The CIA Investigates and Finds Itself Innocent

After the firestorm that erupted when Ron Suskind published The Way of the World, the CIA pulled an all-nighter or two and put together an investigation into the question, "Did the CIA help the Bushies forge a letter claiming Saddam had WMD's they knew he didn't have?"

Apparently <breathing sigh of relief>, they didn't. </relief>

The CIA and White House denied Suskind's account when the book was first released. But yesterday, the CIA issued a more extensive rebuttal based on what the agency called an internal investigation involving a records search and interviews with junior and senior officers who were directly involved in the agency's Iraq operations at the time. As for the claim that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter, the agency said: "It did not happen."

"CIA has made its own inquiries overseas and no one -- no individual and no intelligence service -- has substantiated Suskind's account of Habbush or the bogus letter," the agency said in a prepared statement. "At this point, the origins of the forgery, like the whereabouts of Habbush himself, remain unclear. But this much is certain: Suskind is off the mark."

Phew! Except....

The CIA investigation is the latest in a long line of Bush Admin investigations of itself. Let's just jump into our Way-Back Machine with Sherman and check to see how they came out, shall we? In no particular order:

• When the Justice Dept was accused of firing 8 US Attorneys for political reasons, AG Gonzo immediately promised an investigation. Months later, after recusing himself for possible bias, his lackeys investigators (all of them originally hired by Monica Goodling) announced themselves satisfied that no laws had been broken by the DOJ. We were all relieved.
• When Scooter Libby was implicated in outing CIA NOC agent Valerie Plame as political revenge on Joseph Wilson for catching the Bush-Cheneys forging (there's that word again) documents to prove that Saddam was planning on building a nuke he wasn't planning to build, the Emperor himself leapt into the fray to promise an investigation. Months later, even though there had never been an investigator assigned to this project that anyone in Washington could identify, and even though the investigation never produced any paperwork anybody had ever seen, and even though there was later to be plenty of evidence for Patrick Fitzgerald to convict Scooter, the president's "investigation" found that there was no evidence and that everyone in the White House was innocent of complicity in the Plame Affair. We wanted to be relieved but, well, there was doubt. There, I've said it. I feel better.
• When new AG and Gonzo replacement Michael Mukasey was asked to investigate whether or not waterboarding was "torture", he ignored every legal source that said it was and found that it wasn't torture because "America doesn't torture", so if America was doing it, it couldn't be. We were less relieved. We'd read the Geneva Convention.

And that's just a few to give you a taste. The Bush Administration has an unblemished record: whenever it investigates itself, it finds itself innocent of wrong-doing. What an amazing feat!

We think that's because none of these guys would recognize a wrong if they sat on it, but never mind. They're innocent. That's what counts.

And now the CIA has given itself a clean bill of health and another potential scandal is averted.

Maybe.

Comments

[CMike]

I'm not following you. Is there some reason to think the Bush administration is guilty of something? Here is a partial transcript from a July 28 hearing that should leave you with a different understanding:

JOY BEHAR: You’ve ruled against impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney. And now Kucinich is trying to pass that. Why do you, why do you insist on not impeaching these people so that the world and America can really see the crimes that they’ve committed?

[applause]

PELOSI: Well, I think that it- I think it was important- When I became speaker- and by the way, a very important position, president, vice president, speaker of the House- I saw it as my responsibility to try to bring a much divided country together to the extent that we could. I thought that impeachment would be divisive for the country. In terms of what we wanted to set out to do, we wanted to raise the minimum wage, give the biggest increase in veterans benefits to veterans in 77 year history, the veteran- pass research in stem cell- the stem cell research, all of that. This week we’re going to pass equal pay for equal work. It has been a long time in coming [applause], pay equity. We’re going to pass legislation for product safety, for toys that children put in them. There’s an agenda that you have to get done, that you have to try to do it in a bipartisan way. The president has to sign it. If somebody had a crime that the president had committed, that would be a different story.

BEHAR: Can they still do it after he is out?

BARBARA WALTERS: When, when we first- when I interviewed you last year, you had just begun, and you were going to clean up the mess, remember?

PELOSI: We did.

WALTERS: You, you look around this country, 75 percent of the country, forget George Bush, thinks that Congress is doing a lousy job.

HASSELBECK: I think it’s 91 percent now.

PELOSI: Well, I don’t disagree with that because largely it’s predicated on ending the war in Iraq. That’s the main question, and we were not successful. In our House of Representatives, I’m very proud of our members because they voted overwhelmingly over and over again to bring the war to an end, to bring the troops home safely and soon, send it to the Senate, and it hits a dead end. But in terms of that particular standard, I would say I disapprove as well. But we do, we passed some of the things I just mentioned, the energy bill. We worked in a bipartisan way, and ovation, agenda, we have to create jobs, expand health care, protect the American people, and educate our children. And you can’t do that if you’re trying to impeach the president at the same time, unless you have the goods that this president committed these crimes.

[mick arran]

Yes, that should leave me with a "different understanding". Sadly, it does not.