Kerry LTTE smacks down WSJ editorial as a "disservice" to real CIA agents

[blm]

Forget Jack Bauer
Insure CIA agents against a reckless administration, not terrorists' lawsuits or my subpoenas.

BY JOHN KERRY
Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Your Sept. 12 editorial "Jack Bauer Insurance" was a disservice not to me or to fictional characters like Jack Bauer, but to the very real CIA agents whose commitment to the truth didn't fit the administration's neoconservative agenda on Iraq, and to agents endangered by reckless administration policies.

It's been reported that CIA officers refused to be trained in the administration's controversial interrogation techniques, and in at least one instance these techniques yielded questionable information aimed at pleasing the interrogators. The Supreme Court, not Democrats, ruled administration detainee policies out of bounds, and it was the outrage of Republican senators that forced the administration to apply the Geneva Convention to enemy prisoners in order to best protect captured Americans.

Iraq has been an endless abuse of the CIA. CIA operative Tyler Drumheller said top White House officials simply brushed off the warning that "reliable intelligence" suggested Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, saying they were "no longer interested" in intelligence. Former CIA operative Paul Pillar wrote that "intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made."

Former CIA case officer Jim Marcinkowski argued the Valerie Plame leak hurt "the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince an overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance." Former CIA agent Larry Johnson, a registered Republican, said it "speaks volumes" that President Bush held no one accountable for the leak of an agent's identity. Forgotten is President George H.W. Bush's admonition that those who expose our agents are "the most insidious of traitors." CIA officers don't need Jack Bauer insurance--they need insurance against the recklessness of this administration.

Mr. Kerry, a Democrat, is the junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

[welshTerrier2]

1. "fixing the facts around the policy"

the best and the brighest have left the CIA in droves since bush came to power ... i just finished reading "The One Percent Doctrine" by Ron Suskind ... it's a great read and gave a detailed, behind-the-scenes look at what has been going on in the CIA ...

the Downing Street memo, that included the deadly accurate phrase "fixing the facts around the policy", has identified the key problem that has badly weakened the entire US intelligence community ... in my view, there's nothing wrong with ideologues AS LONG AS they are willing to hear the truth from more qualified fact-seekers around them ... when an ideology is IMPOSED, as it has been on the intelligence-gathering community, there is no longer truth and daylight; there is only ideology ... ideology must always be tested against an honest assessment of the facts ...

on a separate topic, it's been sad the last few weeks to see so many cut Colin Powell so much slack ... Powell knew the truth and he lied ... and he lied not just during his UN presentation but even after the truth about WMD was known to all ... loyalty is neither inherently good nor bad ... Powell, unfortunately, has never learned the difference ... his latest observations are much too little much too late ...

anyway, sorry this is a bit OT from "interrogation techniques" ... i just wanted to commend the book mentioned above and comment on the badly weakened condition of the CIA ...

[blm]

2. Actually, your post is an important reminder - the DSM is still the most

important evidence that BushInc pre-determined war and the IWR and its guidelines were NEVER a factor, and no resolution would have made any difference to them. They would do whatever it took to go to war.

It also reminds us that the DSM deserved a full investigation.

It is still a wonder to me that only half of the Dem congress and only TEN Dem senators called for DSM investigation.

And that Clinton lied on national television and said he never even heard of the DSM when Letterman specifically asked him to talk about it.

[Bandit]

3. One thing about Kerry, he didn't just go away

Whether he actually won or lost is neither here nor there but he has stayed involved. He is issueing statements every week concerning the misdeeds of this Administration. I am grateful for his energy and attention to affairs. :thumbsup:

[blm]

5. He's always done this, but you'd never know it from the way the media

has always covered him. He was an inconvenient player for many a GOP administration so they smeared him and his investigations as just "grandstanding" and falsely attacking their presidencies.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Link to the Kerry letter below. K&R.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008939

[ProSense]

6. "they need insurance against the recklessness of this administration."

Ouch!

[bleever]

7. Wow, that was one landed punch after another.

Very well said, Senator.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Interesting.

If Kerry is defending the CIA, it must mean the CIA must have grown a conscience since the Iran-Contra days. Though I have heard that there are two CIAs. One that works the way we all hope it to works, the other one that resorts to dirty tricks.

[blm]

9. I see it as agents loyal to the US and those loyal to the BFEE.

Remember the big purge after the 2004 election? Bush had Goss seek out any agent suspected of supporting Kerry. Now recall how much info started slipping out about the pre war intel.