July 13, 2009
Reckoning with Bush Anti-Terror Policies
Washington Post: Disclosures Prompt Obama Administration to Reluctantly Examine Some of the Most Controversial Incidents
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Obama administration officials are reluctantly moving to examine some of the most controversial and clandestine episodes of the Bush administration. (CBS)
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Who's Who Spy Agency Chiefs A glimpse at those who have headed the Central Intelligence Agency since its inception.
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Special Report War On Terror Complete coverage of the military's battle against terrorism.
From Our Partner:
After trying for months to shake off the legacy of their predecessors and focus on their own priorities, Obama administration officials have begun to concede that they cannot leave the fight against terrorism unexhumed and are reluctantly moving to examine some of the most controversial and clandestine episodes.
The acknowledgment came amid fresh disclosures about CIA activity that had been hidden from Congress for seven years, the secrecy surrounding a little-understood electronic surveillance program that operated without court approval, and word that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. favors naming a criminal prosecutor to examine whether U.S. interrogators tortured terrorism suspects.
The way ahead for an administration grappling with severe economic trouble and health-care reform is all but certain to prove controversial, and perhaps difficult to control, for leaders who have foundered in their approach to national security policy.
Fears expressed by President Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, that looking back at the Bush administration would force the country into divisive arguments won new footing yesterday as conservative lawmakers challenged even small steps that Obama and his attorney general appear on the verge of taking.
"What's going to be the positive result from airing out and ventilating details of what we already knew took place and should never have? And we are committed to making sure it never happens again," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I do not excuse it. I am just saying: What's the effect on America's image in the world?
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) struck a similar chord. "This is a terrible trend. . . . This is high-risk stuff, because if we chill the ability or the willingness of our intelligence operatives and others to get information that's necessary to protect America, there could be disastrous consequences."
But civil liberties groups and House Democrats cheered the news as a culmination of months-long efforts to press Obama and his aides to pursue the issue of detainee mistreatment and other possible legal violations.
"It is time to finally confront the gross human rights abuses of the last administration," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "Initiating a criminal investigation is a crucial step towards restoring the moral authority of the United States abroad and restoring the rule of law at home."
A senior Justice Department official close to Holder stressed anew yesterday that the attorney general had reluctantly come to lean toward naming a criminal prosecutor from inside the department, after months of reading classified material including a still-secret 2004 CIA inspector general report.
The announcement to appoint a prosecutor who may look into whether CIA interrogators operated outside the boundaries set by George W. Bush's Justice Department could come in the next few weeks, perhaps in concert with the release of an ethics report involving Bush lawyers, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the process is continuing.
Federal law enforcement officials are obliged to investigate possible violations of anti-torture statutes and other criminal laws. That makes it difficult for the Obama administration to ignore material gleaned from watchdog reports, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other sources, former government lawyers said.
"Where there are egregious violations, you can't just brush them under the rug," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on "Meet the Press." "And so I think that the attorney general, to look for some egregious violations, which is what he is doing now, is the right thing to do."
Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos yesterday that "those who broke the law need to be held accountable."
But by confining any criminal investigation to the narrow issue of CIA interrogators who operated outside legal boundaries, and by ruling out the possibility of criminal charges for lawyers and policymakers, the Obama administration has given itself an argument for forestalling a congressional probe likely to be far messier and more public than a traditional law enforcement inquiry.
Legal experts and former intelligence officials also raised questions about the likelihood of criminal indictments against interrogators. They point out that evidence may have been tainted on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that only one U.S. contractor has been convicted of a crime related to detainee mistreatment.
On another front, key Democrats suggested that the Bush White House may have violated laws by urging the CIA to keep secrets from congressional overseers.
Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, confirmed that the CIA had withheld information from Congress about a covert counterterrorism program at the request of then-Vice President Cheney.
"This is a big problem, because the law is very clear," Feinstein said on "Fox News Sunday."
CIA Director Leon E. Panetta informed Congress about the covert program -- the nature of which has never been publicly revealed -- in two classified briefings last month. He said he had only recently learned of the nearly eight-year-old program, and he said that past CIA managers had kept details from Congress at Cheney's request.
"If the intelligence committees had been briefed, they could have watched the program," Feinstein said. " . . . That was not the case, because we were kept in the dark." She said the withholding of covert information is "something that should never, ever happen again."
The CIA's failure to inform Congress was brought to light last week in letters by several congressional Democrats, including House intelligence committee Chairman Sylvestre Reyes (Tex.). The New York Times, citing unidentified officials, first reported that Panetta had told lawmakers about Cheney's role in keeping the program secret.
The revelations have heightened pressure on Obama to begin investigating an array of Bush administration practices. Although Obama halted many practices, his senior advisers have been wary of embracing a congressionally chartered "truth and reconciliation" commission to get to the bottom of the events.
Congressional Republicans decried the idea of any inquiry. "Democrats have twisted the facts to fit this piece of fiction and shown their disregard for our most sensitive national security secrets," said Kit Bond (Mo.), ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence panel.
Even Feinstein urged caution, saying that an ongoing Senate intelligence inquiry should be finished before a decision is made on the need for further investigation.
