CIA

I missed this video clip from last week, but it's pretty amazing to watch Rep. Todd Akin point to CIA intelligence failures, FEMA's performance after Hurricane Katrina and something about an "act of war" by the Department of Education as good reasons to oppose the health care bills before Congress.

Something tells me that if a Democratic Congressmemeber said something like this, Kit Bond would blow a gasket. 

In March, Sen. Kit Bond and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) agreed to conduct a review that would look at

• how the CIA created and operated its detention and interrogation program,
• how the CIA determined that detainees were aware of relevant intelligence,
• whether the CIA was being truthful in its description of the program to Congress and
• what kind of intelligence was gleaned through the tough interrogation tactics.

However, Bond quit the review to protest AG Eric Holder's appointment of a special prosecutor to review the legality of Bush-era interrogation techniques. Since he's quit, Politico reports, things are moving along more quickly because Bond isn't arguing over the content of the report.

More details are emerging about the secret CIA program reportedly ordered by Dick Cheney. From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:

According to The Guardian, former Vice President Dick Cheney "ordered a highly classified CIA operation hidden from Congress because it pushed the limits of legality by planning to assassinate of al-Qaida operatives in friendly countries without the knowledge of their governments."

"The CIA apparently did not put the plan in to operation but the US military did, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the programme."

As noted earlier today, Roy Blunt and Kit Bond have already rejected calls for inquiries and investigations into the program. Blunt, Roll Call reported, said the CIA didn’t do anything wrong and that an investigation is not warranted.

Late last week, members of the US House Intelligence Committee were "warring" over what to do with new information from CIA Director Leon Panetta that the CIA has been concealing a secret information-collecting program from Congress for years. Here's what Panetta is reported to have said:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday...

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

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