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The 35-Year War on the CIA
Commentary ^ | December 2009 | Arthur Herman

Posted on 12/08/2009 7:54:47 PM PST by neverdem

When your own outfit is trying to put you in jail, it’s time to go.” Those are the words of Robert Baer, once a CIA operative in the Middle East, describing the days in 1995 when he found himself under investigation by the Clinton administration, the FBI, and the CIA’s own inspector general. Baer’s crime? Daring to talk to Iraqi dissidents who were plotting to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

CIA officers in 2009 who are living with a Sword of Damocles hovering over their heads—in the form of a special prosecutor appointed by Barack Obama’s attorney general in August to probe allegations of torture during interrogations of al-Qaeda members and other suspects—now know how Baer felt. In September, every living former director of Central Intelligence (except Robert Gates, the current defense secretary) signed a letter to President Obama asking him to halt the special-prosecutor proceedings for the sake of the future of the agency. The president did not respond.

Subsequent events have largely vindicated Baer. The charges against him were dismissed in 1997. Five years later a CIA director might have suggested pinning a medal on him rather than trying to throw him in jail. How posterity will view the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation tactics during the anxious years of 2002 and 2003, when the real possibility of another 9/11 attack loomed, may depend less on what we learn about the results of the interrogations themselves than on the Obama administration’s conduct in determining their appropriateness and legality.

The appointment of a special prosecutor is just one of a series of administration attacks on the CIA. Those attacks have included the release—over the objections of his own CIA head, Leon Panetta—of the classified 2004 CIA Inspector General Report revealing which enhanced interrogation methods were actually used on which suspects...

(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; cia; cluelessindc; fbi

1 posted on 12/08/2009 7:54:47 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

That war ends when they totally own the CIA, of course.


2 posted on 12/08/2009 7:59:15 PM PST by GeronL
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To: neverdem

Frank Church began the work to destroy our intelligence assets in 1974.


3 posted on 12/08/2009 8:04:16 PM PST by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: neverdem

Church and Carter decimated the military and CIA.

Reagan rebuilt both as best he could with Congress blocking every move.

The military was neutered by Patsy Schroeder and the feminists who thrilled in Tailhook.

After 9/11, Bush re-invested in the CIA and our intelligence services.

Now Obama is going to neuter our intelligence agencies.


4 posted on 12/08/2009 8:17:49 PM PST by Erik Latranyi (Too many conservatives urge retreat when the war of politics doesn't go their way.)
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To: neverdem

There’s still a CIA?


5 posted on 12/08/2009 10:13:36 PM PST by onedoug
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To: Erik Latranyi

They have no a clue about the kind of world we live in, and if we had to depend on the likes of the Belgium Army, we are in deep doo-doo.


6 posted on 12/08/2009 10:36:18 PM PST by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
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To: buccaneer81

frank church is rotting in hell as we speak! ‘nof said. tell me where he is buried, and i WILL piss on his commie/traitorous grave!


7 posted on 12/08/2009 10:39:50 PM PST by robomatik
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To: GeronL

but does the CIA own this war in Iraq and involvement in Afghanistan?

gee whiz.........haven’t HEARD FROM Leon Panetta in while

i wonder where he is?


8 posted on 12/09/2009 1:03:58 AM PST by MissDairyGoodnessVT (Stop Muslims Training on American Soil NOW =^..^=)
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To: neverdem
...the nature of modern liberalism itself and its often self-destructive course.

Liberalism is self-destructive, sadly it takes anything near it with.

9 posted on 12/10/2009 3:09:04 AM PST by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: MissDairyGoodnessVT

“.........haven’t HEARD FROM Leon Panetta in while
i wonder where he is?”

He had his hand slapped and hasn’t been heard from since


10 posted on 12/17/2009 5:22:37 AM PST by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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