WASHINGTON - Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are preparing to hold

hearings to investigate the role of vice president Dick Cheney in

allegedly ordering the C.I.A. to conceal a secret assassination program

from Congress. As I reported yesterday,

there are two crucial issues at play: the nature of the U.S.

assassination program and the role of former vice president Dick Cheney

in concealing aspects of it from Congressional oversight. On the

broader issue of U.S. government assassination, it is very unlikely

that will become a central focus given that there has long been a

bipartisan assassination program that continues under President Obama.

Indeed, most legislators frame their opposition to this program through

the lens of the concealment issue, not the assassinations.

Early

moves, however, by the Obama administration indicate that it is backing

Cheney and the C.I.A. In May, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was under

fire over allegations she had been briefed on U.S. torture tactics, she

publicly accused the C.I.A. of misleading her. In what many viewed as a

response to Pelosi, C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta wrote C.I.A. staff a memo,

saying, "Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead

Congress. That is against our laws and our values... My advice - indeed,

my direction - to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay

focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted

from our job of protecting this country. We are an Agency of high

integrity, professionalism, and dedication."

After Panetta

briefed the Intelligence Committees on June 24 and, according to

Democratic lawmakers, revealed that Cheney had concealed the covert

assassination program from Congress, six Democrats from the House

Intelligence Committee wrote Panetta asking him to retract his

statement that the C.I.A. does not "mislead Congress." Last week, a CIA

spokesperson said Panetta "stands by his May 15 statement."

Some

lawmakers, including Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne

Feinstein and Senator Dick Durbin, have suggested the concealment was

illegal. "The executive branch of government cannot create programs

like these programs and keep Congress in the dark. There is a

requirement for disclosure," Durbin said.

"It is inappropriate for the vice president or the president to be

ordering that a program be kept secret and not disclosed at the highest

levels of congressional leadership."

As Democrats try to build

momentum for the hearings, a senior Obama official has now come forward

to defend the legality of Cheney and the C.I.A.s' alleged concealment.

President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, says

the C.I.A. did not violate the law. In an interview with The Washington Post,

Blair said that he believes the C.I.A. should have informed Congress,

but was not required to. "It was a judgment call," said Blair. "We

believe in erring on the side of working with the Hill as a partner."

From the Post:

Blair said that Panetta told him in advance of the decision

to terminate the program and that he supported the action as well as

the decision to inform Congress. Panetta "felt it was urgent and

appropriate to brief the Hill," Blair said. "You can make a judgment

call on whether a briefing was necessary. We were on the side of ‘Let's

do it.' We're trying to reset our relations with Congress." SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Never Miss a Beat. Get our best delivered to your inbox.





Blair

also asserted that killing the program did not diminish U.S. options

for battling al-Qaeda, including the possible use of insertion teams

that could kill or capture terrorist leaders. "This particular

program didn't make the cut," he said. "But it is absolutely not true

that we are doing less against al-Qaeda. Our primary criterion is

effectiveness, and we will continue to do things that we think are

effective to make terrorist lives miserable, and hopefully, short."

A C.I.A. spokesperson, George Little, told the paper the program was

"never fully operational and never took a single terrorist off the

battlefield." Little added that Panetta has been "aggressively using

the vast tools and tactics at our disposal - those that actually work -

to take terrorists off the streets."

At the end of the day, as I

have pointed out previously, among the crucial issues for Congress to

investigate are: what is Dick Cheney's role in concealing information

to which Congress has a right? What covert assassination programs were

activated by Cheney (and/or Bush) and whom exactly were they targeting?

Is it true, as has been suggested by the current C.I.A. and National

Intelligence directors, that this specific program was never activated?

Part of this investigation should also include a deep probe into the assertions made by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh that Cheney was running an "executive assassination ring."

The current portrayal of what exactly this program entailed is, at

best, very fishy on several levels. To me, this very much seems like

some major league misdirection. There is no doubt that Cheney was

running some nefarious programs and any orders from Cheney to the

C.I.A. to conceal information on programs to which Congress has a right

should be fully investigated. BUT, when compared with other information

about Bush/Cheney illegal operations, the description of this one seems

really small potatoes for the Intel Committees outside of the need for

Pelosi to be vindicated. I guarantee you that there are much worse

things that members of the Intelligence Committees are aware of than a

program that never was activated, which Cheney told the C.I.A. not to

mention to Congress. It bears repeating: this secret program, as it is

currently being described, is very, very similar to the longstanding

U.S. assassination program that the Intel Committees have known about

for years predating 9/11 and Bush/Cheney's time in power.

Former C.I.A. operator Robert Baer, has an interesting take on all of this at Time. I am not endorsing Baer's view, but think it is worth reading: