Tag: CIA

*IF* it turns out to be true that we were operating a secret jail in Benghazi…

…and that is a legitimate ‘if:’ anyway, if it turns out that Broadwell’s revelation last month is correct and that Benghazi was hosting a secret jail* for the purpose of extraordinary rendition then I hope that people will find the following posts to be useful.

Continue reading *IF* it turns out to be true that we were operating a secret jail in Benghazi…

Andrew Malcolm walks us through the latest in the Petraeus mess.

And you can tell just how bad all of this is from this sardonic comment: “No wonder Defense Secy. Leon Panetta is out of the country and the president will be too this weekend. It all makes tomorrow’s scheduled White House news conference seem more like an episode of Generals’ Hospital.”

Anyway, short version: adultery adultery adultery (Mrs. Petraeus so far seems to be mercifully absent from all the bed-jumping), with a side order of obsessive behavior and piss-poor documents security for dessert.  That last bit is possibly the most worrisome; I don’t like to think that actual espionage may rear its head here, but at the moment you legitimately can’t rule it out.  It’s been a while since the last spy sex scandal; we’re probably overdue.

Anyway, the score so far is at least two careers blighted… and, oh, yeah: Continue reading Andrew Malcolm walks us through the latest in the Petraeus mess.

Fox News reports that Benghazi consulate gave three hours’ warning of attacks.

Having a good morning? This will fix it.

Via Hot Air. Summary: the consulate warned their higher ups of the imminent attack, noted that their own Libyan security detachment was acting questionably, and reported that militia forces would likely be involved. And, relatedly, military intelligence was reporting that this was an organized terrorist attack within hours of the attack. So why the delay in the government admitting it? Fox News didn’t say why here, but I will: it’s because if the government admitted that it was Islamist terrorism, it would have stepped on their narrative that Islamist terrorism was in full retreat ever since Osama bin Laden was killed. So the government did nothing.

And good men died.

The war of leaks may now begin.

And as I noted yesterday, what an interesting war it will be. Via AoSHQ:

Justice Dept. Report Advises Pursuing C.I.A. Abuse Cases

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.

[snip]

With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.

My reading of the article suggests that the focus of this is not Bush administration policies, but is instead on how the CIA carried those policies out. This should prove interesting: the CIA is already dealing with new Director Leon Panetta’s epic-level bungling of the ‘assassination program’ nonsense, and this is going to do nothing to persuade the career bureaucrats in the Agency that the current administration isn’t planning to hang them all out to dry. Having lived through one Church Committee, I suspect that the CIA is not inclined to endure another.

I don’t exactly have ‘a pox on both their houses’ attitude towards this, but I do consider this to be a bit of a karmic balancing for both the White House and the CIA.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Possible options on investigating the Bush-era CIA.

As I see it, there are three possible ways that you could investigate claims of CIA abuse of suspected terrorists during interrogations under Bush.

  1. Don’t.  This would infuriate the Left, most of whom spent considerable amounts of time, effort, and money to elect a President and Congress that would revisit the Salem Witch Trials (with possibly even the mass hangings); and give no net gain to the Right (it’s what they should be doing, anyway), the CIA (ditto), and the Middle (they just don’t care).
  2. Do.  This would infuriate the CIA, a bureaucracy that easily outmatches the current administration in the arcane art of Beltway warfare; quietly please the Right (as that means that a lot of embarrassing* documents would finally get put in the public record); and give no net gain to the Left (it’s what they should be doing, anyway) and the Middle (they just don’t care).
  3. Do, but ostensibly only those claims that violated Bush-era guidelines.  This would anger the CIA (ex post facto career blighting), the Left (it’d legitimize the guidelines), the Right (tailor-made for scapegoating); and give no net gain to the Middle (they just don’t care).  In other words, it’d be the single most politically tone-deaf solution.

