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.
Despite what many refuse to believe, there is a goobermint within the goobermint.
The idiot speaker hasn't a clue or is so eat up with the Warm Fuzzy Utopian Elitist Libtard Mind Set that no real deductive reasoning on any serious subject concerning the long-term welfare of the United States can take place in her Botox filled cranium.
From my perspective I have never seen such a bunch of weak 'leaders' now 'in charge' as Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, TOTUS, and VP.
What we are witnessing is collective effect from the inabilities resulting from the culmination of years 'of service' by tenured politicians that have spent 80% of their time playing politics. That is their time (mentally & physically) being occupied from sucking up lobbyist monies, lobbyist meetings, covering their tracks, flying around, going to party power coordination meetings, etc.....anything but actually educating themselves on current issues to create fair & effective and efficient legislation.
Ever notice just how blindly ignorant Senators & Congressmen are on camera??
So many have spent their entire lame ass careers focused on obtaining more money and power rather than being a true statesman. Now, is it really that hard to understand why so many things are so screwed up and all wrapped up in a snafued hodgepodge of bureaucratic red tape??
Porkulus 1 and Bank Bailout 1 somehow get shoved through Congress and 3/4 of the whores interviewed never read the legislation authorizing an additional $1.6 trillion siphon of the country's GDP.
We have Congressional banking hearings and Tax Cheat Geithner and others can not give one specific as to what they are doing with our money or anything else they are doing. WTF?
The Dems claiming the "Moral High Ground" so they can feel better about themselves will get Americans killed. It is the ultimate self serving hypocrisy.
Cannot disagree, Doog. Maybe I’ve read too many political thrillers to hold a hope that even in this vipers’ nest there is a man of honor in there amongst them.
30 to 40 or so years ago everyone in this idiots administration (the "Flying O") would have stood impeached and charged as a traitor and hopefully the only true recourse for the likes of them would have been accomplished.
Treason is the reason!
Keep your powder dry!
These jackasses are going to get people killed, I’m convinced of it. Then they’ll try to weasel of THAT!
“I’m going to examine closely ways in which we can change the law to make our own oversight of the CIA more meaningful;”
During any briefing given to HITS and SSCI members can ask any question they want and they are given answers immediately or as soon as the answer can be ascertained. They have access to everything the CIA does and advise and consent authority. Unlike house and senate members lying or covering up can be prosecuted.
Every American death in the US will be on her head.
As a result, two emergency closed-door meetings were called this week on Capitol Hill.
I would guess that the CIA is already dysfunctional. How much of the damage is irreversible would be the subject of any meetings I would guess. And, of course, the CYA actions to protect themselves as they figure out how to blame Bush. The insane are in charge of the asylum. We have become Zimbabwe.
They won't have to.
The media will provide cover for them, just as Gorelick and Holder never got blamed for the wall between the FBI and CIA that contributed to our inability to prevent 9/11
Babbin has been on top of the CIA and Gitmo stories- excellent work.
http://www.wordreference.com/iten/pelosi
peloso: WordReference English-Italian Dictionary © 2009
Principal Translations/Traduzioni principali:
peloso adj hairy
Additional Translations/Traduzioni aggiuntive:
peloso agg shaggy
Given the role that the CIA played in helping to elect democrats and subvert the Bush administration during a time of war this is their just dessert.
Beg to differ. They are at war against us.
bump
Arrogance will the downfall of Pelosi and her ilk. It will happen, I just don’t know when.
Why would obama want to destroy the CIA?
Who could expose obama on the BC issue?
Who used to be head of the CIA?
What was not mentioned in this article is what CIA interrogators must be scared to death about: releasing some of the terrorists into the United States (or a place where they could easily enter the United States) and releasing the identites of the interrogators (which would occur in a public trial of anyone involved in Gitmo). Those two items would seriously jeopardize the lives of the interrogators and their families.
Time to turn Mitch Rapp loose.
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