Treading Softly with the CIA's Panetta

Overseeing a bunch of professional killers specializing in covert action has a down side! :rol:

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Treading Softly with the CIA's Panetta
Melvin A. Goodman - June 25, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/062509a.html
Editor’s Note: In Washington, there are invisible boundaries marking how far a political figure or journalist can safely go in pursuing some difficult truth ......


For the past several years, we have been indebted to tough-minded reporters such as Jane Mayer, whose articles in the New Yorker and her excellent book The Dark Side have provided us with the necessary details of the transgressions of the Bush administration and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Her article in the current issue of the New Yorker, however, indicates that Mayer has lost her critical edge and that a Democratic administration will simply not get the scrutiny and skepticism that a Republican administration received.

As Bob Herbert simply stated in today’s New York Times, “Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.”

Mayer cites various sources, including Rahm Emanuel and former Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldbaum, testifying to Panetta’s “great judgment,” reputation for integrity, and his ability to “restore the integrity of the intelligence process.”

Panetta’s reputation is sterling, but Mayer does not mention that thus far the CIA director has worked to block the release of a sensitive Inspector General report from 2004 that documents the use of torture and abuse; dissuaded President Obama from releasing sensitive photographs that also document torture and abuse; retained all the senior officials of the Agency who were the ideological drivers for the creation of secret prisons and the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques;” and made no effort to replace the Inspector General responsible for the 2004 report who announced his retirement in February 2009, immediately after Panetta’s confirmation.

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