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 partys inquisitions, Pelosi floundered.
Her fear and frustration have apparently given way to panic after word reached her of the CIAs 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 didnt.
Pelosi first said that she wasnt 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 Kerrys 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 agencys 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 Obamas 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 presidents decision to release the so-called torture memos and the disavowal of CIA interrogation methods.
The presidents 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 CIAs 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 Presidents 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, youre sunk.
And then comes the CYA for Reyes: One important lesson to me from the CIAs interrogation operations involves congressional oversight. Im 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 thats what I am looking to bring about. If theres anything that could possibly make the CIA even less effective than it was before 9-11, thats it. The nations 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.
Obamas first 100 days did enormous damage to our entire intelligence community. Its all too clear that Speaker Pelosi will do much more if she believes it will help her out of the corner shes 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.
“she comes across as mentally ill.”
She strikes me as having Personality Disorders, reminds me of my ex!
I heart Mitch Rapp. (rhymes with b*&^% slap)
excatly, if they really want to help us and themselves, go find and dig up Obama’s passport files. I am sure somebody has got a copy of some good info to CYA with.
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.
You are correct, but you are also preaching to the choir. The current crop of politicians, especially in DC, are all poster children for term limits. BUT, they all bring home the pork for their home districts. Until the citizens are forced to get off the government's tit, nothing will change. You know the,
"VOTE DEMOCRAT - IT'S EASIER THAN WORKING" attitude.
Most of the senators and representatives could not live under the laws they have FORCED upon us. A number of them are so crooked they can hide behind a corkscrew, and when they die, no one has to dig their graves - the funeral directors just screw them into the ground.
Vince Flynn wrote an excellent book: “Term Limits”.
I just hope we don't lose a city. Cr@p! The problem is leadership. We have ABSOLUTELY NONE at the national level. This holds for both parties.
I'll submit it's just another example of the hubris that permeates the autocratic culture of the beltway.
bump
It's awfully big of Nancy to put her very life on the line for principle.
Personally, I reckon conservatives and like minded folks need to publicly start talking down people that continue to live off the goobermint.
Until that behavior is accepted as a abdominal public shame, nothing will change as able minded and able bodied people continue to take the easy way out.
Seems to be the negative ill effect of a society that has lost its bearings where self accountability is no longer a requirement for adults nor their children.
The part that is really troublesome to me is that it really screws us who enjoy independence and freedom as we have to pay for it fiscally and mentally.
“MANY....MANY people at the CIA did a COUP Against Bush”
These people didn’t study the ways of the people for whom they were working. I guess the “cold war” is forgotten in the CIA.
The communists always get rid of the useful idiots.
“He could do a great service to the country if he did the honorable thing and resigned.”
My calculator broke trying to calculate the probability of that happening.
“Dumbest Speaker of the House in the history of our country.”
That gives you an idea of the average intelligence of the House, since they elected her.
HF
“Obamas first 100 days did enormous damage to our entire intelligence community. Its all too clear that Speaker Pelosi will do much more if she believes it will help her out of the corner shes 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.”
This gores my ox big time.
“The country is slowly being taken over.”
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Slowly? About as slowly as a Peregrine Falcon diving toward a kill.
I think the “Tea Parties” sent a message to DC. As much as they deny the fact that people have had enough of the runaway spending, the sheer numbers prove different. The DBM tried to play down the numbers, but a picture is worth a thousand words.
When you see millions of working class people take off their jobs and protest taxes and spending, that should send a message. I saw many people at the Alamo on April 15th that were from more than 100 miles away from San Antonio by their city names on the signs.
They run their dogma as though everyone has forgotten about 9-11. Like it never happened and the twin towers are still there standing tall and the 3000 citizens of this republic are on their way home right now to their loved ones.
She knows DAMN well why our intelligence gathering HAD to be up scaled and now she wants to claim an ignorance as if “this is the first time I've heard of this?!”
The Politicians couldn't get these up scaled interrogation practices in place fast enough on 9-12 any more than they could assemble and implement the up-scaled security at all US Airports.
In fact IF water-boarding now constitutes “torture” then I an of the opinion that full body strip searches at the Airport are ALSO torture.
Point is that precisely what Pelosi is now hard at work doing is politicizing our security policies and they are invoking this word which provokes imagery that is so vile that people who side with her will want to act against her political opponents. ALL so she can garner petty political points.
So yeah - words can not express my feelings about 2 things: 1 - her total disregard for the previous dead Americans or the future ones who WILL die from her efforts to weaken our National Security, and 2 - that she would take something that has carries such an emotional edge that has inflicted such a devastating wound (defenses we put in place to PREVENT another 9-11) and gratuitously use reopen the potential of that wound so she can score petty political points.
What do you call that - I can't express it?
I will end my rant with this though - IF it should EVER come to pass that Americans are once more slaughtered my these psypcopathic killers in a similar way (HEAR ME NOW NANCY), there will be no refuge available to you that will secure you from the wrath that you will have earned.
The blame AND its consequences will be coming directly to YOU.
There's a big underlying story happening that isn't being told judging by the ramming of Porulus, bank bailouts, Geithner's never giving a specific answer, Ben Ben feeding Treasury workers meth to stay up all night printing money, illegal immigration (still), open borders, a seemingly great coincidence for Swine (Dumb Smuck) Flu right after the Tea Parties, DHS running around belching, 0 sucking up down south, etc., etc......all the crap isn't happening by chance, by any means.
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