PANETTA WANTS CIA INTERROGATIONS TO REMAIN SECRET

Leon Panetta, former Democratic congressman from California, and now Barack Obama's CIA chief, is more and more a disappointment. Today, R. Jeffrey Smith reports in The Washington Post that Panetta has asked a federal court not to release details of interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Panetta claims (without any evidence) that the release would aid Al Qaeda.

This is a bunch of bull and utter nonsense! Al Qaeda and the rest of the world already know that the CIA engages in torture, whether psychological or physical. Nothing that could be released is going to "aid" Al Qaeda any more beyond the actual despicable interrogation techniques ordered by Bush, Cheney, Rice, Addington, Gonzalez et al.

Writes Smith:

"The "disclosure of explicit details of specific interrogations" would provide al-Qaeda "with propaganda it could use to recruit and raise funds," Panetta said, describing the information at issue as "ready-made ammunition." He also submitted a classified statement to the court that he said explains why detainees could use the contents to evade questions in the future, even though Obama has promised that the United States will not use the harsh interrogation techniques again.

"Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security program, said yesterday evening that it is "grim" and "troubling" for the Obama administration to say that information about purported abuses should be withheld because it might fuel anti-American propaganda. He said that amounts to an assertion that "the greater the abuse, the more important it is that it should remain secret." Jaffer said the ACLU is convinced that the public should have "access to the complete record of what took place in the CIA's prisons and on whose authority.""

Panetta has turned into another Cheney. Hide the truth because it will embarrass the CIA or those who actually ordered or performed the hideous techniques.

Today even Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham tried to add a provision to the spending bill to prohibit the release of photographs or other information. Ryan Powers reports for Think Progress on the Lieberman/Graham statement.

Shame on Panetta, Lieberman, Graham and all the others who want to conceal criminal actions on the part of the U.S. government and the CIA.