The Trick Was On Us
(GETTY)
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October 31, 2009 10:56 AM And so it came to pass that on the day before Halloween 2009 we all were reminded that most of the biggest tricks of the past decade were on us.
August 24, 2009 3:27 PM 
This hot August day really is a dog for the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Justice Department releases a declassified report (drafted in 2004 by the CIA's Inspector General) which contains brutally embarrassing details about past interrogation tactics. The White House announces the formation of a new, elite, highly-complex interrogation team that places the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Council and not the CIA at the core of future questioning sessions of terror suspects. And then the Justice Department comes back with its own internal report recommending the renewal of a criminal probe into past prisoner abuse by CIA agents.
It's been such a tough day in the spy world that CIA Director Leon Panetta had to draft and circulate a "cheer up, buck up" memo to his staff, reminding them in self-serving bureaucratic fashion that what some of them did to those detainees back in 2002 and 2003 was pre-approved by Bush-era lawyers through those Office of Legal Counsel "torture memos."
"For the CIA now," Panetta wrote today, "the challenge is not the battles of yesterday, but those of today and tomorrow. It is there that we must work to enhance the safety of our country. That is the job the American people want us to do…"
This confluence of events over prisoner abuse and the CIA's role in it has been coming for a long, long time. And yet there are still so many moving parts, so many unanswered questions, that perhaps the best course now is simply to identify a few of the most important themes and issues sure to play out over the next few days, weeks and months. Here are the first 10 angles that come to mind.
1. Just because the Justice Department's Office of Personal Responsibility has rejected Bush-era conclusions and recommended a second look at criminal prosecutions doesn't necessarily mean we'll see any current or former CIA agents as defendants anytime soon. The final call still rests with Attorney General Eric Holder and there are as many political reasons not to proceed as there are legal ones warranting trials.
10 Things About the CIA's Bad Day
(AP)
The Justice Department releases a declassified report (drafted in 2004 by the CIA's Inspector General) which contains brutally embarrassing details about past interrogation tactics. The White House announces the formation of a new, elite, highly-complex interrogation team that places the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Council and not the CIA at the core of future questioning sessions of terror suspects. And then the Justice Department comes back with its own internal report recommending the renewal of a criminal probe into past prisoner abuse by CIA agents.
It's been such a tough day in the spy world that CIA Director Leon Panetta had to draft and circulate a "cheer up, buck up" memo to his staff, reminding them in self-serving bureaucratic fashion that what some of them did to those detainees back in 2002 and 2003 was pre-approved by Bush-era lawyers through those Office of Legal Counsel "torture memos."
"For the CIA now," Panetta wrote today, "the challenge is not the battles of yesterday, but those of today and tomorrow. It is there that we must work to enhance the safety of our country. That is the job the American people want us to do…"
This confluence of events over prisoner abuse and the CIA's role in it has been coming for a long, long time. And yet there are still so many moving parts, so many unanswered questions, that perhaps the best course now is simply to identify a few of the most important themes and issues sure to play out over the next few days, weeks and months. Here are the first 10 angles that come to mind.
1. Just because the Justice Department's Office of Personal Responsibility has rejected Bush-era conclusions and recommended a second look at criminal prosecutions doesn't necessarily mean we'll see any current or former CIA agents as defendants anytime soon. The final call still rests with Attorney General Eric Holder and there are as many political reasons not to proceed as there are legal ones warranting trials.
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
