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Spy Agency Fiasco
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CIA Director Leon Panetta’s emergency testimony to Congress about an illegal assassination program has set off a crisis at the spy agency. The Daily Beast’s Joseph Finder exclusively reports that:
• The secret assassination ‘program’ wasn’t much more than a PowerPoint presentation, a task force and a collection of schemes—it never got off the ground
• Panetta’s three immediate predecessors—George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden—have spoken to him, and that he now sees that no laws were broken.
• Panetta has frantically tried to rectify his gaffe, but now faces increased Congressional oversight.
CIA Director Leon Panetta stunned Washington earlier this summer by disclosing, in an emergency closed-door briefing to Congress, that for the last eight years, the agency he now runs illegally concealed a secret terrorist-assassination program. The reaction was predictably explosive. The House intelligence-oversight committee launched a major investigation. Here was official confirmation, from the very top, that the CIA in the Bush years had been flagrantly and systematically violating the National Security Act of 1947.
“If we briefed Congress on every single foreign intelligence collection activity,” one former CIA director tells me, “we’d be a very small intelligence agency attached to a massive congressional briefing agency.”
But according to a half-dozen sources, including several very senior, recently retired CIA officials, clandestine-service officers, and Cabinet-level officials from the Bush administration, the real story is at once more innocent—Panetta was mistaken; no law was broken—and far more troubling: an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up.
The Daily Beast has learned that shortly after his electrifying June 24 disclosure, Panetta spoke personally with each of his three predecessors—George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden—and only then realized the mistake he’d made about the program. An innocent mistake, but the consequences of his gaffe, which he’s unable to admit without damaging his own reputation further, will likely subject U.S. intelligence capabilities to unnecessary and intrusive oversight for years to come.
How did a mistake of this scale happen? My sources corroborate the following narrative:
On June 23, in the course of a routine briefing by the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Panetta first learned about the assassination squads. Alarmed, he terminated the program at once and called the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX). He told Reyes he’d discovered something of grave concern, and requested an urgent briefing for the House and Senate intelligence committees as soon as possible. Less than 24 hours later, he was on the Hill, "with his hair on fire," as a Republican member of the House committee put it. “The whole committee was stunned,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA).
Afterward, seven Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee sent Panetta an indignant letter: “Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week," the Democratic lawmakers wrote. They demanded he “correct” his statement back in May that the CIA does not mislead Congress.
Ten days later, one of them leaked the letter.
Panetta had set in motion a chain reaction of atomic proportions. “It was like shoving a rod into that nuclear mass,” a veteran senior CIA officer told me. A lot of Democrats had been waiting for this moment: an opportunity to shine daylight on the abuses of intelligence during the Bush-Cheney years. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an object of controversy, even ridicule, after charging that the CIA had lied to her about waterboarding, now felt vindicated. The CIA, trapped at last in its tangled web of lies, owed her an apology!
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels including Power Play, Killer Instinct, and Vanished (coming August 2009). Visit his Web site.
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Two things. 1. I wouldnt trust Goss, Hayden, nor Tenant with a nickle. Thier credibility is zero. 2. If we didnt or dont have a program to track and kill or capture terrorist leaders, then we are the most insane and stupid nation on this planet.
Please, would someone tell me what the difference is between a possible assassination program and unmanned drones taking pot shots at alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in the hills of Pakistan and Afghanistan?
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the difference is that the drones are part of a military operation run by our military, not the CIA. Pretty stupid question. We also have ACTUAL personnel, also military running around there, also hunting the above in order to capture or kill them. In fat, the more I think about that question, "what's the difference.." the more insane it looks.
two other things. must be as stated because this has mysteriously dropped off the radar. and ice water does not flow in panetta's veins, not a good sign for an undercover agency.
So...like..."There are WMD" was a lie....yeah my confidence in Panetta distracting the American public because Nancy Pelosi was lying out her ass about not being briefed on torture.
Panetta lied to Congress and should publicly apologize for misleading Americans or resign.
Oh WHATever! Its all a big conspiracy...
hey, Daniel66, you forgot the last 6...
A US spy agency got its facts wrong? How could that be!?
The guy made up the story to help cover Pelosi's stupid ass comment about the CIA lying to congress when Bush was president. She couldn't deflect getting caught by the American people that she and the rest of the democrat leadership knew all about and approved Bushes plan about supposed so called torture options.
