Leon Panetta Begs and Threatens for Consensus Rather than Oversight
Remember when the Obama Administration appealed to a "fundamental compact" between Congress and the Executive Branch when arguing the intelligence community didn’t need more oversight? ("Fundamental compact, my ass," I thought was the best response.)
Well, Leon Panetta’s out with a similar appeal to inflated, but totally bogus, language in an attempt to avoid increased Congressional oversight. This time, he appeals to "consensus" as the core of congressional oversight.
In our democracy, effective congressional oversight of intelligence is important, but it depends as much on consensus as it does on secrecy. We need broad agreement between the executive and legislative branches on what our intelligence organizations do and why. For much of our history, we have had that. Over the past eight years, on specific issues — including the detention and interrogation of terrorists — the consensus deteriorated. That contributed to an atmosphere of declining trust, growing frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information.
[snip]
I recognize that there will always be tension in oversight relationships, but there are also shared responsibilities. Those include protecting the classified information that shapes our conversations. Together, the CIA and Congress must find a balance between appropriate oversight and a recognition that the security of the United States depends on a CIA that is totally focused on the job of defending America.
The last eight years have proven that Congress is utterly impotent to stop covert actions the Executive Branch wants to do. Congress’ unsuccessful attempt to stop the data-mining of American citizens by defunding it proves that point. And other tactics used by the Bush Administration–such as funding covert activities in supplemental appropriations or having JSOC carry out those activities instead of CIA, both to completely side-step the intelligence committees’ oversight–further proves Congress’ utter impotence to influence Executive Branch activities.
So when Panetta appeals to consensus as a cornerstone of oversight, when he says "we need broad agreement," he’s basically saying, "Congress must agree with the Executive Branch." "Deteriorating consensus," in this context, is just a pretty way of saying "blowing off Congress" in the face of opposition. When Panetta suggests there needs to be a "balance between appropriate oversight and a recognition that the security of the United States depends on a CIA that is totally focused," he’s basically arguing that oversight must stop short of actually criticizing CIA, however merited.
In short, in the face of attempts (however small) to reassert the authority of Article I over Article II, Panetta is just begging for a flaccid consensus that stops far short of real oversight. Trust me, Panetta seems to be saying, and above all, let bygones be bygones, and we can revert to that old impotent consensus again!
Among all this blather, though, there is one curious passage.
Intelligence can be a valuable weapon, but it is not one we should use on each other. As the president has said, this is not a time for retribution. Debates over who knew what when — or what happened seven years ago — miss a larger, more important point: We are a nation at war in a dangerous world, and good intelligence is vital to us all. That is where our focus should be.
Intelligence is not a weapon we should use on each other.
Oh my.
At one level, Panetta seems to suggest that pursuing the question of "who knew what when–or what happened seven years ago" would amount to using "intelligence" against the CIA. This conflates intelligence, of course, with oversight. Asking who knew what when is precisely the job of real oversight. But Panetta suggests asking such questions would put Congress and the CIA in an antagonistic role. It would ruin that flaccid consensus Panetta seems to want Congress to preserve.
But in that statement is a threat. If you conduct oversight over us, Panetta seems to be saying, having now relabeled oversight as "using intelligence on each other," we will do the same.
Did the CIA Director really just suggest the possibility that the CIA would use intelligence on Congress?
You’ve got a choice, Panetta seems to be saying. Impotent consensus–which amounts to the same rubber-stamping of intelligence policies you did for the last eight years (but promise, we’ll be good!). Or intelligence, used on each other.
A nice impotent consensus you’ve got here, Congress. It’d be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
Abolish the CIA, its a Cold War anachronism. Question for congress: Has CIA been effective, of late, in any of their chartered missions?
Essentially what Panetta is saying is that the CIA drives the government, but he is saying it in bureaucratic language. He is communicating an implicit threat from the CIA to Congress: Don’t mess with us.
That is unacceptable to most Americans.
pajarito, I think you are right. It is time once again to reform the defense functions of the government, and closing down the CIA are starting over in intelligence might be a good idea.
The problem is what to do with several thousand pissed-off CIA agents.
We need broad agreement between the executive and legislative branches on what our intelligence organizations do and why
Panetta: Over here, we’re thinking, ya know, random kidnaps for torture experimentation; encouraging a network of torture gulags under an umbrella of countries that will cooperate in torture and classifying their US torture relationship as secret, stuff like that.
We need broad agreement between the executive and legislative branches on what our intelligence organizations do and why. For much of our history, we have had that. Exactly, that’s why we never had to have things like the National Security Act starting back in 1947, or that Church commission thingy – you know, those socialist Canadian … what’s that? Oh. Well, com’on guys – it’s not like we’re out shooting down civilian planes and engaging in infanticide … what’s that? Oh.
I notice, too, that he leaves the courts fully and completely out of that conversation he’s having with himself. Last I looked, we had three branches of government. And pre-conviction torture has never been allowed by the common law; attainder isn’t allowed by the Constitution; and you couldn’t “properly classify” evidence of crime.
