CIA: Congress Shouldn’t Get Records of Our Crimes

Mark Hosenball reports on some anonymous current and former CIA officers complaining that Congress wants to do oversight. In particular, they’re bitching that Leon Panetta seems willing to give Congress the operational cables–such as the ones listed in this log–describing the methods used during detainee interrogations and the people who used those methods.

"Operational traffic" refers to cables from the field to CIA headquarters, and they go well beyond the intelligence reports routinely provided to Congress, chronicling in exacting, minute-by-minute detail who did what to whom, and how detainees responded to particular questions and techniques.

[snip]

Panetta’s instinct was to give Congress what it wanted. But undercover officers warned him that this would break with standard practice, and veteran spies worried that it would chill brainstorming between field agents and their controllers. Aiming to compromise, Panetta signaled to Congress that the CIA would turn over only redacted documents—and that it would take a long time to vet as many as 10 million pages of cable traffic.

Congressional investigators aren’t backing down, however, insisting on all of the material without deletions, including names of personnel who participated in harsh questioning, and holding subpoenas in reserve. 

The real purpose of the story, presumably, is for anonymous CIA officers to repeat the old worried threat–that they’ll "lose their sense of mission" if the details of their actions become known to those exercising oversight over them. And, most amusing, the threat that CIA will end oversight if any of these details leak.

"If they blow this, if stuff leaks or it all gets turned into a political circus, you can close the book on the current system of intelligence oversight," one intel official warned. "Nobody will trust it."

Hahahahahahaha!!! After eight years of almost no oversight, after months of CIA claiming it briefed Congress when it didn’t and claiming it said things in briefings that it didn’t. Add in the trumped up intelligence, and there really is no trust in the other direction. And there is no "current system of intelligence oversight." There are the past years, and there’s this, an attempt to actually exercise oversight after the fact. Oversight, of course, that is mandated by law. Yet here you’ve got this guy, threatening to "close the book on the current system of oversight" if this "gets turned into a political circus."

And I can’t help but notice that it’s the "former senior agency official," who might be someone like Jose Rodriguez, the kind of person who was brainstorming torture over cables (and in one case, according to the May 30, 2005 OLC memo, ordered the onsite interrogators to waterbaord Abu Zubaydah an extra time even though interrogators deemed him compliant), who is reporting the "nervousness" of the officers in question. I’m sure the guy who ordered up that extra torture–in violation of even the Bybee Two memo–is pretty "nervous" about the prospect of Congress learning who issued the order.

Which is what this is all about. Seeing these cables will, at a minimum, allow the Senate Intelligence Committee to pinpoint when the torture started, and whether it came before or after approvals. It’ll allow them to determine whether the CIA really tried non-coercive questioning before using torture, and whether that non-coercive interrogation was even minimally competent. It’ll allow the CIA to see all the false information provided under torture.

Finally, kudos to DiFi. I’ve had my worries about this inquiry–conducted in secret by a committee that has a history of caving to the CIA under both Democratic and Republican leadership. The CIA may be squawking about Congress exercising oversight for once, but I, for one, am all in favor of it.

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16 replies
  1. Loo Hoo. says:

    Excellent news!

    Aiming to compromise, Panetta signaled to Congress that the CIA would turn over only redacted documents—and that it would take a long time to vet as many as 10 million pages of cable traffic.

    I’m kinda stunned that the cable traffic still exists. No wonder the Cheneys are so nervous. Evidence they didn’t make disappear.

    • quake says:

      It would be pretty hard to get rid of it, as there must be backups in several servers in different places.

  2. NCDem says:

    The last CIA Director that cooperated with Congress and provided details on black ops and secret programs was William Colby. He got even more outspoken about the damages caused by the CIA after he was replaced by George H W Bush. Bush re-started many of the programs from the 1950’s and 1960’s after the Pike Commission report was canned.

    I have written many times that the conflict with the CIA is the hardest problem Obama will face in his first term. With the continued focus on torture, renditions, photos, and now the cover-up, Obama has stepped into the CIA quicksand pit. Mr. Panetta is a very shrewd man but I wouldn’t be caught alone on a boat in the middle of a lake.

  3. Rayne says:

    Would like to know why journalists like Hosenball aren’t being more clear about their anonymous sources’ conflicts of interest. It’s not like the sources have a lot of other options to get their POV out in the public’s eye.

    And exactly how hard is it to tell CIA community that evidence is one thing, work product at large is another, and only evidence of crimes is requested by the people who are signing their checks…

  4. klynn says:

    This is just a glimpse of the split going on in CIA which has a history dating back to Bush I.

    This anonymous source from CIA is a minority voice. There are good guys out there who would confirm this is in fact a minority voice.

    NCDem, you have it quite correct.

  5. TheraP says:

    Seems to me all three of EW’s pieces this morning are related to whether or not some folks get to work without benefit of anyone’s scrutiny!

    Gee, well, that’s just tough!

  6. Mary says:

    So by “blow it” they mean, if there are actual consequences?

    I really do think this is all just so much kabuki, though. I’d like to proven wrong though. But for now, it seems to me that Democrats know that the imperial pronouncements of non-prosecution didn’t go over well, either at home or as their overseas PR pitch. They know “the numbers” that are being polled are focused on things like KSM being waterboarded – not the stories that they’ve kept hidden in plain sight, like el-Masri, Arar, etc.

