Guardian: CIA faces hostile scrutiny as details of 'dark' programmes are revealed

[laststeamtrain]

CIA faces hostile scrutiny as details of 'dark' programmes are revealed

• Congressional calls for formal investigation mount
• Agency officials believe they're caught up in political war

Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 July 2009 18.59 BST

For a while everyone thought it would be enough to blame Dick Cheney.

President Obama assured the CIA that no one in the agency would be held accountable for the years of torture, abductions and killings, along with the mass serveillance of Americans, conducted under dubious legal authorisations.

America's intelligence community breathed a sigh of relief at what it took to be a commitment that if anyone was to be brought to book it would be the politicians who the agency enthusiastically served as it slipped the leash of legal restraint, particularly the former vice-president who fronted the Bush administration's war on terror. Most doubted that anyone would be held accountable.

But in recent days the ground has shifted dramatically, as a slew of revelations about the CIA's activities has left the agency facing its most hostile scrutiny since the 1970s, when congressional hearings revealed that it was pursuing its own, often illegal, agenda including numerous failed attempts to kill Fidel Castro.

Amid growing calls from within Congress for formal investigations and special prosecutors, former CIA officers say embittered agency officials believe they are caught up in a political war as the Democrats wield their newly acquired power to hit back at old foes in the Bush administration, particularly Cheney.

The CIA's critics say that it is coming under belated scrutiny over its submission to a highly political and possibly illegal agenda that its officials embraced with enthusiasm in the febrile atmosphere after the 9/11 attacks, when the Bush administration thought it could throw out the rule book by declaring the Geneva conventions out of date and redefining long established parameters for torture.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/14/cia-bush-cheney-obama-torture

[ThomCat]

1. Obama campaigned on restoring the rule of law.

So who the fuck is he to be promising that nobody in the CIA will be held accountable?

It's one thing to say "I think you're innocent and I'll stand by you." But it's something else entirely to say I won't let you be held accountable.

"You won't be held accountable."

Think about that? It means "You will get away with whatever you did." It is an acknowledgment that things happened for which people SHOULD be held held accountable. Horrible, illegal things happened. Being getting tried for illegal things is what it means to be held accountable, but he won't let that happen.

So he knows that illegal shit happened, and he's giving them a free pass ahead of time. A promise of no investigation, no trial, no punishment.

Who the hell is he, as a supposed upholder of the rule of law, to promise this? :grr:

That is aiding and abetting war crimes. That is covering up war crimes. That is making himself an accessory to the war crimes. It is truly outrageous that any President of the United States would promise anyone that they will not be held accountable, and worse that it is a Democrat saying that.

:cry:

[ShamelessHussy]

2. Is it FINALLY, Fitzmas!?

:bounce: