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there are three branches of government. Executive, Legislative, Judicial.
Which branch does the CIA fall under?
Who appoints the DCI?
Who can ask for the DCI's resignation?
Who is the direct superior of the DCI?
The CIA is an "independent agency" in other words it doesn't belong to either of the three branches. Anyone can ask for the DCI's resignation, a Congressional member, the President. The DCI is appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, hence a built in check and balance. The DNI is the direct superior of the DCI.
The CIA falls under the executive branch, and according the unitary executive theory that Bush has been invoking, it means he has full control of the CIA, the Justice Dept., etc.
Look up it up my friend the CIA is an independent agency, better yet here you go...As a separate agency, CIA serves as an independent source of analysis on topics of concern and also works closely with the other organizations in the Intelligence Community to ensure that the intelligence consumerwhether Washington policymaker or battlefield commanderreceives the best intelligence possible.
right off the CIA's website.
read the ealier posts Teri B.
The intelligence services of the United States, like their counterparts in most countries, exist principally to serve the needs of the executive authority.
Kathianne already did.
I agree that's how it SHOULD function and in the past has functioned, but it's not how it IS functioning.
Permanent, continuing, day-to-day Congressional oversight of the US Intelligence Community (IC) marked its 20th anniversary in May 1996. Two decades earlier, Senate Resolution 400 established the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) following revelations of "intelligence abuses." In July 1997, the SSCI's House counterpart, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), will celebrate its 20th birthday. During this time, the IC's missions, responsibilities, capabilities, size, and management have experienced dramatic changes. The Congressional oversight committees have played a significant role in shaping these changes and continue to do so.
Some individuals within the Community have argued, with a certain amount of justification, that Congressional oversight has been intrusive, meddling, short-sighted, and counterproductive; has involved micromanagement on a grand scale; and has served to drag the IC into the political cockpit of partisan politics from which it had previously been immune. Others tend to view Congressional oversight as being, on balance and after a somewhat rocky start in the late 1970s, a decided plus for the Community by providing loci for Congressional advocacy and support for intelligence and by providing rigorous review and questioning of intelligence activities and budgets.
Perhaps, in looking back at what Congressional oversight has and has not been, we will be better able to discern the future of oversight by the Congress. First, it is important to dispel the popular notion that Congressional oversight started with the establishment of the SSCI and the HPSCI. That notion is not accurate. Before their establishment, however, oversight was certainly not intense or much of an inconvenience to the agencies that carried out intelligence activities.
Unless your house has a gross domestic product over 3 trillion dollars, has nuclear weapons in it, you have the capitol building in your living room and the white house in your bedroom its a false premise. Unless your neighbor has mass graves in their living room and is gassing their kids upstairs it is a false premise.
It is a sound comparison. My house is to my neighbors house as the USA is to Iraq. While my house is nice, it is lacking some of the resources that my neighbor has. Perhaps my neighbor has committed some crimes. If so, then it is falls to the police department to get him. It is not my responsibility. He has not been a threat to me.
Man you are full of these false premises why don't you keep your posts based on facts instead of hypotheticals?
Like I said your two houses are comparable to two countries get real....false premise
It is a parallel and fine comparison.
...
But let's make it simple, you don't think that Bush/Cheney directed George Tenet regarding the intelligence that got us into the Iraq War? Cause Tenet seems to disagree.
Curveball: Reporter Bob Drogin on Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War
We speak with Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin about his new book, Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War. It examines how a former Iraqi taxi driver helped build the Bush administrations case for war by making false claims about Saddam Husseins alleged biological and chemical weapons programs....
AMY GOODMAN: Its good to have you back. You make this case, how the CIA leveraged and the Bush administration used this guy Curveballs false allegations to provide a pretext for war. Explain who he was and how the administration used him.
BOB DROGIN: Sure. Yeah, I think this is sort of the defining case of how we got led down the rabbit hole in Iraq. Curveball is the codename of an IraqiRafiq Alwan is his namewho was a chemical engineer who defected to Germany, fled to Germany in 1999 and told the German intelligence authorities that Saddamthat he had helped mastermind a scheme to build biological weapons for Saddam Hussein. That information was never confirmed. It was never vetted. It was just sort of put out there and handed over to the Americans.
And after 9/11, the CIA literally just pulled it out of a safe, and within three weeks, the classified documents showed that all of the caveats that had existed before that period, where the questions of Saddams WMD was viewed as possible, probable, could be, may be, someday, suddenly were viewed in a totally different light. And his informationthat is, the information from this one individualrose higher and higher until the fall of 2002, when President Bush is citing it. It appears in a document known as the National Intelligence Estimate, which is the gold standard of US Intelligence, it forms the strongest part of that. The President cites his information in the State of the Union speech in 2003. Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, makes it the absolute highlight of his speech, when he goes up to the UN Security Council in February before the war. He shows pictures or drawings of trucks.
What they dont say at that point is that US authorities had never interviewed this man, had never confirmed his information, had never vetted his background, didnt even know his name before the war. They had ignored warnings from the German intelligence authorities, who repeatedly had sent warnings over saying he was a single source, they couldnt confirm his information, he washe had had a nervous breakdown, they didnt know what to make of him, he might be a fabricator. There had been a bitter fight inside of the CIA between the clandestine servicethat is, the operatives who go out and steal secrets but who deal with informants and defectors like thisand the analysts. The analysts were utterly championingsorry, they were pushing his story.
