A Rogue CIA

[Religious Dick]

A Rogue CIA
Inside Report by Robert Novak
Monday, December 24, 2007
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WASHINGTON -- Outrage over the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes is but one element of the distress about the agency by Republican intelligence watchdogs in Congress. "It is acting as though it is autonomous, not accountable to anyone," Rep. Peter Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told me. That is his mildest language about the CIA. In carefully selected adjectives, Hoekstra calls it "incompetent, arrogant and political."

Chairman Silvestre Reyes and other Intelligence Committee Democrats join Hoekstra in demanding investigation of the tape destruction in the face of the administration's resistance, but the Republicans stand alone in protesting the CIA's defiant undermining of President Bush. In its clean bill of health for Iran on nuclear weapons development, the agency acted as an independent policymaker rather than an adviser. It has withheld from nearly all members of Congress information on the Israeli bombing of Syria. The U.S. intelligence community decides on its own what information the public shall learn.

Intelligence agencies, from Nazi Germany to present day Pakistan, for better or for ill have tended to break away from their governments. The OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the CIA's World War II predecessor, was infiltrated by communists. While CIA tactics were under liberal assault in Congress during the Watergate era, current accusations of a rogue agency come from Republicans who see a conscious undermining of Bush at Langley.

The CIA's contempt for the president was demonstrated during his 2004 re-election campaign when a senior intelligence officer, Paul R. Pillar, made off-the-record speeches around the country criticizing the invasion of Iraq. On Sept. 24, 2004, three days before my column exposed Pillar's activity, former Rep. Porter Goss arrived at Langley as Bush's hand-picked director of central intelligence. Goss had resigned from Congress to accept Bush's mandate to clean up the CIA. But the president buckled under fire from the old boys at Langley and their Democratic supporters in Congress, and Goss was sacked in May 2006.

Goss's successor, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, restored the status quo ante at the CIA and nurtured relations with congressional Democrats in preparation for their coming majority status. Hayden, an active duty four-star Air Force general who lives in government housing, first antagonized Hoekstra by telling Reyes what the Democrats wanted to hear about the Valerie Plame CIA leak case.

There is no partisan divide on congressional outrage over the CIA's destruction of tapes showing interrogation of terrorism detainees. Hoekstra agrees with Reyes that the Bush administration has made a big mistake refusing to let officials testify in the impending investigation.

Republicans also complain that the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluding that Iran has shut down its nuclear weapons program was a case of the CIA flying solo, not part of the administration team. Donald M. Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence, on Dec. 3 "took responsibility for what portions of the NIE Key Judgments were to be declassified." In a Dec. 10 joint article for the Wall Street Journal, Hoekstra and Democratic Rep. Jane Harman (a senior Intelligence Committee member) wrote that the new NIE "does not explain why the 2005 NIE came to the opposite conclusion or what factors could drive Iran to 'restart' its nuclear-weapons program." (Six days later on "Fox News Sunday," Harman called the NIE "the best work product they've produced.")

Hoekstra is also at odds with Hayden over CIA refusal to reveal what it knows about the Sept. 6 Israeli bombing of Syria's nuclear complex. Only chairmen and ranking minority members of the Intelligence committees, plus members of the congressional leadership, have been briefed. Other members of Congress, including Intelligence Committee members, were excluded. The Intelligence authorization bill, passed by the House and awaiting final action in the Senate, blocks most of the CIA's funding "until each member of the Congressional Intelligence committees has been fully informed with respect to intelligence" about the Syria bombing.

In a June 21 address to the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Hayden unveiled "CIA's social contract with the American people." Hoekstra's explanation: "The CIA is rejecting accountability to the administration or Congress, saying it can go straight to the people."

To find out more about Robert D. Novak and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

Views expressed in this column are those of the author, not those of Rasmussen Reports. Robert D. Novak is a nationally Syndicated Columnist.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_commentary/commentary_by_robert_d_novak/a_rogue_cia

[yellow_crane]

The CIA acting on its own is bad, bad.

However, they feel they have been attacked by the corporate ninjas--the Neocons.  Anybody who knows the winds in Langley knows that Cheney huffing and puffing through the front door so publically, so swaggeringly to demand compliance was bound to rankle deep.  Creating new agencies to eclipse them was bound to spur counterattack.

I see them acting defensively, not offensively.

This is an unusual move for the CIA, and I imagine close scrutiny and consideration was given to the fact that this could come off in PR terms as a rank SS maneuver, but decided that the public would see through it all, and somehow feel that real wrongs were being corrected.

Intelligence in America has always been largely staffed by big money, wending down from the springs of Yale, and a good case could be made that it has largely represented Wall Street rather than DC.  It suggests one thing, then:  the sense of Langley honor ignited a party crossing, in order to put to rest the demons of the peril, most coming from their side.

I wonder if this means that the CIA, still conservative, is more still conservative along the lines of Goldwater and Buchanan than the Blackwater-touting Bush, Cheney, and Romney?

I give the CIA a "for he's a jolly good fellow . . ."   I spit on the elected Democrats, who should have been doing this kind of thing all along. 

Strange times, strange bedfellows.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I would imagine that both the CIA honchos AND Cheney would want those tapes destroyed. They might be at odds with each other, but not about this. They both seem to believe that they can do any damn thing they want and get away with it.

