Posted on 05/01/2009 2:54:40 AM PDT by STARWISE
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had a bad week. Caught between her own involvement in the CIA interrogations now condemned as torture and her party’s inquisitions, Pelosi floundered.
Her fear and frustration have apparently given way to panic after word reached her of the CIA’s reaction to the damage she, President Obama and other Democrats have done to the spy agency in the last three months.
Pelosi -- as I wrote earlier in the week -- was one of the few members of Congress briefed in detail on the harsh interrogation methods and who could have stopped them but didn’t.
Pelosi first said that she wasn’t briefed about waterboarding. Then she sort of admitted she had, inserting that the CIA only said that they might do it, not that they were going to do it. Which could have been plagiarized from John Kerry’s 2004 circular explanation of his vote for the war in Iraq.
As badly as that hurt Pelosi, what apparently pushed her into a panic was the feedback she and other Democrats are getting from the CIA.
Pelosi learned that her actions, and those of President Obama and other Democrats over the past ninety days have so damaged CIA morale that the agency’s ability to function could be in danger.
As a result, two emergency closed-door meetings were called this week on Capitol Hill.
The first meeting, on Tuesday evening, was attended by Pelosi, Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Tx) and others. The following night, Pelosi and some or all of the other attendees met with CIA Director Leon Panetta, also behind closed doors.
No Republicans were invited to either meeting which means the Democrats were assessing the damage and deciding how to maneuver their way out from under the responsibility for it.
Spin and strategy.
Morale among in the spy agency is so low because of the relentless assault on the CIA in President Obama’s first 100 days. The first blow to the CIA was his decision to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba without any plan on what to do with the 240 dangerous detainees housed there.
Many CIA employees believe these people to be killers, responsible for the deaths of CIA operatives overseas. Many in the CIA apparently see this as a betrayal.
The Obama administration plan to set some of these people loose in the US was despite CIA objections.
And then came the president’s decision to release the so-called “torture memos” and the disavowal of CIA interrogation methods.
The president’s on-again, off-again promise to not prosecute CIA operatives who had conducted the harsher interrogations has left many in the CIA uncertain of his real intentions.
Leaving up to the Attorney General whether to prosecute the Bush-era lawyers who wrote the “torture memos” has added to the already great doubt about the safety and security of CIA interrogators’ jobs, and more.
By the end of the meeting Wednesday, Pelosi, Reyes and Panetta apparently determined that damage control had to begin immediately.
Later Wednesday evening, Reyes sent an unprecedented letter to CIA director Panetta making a sort of apology to the CIA.
Reyes’ cover letter asks Panetta to “…disseminate it to the CIA workforce as soon as possible.” (At this writing, the letter has not yet been distributed.)
The letter to CIA employees is a very odd mixture of praise for the CIA and CYA for Reyes.
Reyes begins, “In recent days, as the public debate regarding CIA’s interrogation practices has raged, you have been very much in my thoughts,” expressing his “…deep gratitude for the work you do each day.”
But then Reyes retreats into lawyer-isms: “First and foremost, I wholeheartedly support the President’s decision that no CIA officer or contractor will be prosecuted for authorized actions they took in the context of interrogations.” In other words, if some young prosecutor or Capitol Hill staffer decides you did something unauthorized, you’re sunk.
And then comes the CYA for Reyes: “One important lesson to me from the CIA’s interrogation operations involves congressional oversight. I’m going to examine closely ways in which we can change the law to make our own oversight of the CIA more meaningful; I want to move from mere notification to real discussion.”
The fact that “mere notification” of the interrogation methods was comprised of a virtual tour of them matters not at all: Reyes’ letter says Congress should be held innocent of any wrongdoing. If CIA morale was bad before the letter, it will be vastly worse after it.
Worst of all is the next sentence:
“Good oversight can lead to partnership, and that’s what I am looking to bring about.” If there’s anything that could possibly make the CIA even less effective than it was before 9-11, that’s it. The nation’s security requires that the CIA be strengthened and more effective, not bogged down with congressional tourism.
And, by the way, what Reyes proposes is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers doctrine. Not that Reyes would care. But the prospect of more Congressional involvement is just another morale killer.
Obama’s first 100 days did enormous damage to our entire intelligence community. It’s all too clear that Speaker Pelosi will do much more if she believes it will help her out of the corner she’s in. Panicked people make mistakes.
Pelosi has made a big one in propelling the inquisition into the CIA interrogations She will make more, and the damage to our intelligence gathering ability may be fatal to many Americans.
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aaah, yes! More transparency every day! The only transparency The One will ever show the public is what he considers misdeeds from the former presidents before him. That would be any republican president, as both he and Clinton are both leftists, and he would not run on a comrade....he’ll need his full support.
focused on obtaining more money and power rather than being a true statesman.
They are only there for the money and power that they can make and build to further pad their wallets. Which is why I think that all elected congressmen and senate members should subject to oversight and not be allowed to use their position for personal gain.
Furthermore, they should be limited to an annual salary of no more than $150,000. If this were the case maybe we would have some people elected that really want to do the job.
"VOTE DEMOCRAT - IT'S EASIER THAN WORKING" attitude."
__________________________________
“TERM LIMITS!!!!”
At this point, we have to agree on something to push to start some sort of correction of this insanity. And term limits is a good place. Specter should be the poster boy for Term LIMITS.
Keep it up Pelosi, Obama, Reid, et al. I hope you destroy the CIA, because the first nuclear suitcase bomb that goes off in DC means we can start over without your dumb asses.
She needs to be impeached, immediately, before she screws up America even more.
They simply hate America...and Americans.
Berger didn’t suffer ONE BIT for what he did. I hate these people.
These idiots plainly just DO NOT CARE. Traitors.
Amen. You are so right.
I read it a short while ago but my memory is even shorter, LOL.
Yes, he is. He just purchased the democrat party.
Your mom sounds like one hell of a fine woman.
Celebrate her life and be proud you came from stock like her.
I agree it needs to be repeated frequently.
Well the Constitution requires all officers of the United States, and of the several states, to swear such an oath. All federal "officers", from the Vice President on down, be they military or civilian, swear the same oath. The oath of enlistment is slightly different, since it includes swearing to obey orders, while the officer's oath, both sorts, does not.
The Presiden't oath of office is somewhat different yet, and is the only one whose exact wording is specified in the Constituion. None of the times O swore it before Chief Justice Roberts did he get it right.
Porter J. Goss, who left the office 3 years ago. It just so happens that my wife sent me this via email this afternoon.
Security Before Politics
Washington Post
By Porter J. Goss
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now. A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. ...
It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience. ...
The result this time will be the same: a hollowed out service of diminished capabilities. ...
There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama. ...
Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done.
Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to nonstate actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask.
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