The CIA’s Fifth Lie?
As I suggested in comments the other day, I suspect that the fifth lie that HPSCI referred to the other day is one fired CIA officer Mary McCarthy reported–when, at an HPSCI hearing in February 2005, under questioning from Jane Harman, someone from the CIA lied about detainee treatment.
While we don’t know what the substance of Harman’s questions were, this lie was reported in a 2006 WaPo story.
In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, [Mary] McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA’s detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat.
Jan Schakowsky–who is in charge of HPSCI’s investigation–spoke at a reception I attended tonight. While I didn’t ask her whether this lie was the fifth lie the committee referred to, I did ask her whether this lie was in the scope of her subcommittee’s investigation.
She responded that detainee treatment was one of the things the committee was investigating (as is clear from its reference to the lie to Pelosi in 2002), though did not confirm or deny whether that 2005 lie was the fifth referred to the other day.
Which I guess tells us the February 2005 is one possibility among many other lies CIA may have told.
FWIW, back in July I spoke to some people on the committee about some of the things they intended to investigate and one of the things they said was McCarthy’s claims about this briefing. I reported it here.
Unfortunately, I could not get these folks to discuss on the record what they intended to investigate. But they definitely were aware of McCarthy and that was something they planned to look into.
EW – I think you are right-on!
Also, Jason, it’s great seeing your work, as well – keep it up!
There’s just No Way – with all the Liability involved – that Congress is going to openly, publicly discuss the Bush Administration’s Lies about the Convention Against Torture – because any discussion is Certain to reveal a Policy, and infrastructure, of State-Sponsored Systematic Human Rights Violations – more than worthy of War Crimes Trials.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil…in Public…that’s Our Congress.
I still don’t understand why Our Military didn’t Charge Bush with ‘Unlawful Command Influence’ under the UCMJ – when Bush Ordered Torture…
Because it began when Rummy was SecDef. He wanted torture and would have quashed such an effort. By the time Gates came in, it was too late.
does anybody else get the idea that this blog is kinda like a Scoobie Doo episode ???
cept that the monsters are real
I’m not trying to be flip, or disrespectful
I jes git the idea that I’ve seen this show before, thas all …
I think the repuglitards resemble a monty python film, if that helps
hat tip to the commentary in this TPM thread for the link: teabagger FAIL
sorry to go all off-topic an navel gazy on ya, but I had to say it
an GO RED TEAM too
(wink)
i like this line of questioning.
what is the fifth lie that the CIA told Congress?
the reason that i like it is b/c one could dredge up dozens of “CIA lies” in search of the fifth lie.
come on troops! let’s find that fifth lie!
For an interesting example of how the CIA talks to Congress, embedded in a historical document, read this letter from Stansfield Turner, then CIA Director, to Sen. Inouye, then chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This was 1977, but since the letter concerns revelations of secret programs (in this case MKULTRA) made to a top Senator on the Intel Committee, I think it’s worth reading. (It’s PDF and not too long) My favorite quote from the letter, and worth pondering:
While I would be surprised for this to come out now, I (of course) would tag #5 as the secret program of medical experimentation upon the detainees/prisoners. I may not have convinced most of you regarding the reality of the latter. I do not begrudge anyone such dubiety over such serious charges, but I do have more info on it, and only a heavy workload and illness has prevented me from working it up into a serviceable article. I do believe that more on this will come out from other sources, as well, in days to come. In any case, given the fact that the CIA will not provide me with documentary evidence, the making of an inferential case takes some time and care.
In the meantime, for those who have followed my stories highlighting the research of Charles A. Morgan, III, it’s interesting to see that the brief Wikipedia bio of him has undergone a bit of editing by Dr. Morgan lately, who now claims that the American Psychological Association falsely labeled him as a Behavioral Analyst for the CIA at a conference back in 2004. He has erased all evidence of his spook background from his bio. Of course, he says nothing about his own stated connection with the CIA’s ITIC. And then, I have a document from a preliminary draft of the Intelligence Science Board’s “Educing Information” which identifies his institutional affiliation as CIA.
Dr. Morgan’s CIA connections are crucial, as his research, which claims to only be about helping out our poor PTSD soldiers, is really about, or mostly about something else. What might that be? Well, until I write it all out, any interested reader can click here (PDF) and consider the uses of his research.
It is my contention that research of this type, if not particularly this research project, was utilized upon detainees, to provide data for their new “noninvasive” biotech devices, and/or the construction of their techno-future “warrior of the 21st century”. If this were the only such study, perhaps one could not make much of it. But there are others (which I’ll document in article form), and all utilize SERE “volunteers” because of how the SERE program mimics torture and can produce severe stress in subjects. It’s only a small (though morally huge) step from this to doing experimentation upon real torture victims. (And OLC missed all this? And CIA forgot to “tell” them?)
In any case, Looking for Number Five, is a (morbidly) fun game, as it can almost go on forever.
Jeff, the Wikipedia has a decent process for dealing with these disputes, and with your knowledge, you should click on the “Discussion” tab and protest the deletions, and also assert any corrections that need to be made. You’ll have to provide documentation, of course, but I know you can do that. And you’ll have to sign your comments on the discussion page, but that is also as it should be.
Bob in AZ
Thanks, Bob. I was sort of aware that there was a process for Wikipedia disputes, and I may take this up, as you suggest. I’ll look into what’s involved.