Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D – CA) is urging the Obama Administration to take direct lead of the declassification process for her panel’s CIA torture report, saying the CIA should not be allowed to do it.
The CIA has been fighting for years to bury the 481-page summary of the many thousand-page report on their detentions and torture of detainees in the wake of 9/11, blasting the report as bias against it. They have also hit out at Feinstein in recent days, insisting the Senator is too emotional to discuss enhanced interrogation techniques with.
Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) backed Feinstein’s call, saying “she doesn’t trust the CIA. I think she’s probably right. I don’t trust them either.” Both are pushing for the report to be released with “minimal redactions,” while the CIA seems reluctant to let much of anything go public.
The White House comments suggest this is unlikely, as they have repeatedly endorsed the CIA leading the declassification “in consultation with other agencies,” while Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that redactions would be necessary “to protect national security.”
Attorney Eric Holder, as with too many others, uses the "national security" banner or justification as an argument to circumvent the law. So many international statutes have and are being broken in "America's War on Terror." Were other nations in violation to the same degree, the U.S. would have long-ago launched missiles at those recalcitrants.
Inviting the White House to do the declassifying is like letting the fox into the chicken coop. What a stupid suggestion. But, then again, its Feinstein that made it..