CIA-White House clearly at odds

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

Last Monday the US Intelligence community released a National Intelligence Estimate which essentially concluded that Iran had shut-down its nuclear weapons program in 2003. This information undercut President Bush’s position - including his recent statements alluding to World War III - on Iran. Moreover, as was clarified earlier this week, President Bush knew about this conclusion months ago, therefore pulling the covers off his misleading rhetoric.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department said on Saturday it had opened a preliminary investigation into the CIA’s destruction of videotapes that showed terrorism suspects being subjected to severe interrogation techniques.

I postulate that the above investigation is not coincidental - it’s political retribution. The Bush White House was clearly furious that the CIA and the 15 other intelligence agencies undercut the official position on Iran. Again, the NIE also exposed Bush as a liar.

Perhaps the NIE is political itself. The analysts may have been spooked by a rush to war and were seeking to strangle a potential war with Iran in the crib. If the CIA says Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program, the best - if not the only - casus belli is non-existent.

This investigation does serious credibility damage to the agency that missed 9/11 and ‘botched’ Iraqi pre-war intelligence. Regardless, the inquiry is probably valid. The timing of the release, however, is suspect.

More than likely, however, the forces behind the destruction of the torture tapes were not from within the CIA, but from within the WH and the administration, right?

So how does the Justice Department launching an investigation into this get the CIA back because it just keeps torture (a black eye for Bush) in the news and only heightens ideas about why the tapes were destroyed?

More than likely, however, the forces behind the destruction of the torture tapes were not from within the CIA, but from within the WH and the administration, right?

‘C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes’

The investigation is not a black eye for Bush at all. It’s being portrayed as a byproduct of an autonomous agency that sort of does as it pleases (destroys tapes, conducts messy interrogations).

There is a huge disconnect between the WH and the CIA after the WH left the CIA holding the bag for the Iraq mess. I just don’t find your scenario plausible because of this relationship.

But more than likely, as has been documented by many former CIA agents, the waterboarding was ordered by the WH. The CIA would never give the go ahead to enhanced interrogation techniques without approval from the top of the CIA and most likely the WH. So, how would it be that now that waterboarding is a huge issue and terrible issue for the WH that a bunch of tapes documenting this technique in real life disappearing has nothing to do with the WH. At the very least, the investigation reveals what most have assumed, but none have proved, that Cheney and Bush knew of and probably approved waterboarding and other torture techniques.

While I think the “War on Terror” is as elaborate an M.I.C. hoax as was much of the Cold War, America still faces a time when solidarity against anti-US sentiment is a must.
Although the last seven or eight years have signaled a larger then usual decline in American respectability, we as Americans are faced ever more with the need to return to what makes America great: we are a fluid and adaptable government, with a strong and non-superfluous constitution. Change really can occur at the level of the people - or so I’d like to believe.
That the judicial, legislative and executive branches of our government are sometimes at odds is part of what makes America work so damn well.. but our founding fathers had not anticipated an intelligence branch to be born pre-maturely and post-constitutionally.
Nonetheless, the speed at which information flows in these times and the weight and destructive power it contains necessitates that some form of control be placed over any government intelligence collecting agency. The American system of cheques and balances has helped keep America amorphously stable for over two centuries, but what is there to keep the C.I.A and FBI under control? That the CIA answers directly to the executive branch is harmful to the system of cheques and balances - in fact the argument can be made it was one of the many important “gains” made in the last half century by the executive branch to solidify its power. The FBI is only slightly better, requiring the Senate to approve the presidential nomination of its Director.
To see a growing rivalry between the executive branch and its almost exclusive access to the FBI and CIA could possibly be interpreted as a signal for intelligence reform. Such reform is long overdue, despite - as far as this author is concerned - a wonderful job in the past by both the CIA and FBI. Nonetheless, as can be witnessed by the recent treatment of prisoners of war as well as decades of destructive interference worldwide (primarily in our own hemisphere), this fledgling branch of the government must be controlled!
By what? That is a more difficult question and smarter minds then this author’s must collaborate on an answer. The free media has at times been able to uncover intelligence cover-ups or even bring intelligence to the governmental agencies. This, however, can be little help due to how entrenched money and power already is in much of the media. This author also understands the necessity of keeping important information from the American public for the safety not just of people but our country as a whole. One wild and mostly unfeasible suggestion could be to make all intelligence communities world wide answer to some global intelligence agency. A very large panel of judges, lawyers and professionals could be organized to monitor America’s intelligence agencies’ behavior, though this also leaves room for corruption. In short, we will need minds as genius as our founding fathers to sort out this growing though mostly unseen dilemma.
Nonetheless, the major point of this article that the Bush administration and his intelligence agencies are in a playground fight with high stakes is important. Every living American is trying to find some way to distance him or herself from the current (and none-to-soon ex) administration and recent activities show that the US intelligence community is no different. However, Bush is not the only man to violate the Constitutional rights afforded Americans (as well as basic human rights afforded all men and women worldwide), and it appears to this author that the excuse “it was Bush’s fault” is becoming used much to often.
Americans need to stop pointing fingers and pull the things they CAN control together. Especially our intelligence community who has in recent decades been given power beyond their original creation for the collection of Intelligence.

Gregorian, you are right. I just wished more people really cared. Americans, as a whole, don’t care and our ability as a people to really ‘check’ government has slowly evaporated. Blind ’sheeple’ like BriansBrain are always willing to cede the benefit of the doubt to those who are willing to take advantage of it. Clearly, that’s a loss for our democracy.