SUN EDITORIAL:

Congress out of the loop

CIA Director Leon Panetta kills covert program Congress knew nothing about

Monday, July 13, 2009 | 2:08 a.m.

Another example of the secrecy that permeated the administration of President George W. Bush came to light last week with the news that CIA Director Leon Panetta abruptly killed a covert agency program that had been kept hidden from Congress for eight years.

Democratic sources acknowledged late Tuesday that Panetta had explained his action to members of the House Intelligence Committee on June 24. By Friday certain members of Congress, including Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., chairwoman of a House Intelligence subcommittee, were talking more openly about the revelation.

Schakowsky, according to the Associated Press, described Panetta as “stunned” that he had not been told until June 23 about the covert program, organized shortly after 9/11. Panetta took over the CIA job in February.

She told AP that the CIA and the Bush administration consciously decided not to tell Congress about the program. “It’s not as if this was an oversight and over the years just got buried,” she said.

As the covert program remains classified, details are not being released. But Schakowsky referred to it as “very, very serious” and Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Republican, said he thinks Congress would not have approved of it. Hoekstra said the program was “never executed,” and that Panetta “put a stake in the heart of it so that it would never come back.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Panetta’s June 24 briefing “led me to conclude that this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one case) was affirmatively lied to.”

Such charges are political dynamite, as the National Security Act requires the CIA to keep Congress’ intelligence committees informed of covert activities.

Officials with the CIA have announced that an internal review is under way. Congress needs to conduct its own investigation. It is frightening to think of our government keeping Congress in the dark about its secret activities.

Discussion: 9 comments so far…

By POWERPLAY

7/13/09 at 2:30 a.m.

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Every time Congress gets briefed on anything it gets leaked to the news media with in 48 hours. FIX THAT FIRST!
By Nikos_Retsos

7/13/09 at 5:22 a.m.

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Dick Cheney's mode of operation for the Bush administration was a bi-lateral scheme that included: A) Ask the willing U.S. Justice Department official John Yoo to produce "Legal Opinions" favorable to George Bush's policies that were borderline illegal, and B) If a policy was of such nature that John Yoo could not declare it legal within the Constitutional or Statutory framework, then the Vice President will order its implementation under strict orders to be kept secret from Congress!

As the news about the CIA's secret program trickle out, it appears that the program was about a global CIA assassination squad operation. John Yoo definitely could not issue a legal opinion declaring such a program legal, especially since his other legal opinions justifying various Bush actions were disputed by U.S. and European experts - including the International Commission of Jurists. Secrecy of illegal activities from Congress, therefore, was mandatory, but now come these questions: 1. Can the Administration carry out illegal programs that violates international conventions and protocols that the U.S. is a signatory member? 2. Can the Administration deliberately keep such activities and programs secret from congressional oversight with immunity?

Surely, the republicans started already to scream "witch hunt." But the real question is: Can a U.S. Administration secretly organize and operate extra-judicial killings in a global scale? The American people would like to know where Dick Cheney had gotten the authority to order such operations, or the authority to do it secretly from the U.S. Congress. Nikos Retsos, retired professor
By Future

7/13/09 at 6:30 a.m.

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Leon Panetta became a CIA whistleblower on the never operational initiative to attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives.

CIA won't comment on its substance of the strategic planning and possibly some training, but the "war game" phase never went operational.

Congress needed to be briefed on actions or planned actions not what if war games strategy.

This has provided Obama, Panetta, and Holder another opportunity (like Church during the Carter years) to trash the CIA and gut its capability

The Central Intelligence Agency initiative was terminated on 7-10-2009 by Director Leon Panetta.

Panetta will not release the precise nature of the highly classified effort, and the CIA won't comment on its substance.

But Holder will investigate and is set to name a special proceutor in the next weeks.

This will continue the downward spiral of the CIA

In 2001, the CIA also examined the subject of targeted assassinations of Al Qaeda leaders, according to three former intelligence officials. It appears that those discussions tapered off within six months.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan said the program was "never executed,"

Like Nancy Pelosi, "Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Panetta's June 24 briefing "led me to conclude that this committee has been ...affirmatively lied to."

It was clear when Panetta and Holder were named to their posts, that the CIA would be shutdown now we have the start of that process.

Congress simply need to not provide funds to that organization which has lied to them.

It can not be fix.

Obama does not need corrupt CIA intelligence that is gotten by lying to Congress.

That CIA headquarter needs to be gutted like GITMO it is a symbol of what is bad about America going around and finding out information.
By Conservative1

7/13/09 at 11:08 a.m.

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I read somewhere that it's better that the public doesn't know how sausages and laws are made. Maybe the same could be said about the world of national intelligence agencies. It is a dirty but necessary business. There are hundreds or maybe even thousands of organizations that want to destroy America and they are very happy our liberal leaders in Washington are going to have "hearings" about this secret program that was never used. The CIA is a necessary agency in our country. The people in it are dedicated to the security of our nation and the safety of our citizens. The politicians are dedicated to being elected by whatever means they can use. This is just another attempt to prop themselves up by standing on those who actually do something about national security. This country will be much less secure if these "hearings" (read witch hunts) go through. Do the politicians really care about the ramifications of bringing out into the open the inner workings of our intellegence agency? Of course not. They are posturing for votes. Nothing more, nothing less. They probably believe that our enemys won't watch the hearings on tv. I would bet that if the hearings couldn't be on tv they wouldn't even happen.
By mred

7/13/09 at 1:46 p.m.

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Was this death squad and star chamber based a Creech AFB?
By larry5

7/13/09 at 7:34 p.m.

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I don't see how anyone in the U.S. Congress would qualify to be given a security clearance. Makes sense to me that they wouldn't be privy to any covert program.
By transplanted

7/13/09 at 9:23 p.m.

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I just don't understand how these two war criminals (bush and cheney) continue to walk around free. They have all but destroyed this country, killed thousands of America's finest in their personal war of opportunity in Iraq, continuously abused the power of the offices they held, and cheney has the audacity to still be in the media as though he is beyond the law.

There is no way any Democrat would get away with it...hell, they impeached Clinton for lying about sex!

bush and cheney, et. al should be arrested and stand trial for crimes against humanity, treason, and violating the constitution of the US...at the very LEAST.
By ksand99

7/13/09 at 9:49 p.m.

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"Makes sense to me that they wouldn't be privy to any covert program."

Except for that ugly statutory law and stuff that dictates Congress must be informed of intelligence activities.

See the National Security Act of 1947, the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1981, the Hughes-Ryan amendment of 1974, the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1991, etc.

There's what you want to do and what you have to do. The problem is that Cheney apparently decided he didn't have to do what the law said he had to do.
By castle

7/14/09 at 12:39 a.m.

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Is anyone in either party really suprised that a Vice President would evade laws? What is surprising is how the two parties react to this "never before happened" activity.