...what's been little noted thus far is what looks to be a similar revolt brewing at the CIA. An ex-senior agency officer who keeps in contact with his former peers told me that there is a “a big swing” in anti-Bush sentiment at Langley. “I've been stunned by what I'm hearing,” he said. “There are people who fear that indictments and subpoenas could be coming down, and they don't want to get caught up in it.”This shouldn't be any real surprise. Cheney is well-known for disliking and distrusting the CIA, and there have been constant efforts during the Bush Presidency to remove functions from the CIA and give them to other, more pliable, agencies. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have gone a long way towards removing the covert warfare mission from the CIA and transferring it to the Pentagon, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security included taking portions of the analysis of terrorist activities away from the CIA. Then the CIA was made the scapegoat for President Bush's inclusion of the famous "16 words in the State of the Union Speech" although it is now clear that the CIA was correct while Cheney and the Pentagon were wrong.
This former senior officer said there “seems to be a quiet conspiracy by rational people” at the agency to avoid involvement in some of the particularly nasty tactics being employed by the administration, especially “renditions”—the practice whereby the CIA sends terrorist suspects abroad to be questioned in Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, and other nations where the regimes are not squeamish about torturing detainees. My source, hardly a softie on the topic of terrorism, said of the split at the CIA: “There's an SS group within the agency that's willing to do anything and there's a Wehrmacht group that is saying, 'I'm not gonna touch this stuff'.”
Scott Horton, a human rights activist who has become a principal spokesman for the New York City Bar Association in evaluating the Bush Administration's tactics, said that he's also hearing stories of growing dissent at the CIA. “When the shit hits the fan,” he explained, “the administration scapegoats lower-level people. It doesn't do a lot in terms of inspiring confidence.” [Snip]
Today's “Wehrmacht” officers at the CIA are right to be worried about subpoenas: a legal analysis prepared by a senior FBI attorney in 2002 deemed that renditions to countries that torture detainees were illegal. The attorney concluded that such actions were designed to circumvent American laws against torture and that anyone even discussing such a plan could be found criminally liable. If the political winds shift, some “bad apples” in the CIA could find themselves indicted for torture.[Underlining mine - RB]
It will be amazing - or frightening - if Bush remains in office until the end of his term. Things are simply falling apart aroung them to such a degree that something will have to be done to Replace Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld soon.
Update April 21, 2006 (San Jacinto Day)
The administration has announced today that a CIA agent has been fired for leaking the information about the secret prisons to Dana Priest. This is the story Dana Priest just won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking. The CIA agent would be one described above as one of the “Wehrmacht” officers. Crooks and Liars has the story on video.
The administration is having to battle a civil war internally in the CIA.
Update two April 22, 2006
Larry Johnson names the fired CIA officer and gives some background on her here.
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