You know, in the end, I don’t think I really care whether or not Congress has oversight, since Republicans would use it as a sword and Democrats are craven wormlings that are almost too revolting to watch in action.
What I care about is that citizens have oversight and recourse when their rights are violated, by government alone or by government acting in tandem with corporate partners. If DiFI would just quit the hell with the amnesty, how’s that?
The trouble is that citizens do not have oversight or recourse when their rights are violated. They do not have subpoena powers. And if Herr Kommander guy decides they’re an enemy combatant, they certainly will not have access to a lawyer and can be shuffled off to solitary confinement or worse. The people’s oversight was designed to be exercised by Congress, which should be pounded until they do their job as written in the Constitution. Maybe the public should have more tools to hammer their “representatives” for misfeasance, nonfeasance, malfeasance, etc.
Bob in HI
Maybe the public should have more tools….like pitchforks?
Tools for “tools”.
What a crock! That pretty much translates as: So, I happened to be talking to a criminal partner in another country who asked me, golly, can’t you use that DOJ and CIA that you own now to put a little fear in the people who could send us to jail?
Hell, Washington and the Washington media are paying so LITTLE attention to what the CIA did in the past that Obama and Holder didn’t even bother to take a look before they handed out exculpations; no one ever mentions or investigates the dead; NPR still won’t use the word torture even with the flesh rotted off the bodies now; no case of even the most blatant CIA torture, like the el-Masri case, has generated any prosecutions; and the CIA has been prancing around like bad performance artists destroying evidence, violating court orders and conspiring with DOJ to violate court orders more and lie to Congress. In the midst of all this we have a double front war that is now involving the Obama version of Cambodia – bombings in Pakistan – and the courts in not just the US kicked in the butt, but the courts in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Britain all affirmatively threatened by the US intel community.
EIT you, Panetta. I’m betting you didn’t mention the British proceedings, the Italian proceedings, the German proceedings, the Spanish proceedings or the Pakistani proceedings – much less the multiple EU investigations – when you answered his “why is Washington” question, did you?
Pretty selective quote. I’d say the Brits and Italians, among others, are very concerned about what CIA did in the past.
Listening to Panetta talk about the CIA is like listening to Rove talk about Bush.
Don’t confuse a couple of courts there with their governments Earl. Their governments are no more interested in cracking this open than we are it appears.
I was not speaking only of courts or intelligence agencies. Their concern needn’t be identical. The agencies don’t want to embarrass themselves or their own government, the government’s don’t want to lose votes or position or access to whatever crumbs the US dribbles out to them. The courts may actually remember they are part of governments that once aspired to the rule of law, not men.
I was trying to figure out whether that was MI6 or Mossad…
Both of which are probably worried that our oversight will expose some of their wrong-doing.
Or both.
“Or both” applies here far too often. Which is why a certain spy case went away.
Since when do we expose our ‘friends’? More than likely we’re already aware of what they’ve been doing (and vice versa).
No, we’ll use private corporations as cut-outs to do the spying, while they market analyze the data collaterally to make billions.
Shoudn’t it read: …”Did the CIA Director really just suggest the possibility that the CIA would continue to use intelligence on Congress?”
So, Leon, shut down the effing illegal domestic surveillance programs that we have, and get the effing illegal military spies out of the various non-terrorist domestic organizations that we’re spying on, and then maybe we can have some of the consensus you think you deserve.
Until then, you’re just running your mouth on someone else’s command.
For what it’s worth,I’ve said it before,and I’ll say it again.
In my most humble opinion, there will be little to NO accountability for the atrocities that HAVE BEEN perpetrated in our names-precisely because doing so,and finding them guilty, would set a precedent that could be used agaginst THIS administration for atrocities(including acts of omisssion in addition to commission)they possibly have or will commit in the future.
NeoCONtras had MANY willing Dems as de facto accomplices . Dirt on a lot of skirts,so to speak.
Seems like early next year would be a good time to review the PATRIOT Act.
Hmm, they always say follow the $$$$$.
Doesn’t Congress approve,via DOD, the CIA funding?
I don’t hear much talk about that ,i.e.,”black budget”.
I can only ponder how much has been allocated recently….
Here’s a tidbit I ran across.
It’s not nice to bite ,or smite, the hands that feed you.
Dissertation on CIA Black Ops Funding
July 11, 2005 in Parapolitics
Each year the US Department of Defense (DoD) lists a number of single line items in its budget that have a program number such as 0605236F, code names like CLASSIC WIZARD or vague description such as “special evaluation program,” that don’t refer to any weapons system known to the general public, Congressional officials or even defense analysts.
These single line items are covers for the creation of a ‘black budget’ – a top secret slush fund set up by the DoD, with the approval of the US Congress, to apparently fund intelligence organizations such as the CIA as well as covert operations and classified weapons programs by the DoD.
