The Feinstein-Obama EIT Report Puts Politics over Reality

Former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat, slammed Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday for issuing a "partisan" report that will make it more difficult for US intelligence to defeat terrorists. Kerrey, who served on the Intelligence Committee for eight years, wrote in USA Today that "in the war against global jihadism, human intelligence and interrogation have become more important and I worry that the partisan nature of this report could make this kind of collection more difficult." When Congress created the intelligence committees in the 1970s, the goal was to enable lawmakers "to stand above the fray and render balanced judgments about this most sensitive aspect of national security," he wrote. But the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Democrat Dianne Feinstein, "departed from that high road and slipped into the same partisan mode that marks most of what happens on Capitol Hill these days." Kerrey said that Republicans on the committee "checked out early when they determined that their counterparts started out with the premise that the CIA was guilty and then worked to prove it." Kerrey, who retired in 2001 after 12 years in the Senate, contrasted Feinstein’s handling of the interrogation issue with the Intelligence Committee's investigation of earlier intelligence failures, including the 1990s case of Aldrich Ames, a CIA agent who was revealed as a Russian spy. In those cases, "we were very critical of the practices of the intelligence agencies," Kerrey wrote. But "we avoided partisan pressure to blame the opposing party." In those efforts, committee staffers "examined documents and interviewed all of the individuals involved," he added. But in putting together the report issued this week, "the Senate Intelligence Committee staff chose to interview no one." Kerrey found the stated reason for the panel’s failure to conduct interviews "unpersuasive" - that some officers could not be interviewed because they were under investigation. Kerrey said the investigations of intelligence officers in connection with "torture" allegations ended by 2012. Fairness should dictate that examining documents alone does not "eliminate the need for interviews conducted by the investigators. Isolated emails, memos and transcripts can look much different when there is no context or perspective provided by those who sent, received or recorded them," Kerrey wrote, adding that the "worst consequence" of such a partisan report "can be seen in this disturbing fact : It contains no recommendations" of how to do things better....the most significant missed opportunity, because no one would claim the [EIT] program was perfect or without its problems," Kerrey concluded. But at the same time, "no one with real experience would claim it was the completely ineffective and superfluous effort this report alleges." ~~~~~ Former Vice President Dick Cheney says that waterboarding and other CIA interrogation techniques on terror suspects were justified and "totally authorized." Cheney told the New York Times : "What I keep hearing out there is they portray this as a rogue operation and the agency was way out of bounds and then they lied about it,...The program was authorized. The agency did not want to proceed without authorization, and it was also reviewed legally by the Justice Department before they undertook the program." Cheney said he never thought the CIA was withholding information from him or the White House about the nature of the program, as the report charges, nor did he think the agency exaggerated the value of the intelligence gained from those techniques. And he declared that CIA veterans involved in the program deserve "a lot of praise,...As far as I’m concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticized...When we had that program in place, we kept the country safe from any more mass casualty attacks, which was our objective." Former President George W. Bush, in a Sunday interview with CNN also disagreed with the report's slant, calling CIA leaders "patriots," adding any report that diminished them was "off base." Cheney suggested to the NYT that Democrats were trying to cover up their own involvement. "It occurs to me it was sort of a cover for those on the Democratic side who were briefed on the program, but then were subsequently embarrassed to admit that and so are going back to construct a rationale to say 'They didn’t tell us the truth.'" Cheney's accusation of Democrat briefings and acquiescence were supported by Pete Hoekstra, retired former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who appeared Wednesday on Newsmax TV. He said he and his fellow "Gang of Eight" House and Senate lawmakers - the top intelligence overseers from both parties in Congress - sat alongside Bush officials in the White House as CIA briefers told them how they operated : "I remember sitting in the White House and having my Democrat colleagues sitting next to me being briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques and being shown how they might be applied … and how they would be used," said Hoekstra. He said everybody in the room received "a verbal description of exactly what happened" with each enhanced interrogation technique, including waterboarding. Nobody raised objections, said Hoekstra. "Every single person around that table agreed that these programs and these techniques were essential and were appropriately used by the CIA," he said. "So if we're talking about prosecuting folks - and I'm one of them - let's not forget those folks in the US House and the US Senate who were aware of these programs." Hoekstra also told Newsmax that Feinstein's release of the report is a morale-killer for intelligence operatives and others on the front lines of the fight to prevent future attacks : "They're doing these actions believing that the President and Congress has their back,...and what they're finding now is that that backstop doesn't last very long. It may only last from one administration to the next," he said. ~~~~~ Dear readers, the arguments continue about whether enhanced interrogation techniques used after 9/11 constitute torture. We can repeat the aphorism : "extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures." And that may have been at the heart of the Department of Justice opinion that the original enhanced interrogation techniques were legal. Perhaps ensuing uses of approved EITs were over-zealous. We may indeed reasonably conclude that the real error was committed by the DOJ and that non-lawyers acted in good faith relying on the DOJ legal opinion. ~~~~~ What we know in the two days since it was published is that the Feinstein-Obama Senate report has : (1). caused the UN to call the EITs war crimes and say participants and leaders, including President Bush, are subject to arrest and criminal trial if they leave the United States; (2). caused allies and enemies to distance themselves from America, while maintaining silence as to their own roles then or generally in the area of the post-9/11 war on terrorism -- the most laughable comment comes from China, whose gulags ring with the cries of people being tortured to death : "China consistently opposes torture. We believe that the US side should reflect upon and rectify its relevant behavior, earnestly obey and implement the provisions of international conventions....[China condemns] the sheer hypocrisy of the United States as a defender of human rights."; (3). causes concern that CIA operatives, military personnel and American civilians will be targeted for attack, kidnapping and murder; and, (4). caused America's moral and political credibility and leadership in the world to be reduced and compromised. But we must not confuse what could be a reasonable debate about EITs with vindictively trashing the CIA for political reasons. We cannot conclude that the Feinstein-Obama report was released to raise the moral level of America's war on terrorism. That discussion could have taken place if President Obama had chosen to lead it. No report was needed for that; what was needed was the good-faith leadership of Barack Obama. Nor was the Feinstein-Obama report released to improve the CIA as it carries out its mission. That has always been achieved in private. The clear goal of the Feinstein-Obama report was to humiliate President George W. Bush and his senior advisors and to punish the CIA for not agreeing with the Obama world-view. But, sadly, there will come the time when America will be face-to-face with the inevitable violent reaction to the Feinstein-Obama report -- and America will once more be protected by the silent heroes of the CIA - as it was in those days and months and years following the horrors of 9/11. In that moment, America will fully understand who are its protectors and its detractors. At that moment, Feinstein and Obama's petty motives will not permit them to shine as American patriots or as leaders worthy of their trust.