CIA "Freaking Out" Over Investigations

Source: CBS News

On “Washington Unplugged” today, Newsweek investigative reporter Mark Hosenball said people at the CIA are "freaking out" over Attorney General Holder’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate interrogation practices during the Bush adminstration.

“I was just speaking to some people (at the CIA), they’re really freaking out over this; it is going to cause them to start giving them second thoughts about doing risky things or creative things in the future and maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. It is tying them down,” he told CBS News’ Bob Orr .

Hosenball also weighed in on comments made by former Vice President Dick Cheney’s yesterday on Fox News when he said the techniques used by the CIA were valuable.

“It is true that the CIA program to interrogate and detain high value al Qaeda detainees produced a lot of intelligence,” he said.

The interrogation, Hosenball said, “produced the kind of intelligence that was like totally central to the CIA’s intelligence gathering about al Qaeda.“ But he added that the question is whether the enhanced interrogation techniques revealed reliable intelligence, and the recently released documents do not answer this question.

Hosenball said the documents also do not contain any " assessment of the ratio of good information to bad information."

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/31/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5277943.shtml

is that what they're calling it now?

Along with their boss, Criminal Cheney.

n/t

:puke: Ref. Betty: '"creative things" is that what they're calling it now?'

All these euphemisms, eh? Like "enhanced interrogation" and "terminate with extreme prejudice". I sure would like to see some clarification of what "creative things" means. I think it means doing things that they know damn well are illegal and assuming that no one will care.

:shrug: just sayin' :shrug:

It seemed to me that, the CIA was JOYOUS at Obama's arrival after being directed into hell by the Cheney administration.

At least, that is my recollection.

My guess is, if anyone's freaking out it is those extremists or cultists or weak assholes able and willing to cooperate with a lawless neocon administration to break laws. So, they SHOULD BE PROSECUTED, along with their bosses, if they are able and willing to cooperate with lawFULness.

BLAH!!!

What a shame.

Oh, the humanity!

sprinkled with just a wee bit of ethics and morality, they could find a decent and effective way of interrogating people. Just maybe....

:eyes:

If it works, then it's OK to torture? Shame on them for even thinking that would be a valid justification!

I really want interrogators thinking twice about whether something is legal or not.

Bureaucrats!

I hope this doesn't become another 9/11-type "commission..."

So thinking twice about them is really just stupid.

in a country where the big money really does make the calls.

Big money doesn't care about the law because it is too big to fail.
Unfortunately for them the CIA has behaved in loyal serfdom to Big Money.

In the end, once again the serfs will die in order to protect Big Money.

This is about the ever present evil side of human nature.

BTW why does the name "Xe" look like crossed femurs next to a skull?

The answer is Big Money makes it so.

It was claimed by FBI interrogators that all the good information we got out of the high-value prisoners was obtained by them using regular, non-"extraordinary" interrogation methods before the CIA took over, and then they clammed up or gave us crud.

How many soldiers died chasing down phoney leads? How many civillians died because our soldiers thought they were raiding a terrorist hideout when it was just someone's house?

No more CIA paramilitary units. No more torture or outsourcing of torture.

The national security apparatus created during WWII has grown to monstrous proportions and it poses a direct threat to our liberties. It must be dismantled if we are to restore the republic our Founders envisioned.

Absolutely

So-called "investigative reporters", the morons at the top of the repug party, high-level CIA guys, people who claim they "witnessed" interrogations-all say torture produced results. The guys who actually were there (FBI) say they got better results before torture. Heaven forbid the CIA should have to restrain itself. Sorry to bring their morale down. :eyes:

then the ratio is pretty easy to calculate.

The point he's trying to spin away from is that it is illegal for a good reason and that we can get more accurate intelligence without destroying our reputation throughout the world.

Thank assholes like that that make it appear to the rest of the world that America is "debating" torture.

My country is sick.

What a horseshit story. From what I have read it is mostly the 3rd party contractors who should be freaking out! That and maybe a handful of CIA operatives who could not keep their morals in check!

I think putting this message out is a POLITICAL move on the part of somebody in the CIA to influence public opinion.

My guess is Cheney's CIA friends are pretending to freak out as a way to somehow protect Cheney.

That is all.

He thinks: "the question is whether the enhanced interrogation techniques revealed reliable intelligence".

No Sonny, the question is whether this country is willing to follow the rule of law!

:banghead:

Really??

(...too...many...punchlines....

AaarrRRrggGGhhHH!)

journalist and noted Valley Girl Hosenball said, “produced the kind of intelligence that was like totally central to the CIA’s intelligence gathering about al Qaeda.“

it's a little late now... off to the Hague with the war criminals.

Maybe a few weeks down the line Holder can entertain the possibility of immunity for testimony.

He's got to get these guys to roll over and finger the men who ordered this, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, Alberto Gonzalez, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush.

~

When the investigation moves closer to him, and we end up getting to see them roll him into court, restrained like Hannibal Lecter.


:popcorn:

making statements like "we ain't in the prizner-takin' bidness" before his man swats the Nazi in the head with a Louisville slugger, in "Inglourious Basterds".

The media blitz is on.

This is how those slimy fuckers operate. Lynn Cheney says water boarding isn't torture. Somebody ought to give her a lesson and see if she thinks it's torture.

"Bridge to Damage Control, we need some specialists up here on the double."


The CIA still has thousands of documents from the JFK era that they will not release. Does anyone really think that Eric Holder is going to get jack shit from these fascists?

I really don't understand why Cheney and minions are so freaked out over this. If they operated within the law and obtained valuable intelligence that will come out - and they can tell us all they told us so. You would think they'd be chomping at the bit to be proven right. So what's the big deal? I don't get it.

All they ever do is take the place of organized crime, and collect the bounty to continue their dirty tricks.

I say we get rid of them and replace them with people who understand the concept of "creative." Think of the movie sneakers.

Dude!

They might ask the Office of Legal Counsel since Obama has, I'm sure, opted to staff it with people who actually follow the law unlike Bush.

funny how he pulls a string and somebody important at the WaPost squawks.

nah, never mind, what a fucking fantasy for just a moment.

Just take 'em out and horsewhip 'em for a start.

when you think you are going to die, you will say whatever is necessary to save your life.

These people are disgusting, immoral and sick.

Colonel Wilkerson, Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, did an investigation of torture practices for Powell and learned that it all flowed from Vice President Cheney's office. Wilkerson said that many CIA employees were very concerned about the lawlessness and refused to participate. He said that less than 1% of CIA staff was involved in the torture program and that we must investigate and prosecute those who broke the law in order to maintain the moral of the law-abiding CIA officers who were appalled by Cheney's torture policies. If we don't prosecute, those CIA employees will have a harder time in the future resisting intimidation from their superiors to break the law.

If we don't prosecute those who participated in war crimes and torture, those crimes will be more easily repeated in the future. We must restore the rule of law in the U.S., to do so, we must prosecute those who broke it and ordered others to break it.

when interrogation decisions were made? It looks like Cheney and Tenet betrayed the CIA yet the idiots in the media are trying to spin it as a ungrateful public turning on the CIA.

Only idiot journalists keep pushing the talking point that torture was a good faith interrogation method. I guess the fearmongering and propaganda used to justify the torture are also good faith efforts to convince the public that torture was a "safe, effective and legal" interrogation method.

I don't think a single US journalist has ever referred to Saddam Hussein's good faith torture program. The reason is because torture is designed to terrorize and dehumanize. Torture doesn't magically become a "safe, effective and legal" interrogation method simply because some corrupt politicians and their idiot journalist pals say it is.