C.I.A.’s Secret Prisons Report Is Still Classified

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, then the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, last December discussing a report by the committee on the C.I.A.’s antiterrorism tactics. Credit via Reuters

New York Times: Classified Report on the C.I.A.’s Secret Prisons Is Caught in Limbo

WASHINGTON — A Senate security officer stepped out of the December chill last year and delivered envelopes marked “Top Secret” to the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the State Department and the Justice Department. Inside each packet was a disc containing a 6,700-page classified report on the C.I.A.’s secret prison program and a letter from Senator Dianne Feinstein, urging officials to read the report to ensure that the lessons were not lost to time.

Today, those discs sit untouched in vaults across Washington, still in their original envelopes. The F.B.I. has not retrieved a copy held for it in the Justice Department’s safe. State Department officials, who locked up their copy and marked it “Congressional Record — Do Not Open, Do Not Access” as soon as it arrived, have not read it either.

Nearly a year after the Senate released a declassified 500-page summary of the report, the fate of the entire document remains in limbo, the subject of battles in the courts and in Congress. Until those disputes are resolved, the Justice Department has prohibited officials from the government agencies that possess it from even opening the report, effectively keeping the people in charge of America’s counterterrorism future from reading about its past. There is also the possibility that the documents could remain locked in a Senate vault for good.

WNU Editor: I suspect that this report will be released one day .... say in about 20 years (or more).

Is The CIA Still Running Secret Prisons?

The Somali Connection -- James Taranto, Wall Street Journal

Further questions about Obama's interrogation and detention policies.

To what extent is the CIA still involved in detaining and interrogating terrorist enemy combatants? Yesterday we noted that past Petraeus paramour Paula Broadwell had claimed on Oct. 26 that the agency was holding three Libyan detainees in Benghazi at the time of the 9/11 attacks there. Fox News Channel's Jennifer Griffin mentioned the three detainees in a report the same day. Yesterday Griffin added that according to her sources, "other prisoners from additional countries in Africa and the Middle East" had also been held there, though "most . . . had been moved two weeks earlier."

The agency issued a categorical denial: "The CIA has not had detention authority since January 2009, when Executive Order 13491 was issued. Any suggestion that the agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless."

Executive Order 13491, issued on President Obama's second full day in office, provides: "The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future." It also bans the enhanced interrogation techniques the agency used during at least part of the Bush administration: Detainees under U.S. custody or "effective control" are not to "be subjected to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in [the] Army Field Manual."

Read more ....

My Comment: Is this the reason why candidate Mitt Romney stayed quiet on Benghazi .... through his intelligence briefings they told him the details. Is this the reason why the White House does not want to talk about it .... because they accused former President Bush of the same thing and vowed not to repeat it. These are all valid points and questions that need to be followed up on .... and fortunately (because of a stupid sex scandal), the details are slowing percolating out.

Romania's CIA Connection

Inside Romania's Secret CIA Prison -- CBS News/AP

WASHINGTON - In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the heart of the capital city, is a secret the Romanian government has long tried to protect.

For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed "Bright Light" — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There it held al Qaeda operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison before they were ultimately transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.

Read more ....

More News On Romania's Connections With The CIA's War Against Terror

In basement of Romanian government building, CIA ran secret prison -- Washington Post/AP
This Secret CIA 'Interrogation' Prison Sat Undetected In Northern Bucharest For Years -- Business Insider
The CIA's most secret prison revealed -- RT
'Bright Light,' CIA's secret prison in Romania, has been located: AP -- Global Post/AP
Romanian government office was secret CIA prison, media report -- Deutsche Welle
Go Deep Inside A Secret CIA Torture Prison -- Danger Room
CIA 'used Romania building as prison for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed' -- The Telegraph

Tenet Canceled Secret CIA Hit Teams

From Breitbart/AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) - As CIA director in 2004, George Tenet terminated a secret program to develop hit teams to kill al-Qaida leaders, but his successors resurrected the plan, according to former intelligence officials.

Tenet ended the program because the agency could not work out its practical details, the officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program.

Read more ....

My Comment: I posted yesterday that this story is now a dead issue. OK .... I was wrong .... after today this is a dead issue.

Kill Bin Laden

Watch CBS Videos Online

From CBS 60 Minutes:

The officer who led the Delta Force mission to kill Osama bin Laden after 9/11 reveals what really happened in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, when the al-Qaeda leader narrowly escaped. Scott Pelley reports.

Read more ....

My Comment: With talk about CIA assassination squads targeting Bin Laden and secret programs, it is only appropriate to replay this 60 Minutes report from last year.

The CIA Scandal That Is Not

Photo: Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden

Former CIA Director: No One Told Me Not To Tell Congress -- NPR

The man who ran the CIA from 2006 through January says he wasn't told by then-vice president Dick Cheney not to brief Congress about a covert program aimed at members of al-Qaida, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports.

Gen. Mike Hayden's statement is at odds with a New York Times report Sunday that said the CIA:

Withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Read more ....

More News On The "CIA Scandal"

AP Interview: Hayden Says Congress Was Informed -- CBS/AP
Cheney getting 'bum rap' on CIA program, ex-officials say -- CNN
The Cheney 'Scandal' -- National Review
CIA inquiry raises stakes for Nancy Pelosi -- Politico
House intel lays groundwork for CIA investigation -- AP

My Comment: The House Democrats are still going to do their witch hunt on the CIA, and this particular CIA story (with obviously no legs to it) will be dead by tomorrow.

BREAKING!!!!! Congress Authorized CIA to Develop Secret Al Qaeda Plan, Former Official Says

Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon E. Panetta speaks after a ceremonial oath-of-office event with Vice President Biden at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009. Panetta, former White House chief of staff under President Clinton and director of the Office of Management and Budget, officially took over the intelligence agency last week after an official, but closed, swearing in ceremony. Associated Press

From FOX News:

A secret CIA program to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives never came close to being operational, an official says.

Congress originally authorized the CIA to develop the secret counterterrorism program that is now drawing fierce criticism from House Democrats who say they were kept in the dark all along, a former senior intelligence official told FOX News on Monday.

The program, which sources told FOX News was a plan to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives, also never came close to being operational, the intelligence official said.

Read more ....

My Comment: After spending the past few days of listening to politicians, bloggers, pundits, and reporters pontificate on this secret program .... we now know that it was Congress itself that authorized an examination into developing this program.

Sigh .... one more reason why I should never trust the main stream media, and to never trust Senators like Dianne Feinstein when it comes to National Security issues.

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project

Vice President Cheney

From The New York Times:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Read more ....

My Comment: Was this program secret? .... former CIA Director Hayden says no, and that Congress was fully informed.

One story ..... two different sides to it. Who to believe depends on what side of the political divide you feel most comfortable with, but the ultimate outcome will be to further put the CIA in a situation where most if not all of its counter terrorism programs will either be curtailed and/or scrapped for legal/political reasons.

Hat Tip: Prairie Pundit