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.
I guess it will be Bush's fault until the turn of the next century.
Having people like Jed Babbin still pushing back against this takeover/’change’ of our country gives me a glimmer of hope for the future.
“her party’s inquisitions,”
Yep, this is precisely the right word to describe the last eight years against Bush.
We have become Zimbabwe.
@@@@
We are heading that way rapidly. Every decision that Don Obama/Emanuel/Soros makes gets us closer to that kind of collapse.
Not only is he directly taking over our major institutions, he is actively promoting class/race warfare. I pray we do not have a hot summer, because we will not have a quiet one if Don Obama continues to stir up his preferred “disenfranchised.”
The situation in Zimbabwe has been as scrubbed from American ‘news’ dissemination as photos of the burning Twin Towers. I believe the reason for this lack of information is because Mugabe’s power has a powerful attraction for American ‘liberals.’ They believe in total control ‘of the masses,’ of course, not considering themselves to be included in ‘the masses.’
When Obama stands back and watches the decadent Pelosis, homesexual Frank's,Pompous Kerrys kicked to the side of the curb, then the real fear of all the dumb people who voted for this jerk will set in. The blacks are clueless. Notice how much you see the old gaurd Jesse Jackson around... You don't. They are out of the loop and they wouldn't dare bring attention to themselves because they don't want people to know just how much power they have lost. Even the ACORN supporters who monitor this board, alot of them will be weeded out.
Our country is going down the tube all because people did not vote for character, they voted for skin color. Martin Luther King must be rolling and rolling!
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
Isn't that (like) real friggin' illegal?
So much for transparent government and checks-and-balances.
Maybe it’s time to send Pelosi another email about this stupidity. Remember it has to go to her as SPEAKER.
http://speaker.house.gov/contact
Dude,
Seriously, watch it! The USSS lives for harassing people that posts (clearly innocent and sarcastic) comments such as yours...really.
An important point here is why are they doing this?
Is it stupidity or are they trying to destroy our intelligence community? I believe with Obama it’s a deliberate attack on the intelligence community, with Pelosi it’s stupidity.
No matter what the reason they have royally screwed the intelligence gathering abilities of this country.
Harry Truman started the CIA with leftovers from all the intelligence branches of the government, It was a secret agency and pretty much responsible to no one but the President. Today its secrets have been outed, its agents endangered , the House and the Senate have their noses in everything they do, and the President is at war with them..
Like Chrysler, they are bankrupt ,and need to be restructured back to what they were ,or foreclosed on and shut down.
Sorry It was Roosevelt who started the CIA , my mistake.
COUP? Now you are seriously getting volatile man...Tone it down...do not fall for the “stereotype” or you will hurt us all... That said, I think it is time to thin the herd... >)
This administration is like a bull in a china shop.
Why should Nazi Pelosi care about destroying the CIA?? Oh yeah, if the attack is too big they may lose votes.
Pray for America
Why?
Have I said anything that is not true?
Have I made any threat?
I do not like this assclown socialist who wants to take my families money we earned and give it to fools and turds.
And I will not hide in a corner nor shut my mouth for fear from his henchmen.
Screw em.
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. “
Well. Isn't this speshul. And with Pakistan under grave assault and 2 weeks from point of no return (as per Petraeaus), Iraq starting to crack at the seams since we annoucned our departure date, Afghanistan as a sideshow except for the troop risking their lives there, and North Korea threatening to pop off more missiles over Japan unless the UN apologizes for hurting their feelings.
While bambi, while bankrupting the US into virtual nonrecovery mode and doing his best to turn a US recession inot a global depression... pursues his top agenda item of coopting the US health care system and imposing a massive energy tax to fund it.
Nah, bambi don't need no steenkin' CIA... I can't wait for the “obama’s first 200 days in office” celebration.
They are at war with all of America.
“Arrogance will the downfall of Pelosi and her ilk. It will happen, I just don’t know when.”
They won’t go down with the ship unless there are no lifeboats- you better believe her husband’s money and her influence have created a safe haven for her family...Plus - she is SHAMELESS. ARROGANT AND SHAMELESS. To the point she comes across as mentally ill.
meanwhile we poor suckers in steerage class... die first.
Remembering Johnny Mike Spann.
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