So yes, that’s the one that they’re going with.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, you want a solution?  Easy.  The administration comes out and says that now that it’s had a chance to look at all the information, they’ve changed their mind on their previous position with regard to appropriateness of the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism strategy; and that they’ll be doing a thorough review with the CIA to fix the system to make sure that anything that slipped through the cracks won’t happen again.  Then they actually do the review in a bipartisan fashion, with enough well-known CIA advocates involved to reassure the Agency that there’s not going to be a witch hunt.  That satisfies everybody.

Well, everybody except the Hard Left, but what are they going to do?  Vote Republican?

Crossposted to RedState.

NRCC targets Democrats using Speaker Pelosi.

I was originally going to go with something from Coleridge, but an albatross necklace is not exactly the image that either I or the GOP was trying to invoke, here.

The NRCC will be launching a barrage of television, radio, phone, and physical advertisements today at specific Democratic-controlled House Districts. The theme of the message: Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attacks on the CIA, the implications of those attacks, and the curious disinterest in selected House Democrats in facing up to those implications. The television ad for MD-01’s Frank Kratovil sums it up:

If the CIA deceived the Speaker of the House, then the CIA is committing a crime. The GOP has been saying for a couple of weeks now that Speaker Pelosi needs to provide either evidence or an apology; and when she provided neither, the GOP called for a bipartisan investigation of the CIA. Speaker Pelosi and her cronies in the House had it squashed.  So the NRCC is going to ask selected voters how they feel about the idea that their legislators may be supporting a slanderer and liar.

Specific breakdown of names/type of advertisements below the fold: I’ll be updating with the scripts once I get them.

Moe Lane Continue reading NRCC targets Democrats using Speaker Pelosi.

Be grateful the RNC didn’t call her ‘Miss Moneyspendy.’

Although I plan to email them about that.

Nothing much happened yesterday, huh? Aside from a lot of people yelling over this rather innocuous ad, apparently:

Allahpundit and Legal Insurrection I’ll forgive: they’re merely offering tactical advice, not taking seriously Lefty faux-outrage currently being cataloged (along with other reactions) by The Other McCain, Little Miss Attila, Protein Wisdom, & The Sundries Shack. Personally, I’ll start taking said Left-outrage more seriously when they start reacting to attempted media rapes of conservative female public figures in any way besides helping to pin the victim’s shoulders to the table.

Oops, did I just type that out? I guess that means that a bunch of online would-be pundits who stood up and cheered when their side beat feminism to death with a tire iron as part of their winning Presidential election strategy won’t like me any more, then.

Gee.
Darn.
Shucks.

Moe Lane

PS: If you don’t like the way that we mock the Speaker of the House for being not only a liar, but a stupid liar, here’s a thought: replace her with someone who isn’t a stupid liar.

Crossposted to RedState.

Current Speaker of the House declines Sunday show circuit.

Come out to play.

Pelosi turns down Sunday show invitations

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turned down invitations to be on several Sunday morning talk shows and is instead spending the weekend with her family.

The Speaker was invited to appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” according to sources at the networks.


The Warriors, because I like AofSHQ.

Crossposted to RedState.

Latest on Prevarigate*.

It’s like a demented tennis match:

CIA director says Pelosi received the truth

CIA Director Leon Panetta challenged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accusations that the agency lied to her, writing a memo to his agents saying she received nothing but the truth.

[snip]

Panetta, President Obama’s pick to run the clandestine agency and President Clinton’s former chief of staff, wrote in a memo to CIA employees Friday that “CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed,'” according to CIA records.

“We are an agency of high integrity, professionalism and dedication,” Panetta said in the memo. “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.”

(Via Riehl World View, via AoSHQ)

…and that last statement translates to, as near as I can tell, “Go ahead and hit her again.” Add that to the apparent dismissive attitude of Panetta towards Speaker Pelosi’s allegations (I think that he referred to it as ‘noise’), and you get the feeling that the CIA is prepared to be the brick wall that the Speaker is pounding her head against for as long as the Speaker feels like pounding. That suggests that there’s a lot of paperwork still out there that can accidentally-on purpose show up when the time is right.
Continue reading Latest on Prevarigate*.