The ‘black budget’ allows intelligence activities, covert operations and classified weapons research to be conducted without Congressional oversight on the grounds that oversight would compromise the secrecy essential for the success of such ‘black programs’. ——————
Read the appropriations link above.
What Bush was apparently doing was putting covert ops in on supplemental budgets–basically the must fund Iraq budgets every year. That had the advantage of being slopped together at the last minute, usually in committee, with only the top appropriators involved. I also suspect that this funded contractors, which added a further level of opacity.
SO yes, Congress can follow the money. But under Bush, it was just a couple of people on the APprop committee who’s job is to get rich and bring pork to their district, not necessarily to prevent abuses of power. And they were definitely not the people whose job it was to exercise oversight.
From Chalmers Johnson:
“Thirty years ago, in a futile attempt to provide some check on endemic misbehavior by the CIA, the administration of Gerald Ford created the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. It was to be a civilian watchdog over the Agency.
A 1981 executive order by President Ronald Reagan made the board permanent and gave it the mission of identifying CIA violations of the law (while keeping them secret in order not to endanger national security).
Through five previous administrations, members of the board — all civilians not employed by the government — actively reported on and investigated some of the CIA’s most secret operations that seemed to breach legal limits.
However, on July 15, 2007, John Solomon of the Washington Post reported that, for the first five-and-a-half years of the Bush administration, the Intelligence Oversight Board did nothing — no investigations, no reports, no questioning of CIA officials.
It evidently found no reason to inquire into the interrogation methods Agency operatives employed at secret prisons or the transfer of captives to countries that use torture, or domestic wiretapping not warranted by a federal court.
Corrupt and undemocratic practices by the CIA have prevailed since it was created in 1947. However, as citizens we have now, for the first time, been given a striking range of critical information necessary to understand how this situation came about and why it has been so impossible to remedy. We have a long, richly documented history of the CIA from its post-World War II origins to its failure to supply even the most elementary information about Iraq before the 2003 invasion of that country.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/pos…..son…
Do go here. Interesting picture accompanies the story.
THANK YOU,THANK YOU,fatster…
WHY don’t you do a diary on this?
This needs WAY more coverage,imho….for a WHOLE lot of reasons!
Well, if you’re going to write a diary on that story, you might use Mary @ 4 early in this very same thread.
Bob in HI
G., the link to the Chalmers Johnson piece doesn’t work but I found the story by going to the Tom Dispatch home page. I tried to comment with a working link however the FDL/EW link script tries to insert a “forwarded from” element but it doesn’t work. So anyone wanting to go to the CJ post must go to the TD home page and find it for yourself. Meanwhile, one of the FDL admin folks should take a second look at that link script.
Congress and the CIA had consensus on oversight, a don’t ask don’t tell policy until CIA/DoD actions became so egregious, Congress couldn’t claim plausible deniability any longer.
So in essence, Congress has been an accessory after the fact.
Who says there’s no honor among thieves?
Well, two people in COngress, maybe four. Murtha, Bill Young, definitely, Ted Stevens, and Inouye maybe. And it’s not clear any of the four of them asked or cared to ask even basic questions.
Old/Topic. Broad overview of Pay2Play in DC.
Part of the problem is that the Executive Branch generally, and the Intelligence Community specifically, can always run rings around Congress in terms of snowing them and hiding programs, if the people doing it don’t really care about the legalities.
Maybe the cure for this would be to create a Legislative Counterintelligence agency, with real capabilities, specifically tasked with finding out what the Intelligence Community is actually doing and reporting that to Congress? Even the possibility that this was happening might go a long way towards encouraging honesty on the part of the Executive Branch.
Thanks, EW! A key sentence is this one:
If you hadn’t written that, I was going to ask where do they suppose that deterioration started? Like, maybe the office of the VP? You beat me to it, because “blowing off Congress” is exactly what Cheney and Addington did.
But to those who say the CIA should just be abolished, I laugh. If the CIA didn’t exist, it would have to be invented. What needs to happen is to clean it out, most especially including every single war criminal, every single torturer, and every single morally depraved executive who ordered torture (whatever euphemism they were using.) No excuses, no amnesty. If that temporarily cripples the CIA, so be it. It can be re-built.
Bob in HI
Old/Topic. O, I wish!
If any of you legal eagles have a couple of minutes: Do you concur with this statement?
“JAG Fract [Jawad], by winning this case with this damning evidence has put into the legal record, a basis for trying Yoo, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other high level Bush administration officials as war criminals.”
Article here.
Bum link.
and Loo Hoo @ 30. Bummer. Pls see if this works:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..rture-Case
fatster ,Democratic Underground has a good thread regarding that story.
Read it earlier today.
Kinda reinforces my point earlier about WHY Holder, and Congress don’t want to prosecute .
Sets a precedent that could be used against Dems,too, down the line.
Yemeni official: Gitmo inmate died of asphyxiation
“The preliminary conclusion, which suggests the prisoner strangled himself, offers the first details about the death of Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi, who was found unresponsive inside a psychiatric ward.”
