About that CIA 'Lie'

[SFC(R)L]

About that CIA 'Lie'

House Democrats play politics with national security to protect Pelosi.


As political spectacles go, one would be hard pressed to find anything as ridiculous as the Washington Romper Room now starring Congressional Democrats and the CIA. If only the consequences weren't potentially so damaging for national security.

The latest episode comes courtesy of Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. In a letter leaked to the press on Wednesday, he claims the agency "misled" Congress about its activities after 9/11. Recall that this all started when Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted the CIA failed to brief her in 2002 about aggressive interrogations during her time on Intelligence earlier this decade. CIA Director Leon Panetta in May said the agency didn't, as policy or practice, "mislead Congress." Briefing notes from the time showed Mrs. Pelosi was told and didn't object to waterboarding. The CIA this week felt compelled to issue another denial in response to the Reyes letter.

Mr. Panetta must feel burned. After the Pelosi blow-up, he has tried to repair relations with his own party's Congressional leaders, and last month he reached out to the Intelligence Committee. On June 24, in a classified hearing, Mr. Panetta produced so-called new information about CIA counterterrorism efforts in the months after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. We're told that he informed the Members that the agency had considered, then abandoned, a major covert antiterror program. (Our sources wouldn't say what it was.) Bush-era CIA officials didn't tell Congress because it never got off the ground. But this is the "at least one case" Mr. Reyes claims his committee was "lied to" about in the Bush years.

There's apparently no limit to how far Speaker Pelosi's friends on the Hill are willing to go to salvage her reputation. The intentions are transparent enough. The Reyes letter was addressed to Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on Intelligence. Mr. Hoekstra yesterday said the media received the missive before he did. And two days after the Panetta testimony last month, six Democratic Members of the committee called on the CIA Director to "correct" his statement in May that the CIA doesn't lie to Congress. He didn't. The six are allies of Speaker Pelosi. Her public standing -- and poll numbers -- have been battered since her run-in with Mr. Panetta and the facts this spring.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124718513104720457.html

Once again, libs play fast and loose with lives and security over politics...

[SFC(R)L]

come now

where are the howling shrieks of protest?

[Lone Star]

The CIA lied, what is there to protest?

[E7ALR]

About that CIA 'Lie'

House Democrats play politics with national security to protect Pelosi.


As political spectacles go, one would be hard pressed to find anything as ridiculous as the Washington Romper Room now starring Congressional Democrats and the CIA. If only the consequences weren't potentially so damaging for national security.

The latest episode comes courtesy of Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. In a letter leaked to the press on Wednesday, he claims the agency "misled" Congress about its activities after 9/11. Recall that this all started when Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted the CIA failed to brief her in 2002 about aggressive interrogations during her time on Intelligence earlier this decade. CIA Director Leon Panetta in May said the agency didn't, as policy or practice, "mislead Congress." Briefing notes from the time showed Mrs. Pelosi was told and didn't object to waterboarding. The CIA this week felt compelled to issue another denial in response to the Reyes letter.

Mr. Panetta must feel burned. After the Pelosi blow-up, he has tried to repair relations with his own party's Congressional leaders, and last month he reached out to the Intelligence Committee. On June 24, in a classified hearing, Mr. Panetta produced so-called new information about CIA counterterrorism efforts in the months after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. We're told that he informed the Members that the agency had considered, then abandoned, a major covert antiterror program. (Our sources wouldn't say what it was.) Bush-era CIA officials didn't tell Congress because it never got off the ground. But this is the "at least one case" Mr. Reyes claims his committee was "lied to" about in the Bush years.

There's apparently no limit to how far Speaker Pelosi's friends on the Hill are willing to go to salvage her reputation. The intentions are transparent enough. The Reyes letter was addressed to Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on Intelligence. Mr. Hoekstra yesterday said the media received the missive before he did. And two days after the Panetta testimony last month, six Democratic Members of the committee called on the CIA Director to "correct" his statement in May that the CIA doesn't lie to Congress. He didn't. The six are allies of Speaker Pelosi. Her public standing -- and poll numbers -- have been battered since her run-in with Mr. Panetta and the facts this spring.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124718513104720457.html

Once again, libs play fast and loose with lives and security over politics...Paneta is an ediot. Operations are not briefed to the oversight committees until an operation is deemed ready to initiate. When the operations staff of the different intelligence begin mulling over a potential new intelligence activity or a change to a an existing one they draw up concepts for consideration. These "concepts" have to get past approval authority review before they can even progress from the being more than someone's GFI. Some of these concepts require approval at the cabinet or even the Presidential Level before any action, no matter how small, to turn them from a concept to an actual operation.

Once the proper approval authority directs the intelligence agency to initiate the operation, then the operation has to be briefed to the Oversight Committees at the next scheduled briefing (they are mandated a specific number of times a year). If the President feels it is prudent, he can decide to brief the Congressional members and get their opinions and advice during the concept pre-approval phase, but is not required to do so. The President is under no requirement to brief concepts that the approval authorities reject to initiate into intelligence operations. In fact briefing them usually only results in congress wasting time on questions concerning intelligence activities that never went beyond a concept proposal.

It sure sounds like a concept proposed, but not approved to actually become an intelligence operation. Paneta was probably trying to curry favor and told them about the different ideas that CIA records show were batted around in wargaming, which of course never made to operational level and thus were never briefed to congress.

[Socrates]

Nancy must have a lot of dirt on people in Washington. There can be no other reason for her to have so much power.

[E7ALR]

The CIA lied, what is there to protest?Not briefing something that your agency never actually did is not lying.

[SFC(R)L]

Not briefing something that your agency never actually did is not lying.

Sheesh