The release of the long-awaited CIA inspector general report on torture has been postponed once again.
The ACLU, which is suing to have the report released, just announced that the government is asking for yet another postponement on the date of the report's release -- this time, until August 31. The CIA had earlier said it would release the report June 19. That was then pushed back to June 26, and then again to July 1.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at this point. But the latest example of the Obama administration mimicking the Bushies in opting for secrecy over openness feels like one of the most infuriating yet.
The Justice Department is declining to release Dick Cheney's interview with federal investigators looking into the Valerie Plame leak, arguing -- as it did under President Bush -- that doing so would discourage future high-level officials from cooperating with criminal investigations.
The CIA's former station chief in Algeria has been indicted on sexual assault charges, the Washington Post reports.
Andrew Warren, who was the CIA's top officer in the North African country, was charged with drugging and assaulting a Muslim woman in his official residence in February 2008. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Warren had been sent back to America when the investigation was announced in January. At the time, the Justice Department was looking into assault allegations from two women. When they investigated his home, they found tapes of him engaged in sex acts, one with an apparently semi-conscious woman. The CIA says he has been fired.
Warren has said sex with both women was consensual.
Here are the details of the allegations:
The woman who made the 2008 allegation told investigators that she had known Warren for several months and that he invited her to his residence on Feb. 17 and gave her a tour. She said that after drinking two apple martinis, she suddenly felt paralyzed, though she could speak and see, authorities wrote in court documents.The woman was then sexually assaulted, she told authorities. An investigator with the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service wrote in court papers that the woman's symptoms were consistent with being drugged.
It's looking more and more like Barack Obama's pledge to usher in a new era of openness in government may well go unfulfilled.
Yesterday, administration lawyers cited national security concerns to argue that Bush-era documents detailing the videotaped interrogations of detainees should not be released. And in the wake of that news, open-government advocates are reluctantly acknowledging that, despite Obama's campaign promises, his approach to secrecy on issues of national security will likely not depart significantly from that of George Bush.
Do we have yet another case of the Obama administration mimicking its predecessor's notorious penchant for government secrecy?
The CIA argued yesterday that Bush-era documents detailing the videotaped interrogations of detainees should not be released, citing national security concerns, reports the Washington Post.
The Washington Post reports today that, during 2005, Dick Cheney sat in on several of those CIA torture briefings, in an effort to persuade wavering lawmakers to keep backing the torture program.
The news doesn't really come as a shock -- indeed, some close observers had already guessed that the then-veep was involved in the briefings. But it does add to the picture of Cheney embarking during the middle years of the Bush administration on a focused, stealthy campaign to make sure the US didn't give up what he saw as its right to torture.
Yet more evidence that the CIA may not have been totally up front with Nancy Pelosi during that contested torture briefing from 2002...
A former "deep-cover" CIA operative tells CQ's Jeff Stein that agency briefers often hide facts or shade the truth. "They mumble, they dissemble, and there's a lot of 'on the one hand... '" said the operative, who has written harsh critiques of the CIA, under the pen-name Ishmael Jones.
For a while now, it's been clear that, as former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan testified earlier this month, Abu Zubaydah was tortured well before the Justice Department issued its first opinion approving enhanced interrogation techniques in August 2002.
So we've been wondering about the procedure by which that treatment was authorized. And it looks like a crucial new report from NPR may have offered an answer.
That GOP effort to get a congressional investigation into Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA lied to her about torture? Looks like it didn't get too far.
The Associated Press reports that the House voted by 252-172 to block the measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah. Two GOPers, Ron Paul of Texas and Walter Jones of North Carolina, joined Democrats in voting against it.
It looks like we've figured out what Dick Cheney meant when he said President Obama has "reserved unto himself" the right to order enhanced interrogation techniques.
In February the Wall Street Journal reported (sub. req.) :
We asked earlier about what Dick Cheney might have been referring to when he said President Obama had reserved the right to order enhanced interrogation when he deems it appropriate.
Could Cheney have been referring to this passage from Obama's executive order on interrogations?
Another day, another indication that the CIA briefings document that Republicans are currently trying to bludgeon Nancy Pelosi with is deeply flawed and unreliable.
The Associated Press yesterday spotted *(see late update below) two clear new errors in the document -- including one real howler we're kicking ourselves for not spotting ourselves:
Support for Nancy Pelosi -- and for our point that questioning the CIA's honesty isn't really too radical a position -- has come from a perhaps unlikely new source.
The Hill reports that Arlen Specter, the new Democrat who as a Republican chaired the Senate intelligence committee, told a luncheon audience at the American Law Institute: "The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to -- I was about to say candid, that's too mild -- to honesty."
We told you earlier this afternoon about how Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who has called Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA lied to her "outrageous," has himself initiated a probe into whether the agency misled lawmakers about a 2001 shooting incident in Peru that caused the death of an American citizen.
And it looks like Hoekstra's hypocrisy goes even further. Think Progress points out that Hoekstra last night went on Fox News, where he explained to Greta Van Susteren that it's fine to criticize the CIA's performance, but not to accuse it of lying:
The CIA has given another indication that the briefing document with which Republicans are trying to attack Nancy Pelosi is unreliable.
Yesterday, Rep. David Obey sent a letter to CIA director Leon Panetta pointing out yet another apparent error in the document. The Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman asked CIA for a response to Obey's claim, and got the following statement:
As they go after Nancy Pelosi over those CIA briefings, Republicans have been putting the burden of proof on the Speaker, suggesting that it's all but unheard of for the CIA to mislead others in government. But in fact, the agency is currently being probed for doing exactly that on a different issue -- and the effort was initiated by one of Pelosi's fiercest critics on the torture briefings kerfuffle.
Last night, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the House intelligence committee, told MSNBC's Ed Schultz (h/t Democratic Underground):
Here's yet another reason (as if more were needed) to doubt that that CIA briefings document perfectly reflects what lawmakers were told about torture back in the early days of the war on terror.
Almost every briefing described in the document -- including the September 2002 Pelosi briefing that's directly at issue -- refers to "EITs," or enhanced interrogation techniques, as a subject that was discussed. But according to a former intelligence professional who has participated in such briefings, that term wasn't used until at least 2006* (see correction below).
Here's yet more evidence -- as if it were needed -- that that CIA briefing document that Republicans are trying to hang around Nancy Pelosi's neck is hardly a reliable source of information.
Rep. David Obey, who chairs the appropriations committee, just sent the following letter to CIA director Leon Panetta:
Here's a statement just put out by Nancy Pelosi, which seems designed to turn down the heat on her claim that the CIA lied to her about torture, but doesn't back off the claim:
Pelosi Statement on Panetta Message to CIA EmployeesWe 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.
CIA director Leon Panetta has just sent the following message to staffers in response to Nancy Pelosi's claim that the agency misled her over torture:
Message from the Director: Turning Down the VolumeThere 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. (our itals)
Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA mislead her in torture briefings has received support from a new source: Larry Wilkerson, the retired US Army colonel who served as chief of staff to Colin Powell.
Wilkerson told TPMmuckraker that he's been present for similar CIA briefings, and that the agency briefs only "very limitedly," and "very selectively."
At last, the torture debate looks to be heading toward what's been the big question lurking in the background all along: was the Bush administration using torture in large part to make a political case for the invasion of Iraq?
Writing on The Daily Beast, former NBC producer Robert Windrem reports that in April 2003, Dick Cheney's office suggested that interrogators waterboard an Iraqi detainee who was suspected of having knowledge of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda.
Here's the full video of that remarkable 19 and a half minute appearance by Nancy Pelosi this morning, in which she reads a statement and then takes questions -- and accuses the CIA of lying to Congress about torture.
Watch:
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