More.
JAG Wins, Calling Out Yoo & Cheney in Court for War Crimes in Jawad Child Torture Case
Aug 01 · JAG Wins, Calling Out Yoo & Cheney in Court for War Crimes in Jawad Child Torture Case by FishOutofWater Fri
Thanks, fatster. That’s good.
EW, thank you for this article. I wonder if Leon wants consensus or oversight of his agency by congress. Perhaps he just wants it to be ignored.
Major Frakt is a HERO!
@18
Have you seen this?
Hawaii Dem Linked to Questionable Bank Bailout
Bank regulators had designated Central Pacific Financial as a marginal candidate to receive federal assistance, according to documents cited in the report. But soon after the phone call from Inouye’s office, the Treasury directed millions of dollars to bolster the bank’s capital reserves.
Inouye, D-Hawaii, owns shares in the bank that totaled between $350,000 and $700,000 at the end of 2007, according to the report. That amounts to roughly two-thirds of the senator’s personal wealth
You got a link for that?
Bob in HI
Bob, here’s the link:
http://www.mauinews.com/page/c…..20574.html
Thanks!
Bob in HI
This was actually buried in the Honolulu Advertiser/Maui News [they are both about 86% AP stories] around a month ago.
My husband forwarded the story to Rachel and several others, trying to get some coverage, but nada.
Inouye is scum. His BFF is Ted Stevens. Need one say more?
@38
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED | The History The US Government HOPES You …Aug 1, 2009 …
whatreallyhappened.com/ – Cached – Similar
OT
Drew Brees is not helping to alleviate the ‘dumb jock’ perception of some people with ignorant comments like this
Yahoo Sports
Is this Drew Brees incognito?
Go for it, Gitcheegumee!
Fatster, You have far more confidence in my abilities than I do.
O/T (Old Topic). Ya think?
Holt on anthrax mailings: Investigate the investigators
BY DANIEL TENCER Published: August 1, 2009 Updated 2 hours ago
“Until the US holds a “broader inquiry” into the investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings, US House Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) won’t be satisfied that there isn’t a mass killer on the loose in his home town.”
More.
Way O/T, but interesting and contains a few insights.
David Axelrod Told Obama to Toughen Up
07/31/09
Patricia Murphy
‘”You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don’t relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched.”
“Axelrod’s get-tough man talk is just one of dozens of revelations in “The Battle for America 2008,” a new book by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson about the most compelling campaigns of 2008.”
More.
Ugh. ON my TV now: CSPAN re-run of testimony last Tuesday on the
Disposition of Guantanamo Bay Detainees by the Senate Committee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, receiving testimony by
Johnson, Jeh – General Counsel, Department of Defense, and
Kris, David S. – Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, National Security Division.
I heard parts of this before. We are assured, of course, that review of the detainees will be Fairly Reviewed, by joint collaboration between DOJ and DOD.
We are assured that Justice will be Swift and Certain, but unfortunately, it sounds too much like the proceedings will be rigged so that heads, the prosecution wins, and tails, the defense loses.
I would like to be hopeful, but color me skeptical.
Bob in HI
The best part of the CSPAN re-run of testimony last Tuesday on the
Disposition of Guantanamo Bay Detainees by the Senate Committee on Terrorism and Homeland Security was the questions by Sen. Feingold. I am happier with his questions than I am with their answers.
Bob in HI
The worst(?) answer about Guantanamo detainees was Jeh Johnson’s response to Durbin about detainees who can’t be prosecuted, but yet are “too dangerous to be released”. Johnson referred to a statement by Obama that these detainees can continue to be detained anyway, on national security grounds. His only sop to civil rights that there would need to be some kind of periodic review process. This response, and Obama’s statement, are entirely inadequate, from a Constitutional point of view, IMHO.
BTW, the Senate Committee website for this hearing. A sidebar on the right provides links to the written statements of each witness, and the opening statements of Sens. Cardin and Leahy, but there is no transcript up yet.
Sen. Whitehouse’s questions were also interesting.
Bob in HI
Here’s a summary of our letter re Inouye and Pacific Wings airline:
Mauimom,
Thanks for this. Bears looking into. And I’m intrigued by the Inouye-Hannemann link, too.
Bob in HI
I wonder whether it’s the new rendition airline?
I wonder if they are flying prisoners around for the new privatized prison system that is overtaking the US. So basically the same thought I guess.
Can’t you just see the PR ad campaign?
“Make your next rendezvous a Rendition Airlines rendezvous.”
Don’t Texas,Georgia and New Mexico have several military bases?
We have a bunch in Georgia, the Navy Supply School is moving but right now I get to hear revile, retreat and taps every day in my yard.
Leon Panetta said:
And:
America has 250,000,000+ guns and 9,960 nuclear warheads. Why is America so scared? It’s utterly irrational. America’s the most protected country on the planet ever.
