Mike Hayden: Pot, Meet Kettle
by Steve
MSNBC Photo
"Respectfully, senators, I believe that the American intelligence business has too much become the football in American political discourse. …Now, I promise you we'll do our lessons learned studies, and I will keep you, I will keep this committee and your counterpart in the House fully informed on what we learn. But I also believe it's time to move past what seems to me to be an endless picking apart of the archaeology of every past intelligence success or failure."
--General Michael Hayden at his hearing this morning, toeing the party line on any future investigations.
Let’s move on here, nothing more to see.
Hayden actually complained this morning at his confirmation hearing that the collection of intelligence has become politicized. General Hayden, you are a rube.
Who was it that excluded Democrats from intelligence briefings? The Bush Administration.
Who refused to brief members of the Intelligence committees on the wiretapping program for over four months until just yesterday, the day before your confirmation hearing, when the law and the Congressional Research Service say those committees should have been briefed and consulted from Day One? The Bush Administration.
Who has still refused to brief the members of the Intelligence committees on the data-mining program you yourself designed, which is against various laws? The Bush Administration.
Who is stonewalling to this day an inquiry into how the Administration used intelligence to make its case for war in Iraq? The Bush Administration and Pat Roberts.
Who outed a covert intelligence asset and destroyed her covert operation to gather intelligence on Iran’s nuclear capabilities for purely political purposes? The Bush Administration.
Who sat on an August 6, 2001 PDB that specifically warned about an attack inside the country from Osama Bin Laden, after being told seven months earlier that fighting Al Qaeda would be the biggest area of concern for the incoming Administration? The Bush Administration.
Who turned its spying resources against the United Nations to gather intelligence about ongoing deliberations and communications surrounding Security Council resolutions authorizing war against Iraq? The NSA and the Bush Administration.
Who asked you to provide him with NSA intercepts that named his bosses at the State Department so that he could run the information to the White House and the Vice President? John Bolton.
Who ran roughshod over the Agency when it didn’t give him the answers he wanted and then sanctioned the Secretary of Defense to set up a parallel intelligence operation separate from the Agency? Dick Cheney.
Who gave more credence to “Curveball” and Ahmed Chalabi, as well as the DIA than he did to the CIA, because he wanted to believe the politically-driven story they were telling more than what foreign intelligence services and our own CIA were saying? Dick Cheney.
I could go on and on, but General Hayden, if you really can sit there with a straight face and complain about how intelligence has become politicized, then you are too damn stupid, too damn hypocritical, and too damn political yourself to be a successful Director of Central Intelligence.
Which means you are the ideal candidate in this administration.