Never piss off a United States senator. There once was no greater advocate of the “War on Terror” than California Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee until the Republicans took over in 2014. But the CIA, in a classic case of compulsive over-reaching, tried to strong-arm her and her committee, turning a once drone-happy chick to the closest thing to a civil libertarian that you can find on the Senate floor.
And Dianne is definitely still on the case. Her office has just released a 39-page takedown of former CIA director Michael V. Hayden’s memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, politely titled “Factual Errors and Other Problems”, though “Michael V. Hayden’s Lyin’ Ways” might be more accurate. Here’s a sample, giving first a passage from Hayden’s book as excerpted by Feinstein’s staff and then their response:
Hayden’s book, pp. 193-94
The remarks the president gave in the East Room of the White House on September 6, 2006, were magnificent. He laid out what we’d done since 9/11, and why. “Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terrorist networks operation,” the president said. “They have knowledge of where the operatives are deployed and knowledge about what plots are under way. This intelligence – this is intelligence that cannot be found any other place, and our security depends on getting this kind of information….”
…
He explained that a number of suspected terrorists and terror leaders had been held and questioned in secret sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. He said that information they divulged during questioning had prevented attacks on the United States and across the world.
Staff response
CIA records demonstrate that the president’s September 6, 2006, speech included numerous inaccuracies provided by the CIA. Passages in the speech were not supported by the CIA’s own “validation” documents. For example, five days after the speech, a CIA officer questioned whether there was any support in CIA records for the passage asserting that the interrogation of Ramzi bin al-Shibh “helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.” (For additional information on the CIA’s role in developing the speech, see pages 197-204 of the Committee Study.) In addition, the CIA has acknowledged it introduced factual inaccuracies into the speech, specifically the misattribution of intelligence from Majid Khan (who was not in CIA custody) to KSM.9 As detailed extensively in the Study, CIA records demonstrate that the CIA’s representation that intelligence provided by detainees subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques “cannot be found any other place” is inaccurate. In its June 2013 Response to the Study and in its “Note to Readers” of that Response, the CIA has acknowledged inaccurate representations in more than half of its examples of terrorists captured and plots “thwarted” purportedly as a result of the techniques.
That last sentence is buttressed by the following delicious footnote: In its June 2013 Response, the CIA acknowledged having provided inaccurate information with regard to nine of the 20 most frequent and prominent examples (the “dirty bomb” plot, the Karachi plots, the “second wave” plot, the arrest of Iyman Faris, the identification of KSM as the mastermind of 9/11, the identification of KSM as “Mukhtar,” the capture of Majid Khan, intelligence alerting the CIA to Ja’far al-Tayyar, and the arrest of Salih el-Marri). In its “Note to Readers” of its Response, the CIA acknowledged having provided inaccurate information with regard to the capture of Hambali, including introducing the error into President Bush’s September 6, 2006, speech. The “Note to Readers” further acknowledged having included inaccurate information in its June 2013 Response with regard to the capture of Sajid Badat, the Heathrow plotting, and the arrests of Uzhair and Saifullah Paracha. See Central Intelligence Agency’s Response to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, June 2013, Examples of CIA Representations of the Value of Intelligence Acquired From Detainees (CIA Response), p. 2; CIA Note to Readers of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Response to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, 1 August 2014.
I once headed a post on Dianne, in her drone-happy days, with the snappy head “Dianne Feinstein, Pretty but Dumb, or Pretty Dumb?”, which at the time she pretty much deserved. And, as Glenn Greenwald will tell you, Dianne’s definitely still a “moderate” when it comes to that civil liberties thing. But here at least she’s done a public service.