So, then, CIA employees do not take an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States???
I’m trying to track down what his oath was, with little success so far. Interestingly, one news account reveals that Panetta “officially took over the intelligence agency last week after an official, but closed, swearing in ceremony.”
(Leon Panetta promises honesty as CIA director, The Associated Press, Thursday February 19, 2009, 11:58 PM.) This was the swearing-in ceremony conducted by VP Biden. However, another account quotes Biden’s prefatory remarks to administering the oath:
That’s where the article ends.
Panetta circulated a letter to CIA employees when he was sworn in; remarkably, the letter does not mention the Constitution at all.
Maybe Director Panetta should be asked to swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the U.S.?
Bob in HI
EW,
Thanks for this post.
Imagine what oversight might find out irt torture, drugs, black ops, criminal ties and unspoken alliances. It is one thing to work with other nations’ intel, it is another to have them directing our intel “inside the gate,” in Bush’s words. I think the issue Panetta is worried about is the threat which lies around us should oversight shed light in dark corners and what a cornered animal might do to our nation.
This is the, “You do not know what it was like after 9-11,” meme. That has never come out of a Dem’s mouth. I do not trust the authenticity of the authorship.
Have you compared this piece of Panetta’s writing to his other writings? This does not read like his work. So, who guided his pen hand?
It reads like his statements–for example in the ACLU torture tape FOIA. ANd it reads like the OMB-issued veto threat.
O/T. Heh heh.
Take back KBR bonuses, senators urge Pentagon
updated 7:42 p.m. EDT, Fri July 31, 2009
From Abbie Boudreau and Scott Bronstein
CNN Special Investigations Unit
WASHINGTON (CNN) — “Two Democratic senators called on the Pentagon to take back more than $83 million in bonuses paid to military contractor KBR after a Defense Department report criticized its electrical work on U.S. bases overseas.”
Link.
Why does each new CIA director turn upon themselves? There is an orgy of stomach tearing as they rip out their own intestines as they clamor to reverse their positions on freedom, justice, intervention, rationality, and what seems like an overwhelming desire to soil themselves. GWH was one that didn’t. He was trained as a nazi from his day one, and used the agency to create a vast network to spy upon the citizens of his own country. Not that he was new at this, he just enjoyed his work so much because he had a card carrying moron as his boss. Ronnie could be talked into anything, he had no spine of his own, and no feelings toward humanity in general. He abrogated any responsibility by passing it along. This was one of the crimes against humanity that we should never allow to be forgotten. It took the cold war and enshrined it on the minds of everyone that worked for it’s growth and control of the new world. We see it again now as no one is being brought to justice for war crimes that are so numerous, the onus of proof has long since been established.
Panetta must be newly controlled. One might imagine that he has now seen things that he never dreamed possible. Is this a good thing in a new CIA chief? Not likely. Has he been so overwhelmed that the false flag game that the CIA is famous for has been showing him all sorts of scary images to keep him properly cowed? Do they have an electric shock collar attached to him so he can be controlled? It does look like it.
Does it have to be like this? As long as we can’t produce what we use in this country, we will steal it from others. If we don’t wish to continue on this pattern, then we may be able to change it. But we work for change. pennies, nickels if they can get them, and every other manner of currency is so much more important than any other human endeavor.
@63
Isn’t Georgia on the Atlantic coastline?
This may be of NO significance, but the three states mentioned are either border states,or on a coast.
Be a bitch to have a Nuclear Sub base inland!
Here.
Not to be critical, just to be clear:
This is a very partial list, as most readers will recognize from looking at the map’s portrayal of their own state, or states they know well.
Do you think this one is more complete?
There was one huge map I googled which had many more dots on it. Unfortunately, the print was so tiny that even when I used both the magnifier that came with the map and my own magnifying glass here, I couldn’t quite read the names. Just trying to nudge Gitcheegumee along.
Speaking of military installations,this is informative,imho:
Family Planning: “Totalitarians for God” Spread Poison Web
Written by Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:27
In a new piece for Salon.com, Jeff Sharlet has more on the domestic side of the militarist-fundamentalist drive to devour the state, which we wrote about here yesterday. Sharlet writes of “The Family” — the self-described “Christian Mafia” centered on the “C Street House” in Washington — which for decades has spread its invisible, insidious influence throughout the U.S. government, while supporting mass-murdering dictators, rapacious crony capitalism — and providing convenient cover and absolution for the high crimes and sexual misdemeanors of its members.
And as we noted yesterday, this drive toward “Christian totalitarianism” seeks to use the military as one of its primary vehicles of subversion:
Christian right leader — and Watergate felon — Chuck Colson, converted through the efforts of the Family, has boasted of it as a “veritable underground of Christ’s men all through government.” What do they do? Rep. Zach Wamp, one of Ensign’s fellow C Streeters who’s been in the news for defending the Family’s secrecy, has teamed up with Family-linked Reps. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., and John R. Carter, R-Texas, on an obscure appropriations committee to help greenlight tens of millions in federal funds for new megachurch-style chapels on military bases around the country.————————–Empire Burlesque
So what if what they do is in violation of law and treaty obligations.
