PANETTA UPDATED:Panetta for US CIA? Maybe better than what we've got?

08/01/2009
By Gabe Pressman

NBCNewYork.com (Iqbal, Panetta & taking torture seriously)

He was in American custody for more than six years. But he was never charged with a crime.

Muhammad Saad Iqbal was finally released from the American prison in Guantanamo last summer. And now he's granted an interview to a veteran Times reporter, Jane Perlez. His story seems sadly typical of other long-time detainees of the U.S. government. When he arrived home in Lahore, Pakistan, last August, he could barely walk, his left ear was infected and he needed antibiotics and antidepressants.

Six years in prison and never charged with a crime! It seems incredible that our nation, which has inspired the world for more than two centuries with our constitution and civil liberties, can be guilty of violating one of the most basic principles embodied in the constitution and bill of rights, habeas corpus -- the right of everyone to a fair and speedy trial.

Iqbal says he was tortured and interrogated endlessly. He was first arrested in Jakarta, Indonesia after, two American officials said, he boasted to members of an Islamic group that he knew how to make a shoe bomb. Iqbal denies he ever made that statement. But, two days after his arrest, he said, the Central Intelligence Agency had him transferred to Egypt, then to the American prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and, finally, to Guantanamo Bay, where he spent five years before being released. He was told only that he was no longer considered an enemy combatant.

President-elect Barack Obama must decide whether to close Guantanmo, as many critics have urged. Iqbal's ordeal puts into focus a process favored by the Bush administration of shipping suspected terrorists to foreign countries -- sending them from prison to prison but not charging them with anything. They gave it a pretty name, extraordinary rendition. And suspicion of wrongdoing seemed sufficient for the Bush administration to practice a hideous form of torture known as waterboarding, simulated drowning.

It was interesting that both Obama and his Republican oppponent, John McCain, came out strongly against waterboarding during the presidential election. McCain indeed knows something about torture. He endured it for several years in a Vietnamese prison camp.

The immediate reaction to the interview with Iqbal was searing. Scores of comments flooded the Times. One Westchester man wrote: "Bush had a chance to show the best of the U.S. Instead, he reached for the worst.'' And a California woman said: "It will be a cold day in hell before we can erase such stains from history."

Iqbal said he had been beaten, shackled, covered with a hood and given electric shocks.

But a CIA spokesman, Paul Gimiglliano, told the Times: "The agency's terrorist detention program has used lawful means of interrogation, reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and briefed to the Congress…I have no idea of what he's talking about. The United States does not conduct or condone torture."

Maybe the CIA spokesman needs a lie detector test. Substantive reports of widespread abuses at Guantanamo and elsewhere have certainly cast a far different light on the situation.

President-elect Obama, even as he concentrates on trying to fix the economy, has put the CIA high on his priority list. He has criticized the CIA for its interrogation methods including torture. His appointment of Leon Panetta, a prominent figure in the Clinton administration, to head the CIA, is a sign of the new president's determination to fix the agency. Panetta will face some opposition from some Congressional leaders who thinks he lacks intelligence experience but Panetta has long experience in navigating the rocks and shoals of Washington politics, and Obama will probably get his way.

We urgently need an independent commission to look into the questions surrounding this issue, including: Is torture ever justified in protecting us against terrorist threats? Should Guantanamo be closed? Should the American policy for "extraordinary rendition" of prisoners to foreign countries be continued?

If we are to be credible in our pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, should there be limits on our behavior? Does a philosophy of anything goes defeat our purpose and undermine our effort to lead the forces of democracy in the world?

SOURCE: MSNBC.com
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Obama's CIA choice a vote for human rights

January 7, 2009

With several key appointments, President-elect Barack Obama this week signaled a crucial break from the shameful policies of the Bush administration with respect to civil liberties and human rights.

While it would be premature to endorse any of these choices, it is heartening to see that our next president clearly intends to draw a moral line prohibiting a number of the Bush administration's most objectionable practices. That list includes wiretapping without warrants, waterboarding (the simulated drowning of a suspect during an interrogation) and extraordinary rendition (flying terrorism suspects to secret prisons in foreign lands, where they can be tortured free of American law).

The Bush administration -- most specifically Vice President Dick Cheney -- always tried to sell a false choice to the American people: our liberties or our security. The Obama administration, this week's actions suggest, sees it differently: Our liberties are our greatest source of security, never to be compromised out of fear.

Obama, according to Democratic officials, has chosen former Congressman Leon E. Panetta to head the CIA.

