The CIA's History of Deception
Melvin A. Goodman - May 23, 2009 -
http://consortiumnews.com/2009/052309a.htmlEditor’s Note: The Republican assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her complaints about the CIA’s briefings on “enhanced interrogation techniques” has taken on otherworldly aspects, particularly the fictional narrative that the CIA would never seek to hide information from or mislead members of Congress.
It’s become a litmus test on one’s patriotism to accept the false history of the CIA’s transparency to Congress, but that is not the real story, as former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman notes in this guest essay:
“Let me be clear about this,” CIA director Leon Panetta told his troops last week, “it was not CIA policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values.”
Of course, Panetta is entitled to his opinions, but he cannot create his own facts. And, as a long-time member of the House of Representatives, he surely must know that there is a long and substantiated record of CIA deceit and dissembling ...
In 1973, CIA director Richard Helms deceived the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, refusing to acknowledge the role of the CIA in overthrowing the elected government in Chile ... a grand jury was called to see if Helms should be indicted for perjury. ....
.. Secretary of State Kissinger, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and White House chief of staff Dick Cheney orchestrated phony intelligence for the Congress in order to get an endorsement for covert arms shipments to anti-government forces in Angola. ...
.. CIA director William Casey and his deputy, Bob Gates, consistently lied to the congressional oversight committees about their knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair. Sen. Daniel Moynihan, D-New York, believed that Casey and Gates were running a disinformation campaign against the Senate ...
.. the CIA concealed from the Congress that Saddam Hussein was diverting U.S. farm credits through an Atlanta bank to pay for nuclear technology and sophisticated weapons ...
The greatest CIA disinformation campaign in the Congress took place in 2002-2003, when CIA director George Tenet ....