Word: cia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
President to want to start with a clean slate, but they've spent years asking questions about alleged wrongdoing under Bush - and they want answers. (Feinstein was unavailable for comment, but she's expected to release a statement about the investigation this week.) (Read "Panetta: From Washington Insider to CIA Outsider...
...former spies argue that the Agency's staff need to be protected from changes in political climate. A joint statement issued by Feinstein and her Republican counterpart on the committee, Missouri Senator Kit Bond, said the probe will examine, among other things, "whether the CIA implemented the program in compliance with official guidance, including covert action findings, Office of Legal Counsel opinions, and CIA policy." But the staffers responsible for carrying out detention and interrogation policies, they say, would never have used the controversial techniques if it had not been for explicit legal guidance from the Bush Administration...
...second-guessing the staffers now, warn the Agency veterans, Feinstein's investigation will have a "chilling effect on people who are asked to do risky things for this administration," says a former senior CIA official...
Staffers at the CIA will wonder why they are being singled out for investigation for executing the Bush Administration's policies, "while whose who made those policies are busy writing their memoirs," says Paul Pillar, who was the agency's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000-05, and now teaches at Georgetown University...
...some ex-officials, the whole thing smacks of politics and hypocrisy. They say Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle were thoroughly briefed about CIA operations, including details about interrogation techniques. "The leadership was fully briefed, and there was no objection at the time," says Henry "Hank" Crumpton, who headed the CIA's operations in Afghanistan after 9/11...