Republicans and some former high-ranking intelligence officials question whether the CIA was ever obliged to brief Congress on the program. Former agency officials have described it as a technically oriented intelligence-collection effort unrelated to terrorism suspects or the terrorist-surveillance program that came to light in 2005.
The program began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was authorized by Bush as part of a highly classified directive on Sept. 26 of that year. The directive granted the CIA blanket authority to attempt to kill or capture al-Qaeda operatives.
Former intelligence officials said the program was aimed at enhancing the agency's ability to carry out the goals of the directive. The Wall Street Journal reported that the initiative was intended to help the CIA capture or kill al-Qaeda operatives.
A White House spokesman had no comment.
By Carrie Johnson and Joby Warrick
© 2009 The Washington Post. All rights reserved.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 60 CommentsNo man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.
Theodore Roosevelt
Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
John Adams
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.
Andrew Jackson
A political system that generates conditions to support trust and friendship wins the most friendships and alliances.
Tough talking rhetoric will not get anyone anywhere. It is a sign of weakness and intellectual inferiority.
This is yet ANOTHER scummmbag tactic.
The democrats are talking about the anti-American BS that happened IN THE WHITE HOUSE, and the republicans are trying to turn it around and act like the democrats are attacking the CIA agents on the ground.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but they are counting on their mind numbed lemmings to listen to what THEY are saying, instead of what the democrats are actually doing.
They created the current recession by insisting home ownership should be a universal right regardless of qualifications. Greedy mortgage brokers simply took advantage of the stupidity of Carter who originally got the first act passed...then the stupidity was compounded by Frank, Reid, Pelosi, Obama, Et.al. These people did not create jobs...they robbed us!
At least people had jobs from the Bush war and associated ventures in defense and homeland security. Some of the money Bush wasted came back in wages.
We will never see a penny of the trillions lost by the liberal socialist crooks.
If Cheney broke the law, considering he is still alive, then yes, he should be punished. But obviously that will require a thorough legal investigation.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, "Democratic lawmakers on Sunday implied or flat-out stated that such a failure to inform Congress is illegal." (quoted from http://www.newsy.com/videos/state_secrets_cheney_s_role_under_fire) If those claims are true, then he should be prosecuted.
The crooks among the democrats (Obama, Acorn, Pelosi, Reid, Barney, Kerry, Et.al.) and socialists everywhere will fail because those ideas and plans have always failed wherever implemented.
Let them take care of "new business" first: investigate Barney Frank, Acorn, Fannie and Freddie and Reid as well as Pelosi...then they can take on the "old business", if any of them can stay out of prison.
Sycophants that believe in the current Obama mantra of change are simply fools looking for something, anything, they can believe in besides an almighty God.
Dems will continue to be on their hysterical and frenzied rampage, going after anything and everything having to do with Repubs and especially Bush 43 and his administration. It's called payback for what Repubs did to Clinton, Gore and Kerry.
Using YOUR logic, the republicans get a free pass on EVERYTHING, because they witch hunted Clinton when he was in office?
"What's going to be the positive result from airing out and ventilating details of what we already knew took place and should never have? And we are committed to making sure it never happens again," Air Marshall Goring said at his trial." "I do not excuse it. I am just saying: What's the effect on Germany's image in the world?
If only John could have coached the defendants at Nurenburg....
But this is snowballing out of control. My country needs to own up to egregious acts known, and incvestigate objectively the shadowy pit of probable sociopathic and illegal activities of the recent past.
Make a break from "reluctance" - there now needs decisive action to rid all Americans from the stench of pathological disregard for the welfare of anyone. The first step is to charge those that directed such shameful state behavior with violations of American and international law and treaties.
The more we allow this to be couched in "political correctness", the stronger the stench that issues from the shores of our once-beautiful country. It's time for a good cleaning. If our President acts in accordance to our needs and locks up the treasonous creeps who made America the stinking, violent aggressor she has become, then he has my vote for next term.
Even if he can't "fix the economy" he inherited, this alone would be sufficient for me to sing praise and, once again, have unqualified pride in being an American.
Americans are so gullible. Our country will become a socialist utopia and the majority of Americans are too stupid to realize it is happening. Obama is killing capitalism. Long live his socialist regime.
A shame, that.
Nobody else is like that. For the rest of us Americans, you're supposed to obey the law, and if you have committed no crime, you're supposed to be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
lollll...lucky for you righties.
Theys dangerous peeps
"These brilliant minds, so long fettered by the constraints of the legitimate world, fell in love with every skullduggery imaginable and rushed in where experienced spies feared to tread."
Now he says, "Where there are egregious violations, you can't just brush them under the rug,"
So take no credence on what this flip flopper says - he seems to change his opinions with the "crisis du jour" set up by the democratic party to keep our minds off of CURRENT "Crimes" being committed.
That would be the raping of the value of the dollar. Obama has promised he will pay as he goes, then he promised he'd find all this money to pay for the Health bill. NEITHER has happened, and it WILL become a tax issue for the Middle class.
Keep your eyes on the REAL problem here, not the POSSIBLE mistreatment of 3 self proclaimed terrorists.
INSIST on BARRY being honest with the public.
That, unfortunately, has the ring of truth.
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