Cheney Dicked around with Congress

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

--Except assassinations are against U.S. law.

And so is an invasion of Canada and yet we plan for it anyway.

[molly bloom]

And so is an invasion of Canada and yet we plan for it anyway.

Having a condom in your wallet isn't proof you've had sex.

[Sprayber]

Are they? What would you call these predator drone attacks against the hideouts of AQ leaders?

I was kind of wondering the same thing.

It seems that Cheney just didn't trust members of Congress with the information which is a major problem. Sometimes I wonder how long the federal structure of the government can hold with America being a superpower. Obviously not every member of Congress can be informed about all aspects of intelligence operations but it bothers me when they are shut out completely.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Wasn't it basically an open secret that even though we banned political assasinations the CIA still plans on it (and may sometimes attempt to do so)?

[DinoDoc]

Obviously not every member of Congress can be informed about all aspects of intelligence operations but it bothers me when they are shut out completely.

It's not at all clear that the relevent parties were shut out of the loop or that the program met the legal requirement for being reported to Congress about.

As for Cheney not trusting Congress, is that a problem when they prove themselves untrustworthy?

[Kuciwalker]

Gosh- so hardcore and worldly-wise, and yet so young, tender and inexperienced...

... ah, Alles klar !

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/...nation.policy/

I am aware of the history and reason for the ban

If you applied any of the critical thinking skills you obviously lack to the issue, you would conclude that the assassination ban was at least partly a product of the Cold War. In particular, the justification was generally that we did not want to assassinate people on the other side because then we would be viewed as legitimate targets for assassination. Given that the 'other side' in this case is the same group of people that FLEW PLANES INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND THE PENTAGON and attempted to fly a plane into the Capitol, I think we're already past that point with AQ.

[Theben]

1) This sounds like a whole lot of noise to try and defend Pelosi et. al. There was a secret program that was concealed from Congress! Except it never actually got beyond the planning stages and we won't tell you what it was... for all we know, it could have been a plan to replace all the coffee machines at Langley.

So your charge is Panetta & co is willing to scapegoat CIA operations in order to cover Pelosi's hide?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Having a condom in your wallet isn't proof you've had sex.

An eight year old condom in your wallet pretty much marks you as unlikely to have sex.

[Sprayber]

It's not at all clear that the relevent parties were shut out of the loop or that the program met the legal requirement for being reported to Congress about.

As for Cheney not trusting Congress, is that a problem when they prove themselves untrustworthy?

I'm far from being an apologist for most of the democratic members of Congress, but it doesn't matter if Cheney trusts them or not. It isn't his place to pick and choose who is trustworthy. If the CIA followed the procedures in place then all is well but if they didn't then there is a major problem with Dick just deciding who can be trusted and who can't. Surely you can see where that might lead. It doesn't matter what his intentions were, what matters is the message that it sends.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Sprayber,

Agreed. Unfortunately the article provides no guidance as to the requirements the CIA were required to meet wrt Congressional reporting. Likewise, no members of congress or CIA are giving their take on whether reporting was required. As a consequence this again becomes the perfect opportuntity for rampant partisan speculation without basis.

[Kuciwalker]

So your charge is Panetta & co is willing to scapegoat CIA operations in order to cover Pelosi's hide?

Nope. Didn't the initial leak about the program came from a Congressman, who presumably found out about it from a CIA leak?

[Blaupanzer]

1. Cheney had no authority to order diddly-squat while the President was on duty.

2. Given that Panetta refused to provide cover for the Speaker on another issue, I doubt this release of non-data is related to her at all.

3. Despite what Ogie says, Panetta said the program should have been reported to Congress based on the CIA's own guidelines, but was not (due to Cheney's interference). Realizing he had nowhere he could comfortably go with a program that was kept from him for four months, he squashed it. If it's worth doing, it will reappear in another, properly implemented program.

[Kuciwalker]

1. Cheney had no authority to order diddly-squat while the President was on duty.

Sure he does. The president is perfectly capable of delegating his authority.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

3. Despite what Ogie says, Panetta said the program should have been reported to Congress based on the CIA's own guidelines, but was not (due to Cheney's interference). Realizing he had nowhere he could comfortably go with a program that was kept from him for four months, he squashed it. If it's worth doing, it will reappear in another, properly implemented program.

Umm no! The article merely says the following:

"When a CIA unit brought this matter to Director Panetta's attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect."

The rationale for such a recommendation is never discussed. Nor is it implied that it was statutorially required to do so.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

The secret CIA program revealed to members of Congress late last month involved a series of planned attempts to assassinate top al-Qaeda leaders -- efforts that never progressed to an operational stage, according to current and former intelligence officials.

The CIA has long possessed the authorization, granted by President George W. Bush in a secret 2001 directive, to use lethal force against a small group of top al-Qaeda leaders whenever they were located. Although the agency's attacks on terrorist camps using pilotless aircraft is well documented, the CIA's program involved operatives "striking at two feet instead of 10,000 feet," a current intelligence official said.

Neither the officials nor the CIA would elaborate on the program or explain how it differed from other, well-understood attempts to destroy the group's senior leadership. But one current U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the program was small, intermittent and "exactly the kind of work people would expect the agency to be doing."

Both officials said the program never progressed to the point where congressional notification was required.

"It didn't go anywhere," the current intelligence official said.

The program touched off a political firestorm last week when several Democrat lawmakers complained that the CIA had misled Congress by failing to disclose its existence to the proper oversight committees.

Members of House and Senate intelligence committees said they were informed of the secret program by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, who gave lawmakers a series of closed-door briefings shortly after he learned of the program himself. Two lawmakers quoted Panetta as saying that the program had been kept from Congress at the request of former vice president Richard B. Cheney.


Senior White House officials said Obama has been briefed on Panetta's decision since the president returned to Washington early Sunday morning. The officials said the White House was not consulted before Panetta cancelled the program but has had discussions about it in the aftermath of the decision. The officials declined to elaborate.

On Sunday, key Democrats called for investigation into whether the agency broke the law by failing to give required briefings to Congress. The claims of inappropriate secrecy also fueled calls for the Obama administration to launch a formal investigation into the CIA's counterterrorism policies under the Bush administration.

Some details about the CIA's reported kill-0r-capture program were first described in an article late yesterday on the Wall Street Journal's Web site. Today, former and current intelligence officials characterized the initiative as a series of discrete attempts to locate and kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top deputies -- attempts that were associated with new leads about their possible whereabouts. Bin Laden is believed to be living in a rugged area along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"This was a well-guided, authorized activity that was conducted under the law," said a former senior intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the program's secrecy.

The current intelligence official said the program was small -- with expenditures of less than $1 million -- and would have relied on teams of operatives already available for covert strikes overseas. One reason for the failure was an inability to pinpoint bin Laden's precise location, the officials said.

Some Republican lawmakers who were briefed on the program said today that they were mystified by the controversy and perplexed by Panetta's reported decision to cancel the program.

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence, said he asked Panetta during the briefing if the program was illegal or inappropriate and was told "no."

"So my third question was, 'Why did you stop it?' " Bond said. "What they've done is to put the CIA into a CYA position."

But Democrats said the problem wasn't the operation itself but the excessive secrecy. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), also a committee member, said the failure to disclose was typical of the previous administration, which he said was contemptuous of the oversight process.

"The vice president said 'Our way is the only way' -- and anyone who didn't subscribe was jeopardizing national security," Wyden said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/13/AR2009071302589.html