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Ex-CIA IG: Helgerson 'Extremely Fair'
One person with a unique vantage into the Hayden-Helgerson dispute is L. Britt Snider. Snider served as CIA inspector general from 1998 to 2001, when Helgerson was his chief deputy, and he retains a lot of admiration for his successor. "He's just first rate," Snider tells me. "He is extremely fair, balanced, competent, knowledgeable. He's not someone you'd regard as wild, extreme, or a loose cannon."
That contrasts sharply with Hayden's apparent belief that Helgerson has shaded into advocacy while investigating CIA interrogations, detentions and renditions. But Snider says he never considered Helgerson particularly opinionated while working with him on investigations: "He was always someone who would look at the facts to make some kind of judgment."
Snider cautions that he only knows about the friction between Hayden and Helgerson from what he read in the papers, and that friction is inevitable between the director and the inspector general. "Your job as IG is to render your opinion to management in order to improve the performance of the agency. It's an inherently tense situation set up by the law, but that's the plight of the IG," he says. But he's never encountered a situation where the director "would appoint a committee to quote-help-unquote the IG" -- he laughs. "That I've never heard of before."
But it's a serious matter. The danger here is that Helgerson now appears like he's lost the confidence of Hayden -- and that's a liability for any inspector general in pursuing his duties. "It makes the IG's job a lot worse in terms of making people cooperate and be candid and so forth," Snider says. "You have all kinds of statutes in place, but it comes down to people's willingness to cooperate with an investigation. Hayden needs to reiterate and reaffirm his support for the IG function, and this seems to cut against that." If he doesn't, Helgerson's options aren't that numerous: he can either resign or seek the support of the House and Senate intelligence committees, both of which have been lukewarm to news of the Helgerson inquiry.
Perversely, if Hayden is actually investigating Helgerson's substantive work -- as opposed to just making a power move designed to muscle him out of office -- he may need Helgerson's cooperation. CIA management would need to see Helgerson's internal files and interviews with agency employees in order to determine his fairness and competence. "I don't know how to investigate the IG without him agreeing to it," Snider says. In other words, Helgerson's situation may actually get even more uncomfortable than it currently is.
Here's a simple and reasonable conclusion from this affair: the IG found the CIA's interogation techniques were torture and warrantless wiretapping illegal and said so. Since this administration continues to insist it does not torture and wiretapping is within their authority this guy has to go.
October 12, 2007 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
MM: BINGO!!
October 12, 2007 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eeep!
So the CIA management can see all of the IG's internal files, it destroys any promises of confidentiality the IG may have made, and prevents future promises.
Any whistleblower will be exposed, and we know the White House has no qualms about burning undercover assets.
October 12, 2007 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do the math:
Bush administration + lawyer committed to the rule of law =
ex-Administration lawyer.
See, e.g., Ashcroft, Comey, Goldsmith
October 12, 2007 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup.
And now that Helgerson is an a lose-lose situation with a great deal at stake, it's probably time for him to take on enormous personal risk by resigning and speaking up. It's getting to be that time. Either the few people, regardless of political affiliation, left in the adminstration who have a conscious speak out and we support them or the game is over, regardless of who wins the next election. He doesn't have to spill all the classified beans but he needs to talk clearly about what's wrong and how to fix it.
Britt Snider's politics aren't mine but I was generally impressed by his work at the CIA. Even though it seems likely that he worked to minimize its impact, the CIA's own report on Gary Webb's allegations of the CIA working with and sheltering drug dealers to fund the Contras (and other right wing groups) is nothing like what the current CIA might publish. The report that was prepared on Snider's watch largely confrims Webb's work and is one of your more interesting acts of transparency in an area usually off limits. It's not perfect but it's a step in the right direction.
October 12, 2007 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
And don't I remember how the Senate was so positive about Hayden and his independence. Ha! This only points to the need for denying any more Bush nominees for anything. Period. These people are all cronies and all liars. Either that or they are all being controlled by blackmail.
