Hardrock69
11-08-2005, 05:45 PM
www.cnn.com
Tuesday, November 8, 2005; Posted: 3:15 p.m. EST (20:15 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican congressional leaders said Tuesday they are asking committees to investigate the possible leak of classified information about secret U.S. prisons for suspected terrorists overseas.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert said the disclosure, first reported last week in The Washington Post, could damage national security.
Hastert, R-Illinois, and Frist, R-Tennessee, have asked the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees to look into the origin of the disclosure.
"If accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks," the lawmakers wrote in a letter requesting the investigation.
The Post reported November 2 that top al Qaeda suspects were being held for questioning "at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe" and other locations around the world. (Full story)
Critics said the arrangement suggests U.S. agents are engaged in activities that would be illegal under American law.
Top U.S. officials declined to confirm or deny the report but insisted that all prisoners are being treated humanely.
President Bush, while in Panama on Monday, said flatly, "We do not torture."
The GOP leaders' move comes as the White House tries to oppose a Senate-approved measure that explicitly bars "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of prisoners in U.S. custody.
The White House has threatened to veto a $440 billion Pentagon spending bill if it includes that measure, which is backed by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a onetime prisoner of war who was tortured by his North Vietnamese captors.
The announcement also follows Democrats' call Monday for an independent investigation into the treatment of prisoners in American custody. (Full story)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, urged the GOP to initiate a broader investigation -- one that would include the 2003 leak of a CIA agent's identity and the faulty intelligence used to argue for the invasion of Iraq.
"There is plenty to investigate about the Bush administration's use and misuse of intelligence," Pelosi said in a written statement. "The American people deserve the truth."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, also said the announcement was "just for show," meant to divert attention from the fact that Republicans never conducted a congressional probe of the 2003 leak of a CIA agent's identity.
That disclosure led to an investigation and eventually the October 28 indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Libby was charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to federal agents investigating who revealed the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, had publicly challenged a key element of the Bush administration's case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- that Baghdad had sought to purchase uranium from Africa for a clandestine nuclear weapons program.
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Yeah right...National Security....
Bullshit.
They are just pissed off because they got busted....
Stupid fuckers...
:rolleyes:
Tuesday, November 8, 2005; Posted: 3:15 p.m. EST (20:15 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican congressional leaders said Tuesday they are asking committees to investigate the possible leak of classified information about secret U.S. prisons for suspected terrorists overseas.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert said the disclosure, first reported last week in The Washington Post, could damage national security.
Hastert, R-Illinois, and Frist, R-Tennessee, have asked the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees to look into the origin of the disclosure.
"If accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks," the lawmakers wrote in a letter requesting the investigation.
The Post reported November 2 that top al Qaeda suspects were being held for questioning "at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe" and other locations around the world. (Full story)
Critics said the arrangement suggests U.S. agents are engaged in activities that would be illegal under American law.
Top U.S. officials declined to confirm or deny the report but insisted that all prisoners are being treated humanely.
President Bush, while in Panama on Monday, said flatly, "We do not torture."
The GOP leaders' move comes as the White House tries to oppose a Senate-approved measure that explicitly bars "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of prisoners in U.S. custody.
The White House has threatened to veto a $440 billion Pentagon spending bill if it includes that measure, which is backed by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a onetime prisoner of war who was tortured by his North Vietnamese captors.
The announcement also follows Democrats' call Monday for an independent investigation into the treatment of prisoners in American custody. (Full story)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, urged the GOP to initiate a broader investigation -- one that would include the 2003 leak of a CIA agent's identity and the faulty intelligence used to argue for the invasion of Iraq.
"There is plenty to investigate about the Bush administration's use and misuse of intelligence," Pelosi said in a written statement. "The American people deserve the truth."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, also said the announcement was "just for show," meant to divert attention from the fact that Republicans never conducted a congressional probe of the 2003 leak of a CIA agent's identity.
That disclosure led to an investigation and eventually the October 28 indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Libby was charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to federal agents investigating who revealed the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, had publicly challenged a key element of the Bush administration's case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- that Baghdad had sought to purchase uranium from Africa for a clandestine nuclear weapons program.
__________________________________________________ __
Yeah right...National Security....
Bullshit.
They are just pissed off because they got busted....
Stupid fuckers...
:rolleyes: