From the Wall Street Journal:
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.
Huh??? What??? Let me see if I understand this right… After the events of 9-11 the CIA considered, then abandoned, a major covert anti-terror program and because they never told Congress they had considered a program that they never actually implemented they’re now branded as liars???
I’d be rolling on the floor laughing at the sheer idiocy of this if wasn’t so serious… Congressional Democrats are once again undermining national security for political gain. One has to wonder what effect all this political finger pointing is having on the moral of rank and file CIA employees who are doing humanly possible to prevent future attacks on this country.
Related
- CIA chief urged to ‘correct’ record – Washington Times