Charles Pierce: Obama, The CIA, And The Limits Of Conciliation [View all]

[ProSense]

Obama, The CIA, And The Limits Of Conciliation

By Charles P. Pierce

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in one very important way, the president has lost control of his own government. The current constitutional crisis between the CIA and the Senate committee tasked with investigating its policies regarding torture during the previous administration has only one real solution that is consonant with the rule of law. Either CIA director John Brennan gets to the bottom of what his people were doing and publicly fires everyone involved, or John Brennan becomes the ex-director of the CIA. By the Constitution, this isn't even a hard call. The Senate has every legal right to investigate what was done in the name of the American people during the previous decade. It has every legal right to every scrap of information relating to its investigation, and the CIA has an affirmative legal obligation to cooperate. Period. The only way this is not true is if we come to accept the intelligence apparatus as an extra-legal, formal fourth branch of the government.

That is the choice that the president should give Brennan. Right now. This morning. Nobody is asking for the release of tracking data regarding the current operatives of al Qaeda. This information is being withheld because, during the late Avignon Presidency, the CIA repeatedly broke the law in its treatment of captives and it did so with the blessing of the highest reaches of the American government. That the president has not done this yet -- indeed, that he seems to have thrown his support behind Brennan -- is not merely a mistake, it is a demonstration of the practical limits of the political appeal that got him elected in the first place.

Increasingly, the election of Barack Obama seems to have functioned more as an anesthetic than as an antidote to the criminality of his predecessor's government. His message of conciliation allowed the American people to forget what they had allowed a cabal of bureaucrats and fantasts to hijack their government in the chaos and terror following the attacks of September 11. The president offered the country, as I wrote at the time, absolution without penance. And he put that philosophy into action by declining right at the outset to prosecute, or even to thoroughly investigate, what had been done. What we are seeing today is the final limit to looking forward, and not back. The CIA, and the rest of the intelligence apparatus of the country, was not reconciled to democracy. They were not brought properly to heal and the American people were not forced to confront the consequences of the terrible abandonment of self-government that, at its worst, the intelligence community represents.

The Senate investigation is really the last chance for even the ghost of a full accounting. (The CIA already destroyed videotapes of the torture sessions ) The apparent interference with the Senate investigation is a constitutional crime of the first order. The president set himself to bring people together. That's a noble goal, and one with which few people would disagree. But it is not the CIA's goal. It never has been. Its long history of crimes and bungling have created a climate within the intelligence community that is anathema to intelligent self-government. The president is the only one who can change that. It's time that he start the job.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-cia-john-brennan-031414

Here's what I think is going on: The Senate and the CIA are in a battle that's about holding the CIA accountable. The President has a role to play, and it's not to pick sides. It's to cooperate with the investigation.

Brennan needs to be on the hot seat. He is a key link to the Bush administration's toture policy. Since the President appointed him head of the CIA, it's the President's job to direct him to cooperate with the Senate. Brennan has to show good faith, as Durbin states in the following letter.

Top Intelligence Appropriator Blasts CIA, Wants Torture Report Released

By Niels Lesniewski

CIA Director John O. Brennan is facing new pressure from the Senate Democrat in charge of the agency’s secret budget.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, who doubles as the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, sent a lengthy missive Thursday to Brennan backing concerns raised by Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and calling for declassification of a torture report prepared by the Intelligence panel.

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The text of the letter to Brennan appears below:

Dear Director Brennan:

I write to express my grave concerns about the CIA’s actions with respect to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.

As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Constitution Subcommittee, I take very seriously the responsibility of all federal officials to respect the U.S. Constitution’s Separation of Powers. I also serve as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which appropriates funds for the CIA and other intelligence agencies. In this capacity, I have gained a great appreciation for the need to protect the integrity of Congressional oversight of the Intelligence Community.

I have great respect for Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Chairman of SSCI, so I listened carefully to her lengthy floor statement earlier this week detailing her concerns about the CIA’s interference in SSCI’s oversight work. I have also reviewed your January 27th unclassified letter, responding to an earlier letter from Chairman Feinstein.

The facts as presented in Chairman Feinstein’s floor statement and your letter are deeply troubling. Accepting your version of events, it appears that the CIA conducted an unauthorized search of a computer network used by SSCI staff to determine whether SSCI staff possessed certain sensitive CIA documents. You state that the documents in question are privileged, deliberative, and pre-decisional. However, I understand that the Senate Legal Counsel has concluded that this type of privilege is not recognized by the Legislative Branch. I believe that recognition of such a privilege would be a severe blow to any congressional oversight efforts of the Executive Branch, because any information, analysis, or operational plans could simply be labeled as deliberative or pre-decisional and withheld from the congressional oversight committees. This would have profound impacts on the intelligence community’s obligation under the National Security Act of 1947 to keep Congress “fully and currently informed” on intelligence activities, and also the fundamental system of checks and balances established by the Constitution.

You acknowledge that the CIA does not know how SSCI staff obtained these documents, and Chairman Feinstein maintains that the CIA provided the documents to SSCI staff. Given the separation of powers interests at stake, if the CIA had a question about these documents, you should have at the very least asked Chairman Feinstein and her staff for an explanation before taking the highly questionable and possibly unconstitutional step of searching a computer network used by the Legislative Branch.

As a former member of SSCI, I am also troubled by allegations from CIA staff that SSCI staff has acted inappropriately, and I take seriously Chairman Feinstein’s concern that this is a potential effort to intimidate SSCI staff.

It is important not to lose sight of the underlying issue – the un-American and illegal torture of detainees held by our government. It was 10 years ago that I authored the first legislation to make it clear that the cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees is illegal under U.S. law in all circumstances. My legislation was a response to the previous Administration’s position that it was legal to use abusive interrogation techniques on detainees.

I was very proud when, on only his third day in office, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491 ending the use of abusive interrogation techniques. Prior to your confirmation, we discussed this issue and you assured me that you would support the Administration’s policy.

As you know, the SSCI Study of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program began in the aftermath of the CIA’s inappropriate destruction of detainee interrogation videotapes. Then-CIA Director Hayden suggested that SSCI staff review CIA operational cables about the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program in lieu of the destroyed tapes. As Chairman Feinstein has explained, the SSCI Study was authorized on an overwhelming bipartisan vote after SSCI found that the cables detailed detention conditions and interrogations that were far worse than what the CIA had previously described to SSCI.

Approximately one year ago, I received a classified briefing on the SSCI Study. While I cannot recount the details of the briefing in this letter, the SSCI Study raises extremely troubling issues about not only CIA activities, but also the Agency’s obligation to cooperate fully and accurately with congressional oversight activities. The conclusions of the SSCI Study, along with my understanding of the recent events relating to the documents in dispute, indicate to me that the CIA is making it very difficult for Congress to fully carry out its oversight responsibilities. I simply cannot understand any circumstances that would legitimately allow the Executive Branch to withhold any information or documents from an official Senate investigation of such an important matter.

After I was briefed on the SSCI Study, I spoke with you, the President, and then-Secretary of Defense Panetta to urge each of you to be briefed on its findings and to support its declassification. In my view, it is critically important to declassify the SSCI Study so that we can learn from, and hopefully not repeat, the mistakes of our past. I cannot say it better than Senator John McCain, an American hero who knows more about this issue than any other member of Congress, and who has urged the Administration to “take whatever steps necessary to finalize and declassify this report, so that all Americans can see the record for themselves, which I believe will finally close this painful chapter for our country.”

In light of the important constitutional principles at stake, I urge you to directly address the serious separation of powers issues that have been raised. I also again urge you to accelerate declassification to the greatest extent possible of the SSCI Study of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program.

Thank you for time and consideration. I look forward to your prompt response.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/top-intelligence-appropriator-blasts-cia-wants-torture-report-released/

Obama provided evidence of Bush's torture program to the Senate, and Obama is covering up torture?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024662090