The intelligence community, like the DOD is over sized and out of control. They create paranoia and this feeds into the national discuss and emerges as xenophobia and secrecy, illegal operations and the terrorism industry in general.
The national security state has absorbed (taken) vasts amount resources and as we have recently discovered wants to do what they do in secrecy and with no oversight and NO ACCOUNTABILITY.
We have become a nation where no one wants to take the heat for what they do.
@68
I think we would ALL be surprised at what we DO have inland.
Do you recall the plan to truck nuclear waste across Nevada,last year?
What about the nuclear warheads that were traveling over Louisiana last year?
I read that the military pilots involved in that were sanctioned.
You can’t surprise a true cynic!
@71
Fatster, you are a gentleman AND a scholar.
Thank you.
I am a scholar and a researcher.
A gentleman–not so much.
Enjoy.
Just arrived so I haven’t read the other comments yet. The sentence that jumped out at me was “That contributed to an atmosphere of declining trust, growing frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information.” Does anyone have any idea what Panetta is talking about? I mean aside from the outing of Valerie Plame can anyone give me a list of leaked information that was “properly classified.” Seeing as classification of criminal activities is not a “proper” or even legal use of the classification process what does Panetta have in mind? I can come up with black prisons, torture, destruction of the torture tapes, illegal renditions to countries that torture off the top of my head, but legal programs that were “leaked” not so much.
I agree this is a ploy to avoid oversight. The appeal to the “dangerous world” is standard CIA claptrap meant to scare pantywaists on the Intelligence Committees like Feinstein and Rockefeller. But it is also an attempt to hide the CIA’s illegal activities. Does anyone beside me see the terrific irony in Panetta’s portrayal in the media as a “liberal” and his rapid and willing change (if there ever was one) into a CIA apologist? I think the take home lesson here is just what a conservative baseline “liberal” Establishment types like Panetta start from.
I think he’s making the pitch that the discussions about the program that hadn’t been briefed to Congress and that he ran to tell them about shouldn’t have ever been mentioned. But in large part, the declining trust has been between people WITHIN the intel community who aren’t by nature torturers and criminals and who do respect the Constitution.
Because they just didn’t “trust” enough (clap harder for Tinkerbell) that the President’s “FAB” (Fourth Amendment Butchering) program was “legal” bad bad people leaked it. Because they didn’t “trust enough” in genital mutilation as a prudent interrogation technique, people leaked thing about torture. Because they didn’t “trust enough” in the kidnap to torture of Khalid el-Masri, bad evil people leaked his story. Becuase they didn’t “trust enough” in the “few bad apples” story (based on, oh, maybe a few thousand pictures to the contrary that are being covered up) people have leaked info on Camp Nama. Heaven forbid that someone whould not “trust enough” in the positive benefits of suffocating shipping containers full of people to actual leak any info on CIA involvement in that.
Good thing he’s limiting himself to Congress, or he’d have to go into how those damn courts are “leaking” info that the GITMO detainees held for torture experimenation for years and years weren’t enemy combatants to start with.
Sometimes in arguments an effective strategy is to blame the other side, putting them on the defensive and causing them in the process to overlook that you are by far the much more culpable party. I don’t have a real feel for what goes on in the CIA. I have read that there is a considerable rift between those in its analytic side and those in ops.
But what gets me still is what Panetta’s conversion into an uncritical defender of the CIA says about our elites. It reminds me of the comment of Andrew Bacevich on Bill Moyer’s that I often quote to the effect that candidates and those who support them do not run for office or vie for positions in Administrations to cut back on the imperial powers of the Presidency but to use them.
Bacevich’s interview is one of the best i have ever seen on Moyers.He wrote a book. Did FDL ever do a salon with him,do you know?
Secondly, I once heard that those who are “anointed ” for positions of authority ALWAYS have the “goods on THEM”…. tucked away by their kingmakers-to keep the appointee “in line”,so to speak.
I still want to know what oath CIA officials, from the Director on down, take (see my comment @ 54). I want to know if it includes protecting and defending the Constitution of the U.S., or not. I’m beginning to think that it doesn’t, and that might explain a lot.
I miss Barbara Jordan.
Bob in HI
Bob, from this link it appears that the Oath of Office is the same for all federal personnel. I’m still looking to verify.
Thanks. I hope you’re right, and I hope that oath is not a ‘dead letter.’
Yeah, I know, I’m being audacious. But if you’re right, I think Congress ought to tell Panetta to get serious about it, and I think Panetta needs to write another letter to his staff, telling THEM to get serious about it, because otherwise there will be consequences. And the Adolf Eichmann defense (I was just following orders) will not suffice.
