Last week, Dana Priest revealed in the Washington Post that “the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe.”
“The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
“The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA’s unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA’s covert actions.”
Priest cited “current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents” as her sources.
The CIA – as it is required by law to do – has notified the Justice Department that classified information about CIA “sources and methods of operation” has been disclosed, setting the stage for a possible criminal inquiry similar to the one launched following the “outing” of Valerie Plame.
As of now, it appears that Valerie Plame Wilson was revealed to be a covert CIA operative because Scooter Libby passed on that highly-classified “source and intelligence methods” information to several associates and media sycophants who had “no need to know.” Libby is apparently on record as saying he got the highly-classified information from Vice President Cheney, who had apparently asked for – and gotten – it from CIA Director “Slam-Dunk” Tenet, himself.
Before proceeding further, you need to know more about three categories of classified information: 1) Restricted Data, 2) Defense Information and 3) Sensitive Compartmented Information.
Restricted Data is defined by the Atomic Energy Act and is information related to nuclear weapons programs. Restricted Data is, therefore, classified according to content.
Defense Information, on the other hand, is classified on the basis of the possible consequences to National Security that would or could result if that information was disclosed to unauthorized persons. Since the consequences of its disclosure can change over time, what is classified now, may not be at a later time.
All classified information must be clearly marked as such, at the top and bottom of every page. Persons cleared for access to Defense Information are usually said to have a Secret or a Top Secret Clearance – usually issued by the Defense Department – and there are probably hundreds of thousands of such persons at the present time, in government service and in the private sector.
Then there is Sensitive Compartmented Information, frequently related to Special Access Programs. The consequences of SCI/SAP being disclosed to unauthorized persons are deemed to be so severe that there are no blanket SCI/SAP clearances issued.
Each SCI/SAP is assigned a CodeWord, and only the minimum number of carefully chosen individuals – frequently no more than a dozen, hardly ever as many as a hundred – are ever read-in to that “Codeword” SCI/SAP.
In order to gain access to any classified information, you’ve got to have a “need to know.”
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush apparently decided that most Congresspersons no longer had a need to know the course of – and important developments in – our “critical” military, intelligence and law enforcement operations. So he issued an order to the Director of Central Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and other cabinet members to restrict their divulgence of certain “critical” classified information to just eight members of Congress; The Speaker and Minority Leader of the House, the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, and the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
So now you can better appreciate the Los Angeles Times report that former Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott, said those highly-secret CIA prison facilities were “discussed” at a Republican luncheon on Capitol Hill – one day before the Priest column appeared – perhaps in the course of Cheney lobbying Senate Republicans to remove the McCain amendment – prohibiting the CIA use of torture – from pending legislation.
Lott said: “Information that was said in there, given out in there, did get into the newspaper. I don’t know where else it came from…
Senate Majority Leader Frist and House Speaker Hastert have called on the Senate and House intelligence committees to convene a “a joint investigation” into who leaked the information.
Maybe Bush isn’t authorized to stifle Cheney.