    The CIA knows it too and knows that it’s got sticky intel relationship wickets right now, as some countries are having to reabsorb people who have been tortured and are having more real investigations of their intel communities with individuals looking at consequences for playing along as the CIAs underlings.

    So what do you do? You get someone like Feinstein who is on board with everything from massive illegal warrantless surveillance programs to nutcase judges etc. and who thinks Hayden is the best thing since sliced bread. You have her make noises as if she is holding Obama’s feet to the fire and you get CIA groaners and moaners. Woe is us, woe is us. Those horrible mean congresscritters – grab the sackcloth and ashes.

    I think it’s all just a pacificiation program. Set up official graoning from the CIA, but make sure that the committee never actually does anything, but let the groaning and keening and wailing ebb and flow for a couple of years as if something had happened.

    Congress critters can go into the elections with little glowy self congratulatory smiles of “see, we iz wurkin so hard, CIA is complainins” It all just seems to me like you have some of the committee and some of the CIA putting on their best WaPo omnbudsman hats and saying, golly, the base is complaining, what we really need to look good here is to get the CIA to complain to.

    Here’s hoping I’m wrong, but I truly have no trust in someone like DiFi. She’s had wonderful staff – that you can tell when she dodders in to meetings with questions that she doesn’t even seem to know why she’s asking but which are great stuff usually – but I don’t buy for one minute that they are going to do anything worthwhile. But here’s hoping that I’m wrong.

    I’m guessing that the cables requested will conveniently not include anything much on al-Libi and on statements acknowledging that they are sending people to Syria and Egypt et al for the express purpose of having them tortured as opposed “under assurances” that they won’t be tortured.

    And someone needs to tell me one more time – why is it that we don’t want to “chill” violatons of law by the CIA? Why is it a bad thing to make them less likely to send al-Libi’s to Egypt to be forced to say whatever Cheney wants said?

    And then there’s the “despondency” That sounds like crap to me. I can see CIA operatives being pissed, angry, rebellious, etc. but it sounds very “structured statement” to me that they come up with a word like “despondent” to cover CIA field operatives looking at an investigation under a President and with an AG who have both, extra-Constitutionally and illegally, promised no action and no prosecutions and commitment of full DOJ resources to defending Congressional investigations and civil suits. But “despondency” does make the story all that more, um, poignant.

    • emptywheel says:

      Well, to the extent that SSCI has had closed meetings almost constantly since she took over, a truly unprecedented amount, it’s not kabuki–they’re working their ass off. I’m no fan of DiFi either, but it is always good to keep a nuanced view with her because she is in fact good on some things and shitty on others (and has been decent on opposing torture).

      I will remain skeptical, but if they are really reviewing cables at this level of scrutiny, it may well be a very interesting investigation.

  7. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    If they blow this, if stuff leaks or it all gets turned into a political circus, you can close the book on the current system of intelligence oversight,” one intel official warned. “Nobody will trust it.”

    Hahahahahahaha!!! After eight years of almost no oversight, after months of CIA claiming it briefed Congress when it didn’t and claiming it said things in briefings that it didn’t. Add in the trumped up intelligence, and there really is no trust in the other direction. And there is no “current system of intelligence oversight.”

    ((((((((((((((((((((EW!!!!!!!!))))))))))))))))))))

    I’ve concluded that this is one of the dark secrets in the heart of whatever lurking monster is weaving its toxic influences in our world. And I’ve come to that conclusion from nothing more than spending approximately the same time at FDL, EW, TPM, and a few other blogsites that I used to spend on a daily commute. You read week, after week, after week, after week… and sooner or later you think, ‘WTF?!!! Cheney had to have been running his Shadow Government completely outside any sphere of Congressional oversight. And Bush had to have been in on it from Day 1. Along with whoever else they were working with, and/or being duped by.’

    Just look at the Ghorbanifar Timeline and you think, “Where the f*cking hell was the FBI? Where was Congress?!! How did this happen?!”

    If the Congress has an iota of smarts left, they’ll insist on investigations, subpeonas, and penalties — for their own self-protection, even if they don’t do it for ours.

    Trust?
    Oversight?
    I’m totally with you on that “Hahahahahahaha!!!” response.

  8. victoria2dc says:

    “..and provided details on black ops and secret programs was William Colby“.
    And he was later murdered. Interesting reading.

    http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/colby.html

    LOL… thanks for the link. I just read that entire story about Colby’s death. It was a for sure as for sure can be without any evidence.

    I say his wife, 20 years his junior, was a CIA operative who was assigned to monitor him and go for the kill when the time was right.

    What a story. I sent some questions to the website to see if they will respond to me.

    I didn’t really believe that they actually assassinate those who speak the truth against their lies. Wow… Panetta better proceed with caution. Could that be why Barack is doing what he is doing, which is nothing toward accountability?

    We must keep up the noise!

  9. Gitcheegumee says:

    This is DEFINITELY worth a read!

    Democracy Going Dark: The Electronic Police State
    The FBI’s Multi-Billion ”High-Tech Surveillance” Program
    – by Tom Burghardt – 2009-05-21

  10. timbo says:

    My guess is that the cables were saved by folks in other branches of government or who resigned rather than comply with the instructions in those cables. Destroying them completely was probably an idea but not a reality that could be made to occur.

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