Panetta, who also was President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, has been a vocal critic of the CIA's interrogation practices. "Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values," he wrote in the Washington Monthly. "But that is a false compromise." He also wrote: "We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that."

At the Justice Department, Obama filled four top posts with lawyers who have expressed disdain for such counterterrorism practices as waterboarding and the indefinite detention without charge or trial of "enemy combatants." Indiana University law professor Dawn E. Johnsen, whom Obama said he would nominate to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, wrote a law review article titled: "What's a president to do: Interpreting the constitution in the wake of the Bush administration's abuses."

Early critics of Obama's choice to head the CIA, including some top Democrats, complain that Panetta's only experience in intelligence matters was to sit in -- for just 2 1/2; years -- on the daily intelligence briefings given to President Clinton.

That's a fair criticism. A strong CIA is essential in these perilous times, and Panetta may require too steep a learning curve. It's also true that outsiders appointed to head the CIA tend to be frozen out by the bureaucracy.

If Panetta is confirmed, he will have to assemble a team of top aides with extensive intelligence experience.

But we like where this is going: a United States of America that once again holds sacred civil liberties and human rights.
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Condensed article below...read or skip to end for the comment on his criticism of Torture, etc.

..Mr. Obama is seeking a government veteran with managerial and political savvy to run the agency responsible for some of the most controversial U.S. antiterrorism programs -- some of which Messrs. Obama and Panetta have openly opposed.

Mr. Panetta, 70 years old, will help decide how to handle politically sensitive programs Mr. Obama is inheriting from President George W. Bush, such as the CIA's interrogation program and a host of covert-action programs. By selecting someone of Mr. Panetta's stature, said one former senior CIA official, Mr. Obama is also sending a message that he views the CIA director as a critical post in his administration...

While Democratic officials said Mr. Panetta was chosen in part to ensure smooth relations with Congress, where he served for 16 years, his selection quickly ran into hurdles on Capitol Hill. Both the incoming and outgoing chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will vote on Mr. Panetta's confirmation, expressed concern Monday at the appointment of a person without hands-on intelligence experience.

"My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who will soon assume the chairmanship. Neither Sen. Feinstein nor Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat and outgoing chairman, were informed of Mr. Panetta's selection ahead of time. Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri, the top Republican on the panel, also echoed the concern about the lack of intelligence experience...

NOTE:
Mr. Panetta's selection earned praise from other corners of the Democratic Party. "Having served in Congress in the wake of Watergate and the domestic-surveillance abuses that surfaced during the 1970s, Mr. Panetta understands how a democratic government should operate," said Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey, who chairs an intelligence oversight panel.

Some former lawmakers with national-security experience also praised the choice. Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, called Mr. Panetta's nomination "a superb appointment," noting that Mr. Panetta worked extensively with intelligence reports as chief of staff and more recently as an active member of the Iraq Study Group, which recommended an overhaul of Iraq policy in late 2006.

...Mr. Obama chose Mr. Panetta for his strong management background and his centrist approach, said Democratic officials familiar with the decision. They cited Mr. Panetta's tenure as Mr. Clinton's chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget, where he earned a reputation as a deficit hawk.

"He's recognized across the board as an exceptional manager," one Democratic official said. "He's someone who is known as being evenhanded and bipartisan."

Mr. Panetta's backers said he gained ample intelligence and national-security experience during the Clinton years, including involvement with the intelligence budget and key foreign-policy issues of the time, such as the Bosnian conflict.

...Mr. Obama also chose Mr. Panetta to signal to Congress his intent to keep lawmakers fully informed of the agency's activities, which a former senior CIA official said was "a problem of the last several years" that is "not going to be repeated in the future." The Bush administration, particularly in the early years after the Sept. 11 attacks, limited the information it provided to most lawmakers on intelligence matters, which led to outrage among many Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Only three CIA directors in recent decades -- William Colby in the Reagan administration, Robert Gates in the first Bush administration and current CIA Director Michael Hayden -- have held senior intelligence posts prior to appointment. Political figures are frequently selected as director, but the rocky tenure of former Republican Rep. Porter Goss, Mr. Hayden's predecessor who had worked as a junior CIA officer for a decade, has soured lawmakers and many intelligence professionals on the political model.

The appointment is likely to meet with skepticism from some at the CIA, former intelligence officials said. Speaking of Mr. Panetta's management experience and bipartisan relationships, one former top intelligence official said that "all those things are important, but it doesn't matter if you have those things, and you don't understand CIA."

...Mr. Panetta has been a strong critic of the CIA's detention program and warrantless surveillance. He has equated the interrogation technique of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, with torture, and has said it is illegal.
Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com