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I don't think Leon Panetta had his facts wrong. The CIA has had a shady record, from what I read.
If the CIA was a lady, it probably be the town tramp.
You're brilliant! May your family be the first victims of the next unthwardted terror attack....just brilliant.
The lady IS a bit of a slut sometimes perhaps; although that doesn't make her all bad. My question would be: How did a guy who doesn't investigate any more thoroughly than this get appointed head of the CIA?
town tramps ain't no "ladies"...
your analogy is sexist.
I have to say this article seemed very reasonable until you mentioned that Porter Goss, Tom Hayden, and George Tenant were the three corroborators of the story that nothing happened. Sorry if I don't believe anything they say. They are all liars. Perhaps Panetta overstated the program, perhaps not--either way I think it's fairly safe to assume that during that period of time the CIA lied on the regular and did so with the full support of the Bush administration. To the notion that it couldn't be true because Cheney wasn't briefed--sorry, all that says to me is that even he was willing to play the plausible deniability game from time to time.
There is no evidence of your claim they lied.
There is NOW.
Sounds like Panetta was running cover for Pelosi on this one because her mouth was writing checks that her ass could not cash.
Panetta should resign immediately.
CIA stands for Cash In Advance.
Set up a tripod. a quarter, half, and three quarter's of the way to the top establish horizontal bars.
We need to use the tripod image to reform how our intelligence agencies interract with each other, so we can stifle a terrorist attack without seizing the First Amendment Rights of the American people.
We don't have leaders to do this. We have politishinz who are bureaucrats really, except they 'run' for office and then sit atop the bureaucracies.
The world is leaderless. We need to renew our politics, dump the 535 and start over. The 535 Must Go.
michaelslevinson.com
"...in an emergency closed-door briefing to Congress ..."
Closed door meeting?
So ... uh ... who leaked the content of the briefing?
Wasn't it under security clearance?
Why isn't Speaker Pelosi trying to find who leaked it and eject them from Congress?
If a Republican now decides to leak a classified briefing how can she discipline THEM while saying it is okay for Democrats to leak classified briefings?
Why isn't Eric Holder investigating and Prosecuting the leak for treason? yep it IS treason. By refusing to find the leak, he makes himself guilty as an accomplice to treason -- at least a future administration could decide so and prosecute HIM in return for his prosecuting Bush officials ( payback is the game they play in D.C. ).
And finally what gall Speaker Pelosi has. She wants to EXPAND the number of people briefed when she has no ability to keep the mouths shut of the ones she is currently in charge of !!
Nor does it seem like she wants to.
We're suffering from the 7th month of amateur hour.
Did you want McCain / Palin to win? Tell me why.
Well put!
That's right, your Bushies did a fine job of intelligence! Where were those WMD's again? How about the parade for the liberators we were promised? Thank God the competent adults are in charge. Doesn't mean they are perfect but at least not the incompetent and dishonest bunch they replaced.
Flava Flave, at least they are people with known leadership capability. Governor is an executive position and McCain was a naval officer. A resume of community organizing and legislative experience does not compare. Leadership is leadership....Clinton at least had it, Barack does not.
Of course it is all in Pelosi's imagination... a Republican would never leak .... ever heard of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative outed by the a Republican administration!! Nice try with the demonizing of Pelosi but recent history makes your ideological distortions amusing and irrelavant. Get a clue!!
Bzzzt! Sorry Jim, try again. The entire pathetic Plame nonsense was set in motion by Colin Powell's State Dept buddy, Richard Armitage-- an anti-war Democrat. I can tell that you already know this because of the weasel words you use to describe the incident ("...operative outed by a Republican administration!" Vague enough to mean just about anything.)
Next time try to be more honest, ok? But thanks for playing!
Another moron selected to a position by our illustrious president. I can't wait for the rest of the turds to rise to the surface in the next couple of years.
Real constructive. Sounds like classic projection to me. I didn't know the word "turd" would be given a pass by the moderators.
Who was that CIA thug on Morning Joe? Like a Soprano-type.
Do you really think that the American people want their tax dollars going to psychotic CIA people, accountable to NO ONE, running around killing people, torturing, and doing things that are not known to our elected leaders?
Really? You seriously need to change countries.
"If we briefed Congress on every single foreign intelligence collection activity," one former CIA director tells me, "we'd be a very small intelligence agency attached to a massive congressional briefing agency."
Bingo. He's got it!
Just a quick question for you...do you know much about what the CIA and other "blackops" agencies actually do, other than what you've either read in thriller type books, or what you've seen in the movies? Do you understand what's called "need to know?". Do you REALLY think that the CIA folks are "psychotic", and "accountable to no one"? It doesn't work like that. Their job is not what you think. If they briefed congress on everything they did, they'd never get any intelligence work done, period. Do you know what the real reason is that 9-11 actually happened? Too few agents collecting far too little intelligence on the ground in the Middle East. Bush expanded the ability and budget of the CIA to recruit, check the Washington Post every Sunday to see who's recruiting on the front page...even now, with your "wonderful" president in place. The CIA and other non-named agencies(oh YES, there ARE others, believe me) do their job to protect you, to protect our armed forces(yes, they do, do some research) and they also are tasked with gathering intelligence on other countries. Do some research and know what you're talking about before you spout off your opinion.
Further evidence that Democrats cannot be trusted with national security.
Amen brother.
Of course, Bush Junior was so trustworthy. So are Palin, Gringrich and the rest. Right? LOL.
Amen to Memchugh 99. Where, I might ask, have the Democrats demonstrated untrustworthiness in this area? But look at some of the real idiots appointed by Bush who headed up key agencies and departments--such as Defense, FEMA, etc. Obama has a much more firmly-built organization presently trying to clean up an abortive war now in its 7th year--and repair the chinks in the domestic castle wall left there by his predecessor.
Not untrustworthy.....incompetent.
How could such a risky and serious program be concealed from the new CIA director for four months? Easy. Concealment is the CIA's specialty. In fact, they view even having a director as putting too much of a public face on their activities. So why would their operatives want to share such information with their director?
This author, who apparently is nothing but a shill for the CIA, inadvertently undermines his own argument when he accepts as foundational that congressional oversight undermines the CIA's effectiveness, then seems incredulous that anyone would question why they would withhold information from the director. Of course they would - and they do!
Connect the dots, folks. Congressional oversight of the CIA is the only option if we have any allegiance to the rule of law. The director needs to be kept informed AND pass the information to Congress. Do we really want to have to contend with a rogue agency that operates outside the law?
Look, I know people like this author. They have no credibility because their first allegiance is to themselves. Truth and principle play no role in their world view. Don't buy the fractured argument this article presents.
It is amazing that our goverment still stands. I feet certain that if attacked, BHO would set new records on how fast a country could surrender. So fast, it would make the French blush.
Panetta, Clinton, Gorelick, Sandy Berger, Napolitano - something about "intelligence" is just so not them.
Panetta is a total doofus. He was a Clinton bagman, a reliable stooge. Obama wants to dismantle the CIA and use his own private SS intelligence operation against Americans.
I believe it was Bush and Cheney who tried all the secret domestic surveillance. Why all these wild accusations against Obama floating about? I believe our society still has more racists than one is led to believe.
Either he doesn't know what's really been going on for the last eight years, or he can't discuss it publicly.
So the CIA said, "Oops, we did something wrong." Then they said, "Oh, wait, no we didn't." Now a spy fiction novelist comes along and says we should believe the second statement, but not the first one.
The CIA is having a hard time creating competing narratives to cloud their admissions of wrongdoing, so now they've recruited a genre professional?
Maybe the truth is on a video tape they destroyed between the time they swore such tapes never existed and the time they said Oh, you mean those tapes we just destroyed?
Credibility doesn't seem to be their strong suit.
the democrates ought run MAXWELL SMART for president andNANCY PELOSI for vice presidentit would be no different than now GOD russia must be straining at the bit!!!!!!!!1
Looks like someone go to him and reminded him it could happen to him...
I think the story should read that " Three former CIA directors are desperately trying to cover their butts". Panetta is smart enough to know he or anyone in his family could be assassinated at any time by the CIA. The CIA's time has come and gone--abolish them.
Panetta made no gaffe. It was a planned release of disinformation with the intention of covering for Pelosi and her claims CIA lied to Congress.
Sigh....Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
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