Just Another Tea Party
Yesterday I posted on the not-so-surprising revelation that the CIA had been actively misleading its congressional overseers. Today the Washingtom Post gave us a few hints of what caused the tempest among the Democrats on the intelligence committees:
Four months after he was sworn in, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta learned of an intelligence program that had been hidden from Congress since 2001, a revelation that prompted him to immediately cancel the initiative and schedule a pair of closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill. ...
The program remains classified, and those knowledgeable about it would describe it only vaguely yesterday. Several current and former administration officials called it an "on-again, off-again" attempt to create a new intelligence capability and said it was related to the collection of information on suspected terrorists that was instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
What was exactly involved in the program hidden from Congress is not being revealed to the general public, and presumably not even to members of Congress not special enough to be on the Senate or House Intelligence Committees. It's therefore difficult to determine just why it was so well hidden, but I think a fair inference to be drawn is that it involved some violation of US or international law, the kind of violation that would ideally be stopped by congressional oversight. What is rather disturbing, however, even to cynics, is that the CIA deliberately held the information back because it believed it could. Why the agency believed it could is what needs to be discovered.
"Instructions were given not to brief Congress," Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said in an interview.
That kind of passive voice construction is always maddening, but especially in this kind of situation. Who gave the instructions? The head(s) of the agency under the last administration? The Bush-Cheney White House? Sadly, I don't believe we'll ever know, and by "we" I mean not just the public, but everybody in Congress but the "Gang of Eight."
That's some oversight.
We're running out of clean cups.
Four months after he was sworn in, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta learned of an intelligence program that had been hidden from Congress since 2001, a revelation that prompted him to immediately cancel the initiative and schedule a pair of closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill. ...
The program remains classified, and those knowledgeable about it would describe it only vaguely yesterday. Several current and former administration officials called it an "on-again, off-again" attempt to create a new intelligence capability and said it was related to the collection of information on suspected terrorists that was instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
What was exactly involved in the program hidden from Congress is not being revealed to the general public, and presumably not even to members of Congress not special enough to be on the Senate or House Intelligence Committees. It's therefore difficult to determine just why it was so well hidden, but I think a fair inference to be drawn is that it involved some violation of US or international law, the kind of violation that would ideally be stopped by congressional oversight. What is rather disturbing, however, even to cynics, is that the CIA deliberately held the information back because it believed it could. Why the agency believed it could is what needs to be discovered.
"Instructions were given not to brief Congress," Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said in an interview.
That kind of passive voice construction is always maddening, but especially in this kind of situation. Who gave the instructions? The head(s) of the agency under the last administration? The Bush-Cheney White House? Sadly, I don't believe we'll ever know, and by "we" I mean not just the public, but everybody in Congress but the "Gang of Eight."
That's some oversight.
We're running out of clean cups.
posted by Diane at 4:16 AM
1 Comments:
It's more than a little obvious that Panetta got orders from Team Obama to cover for Queen Nancy's BS-spree... but their are other centers of power at Langley that won't stand for this rubbish.
Pelosi was every bit as informed on the decision to us EITs as were the GOP… but is now lying about it in an attempt to appease the antiwar left and fulfill specious campaign posturing.
And apparently Pelosi and Obama forgot something: the CIA KILLS people… it’s in their job description. Did these two really think that these killers were going to just meekly take-one-for-the-team… when the team captain is a lying, incompetent, arrogant nebbish who has basically told them they need to kiss his ring? -please
Obama really kicked an ant hill with his ill-advised and politically motivated release of Bush Administration memos regarding EITs.
Let’s have a hearing and get it all out there, shall we? Then watch the rats scatter who attacked Bush for protecting the country from terrorist attack… but who clearly knew what was going on five years before we heard a peep out of them.
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com
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