Leon Panetta's Reality Problem

I didn't get a chance to discuss CIA Director Leon Panetta's op-ed piece in the WaPo on Sunday, so I'll lead off with it this morning.

The time has come for both Democrats and Republicans to take a deep breath and recognize the reality of what happened after Sept. 11, 2001. The question is not the sincerity or the patriotism of those who were dealing with the aftermath of Sept. 11. The country was frightened, and political leaders were trying to respond as best they could. Judgments were made. Some of them were wrong. But that should not taint those public servants who did their duty pursuant to the legal guidance provided. The last election made clear that the public wanted to move in a new direction.

Intelligence can be a valuable weapon, but it is not one we should use on each other. As the president has said, this is not a time for retribution. Debates over who knew what when -- or what happened seven years ago -- miss a larger, more important point: We are a nation at war in a dangerous world, and good intelligence is vital to us all. That is where our focus should be. The CIA has plenty of tools to fight al-Qaeda and its allies. Unlike the effort I canceled in June, our present tools are effective, we use them aggressively to go after our enemies, and Congress has been briefed on them.

In other words, we're seeing Panetta use the same argument that Bush officials and the Village used before him: 9/11! (So Shut Up Already.)

That would seem to me to be an argument for greater oversight, not less. But not in Panetta's world. He seems to think that electing a new President means we can't look at the last President's possible crimes, crimes aided and abetted by Panetta's CIA. Not only that, he's flat out warning Congress to back the hell off with the open threat "Intelligence can be a valuable weapon, but it is not one we should use on each other."

Instead of reforming the CIA as promised, Panetta has canceled a couple of egregiously illegal programs, and then said that Congress cannot investigate anything else...lest they want to have "intelligence used against" them. Panetta's been captured by his job and is now daring Congressional Democrats AND Republicans to try to keep going down this road.

BooMan has a definitive breakdown of Panetta's piece over at the Frog Pond:

The idea that these public servants limited themselves to ‘doing their duty pursuant to the legal guidance provided’ is a myth. Dozens of people are dead, and none of the ‘enhanced interrogations’ we’ve learned about were conducted within OLC guidelines. None. Even if they were, many of these interrogations still involved war crimes. But that is a distraction. People were murdered and tortured beyond any degree of ‘interpretation.’ They need to go to prison and so do their superiors.

Do read it, I'll add at this point that Panetta would only be able to say all this if he had tacit permission to do so from the President. That means this is the response to the Village warnings on last month's rumors of an Eric Holder DoJ investigation into torture. Obama seems to be saying through Panetta that he plans to drop Holder's investigations, but Congress needs to do the same.

The Village is more than happy to report this little tiff as well. Both sides get to save face here, no investigations go forward on Bush business, and all is well in the Washington swamps.

We'll see. Both the White House and Congress have a lot to lose it seems if too many more revelations come forth. Each side is afraid that they will be left holding the bag, that the DoJ investigation will finger Congress, and that Congress's investigation will finger Obama. It looks like Panetta is offering a truce.

Not like we Americans get a say in it however.