Bob in HI
So much has been shifted. “Liberal” and “Conservative” no longer mean what they meant, oh, 15 years ago, for example, since they’ve both been pushed far to the right of the political spectrum. And, somehow, even the oath of office for federal personnel is being shifted from supporting and protecting the Constitution to keeping us safe. Something is very amiss here so that, even though the original words remain, they seem to have lost meaning. I guess it’s just going to be up to us to keep reminding every one of them that they did take the oath and we expect them to honor it.
(I wish I were as clever as Box Turtle and could make a humorous comment about what I think our chances of success will be.)
Be a shame if someone was to set fire to the Congresscritters.
Obama had better fire some high up clintonistas to send a message or he will be a one term president. Rahm comes to mind. But somehow I don’t think that will happen or that he even has the ability to hire and fire his choices.
So, you are saying that Obama is so pathetically weak that the nation’s problems are the fault of “Clintonistas”?? You got to be kidding me.
This language really bothers me:
“Over the past eight years, on specific issues — including the detention and interrogation of terrorists — the consensus deteriorated. That contributed to an atmosphere of declining trust, growing frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information.”
By “consensus,” he clearly means unquestioning approval, regardless of the CIA activity, even if the activity involves committing war crimes like interrogation that involves torture and murder.
If I were Nancy Pelosi, I’d respond with a letter that said:
Dear Director Panetta,
The consensus of the majority of the House of Representatives is you should go suck eggs.
Sincerely,
Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
Ever so politely…of course! Ha.
Welcome to Chris Floyd’s Empire BurlesqueChris Floyd – Empire Burlesque – High Crimes and Low Comedy in the American Imperium.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/ – Cached – Similar
hadn’t noticed this one as being linked in the comments, yet.
America’s Unhappy Spies
by Gerald Posner
http://www.thedailybeast.com/b…..ppy-spies/
“Gerald Posner is The Daily Beast’s chief investigative reporter. He’s the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.”
Does he lick their boots on the way in and on the way out?
Gah! I need some cheese to go with that much whine.
Cheetohs would probably go better with the whine.
Thanks for that link. It does offer up as a fact something that I think (could be wrong) had only been spec’d on in the blogs to date – that “Kappes had direct oversight of the Agency’s network of secret prisons when he held, in succession, the top two jobs at the covert section from 2002 to 2004″
IOW, the “retired” sources are making damn sure that Kappes as #2 knows that any investigation heading their way they will make sure goes right through him. Nice how Posner never mentions, “retired CIA agents who are likely to be charged with torture and murder crimes themselves” in describing his sources.
And I really want to know who is handing out the “intent” advice over at CIA. ““What would be accomplished by appointing a prosecutor in a case where criminal intent would be so hard to prove,” asks a retired officer.” Didn’t get around to mentioning whether those intel officers in other countries who “don’t understand” are co-conspirators either. ANd just like the Panetta piece that spouts the same line, they oh so conveniently leave out the fact that Spain, Britain, Italy, Germany and multiple EU commissions/institutions are all also investigating. We’re supposed to believe that the “tapped in” Panetta and the Posner sources are themselves unaware of those investigations and are also somehow talking to top spies of other countries who are also unaware of those public investigations?
Excuse me, but when you intend to do the act, then you intend all the reasonable consequences flowing from the act. That crap about “it’s not intent to torture if you were only intending to ask a question and just so happened to torture someone while you were asking” is just that, crap. It has no basis. By acting like the OLC opinions give some kind of “intent” defense via “good faith” Obama and Holder are intentionally and publically warping and distorting the law and that’s not really helpful to anything much in the long haul.
As always, Mary, you provide deeper insight. And while what’s being done is “not really helpful to anything much in the long haul,” it is very helpful in the short haul, apparently. I wonder if the concern about “rehabilitating” the image of GWB by GHWB (with the usual major assist from Baker) is in play here, too. Dunno.
And then there’s Woolsey and his ties to Ledeen et al and the niger forgeries and the Larry Franklin overlap and Turkish spy tales told by Sibel Edmonds.
I didn’t know this, but have seen a reference to the fact that Woolsey was also Ledeen’s Iran-Contra lawyer.
If, in addition to torturing al-libi to order, the CIA had a side door, via Woolsey, or more entrance into the Niger forgeries (and there’s still Suskind’s allegations about the Habbush letter and the CIA role in that forgery.
Not that the Dems in Congress have made even a passing effort to nail that one down.
Still, if the picture that is being painted is torture and forgeries to buy Cheney the war he wanted instead of to protect against al-Qaeda, good faith becomes no faith real fast. If you are going to bed every night knowing that you were a lynchpin in creating the Iraq war and all the limbless and lifeless and homeless that resulted and that the way you kept your ass out of trouble was to use domestic propaganda and pressure on Congresscritters to turn America into a torture regime and get to celebrate the horrors you wrought as “patriotism” then I guess you’d get a bit cranky and snotty with reporters too. That lack of sleep at night, when all the ghosts rise up to meet you, can do that.