And three days after Powell went to the United Nations, the UN weapons inspectors went to all of the sites, every single one of the sites that Curveball had told them about, where these weapons supposedly were being produced. And they not only didnt find the evidence, they proved that it couldnt be true. They found a variety of things that showed his story was wrong. All of that was ignored, was overruled, was pushed aside. And obviously we went to war on false pretenses.
So I find his storyand those people who tried to bring that truth to power, who tried to stop this train wreck from happening, were not only pushed asideone guy I write about iscame back and, you know, discovered that his desk, you know, had been boxed up, and this was at CIA, and he was being sent off to the visitors center. And then someone else, you know, put at the end of a hallway filled with construction material and no access to classified computers. The CIA was very vindictive.
So I found this case fascinating as I tried to sort of drill down and peel back the layers of what had happened here, this idea of these bureaucracies made up of people who are trained to lie, cheat and steal, that at every possible juncture there was rivalbureaucratic rivalries and really tawdry ambitions get in the way and, frankly, spineless leadership that just absolutely refused to stand up.
What you had, in the end, this man was a con man. He was trying to get a visa to Germany to get political asylum. But the CIA heard what it wanted to hear. It conned itself. It saw what it wanted to see, and it gave the White House totally what it wanted to hear.
AMY GOODMAN: And Cheneys role in this?
BOB DROGIN: Dick Cheneys role is not as large. I mean, to me, you know, the ideathere were two things happening, as you know, before the war. There was the WMD question, and then there was the role ofthe question of Saddams alleged support for terrorism. And on the WMD side, the CIA was not whispering this, you know, to Dick Cheney or something; it was coming in through the front door. George Tenet and the rest of the CIA, you know, was briefing the President, was briefing the Vice President, was briefing senior members of Congress. They were putting out these reports, all of which, you know, proved to be totally wrong.
So, to me, the greatin my view, the greater scandal is not that there were three or four guys over at the Pentagon sort of whispering in the Vice Presidents ear and, you know, feeding him false information about one thing or another; its that the entire intelligence community got this so devastatingly wrong. When you go back and you look at Colin Powells speechwere coming up to the fifth anniversary of it next monthand you go back and you read it now, and its entirely based on this document that the CIA put out a couple months earlier, this National Intelligence Estimate, its wrong on almost every single level. And thats based on what the CIA gave him. So, you know, I dont think itto me, its not the issue of a couple of guys, its that this system was so utterly corrupt....
Yea or maybe those countries did it because it was in the best interest of their country and had to put their so called "friends" aside to do what was best for them. Just maybe people in NATO or the UN dont want other people in the counsel to do good. Maybe just maybe they are our enemies. Should we uphold what they say if it means destroy those exact liberties they want to destroy? Not so simple in the end is it? Well you seem to know everything so im sure it is. Shoplifting? Poor example.
Not everyone agrees with that assessment, more than a few think Tenet just wanted to sell his book and deflect blame:
Should an American soldier be sent to a war that he thinks is against Americas best interest? If he signed up for the military, then the answer is yes. When you sign your name to something, you take your chances. If you are afraid of what the club might do in the future, then dont join the club. It is as simple as that. That is the right thing to do.
Is there a way by which the USA can secede from the UN? If so, then perhaps it should do so. Then it does not have to answer to the UN. I dont think that it is right for us to on the one hand, be members and on the other hand, make practically unilateral decisions without the UNs express condonation.
Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan
The Guardian, Thursday September 16 2004
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal.
Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish."
He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."
Mr Annan has until now kept a tactful silence and his intervention at this point undermines the argument pushed by Tony Blair that the war was legitimised by security council resolutions.
Mr Annan also questioned whether it will be feasible on security grounds to go ahead with the first planned election in Iraq scheduled for January. "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," he said.
His remarks come amid a marked deterioration of the situation on the ground, an upsurge of violence that has claimed 200 lives in four days and raised questions over the ability of the interim Iraqi government and the US-led coalition to maintain control over the country.
They also come as Mr Blair is trying to put the controversy over the war behind him in the run-up to the conference season, a new parliamentary term and next year's probable general election.
The UN chief had warned the US and its allies a week before the invasion in March 2003 that military action would violate the UN charter. But he has hitherto refrained from using the damning word "illegal".
Both Mr Blair and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, claim that Saddam Hussein was in breach of security council resolution 1441 passed late in 2002, and of previous resolutions calling on him to give up weapons of mass destruction. France and other countries claimed these were insufficient.
No immediate comment was available from the White House late last night, but American officials have defended the war as an act of self-defence, allowed under the UN charter, in view of Saddam Hussein's supposed plans to build weapons of mass destruction.
However, last September, Mr Annan issued a stern critique of the notion of pre-emptive self-defence, saying it would lead to a breakdown in international order. Mr Annan last night said that there should have been a second UN resolution specifically authorising war against Iraq. Mr Blair and Mr Straw tried to secure this second resolution early in 2003 in the run-up to the war but were unable to convince a sceptical security council.
Mr Annan said the security council had warned Iraq in resolution 1441 there would be "consequences" if it did not comply with its demands. But he said it should have been up to the council to determine what those consequences were.
guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq
And then there's The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 amended the National Security Act to provide for a Director of National Intelligence who would assume some of the roles formerly fulfilled by the DCI, with a separate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which gave the President even more power over the CIA. Apparently, I don't have permission to post URLs yet.
But let's make it simple, you don't think that Bush/Cheney directed George Tenet regarding the intelligence that got us into the Iraq War? Cause Tenet seems to disagree.
I don't, George Tenet is going to say that in order to get the heat off of his own butt. Congress through its oversight committee had every oppurtunity to question the validity of the evidence as the President did.
