Feinstein, Democrats Putting Petty Politics above National Security

 

Michael Rubin  "During the Bush administration and in the wake of 9/11, CIA interrogation policy and extraordinary rendition became a lightning rod for controversy (never mind that the Clinton administration had also embraced rendition). In short, terror suspects were often snatched and transferred for interrogation to other countries, some of which allegedly engage in torture. Senate Democrats launched an investigation, and Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, planned to release the report this week." ...
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"Don’t like CIA methods and extraordinary rendition? By all means, use all legislative and oversight power to put an end to it. But don’t drag allies into a political debate or air dirty laundry publicly. Don’t damage relations. Trust is at the heart of alliances, and once destroyed, it will never be rebuilt. Let us never punish allies and their leaders for standing by America when the request comes, no matter what politicians may, in hindsight, think of that request."

Americans Working Overseas Brace For Release of Democrats' CIA Enhanced Interrogation Report  "Americans and CIA operatives working on counter terrorism operations around the world are bracing this morning ahead of the release of a report produced by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques to gather intelligence after 9/11/2001. " ...
..."Meanwhile President George W. Bush, who has made it a point to stay out of the current public debate on a number of issues, is standing by the men and women working in the CIA to keep Americans safe from terror."
 

Releasing the Feinstein report on the CIA in the middle of a war would be an act of exceptional recklessness  ... " At the CIA, these concerns are not hypothetical. “I know the Predator program intimately,” a former senior intelligence officer told me. “There have been hundreds and hundreds of Predator shots, the most carefully targeted in the history of warfare, but not 100 percent right. What if the next president, [say] Rand Paul or Elizabeth Warren, comes after people involved in this program?' ”...

...“If you have to worry about a new administration coming along 10 years down the road,” the intelligence officer told me, “making villains out of agency officials following the exact letter of the law, it is sobering. We think about that all the time.'”