The CIA vs. Congress

Pelosi Up a Tree
By David Ignatius
Washington Post
May 17, 2009

It has been the nightmare scenario ever since the modern system of congressional oversight of intelligence was created in the late 1970s: When a scandal erupts, a member of congress will put his (or her) political interests above those of the intelligence agency whose secrets he (or she) has sworn to protect.

That’s what’s so troubling about the campaign for self-vindication that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been waging. To escape from the charge that she was briefed about -- and implicitly condoned -- interrogation methods that she now calls torture, Pelosi is accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of lying.

And not just the Bush-era CIA, mind you, but the Obama CIA as well.

If you read the CIA’s careful, ten-page summary of the 40 briefings it has given to Congress since 2002 on “enhanced interrogation techniques,” it’s pretty hard not to conclude that Pelosi is shading the truth to retrospectively cover her backside. “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah…and a description of the particular EITs that had been used,” reads the entry for the Sept. 4, 2002 briefing for Pelosi and her House Republican counterpart, Porter Goss. Those EITs included waterboarding, whose use Pelosi has repeatedly claimed she wasn’t briefed on.

Congressional Democrats are acting as if there is something sinister in the CIA releasing the records of its briefings (see, for example, Politico’s May 12 post “Democrats: CIA is out to get us”). But the deal with congressional oversight is that if members of Congress are briefed on a subject and don’t object, they shouldn’t trash the agency later in public when there’s a flap. That undermines not just CIA morale, but the integrity of the oversight process itself.
Pelosi’s apparent rewriting of the record would be shocking -- if it weren’t so typical of congressional behavior on this subject.

Playing politics with the CIA is a way of life on Capitol Hill -- love ‘em when they’re up, trash ‘em when they’re down. Republicans and Democrats both play this game, from administration to administration. Though rarely has it been as naked as in Pelosi’s case. Having climbed up a very tall tree, she is now watching -- and yelping -- as the CIA saws off the limb.

CIA veterans remember how William Casey protected his flank when he was CIA director in the 1980s. To get congressional support for his plan to undermine the Nicaraguan economy by having the contras plant mines in Managua harbor, Casey invited leading members of congress to the super-secret Site 39 in North Carolina where the operation was being planned. There was even a photo of then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan sitting atop one of the big mines that was to be used, “looking like the actor Slim Pickens riding a nuclear warhead in Dr. Strangelove,” remembers a former agency officer.

When the mining operation became public and Moynihan and others began expressing indignation -- and threatened to call CIA officers to testify -- Casey paid a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with the congressional leadership. The demand for CIA testimony disappeared, and agency officers involved in the program suspected that Casey had brought along some of the Site 39 photos in his briefcase.

What will President Obama do in this latest of the never-ending skein of CIA flaps? If Pelosi forces a political showdown, I have a feeling that Obama will side with his CIA director, Leon Panetta, and not the House speaker.

By reversing his position this week on the release of Defense Department photos documenting the abuse of detainees, Obama put his responsibilities as commander in chief first -- and his loyalty to fellow Democrats second. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, and, if Obama follows through, it will be one of the defining moments of his presidency.

Obama’s yardstick for evaluating these issues, says a top White House aide, is “what does it take to make the country safer.”

The White House official offers this national-security rationale for three Obama decisions about Bush-era policies: He decided to release the Office of Legal Counsel torture memos last month because the information had already leaked, and because he believed the memos release would undermine an al-Qaeda propaganda weapon; he decided against releasing the detainee photos because, in that case, he thought the pictures would hand al-Qaeda a new recruiting tool; and he will announce today that he is retaining the Bush administration’s plan for military commissions to try terrorist suspects because he believes that’s the most effective legal tool.

And if congressional Democrats complain about these policies? “The president doesn’t want to re-litigate the past,” says the White House adviser. And he seems to mean it.

________________________________________________________

Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth.
By Glenn Thrush
Politico.com
May 15, 2009

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.

UPDATE: Pelosi's office has responded with a gentle statement supporting the work of the intelligence community, saying she was criticizing the Bush administration, not the bureaucrats at the CIA:

"We all share great respect for the dedicated men and women of the intelligence community who are deeply committed to the safety and security of the American people. My criticism of the manner in which the Bush Administration did not appropriately inform Congress is separate from my respect for those in the intelligence community who work to keep our country safe. What is important now is to be united in our commitment to ensuring the security of our country; that, and how Congress exercises its oversight responsibilities, will continue to be my focus as we move forward."

The full Panetta memo is after the jump.

Watch Pelosi’s Thursday press conference:



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. 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. 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.

________________________________________________________

More on the Pelosi v. CIA fight:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/us/politics/16cong.html?_r=1&hp
Make sure to review the multipedia link on the left hand side of the page.