Mar 07 2009
Senate intelligence committee agrees to terms of CIA detentions probe
Thursday saw the Senate Intelligence Committee agree to the terms of a review of the CIA’s treatment of terrorism detainees.
According to committee leaders, the probe will last one year and focus on CIA detention and interrogation of approximately 100 suspected al-Qaeda operatives that were held in secret prisons between 2002 and 2006. It will include a review of harsh interrogation tactics, such as waterboarding, and if they actually produced the significant intelligence that the Bush administration claimed.
However, they did not signal how much of the review would be made public, if any. It is not known if the committee will produce an unclassified report. While there certainly are issues of national security involved, this is an easy way to pose as a thorough investigation while doing nothing.
CIA director Leon E. Panetta said he’d cooperate with the committee, but “What I will not support is an inquiry designed to punish those who acted in accord with guidance from the Department of Justice.” So, even if they do produce findings, they aren’t supposed to act on them. Well…then what’s the point?
It is always good for Mom and Dad to investigate and find out that Billy broke the window, but if they don’t act on that fact, why bother taking the time to find out who did what.
Meanwhile, we learn that an October 23, 2001 memo written by then-Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. John Yoo authorized use of the military in the U.S.:
These military operations, taken as they may be on United States soil, and involving as they might American citizens, raise novel and difficult questions of constitutional law
and:
The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.
This is flagrantly unconstitutional and Yoo should be on trial, along with the rest of the Bush administration. Instead, he is a law professor at the University of California Berkeley. Mom? Dad? Aren’t you paying attention to what little Johnny did?
Sources: Washington Post - Senate Panel reaches terms for probe of CIA detentions March 6, 2009
Chicago Tribune - Secret Bush administration legal memos released to public March 3, 2009