October 12, 2007 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
This guy Hayden is beginning to seem more like Reinhardt Heydrich every day.....maybe they misspelled his name on his agency pass :-)
October 12, 2007 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats wanted him to resign his commission, HE REFUSED just like mushariff(sp).
So I propose that anyone who refers to this man in public or any where (places like this) start using the term "GENERAL mushariff hayden" it will lable him correctly and remind people that GENERAL mushariff hayden is first last and always a NEO-COMPANY man.
And if push comes to shove he can feed the tree of liberty and it feeds on two kinds of food and he is showing himself to be the latter of the two.
October 12, 2007 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hard to say what's going on here except that the administration must have put Hayden up to this. Never underestimate the ability of this crowd to destroy any sound reputation. They took Colin Powell and turned him into Colon Polyps with one UN speech.
Never underestimate the human nature of just placating the boss and going home at the end of the day; it's what made Nazi Germany Nazi Germany.
The glancing blow Hayden takes on this will be just an old German fencing club scar compared to the sword fall that Tenet took trying to keep this gang of constitution rapers slap-happy.
The whole issue will vanish next week most likely, Helgerson has an upper hand just staying put and Hayden has a "See? I told you so." with his White House handlers. Everyone makes nice, we can hope.
Congress has Hellfire on their side if the administration pushes it. As usual they're trying their leashes, if only we'd had choke collars on these guys to begin with.
October 12, 2007 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
This prez really did take all power unto himself and his lackeys. Congress knows it, investigates willy nilly, yet criminality remains. It's a long time until January 2009. By then, most of the opposition may have the Bush bug.
October 13, 2007 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Extremely Fair"? That description is not allowed for Bush lackeys. Sorry Elgerson, but time to pack your bags.
October 13, 2007 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
It was a big mistake when the Senate confirmed Hayden. An active duty military officer should not be running the CIA. The NSA head is a military officer and the Director of National Security is retired military. When the Democrats take over the White House that will change.
October 13, 2007 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The log jam of BushCO criminality is slowly but surely giving way to the riverine spring thaw -with the coming election. Helgersen is but "one log " getting unthawed.There are many ,many more logs fixing to wash down the election cycle river rise...
And you all know by now -even you Jake - that its going be real good "cow floater" that will wash away all the neocon detritus- Watch the first to be indicted will be that merry lil band of brownshirts that work for the VEEP - think - Yoo, Addington , and Cambone ,,,Whomever touched the torture & TSP is now at serious risk - Conyers & Leahey will come calling as soon as the unthawed jam is rolling down the river .Again Helgersen is just one of many creaking iced up logs...
October 13, 2007 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Addington is the devil in the details.
He's more Cheney than Cheney.
October 14, 2007 2:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hayden looks like that Nazi from the Raiders of the Lost Arc movie. Remember the one whose face melted. Some dudes just look bad.
October 14, 2007 6:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The IG of an organization has always been in a tough position. They are usually successful with uncovering and dealing with incompetence and unethical conduct at lower levels within the organization.
The IG's authority always runs into trouble at the upper reaches of the organization. Probably every IG will eventually run into trouble and back off a matter involving the agency's top officials. Unfortunate, but life. However, few agency heads would ever attempt to ignore or totally undermine the IG. Such conduct would usually end up with the agency head's career also going up in smoke.
The Bush administration demonstrates an entirely new situation in which IG's are openly derided and their authority compromised on a routine basis. The ultimate safeguard against the dismantaling of the system has always been the political fall out for the agency head and the administration that suffers such conduct. It has been missing in the this administration. First,there was the Republican congress. Now there is a seemingly cowardly Democratic congress.
Let's face it. You have to push the envelope on this. You choose the worst and clearest case. You impeach that agency head to send a clear signal. This should have been done with Gonzalez. It was not. He eventually resigned. However, the clear clownishness of his appearances before Congress and the total lack of significan action by Congress undermined his resignation.
October 14, 2007 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, how really bad does it have to become before America wakes to being had?
October 14, 2007 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink