Democrats engineering a smear on the CIA

This is the latest disgusting engineered smear on the CIA from Democrats.

This started when Democrats, with an irrational hatred of Bush, started to make rumblings about prosecuting Bush officials for "torture". "Torture" like waterboarding 3 terrorist masterminds who have killed thousands of Americans.

It came out in 2002 that Pelosi was indeed briefed on waterboarding, and again recently. This put a crimp on the full-steam kangaroo trial of Bush officials if Pelosi knew in 2002 about these programs and did nothing.

Here's the intel report that was released that shows Pelosi is full of it:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/intelligence-re.html

So she said on May 14th that the CIA "misleads us all the time" and "routinely misleads Congress" when confronted with this damaging information that she is full of it.

Panetta actually released a statement saying that the CIA does not lie. Now Pelosi looks really bad, because Panetta is a fellow (liberal) Democrat.

What to do? Pelosi looks like a liar, CIA looks like it is forthright, and no prosecution of Bush officials. What to do? Smear the CIA.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2009-07-11-1027085655_x.htm

Panetta makes a HUGE PUBLIC DEAL about the closing of a counterintelligence program that NEVER GOT OFF THE GROUND.
Here are some relevant quotes:
"A former intelligence official, who was familiar with former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden's tenure at the CIA, said Hayden never communicated with the president or vice president about the now-canceled program and was under no restrictions from Cheney about congressional briefings."
Hayden never briefed Bush/Cheney on the program, and was free to tell Congress about it (but didn't because it was such a minor program).

"Subsequent CIA directors did not inform Congress because the intelligence-gathering effort had not developed to the point that they believed merited a congressional briefing, said a former intelligence official and another government official familiar with Panetta's June 24 briefing to the House and Senate Intelligence committees."
Tenet didn't tell Congress either because the program never really got going.

"The official characterized it as an embryonic intelligence gathering effort, and only sporadically active. He said it was hoped to yield intelligence that would be used to conduct a secret mission or missions in another country -- that is, a covert operation. But it never matured to that point."
Keywords are embryonic, sporadically active, and "NEVER MATURED". Clearly this is a program that was rarely if ever used, never bore fruit, and considered too minor to even report to Congress by both Tenet and Hayden.


Here are the important sections:

"The former intelligence official familiar with Hayden said Congress has a right to contemporaneous information about all CIA activities. But he said there are so many in such early stages that briefing Congress on every one would be too time consuming for both the CIA and the congressional committees."

"The government official with direct knowledge of the Panetta briefing and the former intelligence official said the CIA has numerous efforts ongoing under its existing authorities that have not yet been briefed to Congress."

So not only are there OTHER ONGOING programs that Panetta has not briefed Congress on, but the reason why programs like this one are not briefed is that in the early stages the programs would be too time-consuming to brief Congress.


Here's the kicker: Given that there are ONGOING programs that Panetta hasn't briefed Congress on, it happens quite frequently, and clearly this was an insignificant program that never got off the ground...WHY would Panetta choose to inform Congress in such a PUBLIC way about this program? Why not just end the program without incident? Panetta KNOWS how insignificant the program is, and he's got OTHER ongoing programs he hasn't notified Congress about because they also are insignificant. So why go public for THIS program?

Well, for politics.

With this action, Democrats are already calling for Panetta to retract his statement to Pelosi and claiming Pelosi is vindicated.

With this PUBLIC release of a "secret", "nefarious" program, Panetta manages to smear the CIA and vindicate Pelosi. You think it's an accident that Eric Holder is considering a torture probe, as we find out today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2009-07-11-399766275_x.htm

Holder saying he is "going solo" without the full consent of Obama is just bunk. Obama wants to prosecute Bush officials to take people's mind about his economic deficiencies, satisfy the liberal base, and probably satisfy his own Bush hatred.

Obama simply wants to prosecute without getting his hands dirty (which will be impossible, but he is will try).

Panetta was assuredly ASSAILED by Democrats for "betraying" Queen Pelosi and also derailing their witch hunt of Bush officials. So Panetta finds an unused CIA program, is "shocked, shocked!" that it was never briefed to Congress, and informs Congress in a big spectacle. That is his mea culpa.

This is all a coordinated setup to appease the liberal base calling for the heads of Bush officials that sanctioned torture. By having Panetta publicly release this "secret" program, he effectively casts doubt on the CIA's veracity that they are forthright, and opens up the question "what more are they hiding/lying about". Holder at this point doesn't have to actually prosecute, but this at least casts enough doubt to almost vindicate Pelosi.

The doubt cast on the CIA by Pelosi et al., already reeling from the bad intel from Iraq, will surely damage the national security of the country, potentially for decades. Investigations from Holder will cement that further. Do Democrats care? No, they have their ax to grind.