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Democrats May Investigate Secret Program

by albertacowpoke | July 12, 2009 at 02:52 am

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Earlier this year, Nancy Pelosi had accused the CIA of lying to Congress. This created quite a stir by pundits on both sides. This past week Democrats claimed they were in CIA briefing where they had been told that an eight year old CIA program was not briefed to Congress.

At the time Leon Panetta remained quiet, but CIA sources said that the program was never used and it did not involve enhanced interrogation.

Yesterday House Democrats announced that they expect to launch a formal investigation into this program. The probe could entangle senior Bush administration personnel, who had oversight responsibility of the CIA.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee said the investigation would examine the nature and decisions taken to keep this program from being disclosed to Congress.

"This wasn't an oversight. There was an order given to not inform Congress," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), chairman of the panel's oversight and investigations subcommittee. The innuendo is that Dick Cheney gave that order.

In view of Leon Panetta's earlier defence of the CIA, one must wonder if this is partisan politics in an attempt to vindicate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The White House prefers that this investigation will not be conducted as it is felt that it will evolve into a partisan issue that will detract from the Administration's agenda.

Here is a related story Bush-era interrogations could be investigated

House Democrats said yesterday that they expect to launch a formal investigation into a secret CIA program that was not disclosed to Congress for almost eight years, a probe that could entangle senior Bush administration officials who oversaw intelligence issues.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee said the inquiry would examine both the nature of the still-secret program and the decisions to keep congressional oversight committees in the dark about its existence.

"This wasn't an oversight. There was an order given to not inform Congress," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), chairman of the panel's oversight and investigations subcommittee.