You’ll never believe this, but the CIA has been keeping secrets. And there was a high-ranking government official involved. Shocking, I know. So check this out:
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
As you can see, however, the CIA hasn’t been keeping secrets very well, so we’re back to business as usual. Carry on.
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11 Comments
1. Steve Ducharme:Good grief. It’s like the old Spy vs Spy cartoon form Mad Magazine except both the black and white characters work for us.
Jul 12, 2009 - 8:34 am 2. McGehee:This habit of keeping secrets will be the CIA’s downfall, I just know it. :-/
Jul 12, 2009 - 9:49 am 3. Casey:I know you were snarking, McGehee, but it’s the habit of leaking secrets which will be the downfall of the Company…
Jul 12, 2009 - 11:43 am 4. frank martin:He’s using Holder to distract from the fact that on every political front hes run into significant trouble. People are starting to notice that 1) That far from being a victim of circumstances, Obama is “large and in charge” and 2) what he has done is not only not working but is demonstrably making things worse.
Theres a sort of “Political inverse reality field” in play here; The more the Obama administration is winning on the issues the day, the less this sort of stuff comes to the forefront and conversely the more often you see the Obama administration reach into its bag of “Bush was a war criminal” tricks, the more likely it is that Obama is stuck in a, (well let me be the first to use the word) quagmire.
My “short hand” metric for determining how deep is the mud that he is stuck in is by listening for the words “let me be clear” in any of his sound bites. The more often you hear him say it, the deeper the mud.
I predict that this will backfire in spectacular fashion and further his reputation of being an amateur. High ranking Democrats will pay a huge price for their actions of the last 8 years and not members of the Bush administration.
Jul 12, 2009 - 12:29 pm 5. Garrett:I sure hope Frank is right. I can’t believe I long for the good old days of Bill Clinton, even if Hillary came with the package.
Jul 12, 2009 - 2:29 pm 6. rbj:Given that Democrats have been leaking CIA secrets ever since theGWOT began, Cheney was right to keep it sooper secret.
Jul 12, 2009 - 3:39 pm 7. Casey:Does this mean it was evil for Great Britain to keep the “XX project” Top Secret for thirty years after the end of WW2?
Jul 12, 2009 - 11:41 pm 8. arhooley:rbj, my thoughts exactly. I hope there are a couple other secret programs out there that were implemented (this one wasn’t) and successful.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:50 am 9. tim maguire:And six months after Obama is sworn in, Cheney is STILL making them keep it secret?
Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress
Funny thing about this story. On the one hand, the Obama team is dying to make a big deal out of Bush’s secrecy and misleading congress; on the other hand, congress is so untrustworthy that even as they complain about the secrecy, they are continuing the secrecy.
A big shout out to the media being too busy suckng up to Obama to notice the real story.
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:20 am 10. rosignol:And six months after Obama is sworn in, Cheney is STILL making them keep it secret?
Yup.
Even Chuck Norris is afraid to cross Dick Cheney.
Jul 15, 2009 - 3:43 am 11. persiflage:rbj has it right: based on historical performance, Cheney was virtually assured that if the program was “revealed” to Congress, it would be blabbed almost instantly – and any possibility of effectiveness mooted.
Jul 15, 2009 - 8:46 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.