CIA Director Leon Panetta struck back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi today in a memorandum to CIA employees saying that she was fully and truthfully briefed in 2002. He indirectly accuses Pelosi of “making hay out” of the CIA and misrepresenting her briefing for political purposes. I discussed the Pelosi story last night on this segment of Countdown.
In his memorandum below, Panetta says “Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.”
He adds “[u]ltimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.” Leaving this growing controversy to Congress with its continued machinations and manipulations is ridiculous. It is time for a special prosecutor who will not be hampered by grants of congressional immunity and leaked intelligence.
Message from the Director:
There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.
Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.
My advice—indeed, my direction—to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country.
We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. Our task is to tell it like it is—even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.
For the full story, click here.
well sir you do good and we will chat manana. Off to the netherlands for me. No Michael Jackson may not come I am too old.
AY:
I am just checking in too. I also wonder where Buddha has floated off to today. I suspect he is lurking in the ether awaiting his chance to pounce on some self-absorbed troll.
Mespo72Cubed.
You’re right. I just like having fun with the trolls, change the story line and they say the same thing. Obtuse would be a word to use?
So how are you doing sir?
Looks like FF LEO was getting picked on tonight. He has been nothing but respectful and cautioning when appropriate. He uses fewer words than Mr. Florida aka Mike Spindell but just as effective.
Mike S was getting yelled at for some reason and not too nicely, I may add either.
What has happened to Buddha?
It appears all the others are accounted for, mostly.
Kelly,
You don’t want to get into an argument that actually deals in facts do you?? Here is just one link for you to read concerning the alleged lies that you mentioned. You might not want to read it because it does say you are wrong…..again.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html
AY:
Your patience with kelly is as admirable as it is useless. kelly, you see, is one those “don’t trouble me with facts” types who have all the answers. He/she/it has the Bible, Rush Limbaugh, and a copy of the National Review, and all else is “liberal lies.” Great truth in the bromide, “He is truly blind, who will not see.”
When I am alone maybe, just a little extra on the side. You probably claim to be a Christian? Yes? Read what St. Francis had to say about conception.When life began. I bet you like the Oriental, does life begin in the womb and you are one year old when you are born? Then report back here.
kelly,
I am a conservative Republican. I am also Pro-Choice and Pro-Capital Punishment (hang ’em high).
anonymously yours:
so tell me what crime babies have done to mankind that they deserve the death penalty but a murderer doesn’t…..
anonymously; you are a true jerk.
rafflaw, get the hell out of here with your phony “we prosecuted for waterboarding after WW2”. By now EVERY American knows that is a lie. We prosecuted those that BEAT and tortured civilians our troops with bats, burned our soldiers & civilians with cigarettes, and other very terrible actions.
Good lord you losers here are losing the entire argument. Do you think ANYONE with a brain doesn’t understand that anybody with a clue is behind the President on waterboarding THREE terrorists to get information?
Keep it up rafflaw, it is costing you DEARLY in the political game. DEARLY! America has more common sense about this and that is what you are missing, simpleton.
Kelly,
Once again, I think you are losing sight of the facts on waterboarding. The United States prosecuted waterboarding after WWII and in the Vietnam era. The Reagan Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff for waterboarding in the 1980’s. But you can keep believing that waterboarding is legal. I don’t want to wake you from your fairy tale.
Yes Kelly, a lot of us here are Pro-Life. We are against capital punishment. Glad you could join in. But then you should could have been a product of selective reproduction and wouldn’t know the difference. Did you know Dollie per chance? Did you mama go Ewe too? and did you sister Blee or was it just Baaaaaaaa.
Gallup: More Americans Pro-life Than ‘Pro-choice’ for First Time since polling began
May 15, 2009 – 09:36 ET
What a difference a radical, in your face, abortion-promoting president makes.
