The CIA's Augean Stables

Hercules had to direct a couple of rivers through the Augean Stables to clean them out in one day as one of his famed Twelve Labors. Leon Panetta is sure wishing he could do the same about right now, as his own impossible task of cleaning up the Bush-era CIA has already revealed a healthy mountain of bovine fecal material.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.’s alleged deceptions,. But he said, “We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, referred to Mr. Panetta’s disclosure in a letter to the committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, Congressional Quarterly reported on Wednesday. Mr. Reyes wrote that the committee “has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to.”

Well now, this is a problem in and of itself. The GOP was quick to attack Nancy Pelosi and even call for her resignation when she brought up that the CIA wasn't telling the truth.

Now we have testimony from the Director of the CIA saying "Yes, the CIA deliberately mislead Congress for basically the entire Bush era." We need to know exactly what was going on here. We need to know what these lies were, who told them, and why. I can surmise the why part: Bush's war on American civil liberties.

But here's the real kicker: it looks like the President is pulling another Odubya moment and trying to cover the CIA from additional oversight.

In a related development, President Obama threatened to veto the pending Intelligence Authorization Bill if it included a provision that would allow information about covert actions to be given to the entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees, rather than the so-called Gang of Eight — the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses of Congress and the two Intelligence Committees.

A White House statement released on Wednesday said the proposed expansion of briefings would undermine “a long tradition spanning decades of comity between the branches regarding intelligence matters.” Democrats have complained that under President George W. Bush, entire programs were hidden from most committee members for years.

As BooMan says, what comity?

Let me put this diplomatically. It is not the proposed expansion of briefings that undermines a tradition of comity between Congress and administrations on intelligence matters. That comity was undermined when the CIA lied, misled, and withheld information from the leaders of Congress and the Intelligence Committees. That's where the trust broke down. But, even if the administration and the CIA had been forthcoming and honest, it still would have been a problem that the chair and ranking member of the Intelligence Committees were prohibited from discussing matters with their whole committee.

The object of oversight is to keep covert activities within a legal framework and to protect people's constitutional rights. During the Bush era, neither of those objectives were met. It should be obvious that reforms are required. If the Obama administration has a problem with the proposed reforms they should get engaged constructively with the Intelligence Committees. But I don't want to see simple veto threats and fatuous statements about comity. If I may use a play on words, don't insult our intelligence.

Stop screwing things up and do what's right.

So, you're telling me the CIA getting butthurt is more important than the truth here? It seems the CIA may not be the only building that needs a river redirected through it to clean out all the bullshit.