May 15, 2009
Categories: Intelligence
Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth

CIA Director Leon Panetta just sent a stern message to his employees defending the agency against Speaker Nancy Pelosi's criticisms.

His message: We didn't mislead Congress; stay focused on your job.

Panetta's note was sent to reporters via the CIA press office. Here's the key graph:

"Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened."

In some ways, Panetta is doing what any executive would do: He's protecting his people and trying to boost morale for an agency that's under fire. But the political message is much stronger, as you have the a serious rift now between the most powerful congressional Democrat and one of the top officials in the Obama administration.


Message from the Director: Turning Down the Volume

There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.



My advice — indeed, my direction — to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country.

We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. 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.

Panetta is a straight forward guy, Pelosi has dug a hole for herself and Panetta will finish her off..It is about time someone finally puts an end to her.

I believe she should be investigated, if she is found guilty and prosecuted, then everyone involved should also be. from the top, to the bottom`

gypsy wrote:I believe she should be investigated, if she is found guilty and prosecuted, then everyone involved should also be. from the top, to the bottom`

well it may be investigated, but obama does not need all the diversions. i think if and i say if she sees the handwriting on the wall she will step down,, but she may hold on, some think she will weather it, some dont, we will see,

Pelosi is very powerful ,so far her party stands behind her,
and we all know the CIA have been known to not tell the truth~~ I will put a news article from the San Francisco gate I think~

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/15/MN7U17KJC2.DTL

My Words>> I think the Republicans are squirming, and trying to shift the blame~


Pelosi accuses CIA of lying in torture timeline

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Friday, May 15, 2009


(05-15) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently said her motto is "The best preparation for combat is combat."
Images
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeated her call for appo... View More Images

With both guns blazing at an extraordinary news conference Thursday, the Democrat from San Francisco made good on that, accusing the CIA of lying when the agency said she was told about torture in 2002.

In doing so, Pelosi turned a distraction into a conflagration. She had little choice after two weeks of Republican accusations that it was she who was lying, accompanied by a leaked CIA timeline that said she had been briefed on Sept. 4, 2002, that "enhanced interrogation techniques" - a euphemism for torture - "had been employed."

Democrats quickly closed ranks behind the speaker. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made clear whom she believes.

"I've know Nancy a long time," Feinstein said. "We lived a few houses apart for a couple of decades. I've never known her not to be truthful. Let me put that on the record."

Feinstein had this to say about the CIA, now headed by fellow Californian Leon Panetta of Monterey:

"The CIA on this issue is in a defensive mode. Who knows whether what they're saying is right or wrong? The CIA is not an agency that is above not telling the truth."

Republicans contend that Pelosi had known all along that that top al Qaeda suspects were being harshly interrogated for information on future plots, but only called it torture after the interrogations became public and inflamed her liberal base. They say it is unfair to investigate former Bush officials if Pelosi was also complicit.

Pelosi waited for her regular weekly news conference to address the issue, after a trip to Iraq had left unanswered for nearly a week media reports fueled primarily by GOP sources making accusations.

"Yes, I am saying that they are misleading - that the CIA was misleading the Congress," Pelosi said. She said she would "be very happy" if the CIA would release the notes from the 2002 briefing so that everyone could see for themselves. She repeated her call for a truth commission to air the facts.
Rare political damage

There is little doubt that Pelosi has sustained rare political damage, with even liberal late-night comedian Jon Stewart joking about her claim that Bush officials told her they had legal grounds to use torture but had not actually used it. The uproar has arrived at a delicate juncture when Pelosi faces a daunting challenge enacting President Obama's first-year agenda, including health care reform.

Yet those who think Pelosi is in any danger of being driven from power, in the manner of such past speakers as Newt Gingrich or Jim Wright, underestimate her strength, steadily cultivated over 22 years in Congress since arriving as a San Francisco backbencher in 1987. Pelosi's hallmark achievement has been to unify Democrats, not just her Bay Area allies but conservative Southern and rural Democrats. There is no sign that they will abandon her now.

Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, a top Pelosi confidant, said it was "ludicrous" to think Pelosi is in any political danger. "Obviously, it's an attempt by the architects and promoters of torture to try somehow to shift the blame to Democrats when for six, seven years, this is what they did," Miller said. "She's made her statement, and she made her record very clear."

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said he was "a little shocked" when asked three days ago whether Pelosi was in trouble. So Thursday, as the Pelosi news conference was blaring on every cable TV network, he said, "I've been asking around on the (House) floor, and people just look at me like I'm nuts."

If anything, Pelosi's no-prisoners stance may build support for the truth commission she has advocated to determine how decisions about the wars in Iraq and on terror were made. Her call for such a commission last month touched off the storm that has now engulfed her.

Pelosi accused the Bush administration of "misinforming" Congress not only about torture but about weapons of mass destruction as a way of pushing its war agenda with minimal interference from Congress.

"Let's get it straight," she said. "The Bush administration has conceived a policy. The CIA comes to the Congress, withholds information about the timing and the use of (torture). We later find out that it had been taking place before they even briefed us about the legal opinions and told us that they were not being used."

GOP leader's perspective

Republican House leader John Boehner of Ohio said Pelosi's responses "continue to raise more questions than provide answers." He said it is "hard for me to imagine that anyone in our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress."

Marc Sandalow, former Washington bureau chief for The Chronicle who covered Pelosi for 20 years and wrote her biography, "Madame Speaker," in 2008, said that what is clear is that "somebody's not telling the truth, either Nancy Pelosi or somebody at the CIA. And there is nothing in Nancy Pelosi's long public history to suggest that she lies. Hardball politics, yes. Lying, no."

Pelosi is also a notorious stickler for protocol. It comes as little surprise that she would leave it to her successor on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County), to send a letter to the White House objecting to the techniques after a later and apparently more complete briefing on Feb. 5, 2003, which Pelosi's national security aide attended.

Feinstein has opened what she expects to be a six- to eight-month Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of the interrogations. She opposes a truth commission because her committee can look at secret documents and take less time. With a commission, she said, "I don't think you'll really get a professional job. I think you'll get a very controversial work product. Now, our work product may be controversial, but it will be sound."

Echoing the concerns of many members on the House and Senate intelligence committees, she said her own experience with CIA briefings is that they tend to be "very bland, very theoretical and with very little said. You cannot take notes. ... There is no opportunity for a lot of questions."
Push to expand briefings

Feinstein and others are pushing legislation to expand such briefings to the full intelligence committees, including professional staff. Some experts concur that limiting briefings to as few as four members of Congress who are sworn to absolute secrecy obstructs Congress' obligation to oversee the executive branch.

The controversy puts Panetta in a difficult spot, defending the CIA against a fellow Californian. In a letter accompanying the timeline that implicates Pelosi, Panetta said the information is based on the best recollections of the CIA briefers at the time and may not be accurate.