Pelosi Intrudes Into Wayne’s World

As I reflect back over the 27 years I spent hunting terrorists and those supporting them on virtually every continent in the world, I can’t help but wonder how my case officer would react today if he was alive to watch the Speaker of the House of the Congress of the United States attack and attempt to dismantle the CIA, the single most important intelligence agency in the world.

In 1975, I watched the Church Committee decimate the CIA’s human intelligence -- “humint” -- capabilities. As a result, for over 25 years the U.S. was subjected to brutal, deadly attacks by Islamic terrorists at our bases and embassies around the world and on the high seas. This did not seem to alarm anyone other than those of us with the CIA and FBI until the Islamic terrorists drove jets into the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. Only then did Congress want to know why the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies did not or could not foresee the attack that killed almost 3,000 people.

Nancy Pelosi, who I suggested was a “pathological liar” on the Fox News Channel 4 months ago, told reporters in May that she had not been informed that waterboarding was used against terrorism suspects (though she finally acknowledged she had been briefed in at least 2003).

That was, of course, despite the fact that the CIA compiled, the DNI released, and HUMAN EVENTS broke the story of the memo that showed Pelosi had been briefed on September 4, 2002 which “enhanced interrogation techniques” -- which we know included waterboarding -- had been used on Abu Zubaydeh.

It is exhausting just trying to keep up with Pelosi’s stories. Vice President Cheney confirmed in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute that she and other lawmakers were indeed briefed on CIA interrogation techniques on many separate occasions. Predictably, the Vice President was summarily attacked by the White House and the left. I found it incredibly gratifying coming to the Vice Presidents defense…as if he needed my help.

I was encouraged to read the response of Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee,to Speaker Pelosi when his office released a statement, “It’s outrageous that a member of Congress would call our terror-fighters liars,” and, “Instead of prosecuting or persecuting, our country should be supporting our intelligence professionals who work to keep us safe.”

Pelosi, the third in line to the office of president has, in lock step with the Obama administration and the Attorney General’s Office, continued the onslaught against the CIA. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to appoint a special prosecutor to review data and records that were gathered for a previous investigation into enhanced interrogation techniques. That investigation by career prosecutors determined that a crime was committed which led to a single arrest and conviction.

Many of us recognize this latest “investigation” for what it is, the proverbial “witch hunt” against the CIA and the intel officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep America safe.

There are those who believed, incorrectly, that the American people would be outraged by Attorney General Holder’s decision. Unfortunately, the American people are not outraged because they do not understand the ramifications of the attack by Nancy Pelosi and Obama’s Justice Department on the CIA.

The CIA is comprised of some of the brightest, most patriotic men and women in America. The tools that CIA operatives must have to continue to protect America from our enemies and especially the Islamic terrorists that we face daily are vital to our existence. Yet, Pelosi would call those of us that have worked for the CIA and those there now liars.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives has chosen to take the word of Islamic terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, over the word of the CIA. Over Americans protecting America. She has decided that releasing CIA interrogation methods to the enemy is a suitable course of action for America’s Intel agencies.

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats leading the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are committed to weakening the CIA. And so, derivatively, they are committed to making America less safe.

Forcing the taping of interrogations so that politicians and attorneys can review them at a later date to determine if any laws were broken by the interrogators. The White House has decided that they know better than the highly trained CIA operatives in the field on how to interrogate cold blooded, battle tested and trained Islamic terrorists.

You have to wonder about people who order our troops -- as the Obama administration has done -- to read “Miranda” rights to terrorist combatants they capture in Afghanistan.

What world do these people live in? It’s not my world where battles are to be fought until won, where American warriors -- in and out of uniform -- are supported, not hampered, by our elected officials.

Pelosi and her ilk have no place in my world because they cannot function. They cannot face reality, respect those who keep us free, or even stay out of the way.

Even some former military interrogators have given misguided credence to the Obama White House and administration that it is better to secure intelligence by using soft interrogation techniques rather than harsher techniques. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydeh are proof positive that harsh techniques, including sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation, resulted in developing life saving intelligence that effectively destroyed Al Qaeda cells and attacks on America that were in operationally green modes.

The Obama administration and Pelosi have sent a chilling message to the CIA. That message is that interrogators should never take any risks to protect America. If they do, they do so at their own peril.

Instead interrogators should make certain that they retain legal counsel prior to any interrogations of the Islamic terrorists. As an interrogator, you must now realize that all of your actions will be second guessed by the White House and Congress. In fact, interrogators will have to clear any of their questions and actions during interaction with the enemy through the Obama White House.

As I have written in the past, I was interrogated by Narco terrorist’s and have interrogated and interviewed hundreds of terrorist’s and suspected collaborators. Unlike my enemies, the enemies of America, who used torture on a daily basis, not once did I ever have to resort to torture. Unlike my enemies, I never chopped off fingers, ripped out fingernails, cut throats so the victim could be heard gurgling and choking to death in their own blood and of course, I never resorted to beheading the enemy. I am confident that my actions led to the destruction of the enemy and protection of Americans and America.

Today, the men and women of the CIA should know beyond any doubt, as surely as the sun coming up in the morning, that no matter how closely they follow the Army manual outlining interrogations, there will come a time in the future when they will be hauled in front of congressional committees and grilled about the techniques they used when interrogating our enemies. These outstanding patriots will find themselves sitting with their attorneys in front of committees having their every move second guessed. I am told by insiders that our best and most skilled agents are leaving the agency. Our best interrogators are fleeing, leaving interrogations to inexperienced agents and the military.

The American people should be as outraged and concerned about the assault on the CIA by its own government as they are about the Obama Health care debacle. But they are not…yet. If American’s do not soon recognize this danger and her warriors are not allowed the tools needed to defeat our enemies, then America will suffer a catastrophe that will dwarf the 9/11 attack.