The House Intelligence Committee will launch an investigation to determine whether the CIA broke the law by not informing Congress earlier about a secret plan to train teams to kill Al Qaeda leaders abroad.Let's keep in mind that the program at the center of this so called controversy was never operational. In fact, a former Bush official said that the president, who received daily intelligence briefings, was never briefed on this program.
Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Tex., chairman of the committee, announced the investigation in a statement Friday, saying the inquiry "will focus on the core issue of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed."Reyes said the probe will be conducted in a "bipartisan manner."
"As I have said in the past, the committee supports the efforts of the CIA workforce in its difficult mission to keep America safe," he said in the statement. "I intend to make this investigation fair and thorough, and it is my goal that it will not become a distraction to the men and women of the CIA."
The program was an idea by the CIA for targeted killings of top level Al Qaeda. At issue is the role of former Vice President Dick Cheney who may or may not have ordered the CIA to keep the program quiet.
It's important to point out that we've learned more about this program in the last three weeks than we knew about it in the previous nearly eight years. It's of course unclear why the program was kept from Congress, but if it was to prevent leaks, then the last three weeks have proven them right.
It's also important to point out that if the CIA had to brief Congress on every idea they came up with then all they would do is brief Congress. This program was never in a stage in which it needed to be briefed.
The Democrats have a national security problem. That's what happens when their leader in the legislature, Nancy Pelosi, acccuses the top spy agency of lying consistently to Congress with absolutely no proof. Sensing that her unsubstantiated charges would become a liability, the Democrats needed to find a trojan horse. They found it with this "program". Now, they are going to investigate a crime that doesn't exist to cover up for a baseless charge by their leader. Remember Nancy Pelosi claimed that the CIA essentially systematically lies to Congress but provided absolutely no evidence. This charge would be exactly that evidence.
It won't work. Nancy Pelosi's unsubstantiated charges were bad enough. Using the guise of an investigation to try and smear the former administration, and the spy agency by extension, in an attempt to change the subject is naked politcking. It won't work. The public is simply not that gullible.
4 comments:
The CIA had a "secret plan to train teams to kill Al Qaeda leaders abroad."
What exactly did Nancy Pelosi think the CIA did - bake cookies for the terrorists so we could all get along? Uhhh, Nancy, we are in a war with these people, jeeze I even knew that's what they wanted to do since Clinton was in office.
Democrats are thieves and it is not unusual for thieves to demonstrate intelligence problems.
How many times has it been said: its not the crime, its the cover-up.
Let's be perfectly honest. This is exactly what Richard Bruce Cheney knew would happen the minute he told the CIA never to tell the Democrats about it. He's either daring the Democrats to indict him which is something he's very confident they'd never do, or he knew the Democrats would act in a manner that would allow the Republicans to accuse them of playing politics. Either road would lead to the very post Mike just made.
In this day and age, all politics is naked. The Democrats are reacting to the tactics of a Republican party that believes the best defense is nothing but offense. I mean, why else would Mike be writing so many posts about how everything the Republicans do needs to have the purpose of bringing down the Democrats?
I don't think he ever said don't tell the Democrats, but Congress. I don't know what he was thinking and I know you don't know either.
I don't think I write that many posts about "bringing down the Democrats" and all of them are in the context of elections. Here, you are talking about intelligence and spies. It's one thing to jockey for support on health care, it's quite another to use spies and intelligence for naked political partisanship.
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