Bashing Bush and Cheney over the War on Terror is not a good idea though. Obama tends to lose those battles.
Doughboy on July 13

He’s starting to lose even when he wins!
He won the stim bill that’s killing our country!
Or should it be we lose when he wins?

if there was a secret program to read them some Miranda rights then that’d be okay….
epic fail–dems–epic fail
ted c on July 13, 2009

Actually your not that far off.

Currently we are working on “new” Smart weapons that will have the ability to recite the Miranda Rights before going “BOOM”

This new program is know as Obama’s “M.R. warfare”

Orange
whether or not it is legal to keep this kind of initiative secret from Congress.

Orange is it legal to keep WHAT initiative secret from Congress?

The still-secret program, which The New York Times said never became operational, began after the September 11 attacks on the United States

“Congress “should have been told” about the secret problem”
Congress in general, NO.

Congress as in Senate Intelligence Committee, YES

Should Congress have been briefed about NON-Existent programs? NO.

Is it a crime for not reporting something that never happened?

Please Orange state the LAW that makes it a crime for NOT reporting something that NEVER happened!

This should be a hoot!

The still-secret program, which The New York Times said never became operational, began after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Okay lets recap.

A TOP SECRET program that NEVER went into effect (operational) was never disclosed to Congress by the CIA, is that it?

Uhm, why would a NON-existent program that NEVER went beyond the “concept” stage be reported to Congress?

Lets try this another way, Senator Dianne Feinstein is accusing the CIA and VP Cheney of not disclosing a “thing” that never happened to Congress.

WOW! Senator Dianne Feinstein is a Ufologist!

The bottom up procedure is lengthy, and cumbersome, as it should be, and at each level from the field and at the supporting desk, concurrences have to be signed off, and then it goes to the appropriate division chief, and the concurrences att hat level have to be signed off on. Then it is presented, as a suggested course of action, to the seventh floor. If approvied in principal by the DCI Suite, it goes back to the originating desk and then the writing and vetting by legal staff ensues.

Each page is a legal document. No spelling errors, and a comma misplaced can change the intent or meaning of the Finding.

Copies are made, edited, checked by legal, and then it goes back to the seventh floor, and then over to the NSC. At that point, the Attorney General is brought on board, and the senior members/ranking members of the select committees are briefed on the details with a up or down vote, so to speak. It then goes back to the White House and their NSC staff and the legal team goes over it in detail. If satisfactory from a legal and editorial point of view it goes to the Oval Office for signature.

At every stage a large number of eyes see the pre-finding, and can comment on it, ask that it be changed, ask that it be quashed, or endorse it in its entirety.

Once signed by the President it has the effect of law.

From the top down it gets more complicated, as what the president desires may be outside the current capabilities of the Agency…assets in place, access to the target area, support from liaison if necessary and the like.

In both cases, there is law to be followed and procedures that are not easily, if at all, tossed aside. It is a matter of historic record, the National Archives ends up with these things when the dust clears. Ask Sandy Burger about this…he had post-Adminsitration access to such documents when he “mistakenly” shoved them in his pants and socks and left them somewhere outside the Archives for some inane reason.

Why keep it secret? Apparently the CIA dropped it in the planning stages for some reason after six months, which means that there wasn’t anything to report. Perhaps the CIA didn’t want the operational parameters of the program to leak, in case they reactivated the mission.

Ya mean like when Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont was forced to resign from the Senate Intelligence Committee after being tied to a series of leaks in the 1980s.

“CIA program so secret that Democrats allege the agency never shared it with Congress.
it’s not as if anyone in the US doubted that we would kill anyone in AQ’s top network if we had the chance. We didn’t exactly keep that a secret.”

Until today I though killing Bin Laden on sight WAS Authorized.

Did Clinton “share” his “supper secret” “double pinky” promises to kill Bin Laden with Congress?

“Clinton, who leveled his charges in a contentious weekend interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel, for his claims that the Bush administration “did not try” to kill Osama bin Laden in the eight months they controlled the White House before the Sept. 11 attacks”.

Wow the Dems have accused Bush of not trying to kill OBL AND of trying to kill OBL!

All I ask for Christmas is a full investigation into these charges!

It’s quite sad what’s happened to the American Right.

orange on July 13, 2009 at 7:04 PM

A Presidential Finding is a legal document, signed off by several cabinet officers, members of the appropriate Congressional committees, all performed under law.

So, yes, we are concerned with the rule of law.

We are also concerned that national policy is being dictated by feelings and penumbras, and what side of the bed the various Czars and Administration officials arose.

Yet this comes out and Ed Morrissey doesnt have a word to say about whether or not it is legal to keep this kind of initiative secret from Congress. He focuses on whether or not we want ObL dead rather than whether or not we think it’s important to follow the law.

It’s quite sad what’s happened to the American Right.

There is a new revolution coming…keep buying guns and ammo…we’re going to need them. I’m not advocating, just my analysis of where all this is headed. DAMN…I woke up in bizarro world and can’t get back to the country I grew up in!

But we are not talking about foreign or national leaders.

We are talking about a bandit gang, thugs, terrorists, brigands, who deserve, under the terms of Geneva, summary execution, nothing more.

That it was discussed at the operations level…good idea. Glad at least somebody was looking at the possibilities.

That the higher up it went, where politics and scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours games are rampant, and was set aside, terminated, no surprise there. But, can somebody tell the higher ups we are at war, and our enemies would have no reluctance to do the same, if given the opportunity?

In covert ops, one can lean to the side of caution, if there is valid reason for doing so. Such factors as danger to our personnel, blowback that could endanger even more US citizens, or the costs in dollars and innocent lives such a program would entail.

The recent al-Qaeda pronouncement that there are spies in their midst should be something we should capitalize on, and across the board, not shrink from the opportunities such paranoia within the ranks of al-Qaeda offers us.

The recent spate of murders of Somalis who formerly lived in the US at the hands of al-Qaeda suggests that those jihadis with recent US ties, real or imagined, might be enemies is something that further suggests that al-Qaeda may be breaking up from within. One or two or more of their top lieutenants, even Osama himself, being taken out in the dead of night might be enough to fragment the movement even more.

Opportunity. When it comes around, you seize it.

Or you spend the next many years wondering about what might have been.

Since Barack Obama in the Presidential debates stated emphatically that if the Pakistanis won’t kill Osama, and he would, if he were President…well, Obama, you are President.

Pay the piper or get off the dance floor.

“Obama orders probe into deaths of Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan”.

“Probe” in this case being a euphemism for investigation. So instead of prosecuting the war against the Taliban, an organization with no, shall we say redeeming qualities, w…

Show of hands: who in the US doesn’t want the heads of bin Laden and Zawahiri on a pike?

Not only do I want their heads on a pike I want the followng televised for all the US to see: their heads wrapped in bacon and set on fire with members of the US military, the NYPD, and FDNY pizzing on the ashes, then scatter their ashes on a pig farm!

Even that wouldn’t be closure enough for me, but it would be a start!

I’d like to state clearly that in Israel we have found that elimination of terrorist group leaders is one of the most effective anti-terror tools around bar none, and that you can ‘decapitate’ terror groups for long periods of time this way..

Let’s just say they aren’t steam rolling the opposition, economy, and constitution for nothin’

All I can say to my future grand-children….sucks to be you.

“I’ve always preferred my idea of a commission of inquiry to look at all these issues,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Sunday.

Fishing Expedition, witch hunt, whatever you want to call it.

Looks like the Senate just found it’s very own Gulf of Tonkin…