Thanks, Mary. I googled around trying to find info on Woolsey being Ledeen’s attorney during Iran-Contra, but I’ve come up empty-handed. Sorry. It’s 25 years now, so not much on the internet about it. Very interesting. Creepy creepy critters. And dangerous as can be, too.
I really didn’t find much fast about Woolsey being Ledeen’s lawyer during Iran-Contra other than a few places that just make the reference in passing and without support.
But we do know that he has pitched Laurie Mylroie’s tales of Iraq being behind the first WTC bombings and 9/11, including writing a foreward for one of her books and making “golly, ain’t she great” comments. (And Mylroie was a co-author with Judy Miller for that matter – small world, eh?)
Just finished Richard Clarkes book “Against all Enemies” He refers to the folks who bought Mylorie’s hogwash. Ledeen, Woolsey, Wolfowitz… Her bull fit in with their agendas.
Woolsey came to Ohio University about six years ago as a guest speaker at the Baker Peace Conference (many of us could not figure out why the hell Woolsey would be the guest speaker at a Peace conference).
Woolsey got so pissed off when I asked questions about the Office of Special Plans and the false pre war intelligence along with the Niger Documents. He acutually lost it and started yelling . Was really pleased that I was able to get under his skin. He really looks like a spook.
I had to smile reading about you questioning Woolsey and him losing it. He’s not much on the side of the angels.
Thanks for the dissection re Kappas
That was one of the lines that set off my hackles regarding the article.
And that pretty much summarizes my feelings on the topic as well.
It strikes me that this is precisely what many commentators have feared and suggested over the past few years.
Precisely that the illegal wiretapping may be used against congress in order to control it. Anything unseemly learned thorough illegal wiretapping could be used to cow congress into following the wishes of the executive branch.
Well if this is not evidence of that I don’t know what is. He is mentioning the he said she said debate, but maybe he is really talking about something deeper.
It seems pretty clear that not all congressmembers knew about these covert domestic spying programs all along. It seems most did not.
George W. Bush (The Corporal of Industry) and the C.I.A.
George W. Bush. (The Corporal of Industry), used the people’s and the congresses belief that all presidents have the integrity to separate defense of country, from defense of politics. He bullied the congress into accepting his viewpoint. The congress would back down, believing that no one who had been elected president could so blatantly lie and distort the facts. Bush’s lies are still being defended to this day.
The CIA has problems and they should be addressed, but Congress must accept that it was deceived and made a fool of by George W. Bush. Congressional oversight of the CIA really became CIA oversight of the CIA during the Bush Administration. Porter Goss, a former CIA operative, was the head of the House Intelligence Committee before becoming head of the CIA. The CIA’s man in the U. S. Senate (Bill Nelson D-Fl), in a rare show of non-partisanship, immediately supported the republican Goss’s nomination. The CIA penetration of the House and and Senate allowed it to disrupt, divide, and lie to the Senate and Congressional committees. With the blessings of the Bush administration the CIA wouldn’t have to worry about any non-Bushies looking over their shoulders.
Most of the CIA leadership was smart enough not to have anything to do with the Bushies, but a few did come forward and offered up their souls to the Bushies. These are the people who are fighting any investigation within the CIA. All the power that they had accumulated during the Bush administration would be lost. They could find themselves at the mercy of the laws and the people that they had stepped on in getting to their present positions.
Congress must face the fact that they had been fooled and that the soldiers in intelligence community were doing what they were told to do. Congress must now take the difficult road of investigating the prosecuting the people who gave those orders. Some suggestions: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, Douglas Feith, John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee.
P.S. Did I mention that the CIA’s man in the U. S. Senate (Bill Nelson D-Fl) said Leon Panetta was a close friend.
Holder, Whitehouse, Leahy, Obama, Feinstein “no one is above the law” “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW” hooey
(have not heard one Republican say that “no one is above the law” They all ready know that they have been more concerned about lies under oath having to do with blow jobs than intelligence snowjobs, torture or outing an undercover agent.
Sounds like Panetta has lined with their priorities.
Will the American public ever have access to the report having to do with how much damage the Bush administration did to U.S. national security by purposely outing Plame?
Political friendster website has some onfo on Woolsey and Ledeen.
Perhaps you have already visited the site.
This may be of interest:
Connection between James Woolsey and Michael Ledeen
Woolsey was Ledeen’s lawyer during his Iran-contra testimony
Submitted by Anonymous 2005-03-05 21:28:33
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000566.html
Edit
Woolsey was Michael Ledeen’s attorney for the Iran Contra hearings.
Submitted by fedup 2008-05-11 20:02:09
Michael Ledeen – a neo-conservative who is vocal on the subject of regime change in Iran, Ledeen helped bring together the main players in what developed into the Iran arms-for-hostages deals in 1985 before being relegated to a bit part. He reportedly reprised his role shortly after 9/11, introducing Ghorbanifar to Pentagon officials interested in exploring contacts inside Iran.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm