Investigate the CIA

Townhall ^ | December 2, 2005 | Mona Charen

[Daralundy]

The Dec. 1 edition of The New York Times carried a story about the damage done to U.S. interests by the revelation that the CIA maintains a number of secret interrogation prisons for terrorists in Europe and elsewhere. ("Reports of Secret U.S. Prisons in Europe Draw Ire and Otherwise Red Faces.") Governments throughout the continent are now demanding explanations from the U.S. Department of State and otherwise strutting their outrage that the U.S. might be kidnapping suspected terrorists from European soil and transferring them to other nations.

How did this bit of classified information become public? It was a leak from within the CIA (to The Washington Post in that case) -- and a breathtaking one at that. Though the agency has been steadily leaking damaging stories about the Bush administration since 9/11, it has now crossed a new threshold with a leak that severely damages CIA activities and arguably harms national security -- all for the sake of crippling George W. Bush.

Most people outside the Beltway, as well as many within it, still think of the CIA as the home of swashbuckling hardliners who break all the rules in order to advance America's national interests. Not in this century. As attorney and former counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee Victoria Toensing put it, "Derring-do is dead." When she interviewed a CIA station chief in a major country, he bragged about the diversity of his operatives rather than their accomplishments. Political correctness reigns in the U.S. government at every level, and the CIA is no exception. The result is an agency that is conducting a steady leak campaign against President Bush designed to discredit the Iraq war and undermine the war on terror.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Thebaddog]

Remember the ICC? Why can't the CIA go the way of the ICC?

[Wolfhound777]

Might as well close them down and save billions in taxpayer's money. There are less than useless anyway. They have been caught sleeping during just about every major event in the last 10 years.

[Nipplemancer]

is the pope catholic?

[coconutt2000]

The Left doesn't have the equivalent of a Karl Rove.

Their strategy is all over the place, and has more in common with throwing wet toilet paper at the bathroom ceiling to see what will stick than with any cohesive plan to oust Republicans from power.

(And don't underestimate the fun one can have throwing wet toilet paper at the ceiling.)

[Last Exit]

You can bet on it. This one needs to be investigated and anyone at the WAPO needs to be subpoenaed and if they don't want to talk, jail em. This is a war we are fighting and there is no room for treason by anyone.

[Bullish]

It won't be too long before these nasty politics take a bloody turn. The enemy of freedom is thoroughly entrenched in our govt. and our media.

[peyton randolph]

the leakers can be exposed as Clintonistas and canned from their jobs.

Despite being part of the Joe Wilson cocktail circuit in D.C., all of them are undoubtedly classified as covert operatives (one needs to be anonymous to clip news articles from the NY Times). Fitzgerald would launch Fitzmas II.

[Rapscallion]

Once each year or when their clearance is renewed, each CIA employee should be required to execute a loyalty oath saying they pledge allegiance to America and will do nothing to undermine it in any way. Then put each one on the polygraph to verify, because we trust.

[Rapscallion]

"I'd like to know if the leakers at the CIA are Clintonistas."

More likely some staffer in Congress.

[SubMareener]

Back in the 70's and 80's most secret programs had two code names. One was used when talking to Congress, the other was the real code name. Guess which names made it into the press. Right, the ones given to Congress.

[MilleniumBug]

Here is one of the prime leak candidates.  Most recently he has been documenting CIA flights.

Mark Garlasco

Radio: Bio of Human Rights Watch's Mark Garlasco

October 2, 2005

Marc Garlasco is the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW), and is HRW’s resident expert on battle damage assessment, military operations, and interrogations. Marc also leads HRW’s work on Abu Ghurayb, civilian military contractors, and non-lethal weapons.

Marc is the co-author of two HRW reports: “Razing Rafah: Mass Home demolitions in the Gaza Strip,” and “Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq.” He led a team of researchers in July 2004 on a one-month mission to Gaza, Israel, and Egypt to investigate home demolitions in Rafah. Before that he led a five-week mission in 2003 throughout Iraq to assess the conduct of the war in Iraq.

Marc has been featured in articles in such papers as the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as other leading dailies. He has also been a regular on National Public Radio, and has been featured on television news, including CNN, ABC, BBC, and others.

Before coming to HRW, Marc spent seven years in the Pentagon as a senior intelligence analyst covering Iraq. His last position there was chief of high-value targeting during the Iraq War in 2003. Marc was on the Operation Desert Fox (Iraq) Battle Damage Assessment team in 1998, led a Pentagon Battle Damage Assessment team to Kosovo in 1999, and recommended thousands of aimpoints on hundreds of targets during operations in Iraq and Serbia. He also participated in over 50 interrogations as a subject matter expert.

Marc has a B.A. in Government from St. John’s University and a M.A. in International Relations from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.

[bvw]

He looks, well ...

[jch10]

Sleeping with the enemy is more like it.

[popdonnelly]

I would start with former CIA man Ray McGovern, who has been encouraging CIA people to leak information.

[Dems_R_Losers]

Once each year or when their clearance is renewed, each CIA employee should be required to execute a loyalty oath saying they pledge allegiance to America and will do nothing to undermine it in any way. Then put each one on the polygraph to verify, because we trust.

I was thinking the same thing the other day while reading Kristol's piece in the Weekly Standard. It's time for some massive polygraphing and loyalty oaths in the CIA. The loyalty oaths should be retroactive, too, they should have to swear that they have not in the past served any interest other than that of the U.S. government.

I'm not concerned about Clintonistas, I'm concerned about Saddamites infiltrating our intelligence establishment. Iraq was a major client state of the Soviet Union until it fell, and its intelligence service was basically organized and trained by the KGB. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that there may be Iraqi spies loyal to Saddam in the U.S. intelligence network. Certainly we know now that the KGB had them. This stuff being leaked now is not just small stuff to embarrass President Bush, it is major stuff that is really undermining the war on Islamofascism. Why else would this be happening?

If you think about it, a cabal of Iraqi double agents in the CIA is just about the only thing that makes any sense at all of these damaging leaks and the Joe Wilson fiasco.