Obama's CIA Pick Leon Panetta Strongly Against Torture

Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo at 3:30 PM on January 5, 2009.

I've had my problems with Panetta over the years, but he's a much better pick for this job than I might have hoped for. Here he is, just this year on the torture regime:

Fear exacts a terrible toll on our democracy. Five years ago, America went to war in Iraq over the false fear that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

 

Even though we now know that there were intelligence officials who questioned the assertion, few leaders were willing to challenge this argument for war because they knew it might undermine public support for the president's decision to invade Iraq.

More recently, President Bush vetoed a law that would require the CIA and all the intelligence services to abide by the same rules on torture as contained in the U.S. Army Field Manual.

The president says the rules are too

But all forms of torture have long been prohibited by American law and international treaties respected by Republican and Democratic presidents alike.

Our forefathers prohibited "cruel and unusual punishment" because that was how tyrants and despots ruled in the 1700s. They wanted an America that was better than that. Torture is illegal, immoral, dangerous and counterproductive. And yet, the president is using fear to trump the law.

But then there's this:

The same rationale is used to justify eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without a warrant. The president has made clear that the failure of the Congress to pass this authority could jeopardize our security. Instead of trying to negotiate a compromise with Congress that would meet both our intelligence and privacy concerns, it is easier to threaten with fear.

Luckily the wiretapping is not a purview of the CIA and torture is, so he's on the right side of what I consider to be the most important issue pertaining to his job.

I'll have to do some research on the rest of Panetta's ideas on intelligence. He's an extremely annoying bipartisan fetishist, but I'm not sure how that would affect him in this position. I would guess that the most important constituency here is the CIA itself, and I have no idea what they think of him.

My first instinct is to be relieved about this appointment. Panetta is smart and he has a reputation for being an excellent manager, so at least we won't be dealing with another Porter Goss debacle.

Tagged as: iraq, cia, torture, obama, california, saddam hussein, waterboarding, panetta

Digby is the proprietor of Hullabaloo.