Officers
Peter Hoekstra (R., Mich.), ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as previous GEOINT speaker, decided to offer his opinion on how Democrats should stop playing politics with career intelligence officers in a recent National Review Op-Ed. His case in point was Philip Mudd, who withdrew his nomination to be undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security out of concern from attacks by Democrats. To read the entire Op-Ed, click here.

US Gen. McChrystal Takes Command in Afghanistan
In an effort to turn the tides in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has decided to change out leadership and brought on Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a four-star American general with a long history in special operations, to run the show. According to the Associated Press, McChrystal took command from Gen. David McKiernan during a low-key ceremony at the heavily fortified headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in central Kabul. McKiernan was fired last month by Defense Secretary Robert Gates one year into a two-year assignment. Read more here.

CIA Adopting Web 2.0 Tools Despite Resistance
While we have been covering Web 2.0 and the intelligence community for some time now, it is heartening to see a mainstream media outlets cover this story. The AFP — while not as big as the AP — ran this story about the slow adoption of Web 2.0 technologies within the CIA. The bottom-line is that adoption of Intellipedia is slow, but moving in the right direction. What are your thoughts? Do you think the agency will fully adopt Web 2.0 technologies?

CIA Interrogation Contractors Fired
The Washington Post recently broke by The New Yorker about the CIA firing a contracting firm comprised of two psychologists hired to introduce waterboarding and other controversial interrogation methods. The back story was that their contract was extended two weeks after Obama was elected. Two months later the contracting firm was fired by Leon Panetta. Read more here.

Happy Monday!

Tags: Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad election, Cheney Wants Attack, CIA, CIA Interrogation Contractors, Dick Cheney, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Hoekstra, Iran, Iran election, Leon Panetta, New Yorker and Panetta, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, waterboarding