1 Boring Old Man

Intel official: Cheney, Tenet kept CIA program secret
Washington Times
By Eli Lake
July 12, 2009

^{Top Bush administration officials, including former CIA director George Tenet and former Vice President Richard Cheney, opted not to brief Congress on a secret program disclosed last month by CIA director Leon Panetta, according to an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the program. This official, who asked not to be named because of the classified nature of the program, said that the decision to keep the details of the secret program from Congress was made in part because the program remained "in the capability stage."}

^{"These activities lasted, if you will, for years," this official said. "There were other conversations about whether this should be taken to Congress. Tthe same decision was made again by senior officials at the time." This official went on to say that Mr. Cheney "was one official out of a select few who was aware of the program." The exact nature of the program is still a mystery in Washington. This official hinted that the secret program involved assassinations overseas, but declined to provide further details.}

^{Another intelligence official said the classified program was known as a SAP, or special access program. SAPs are intelligence activities that are so secret that even officers with the highest intelligence clearances do not know about them and their access is reserved for only the most senior officials and officers directly working on it. The New York Times reported on its Web site Saturday that the program was concealed from Congress at the direction of Mr. Cheney…}

^{Mr. Panetta, upon learning of the program’s existence, ordered it ended and briefed intelligence committees about it on June 24.}

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project
New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE
July 11, 2009

^{The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy. Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day…}

^{The law requires the president to make sure the intelligence committees “are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity.” But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be done “to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters”…}

^{The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort…}

^{Members of Congress have differed on the significance of the program, whose details remained secret and which even some Democrats have said was properly classified. Most of those interviewed, however, have said that it was an important activity that should have been disclosed to the intelligence committees. Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the C.I.A. interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities. They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.}

^{In the tense months after 9/11, when Bush administration officials believed new Qaeda attacks could occur at any moment, intelligence officials brainstormed about radical countermeasures. It was in that atmosphere that the unidentified program was devised and deliberately concealed from Congress, officials said. Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, said last week that he believed Congress would have approved of the program only in the angry and panicky days after 9/11, on 9/12, he said, but not later, after fears and tempers had begun to cool…}

Things are getting confusing. There are the "Other Intelligence Activities" of the NSA-PSP-OIG Report. And there’s the whatever-secret-thing-the-CIA-was-doing that C.I.A. Chief Panetta raced to brief Congress about. Then there’s the "hit-squad reporting to Cheney" that Seymour Hersh alluded to in his talk several months ago in Minnesota. And Dick Cheney’s name [with sidekick David Addington] seems linked to all of them. Oh yeah, there was Torture too – and recall, we are still waiting for the release of the 2004 C.I.A. OIG Report. While these all may be separate things involving multiple agencies, it is more likely that they all go under the heading of "The Dark Side" of our War on Terror [slash War of Terror]. And it looks as though we’re about to get another jolt with Mr. former VP riding the chariot once again.

Dick Cheney and David Addington could have played it straight. They could’ve trusted our intelligence agencies to do their jobs. They could’ve followed the F.I.S.A. Guidelines, the Geneva Conventions, the Courts. At the least, they let Osama bin Laden drive them crazy on 9/11. More likely, they were crazy to start with, and 9/11 just gave them a reason to play it all out. It’s as if the People, the Laws and the Congress were their enemies rather than al Qaeda. It was a perfect storm – crazy Arab Jihadist, crazy American Vice President, weak American President, and way too much power to go around. What a tragedy….