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THE CIA LIE TO CONGRESS? IT'S HAPPENED BEFORE.
Over the years, the right has managed to make criticism of military operations from the left a mark of disloyalty, a perspective the press has only been happy to reproduce. That same immunity to criticism has now been extended to the CIA, which we can see in the reaction to Nancy Pelosi's suggestion that she was mislead by the CIA in their briefings on interrogation practices.
In fact, the CIA has lied to members of Congress a number of times, detailed in Tim Weiner's history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes. Here are just a few prominent instances:
In the 1950s, Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, after being told by Senator Joseph McCarthy that tha CIA was "neither sacrosanct nor immune from investigation," began waging a "down and dirty covert operation on McCarthy" which included attempting to bug his office and feeding his staff with disinformation "in order to discredit him."
Former CIA Director Richard Helms was convicted in 1977 of lying to Congress about the United States' role in overthrowing the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Allende was succeeded by brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet.
In 1982, Congress passed a law prohibiting the administration from ousting the leftist regime in Nicaragua. The CIA kept trying to overthrow the Sandanistas. CIA Director Bill Casey testified frequently before oversight committees Congress about the agency's covert action plans, during which he was often misleading. "Casey was guilty of Contempt of Congress from the day he was sworn in," Robert Gates, former head of the CIA and current Secretary of Defense, told Weiner. When the Iran Contra Scandal began to break, Casey lied to Congress, denying that they had traded arms for hostages with Iran.
On September 17, 2001, George Tenet told Congress that Iraq had provided al Qaeda with training in combat, bomb-making, and weapons of mass destruction. That information was based on a single source, the interrogation Ibn al-Shakh al Libi, who later recanted and whom we now know was tortured for that information. Tenet of course, hasn't recanted.
These are just some of the cases in which the CIA lied to Congress. In the context of a number of covert operations, the CIA has even lied to the President. This is part of the nature of what we, as a country ask them to do as an organization--the CIA is constantly being asked to engage in illegal behavior, punished when their analysis doesn't fit the preordained conclusions of whatever administration is in power, and then is exclusively blamed when the information comes out or the operations go sour. That's a regrettable state of affairs that says more about the hypocrisy of our leaders than it does about the committed men and women of the CIA.
It's possible that Pelosi isn't telling the whole truth about what she knew. But it wouldn't be unprecedented for the CIA to lie or withhold information from members of Congress. Leon Panetta's letter to CIA employees, obtained by Greg Sargent, is so completely ambiguous that it both asserts that the CIA briefed members of Congress "truthfully" about the interrogation of Abu Zubayda even as it says "Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened." If it's "up to Congress," how can the CIA's version of events be relied upon?
-- A. Serwer
COMMENTS (8)
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$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget.
Posted by: Tenisci Williams | May 15, 2009 5:27 PM
If I recall correctly, when selected congresspeople are "briefed" about high-security matters, this means being in a room, not allowed to take notes, not allowed to have any staff with you, and not allowed to talk to anyone about what you heard. Basically, this is a system that allowed the likes of the Bush administration to claim they had congressional oversight while ensuring it would be as nominal and ineffectual as possible. Have any real human beings here (preferably ones past the age of sixty) had the actual experience of trying to take in information this way, and trying to retain it all? This was going through the motions of keeping Congress posted, while ensuring the unlikelihood of any real pushback. For the right to claim this makes Pelosi et al equally responsible is the kind of partisan reasoning that ought to regarded with contempt. But it's hard to get people to pay attention to how things work in the real world.
Posted by: Virgil E Vickers | May 15, 2009 7:13 PM
As the saying goes:
I love my country but fear my government.
Ain't it grand how the more things change, the more things stay the same?
Posted by: Greytdog Δ | May 15, 2009 9:19 PM
Either Panetta is lying or Pelosi is lying. One of them must go. Pronto. My bet is on Pelosi going, she's an utter disgrace as de facto dictatrix of these United States. Indeed, perhaps the whole thing was orchestrated by the White House as a way to remove her from office. In any event, good riddance, Pelosi.
Posted by: Billy | May 16, 2009 2:52 PM
Thank you. I've been annoyed by the feigned shock of Pelosi's attackers at the idea that the CIA would lie to Congress, particularly while we are still enmeshed in a war started, in part, on CIA lies. Apparently the hagiography of St. Ronnie means that all memory of Iran-Contra has been wiped from the current members of Congress?
Posted by: biggerbox | May 16, 2009 7:02 PM
The idea that the media are granting a presumption of truthfulness to our professional spooks who are in the business of lying defies my comprehension. I can only assume historical ignorance. The CIA has a long history of covering its incompetence by making stuff up. Has no one read Tim Wiener's Legacy of Ashes?
Guess not. No wonder "journalism" is in trouble.
Posted by: janinsanfrna | May 17, 2009 11:25 AM
watch your language! "We as country"... speak for yourself... I never voted for it, an the CIA was a bit more secretive when it was first formed. WE never had any choice, and we don't ask the CIA to do anything... bunch of pricks in ties do that. If we did get to ask them to do anything, the face of the CIA would be different.
Posted by: throc morton | May 19, 2009 12:38 PM
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Pelosi's lying or mistaken and that she was fully informed about the torture program. Let's also ignore for the moment that, even in this case, she would have been forbidden by statute under severe penalties from divulging any of that information. Even in that extreme scenario, she would not have been guilty either of approving or of carrying out the torture; and, in fact, would not have been guilty of any illegal acts at all! The criminal behavior was solely the responsibility of Bush, Cheney, et al.
Posted by: AJ Hill | May 22, 2009 2:39 PM