"Perhaps he should be blown up, to teach them a lesson".

not a good idea - they might take it as kind of a 'inspiration' and I got from your more serious note that you are also against 'blowing up things' - But perhaps Michael could have taught to them to dance and I learned - if you are busy with dancing and singing you got very little time

blowing up things!

Lawmaker says CIA director ended secret program

By PAMELA HESS Associated Press Writer

Print Jul 10th, 2009 | WASHINGTON -- CIA Director Leon Panetta has terminated a "very serious" covert program the spy agency kept secret from Congress for eight years, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a House Intelligence subcommittee chairwoman, said Friday.

Schakowsky is pressing for an immediate committee investigation of the classified program, which has not been described publicly. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said he is considering an investigation.

"The program is a very, very serious program and certainly deserved a serious debate at the time and through the years," Schakowsky told The Associated Press in an interview. "But now it's over."

Democrats revealed late Tuesday that CIA Director Leon Panetta had informed members of the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 that the spy agency had been withholding important information about a secret intelligence program begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Schakowsky described Panetta as "stunned" that he had not been informed of the program until nearly five months into his tenure as director.

Panetta had learned of the program only the day before informing the lawmakers, according to a U.S. intelligence official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Friday because he was not authorized to discuss the program publicly.

Panetta has launched an internal probe at the CIA to determine why Congress was not told about the program. Exactly what the classified program entailed is still unclear.

The intelligence official said the program was "on-again/off-again" and that it was never fully operational, but he would not provide details.

Schakowsky, D-Ill., said Friday that the CIA and Bush administration consciously decided not to tell Congress.

"It's not as if this was an oversight and over the years it just got buried. There was a decision under several directors of the CIA and administration not to tell the Congress," she said.

Schakowsky, who chairs the Intelligence subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said in a Thursday letter to Reyes that the CIA's lying was systematic and inexcusable. The letter was obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

She said Reyes indicated to her the committee would conduct a probe into whether the CIA violated the National Security Act, which requires, with rare exceptions, that Congress be informed of covert activities. She told AP she hopes to conduct at least part of the investigation for the committee.

She said this is the fourth time that she knows of that the CIA has misled Congress or not informed it in a timely manner since she began serving on the Intelligence Committee two and half years ago.

In 2008, the CIA inspector general revealed that the CIA had lied to Congress about the accidental shoot down of American missionaries over Peru in 2001. In 2007, news reports disclosed that the CIA had secretly destroyed videotapes of interrogations of a terrorist suspect.

She would not describe the other incident.

Schakowsky said she thinks Panetta is changing the CIA for the better, adding that the failure to inform Congress was indicative of "contempt" the Bush administration and intelligence agencies under him held for Congress.

"Many times I felt it was an annoyance to them to have to come to us and answer our questions," she said. "There was an impatience and a contempt for the Congress."

The House is expected to take up the 2010 intelligence authorization bill next week. It includes a provision that would require the White House to inform the entire committee about upcoming covert operations rather than just the "Gang of Eight"-- the senior members from both parties on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the Democratic and Republican leaders in both houses.

The White House this week threatened to veto the final version of the bill if it includes that provision.

Democratic aides said the language may be softened in negotiations with the Senate to address the White House's concern.

But Schakowsky said the wider briefings are the best remedy to avoiding future notification abuses.

Republicans charge that Democratic outrage about the Panetta revelation is just an attempt to provide political cover to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who in May accused the CIA of lying to her in 2002 about its use of waterboarding.

What Pelosi knew about the CIA's interrogation program and when she knew it -- and why she did not object to it sooner -- is expected to be emphasized by Republicans during debate over the intelligence bill.

The CIA needs to be mothballed.

No, that's you and your constant downplaying of the drone attacks in Waziristan, attacks that you called for and supported long ago in these comments.

The drone attacks are your policy, the policy you inevitably support, even as you try paper the cracks in your benevolent do-gooder perception. The drones are carrying out actions that you have called for in these comments (And I'm not digging them up out of the 4400 letters in your archive). Praise their deaths, they were good deaths because they died for your unattainable nation building fantasy:

US Drone Strikes Kill at Least 60 in South Waziristan (July 8th):

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/08/us-drone-strikes-kill-at-least-35-in-south-waziristan/

US Drones Attack South Waziristan, Killing 16 (July 7th):

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/07/us-drones-attack-south-waziristan-killing-16/

US Drone Strike Kills at Least 17 in South Waziristan (July 3rd):

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/03/us-drone-strike-kills-at-least-17-in-south-waziristan/

At Least 80 Killed as US Drones Attack South Waziristan Funeral Procession (June 23rd):

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/23/at-least-65-killed-as-us-drones-attack-south-waziristan-funeral-procession/

US Drone Attack Kills 13 in South Waziristan (June 18th):

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/18/us-drone-attack-kills-13-in-south-waziristan/

And on and on it goes, back and forwards, over and over. But hey, after a few more YEARS of attacks, ondelette will be trained and ready to go teach Aghans about things and stuff. What a silver lining!

We killed over a hundred people with drones this week alone, that should make ondelette proud. Those drones and their victims are the real world manifestation of ondelette's ideology and are being carried out to support policies that ondelette champions.

He should be proud about what the drones are accomplishing in his name. We will never win and can't win, but the pools of blood will continue to grow, and their stains will always be there, but don't try explaining that to the overinformed, lest you be called a bad name like "uninformed" or "racist".

How long will we continue this policy? One year? Four years? Ten Years? However long it takes? Forever?