Leon Panetta warns against politicization of CIA

CIA Director Leon Panetta warned Monday against making his agency a pawn in the nations partisan political battles, even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosis claim that she was lied to by the CIA continues to reverberate in Washington.

If they start to use these issues as political clubs to beat each other up with, thats when we not only pay a price but this country pays a price, Panetta said during a question-and-answer session following a lunchtime speech in Los Angeles. One of the things that I really want to do as director of the CIA is to improve the relationship with the CongressI realize that weve been through a rough period.

Rough may be an understatement. Last week, Pelosi accused the CIA of lying to her during a 2002 briefing about interrogation techniques. On Friday, Panetta issued an unusual written statement to agency employees rebutting Pelosis claim, and Pelosi later backpedaled, saying it was the Bush administration that misled Congress.

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22676.html

 

The CIA was already made a pawn when George Tenet sat behind Colin Powell at the UN when Powell gave his speech about WMDs.

... and we all agreed after that, if there was one thing our country needed to do, it was improve the intelligence gathering by our CIA.

Ain't gonna happen now.

 

Sadly you are right. We need a constitutional amendment giving Intelligence appointments a defined screening and approval process, defined authority and immunity from political interference upon pain of the impeachment of the politician interfering

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

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