While the details are disputed, it appears that the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Leon Panetta went to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence late last month and confessed that the CIA had misled them, given them incomplete briefings, and (at least once) affirmatively lied to the committee during the Bush years.
This is no surprise. The Bush administration didn’t believe in congressional oversight or the rule of law. It’s a positive development that Panetta investigated the record and came clean with a promise to not repeat the mistakes in this administration. I hope we will learn some of the specifics of those deceptions, but that is not what concerns me here. What concerns me is the administration’s response to this development.
The House Intelligence Committee has been working on legislation to address one of the key problems that arose during the Bush era. The law allows the administration to limit briefings to the so-called Gang of Eight (the Speaker/Minority Leader of the House, the Majority/Minority Leader of the Senate, and the Chairs/Ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees). It was as Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Jay Rockefeller was informed about key aspects of the NSA program. Rockefeller was concerned about the legality of the program but prohibited from even consulting a lawyer. He wrote a letter to Dick Cheney and put a copy in a secure safe. It was as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee that Nancy Pelosi was informed about OLC rulings that allowed enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. She, too, was prohibited from sharing that information with anyone, including other members of the committee.
An obvious consequence of this restricted briefing was that the Intelligence Committees were incapable of doing even the most rudimentary oversight. They couldn’t come to the conclusion that the law was being broken or that new regulations or authorities were needed to make the intelligence activities consistent with the law, because they either didn’t know or couldn’t discuss what was going on. The proposed solution, coming from the House Intelligence Committee, is to give the chairs of the Intelligence Committees that discretion to determine whether a briefing of the Gang of Eight is sufficient or if the whole committees must be informed. Currently, that prerogative belongs to the administration. It seems like a very welcome reform that tackles the Bush era problem both directly and sensibly.
The Obama administration’s reaction?
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.”
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.
