Surprising facts revealed today. From the early days after 9/11 to the end of his term in office, Vice President Dick Cheney orchestrated a top secret CIA program that was hidden from Congress. The program continued into the Obama presidency. At this point, the nature of the program is still classified, but CIA Director Leon Panetta killed the program this week. Apparently, the program was considered necessary and practical in late 2001, but completely unnecessary at the present time.
Democrats in Congress, who contend that the Bush administration improperly limited Congressional briefings on intelligence, are seeking to change the National Security Act to permit the full intelligence committees to be briefed on more matters. President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if the changes go too far, and the proposal is now being negotiated by the White House and the intelligence committees.
How will President Barack “Transparency ” Obama respond to this? Will he rightly condemn the previous Vice President for his clandestine acts and redouble his commitment to openness and accountability?
hahahahahaha hooooboy (snort) heh
Prediction: He will make some obligatory remarks about Cheney being a dangerous VP and ignoring the rule of law. Fair enough. Then he will create some new bureaucracy which answers directly to him and regulates the activities of the CIA. Call it the Intelligence Czar. At some point, he will either issue an executive order giving himself the right to conduct emergency secret operations, or he will have his puppet Congress do it for him. He will then conduct more secret operations than any president in American history.
Oh, he’ll do everything Cheney and Bush did, and then some. He’ll just do it in an way that makes his supporters believe they agreed with him and supported his actions.
Update
Yesterday, former CIA Director General Michael Hayden returned fire, claiming that Congress was fully briefed at all stages of the “surveillance” program. One problem with that. It has now been revealed that the secret program exposed by current CIA Director Leon Panetta was significantly weightier than a surveillance program.
A secret intelligence program canceled by CIA Director Leon Panetta in June was meant to find and then capture or kill al-Qaida leaders at close range rather than target them with air strikes that risked civilian casualties, government officials with knowledge of the operation said Monday.
…Panetta told the committees there was no indication that there was anything illegal or inappropriate about the effort itself, the official said.
A careful reading of General Hayden’s statement, which preceded the announcement that the secret program involved the capture and killing of al-Qaida leaders, suggests that either General Hayden is withholding information about the extent of the “surveillance” program or, possibly, he is one of many who wasn’t in the loop. Either way, this is shameful.
Republican. Democrat. Whatever. Does it really matter? Bush-Cheney. Obama-Biden. No transparency. No accountability. No reason to consider the consequences of their actions when they can cover them up for at least as long as they need to. Americans have very short memories.
If men with principles are given to failures of this magnitude when given the power of the Oval Office, how great will the failures of unprincipled me be?
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