For the first since it began surveying the question, a clear minority of Americans who are still euphemistically “pro-choice” on the question of abortion, just 42%. Pro-life has leaped to 51%.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/More-Americans-Pro-Life-Than-Pro-Choice-First-Time.aspx
Eric the infallible
Attorney General Eric Holder before the House Judiciary Committee by Republican Reps. Dan Lungren and Louis Gohmert on the definition of torture. “In one of the rare times he gave a straight answer,” Connie Hair repots, “Holder stated at the hearing that in his view waterboarding is torture.” Lungren wondered: Are Navy SEALS subjected to waterboarding as part of their training being tortured?
Holder: No, it’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we’re trying to do is train them —
Lungren: So it’s the question of intent?
Holder: Intent is a huge part.
Lungren: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?
Holder: Well, it… uh… it… one has to look at… ah… it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act — that is not torture.
McCarthy pauses here to note that the Spanish Inquisition lacked a torture statute — as did the United States until 1994, and that to this day federal torture law leaves waterboarding unmentioned. As Hair notes, Gohmert then continued the “intent” line of questioning in an attempt to make sense of the attorney general’s “tortured logic.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert: Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent. If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn’t that correct?
Attorney General Eric Holder: No, not at all. Intent is a fact question, it’s a fact specific question.
Gohmert: So what kind of intent were you talking about?
Holder: Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act? Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?
Gohmert: I said that in my question. The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm — there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm — knew that for sure. So, is the intent, are you saying it’s in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured. Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he’s doing harm.
Holder: The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances. That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.
Holder appears to have considerable difficulty applying the logic of his answer regarding trainers waterboarding SEALs to interrogators waterboarding detainees. The source of the difficulty is probably political rather than intellectual. Whatever the source, it provides further evidence in support of Paul Mirengoff’s assertion that Holder is probably not infallible.
My God the total ignorance here. God Bless the CIA. Nancy Pelosi will burn in hell for the damage she has caused this Nation.
I did quote them in their entirety.
My emphasis was being given to the constant ‘hand-wringing’
– which I have been complaining about with regard to JILL
for more than a full year now…
If anybody is using the media make a point, it’s Jill.
I stand on my own. If you notice I speak for myself and don’t
others, like Glenn Greenwald or even JT to back up my thinking.
I think Jill is a nincompoop!
There, I said it again…
Leon Panetta is doing a very good job at trying to impress the CIA lifers that he is their friend. Mike A. hit the nail on the head when he brought up the statement by former Senator Bob Graham who said the CIA screwed up their dates with him. I am of the opinion that the screw up wasn’t a screw up. It was intentional. The CIA under Bush had no intention of keeping Congress fully briefed on these activities because they knew it was illegal. That is why they insisted on getting written authorization from the Bush regime. They wanted their “get out of jail” card before they tortured the detainees.
It is really amazing how the trolls show up when torture is the subject. What are you trolls afraid of? If Bush and the CIA were not guilty of anything, why do they not want an investigation? Could they be afraid of what the public will find out and who may go to jail once more facts are in the public forum? It is time for Panetta to shut up and let the facts come out in a full investigation. If any CIA official go to jail, they will have plenty of company when the Bush people who authorized the torture will be joining them.
Patty,
That was some nice cherry picking there.
“…not by sycophantic hand wringing and deliberate misdirection IN THE MEDIA.” (emphasis mine)
Those pesky subjects never add anything to sentences anyway, and it’s much easier to make things say what you want if you don’t feel obligated to quote them in their entirety.
This is good, one points the finger at the other. The other points the finger at the Mothers. The Mothers now point their fingers at the Muthers and now we know who they are.
How many chairs do you need to start this musical? I can dance, watch me now.
If there are mitigating circumstances, let them be weighed by a judge and jury in open court, not by sycophantic hand wringing
—
Jill, MAskeptic was referring to you.
Get a clue…
Jonathan,
At the bottom of the Panetta column you said you would be talking about the Pelosi development on Countdown tonite. You didnt’ mention Panetta once.
Are you there to be a mouthpiece for Olberman, or are you allowed to comment on what you think is pertinent? Leon Panetta doesn’t have a dog in this fight. Do you think he has had this moment where he feels the need to attack Pelosi?