The CIA seems to have little respect for elected representatives or elections, as would befit a group that has diddled in elections since its inception. They started out as being the scions of the "legacy" Yale elite, the Skull and Bones types who feel that they already own the entire frigging country.

[Richpo64]

>>However, they feel they have been attacked by the corporate ninjas--the Neocons.<<

See: Jew

>>Anybody who knows the winds in Langley knows?<<

Of course yellow knows nothing about Langley. What he knows exists only in his conspiracy filled brain.

>>?that Cheney huffing and puffing through the front door so publically, so swaggeringly to demand compliance was bound to rankle deep.<<

Does anyone see any mention of Vice President Cheney in this article? Once again the fertile, if twisted, imagination of yellow is on display.

>>Creating new agencies to eclipse them was bound to spur counterattack.<<

What this, and articles I?ve posted, is pointing out is that people like yellow actually work in the CIA and have no problem subverting their commander in chief to the detriment of their country.  They place politics above all else. Why? Because they hate their country as does yellow stain.

[Plane]

Inside Report by Robert Novak

That Novak is the author gives me pause, maybe it is true , but does an agenda of Novacks color the assumptions?

[Richpo64]

What to you see as Novaks agenda?

[Xavier_Onassis]

What this, and articles I?ve posted, is pointing out is that people like yellow actually work in the CIA and have no problem subverting their commander in chief to the detriment of their country.  They place politics above all else. Why? Because they hate their country as does yellow stain.

=======================================================================================
So anyone who disagrees with you or your Idol, Juniorbush "hates the country"?

Does a person who hates the country destroy incriminating videos, or refuse to destroy them? Please tell us. Inquiring minds want to know.
Is a desire to know the truth incompatible with love of Country here? Is t necessary to destroy the truth to demonstrate one's love of country, or do those who love these United States also love the Truth so much that it should be known?

Should we admire the Neocons for being pro-Zionist, or should we take the longer, post-Apocalyptic view that it is a function fo the US government to ensure that all Jews return to Eratz Israel so as to bring about the sacrificing of the Purely Read Heifer, the rebuilding and subsequent destruction of the Third Temple, followed by the Return of King Jesus, the Apocalypse, the Reckoning, and the long-awaited Millenium?

Please tell us Richie, please.

[Plane]

What to you see as Novaks agenda?

Are you learning my style?

[Plane]

What to you see as Novaks agenda?

This is a tough question , I don't see  proper role in the fourth estate in shapeing news , or producing news.

I think Novack does.

[Richpo64]

>>This is a tough question , I don't see  proper role in the fourth estate in shapeing news , or producing news. I think  Novack does.<<

And your evidence?   

[Richpo64]

>>So anyone who disagrees with you or your Idol, Juniorbush "hates the country"?<<


Of course not. Just people like you and stain who exhibit their hate in here on a daily basis. I mean heck, your hate for the country is obvious as is stain's.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I take exception to your contention that those who do not agree with your vision that the US should be a colonial overlord ruled only by Neocons and morons like Juniorbush "hate  the country". What we hate is your wacko beliefs and intolerance of everyone who does not agree with you.

You did not answer my questions, Richie=Poo.

Here goes again:

Does a person who hates the country destroy incriminating videos, or refuse to destroy them? Please tell us. Inquiring minds want to know.
Is a desire to know the truth incompatible with love of Country here? Is it necessary to destroy the truth to demonstrate one's love of country, or do those who love these United States also love the Truth so much that it should be known?

Should we admire the Neocons for being pro-Zionist, or should we take the longer, post-Apocalyptic view that it is a function fo the US government to ensure that all Jews return to Eratz Israel so as to bring about the sacrificing of the Purely Red Heifer, the rebuilding and subsequent destruction of the Third Temple, followed by the Return of King Jesus, the Apocalypse, the Reckoning, and the long-awaited Millenium?

These are multiple choice questions. The easiest sort I can come up with.

Or should I phrase this as true/False?

Stamp once for "yes", twice for "no".

[Richpo64]

>>I take exception to ...<<

I couldn't possibly care less about what someone like you takes exception too. In fact, anything you take exception to has got to be correct.

[yellow_crane]

>>So anyone who disagrees with you or your Idol, Juniorbush "hates the country"?<<


Of course not. Just people like you and stain who exhibit their hate in here on a daily basis. I mean heck, your hate for the country is obvious as is stain's.

This kind of lemming response by you is largely dead these days, after America finally blinked; this administration, though, worked hard to somnambulize people into believing that disagreeing with their policies meant a lack of patriotism.

That shot has largely been called.

It is an inarguably FASCIST technique.

You are inarguably laughable.

But an ironic pathos stirs also, because you don't even know it.

You do not 'watch' OReilly for thinking points--you are dependent on frequent infusions, like a nonblinking junkie.

I almost liked it better during those days when your every other post was a veiled threat with violent retribution to all those who have not yet seen that perverse and parrotted perspective you think is the light.

You need to see a professional deprogramer, like those consulted when the faith one has clutched inevitably leads one into an excess of fervor, and one has become cerebrally baked.    

A key symptom is following your leader to the extent that you yourself are no longer capable of formulating your own thoughts, and all your energy tops out as a rare form of glossolalia called Foxmentia.

[Richpo64]

Come on stain, it's obvious to anyone who bothers to read your dribble that you hate America and everything it stands for. You hate American capitalism, American companies, and every American who isn't a communist like yourself. I think if you can find it in your heart to actually admit it, you'll be well on your way to recovery.