Obama Frees CIA from Its Watchdog Inspector General

[Better Believe It]

Obama Frees CIA from Its Watchdog
By Melvin A. Goodman
Melvin A. Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University, spent 42 years with the CIA, the National War College, and the U.S. Army.
July 15, 2010


President Obama cannot be blamed for the failure to close Guantanamo, but he continues to favor preventive detention. The president's most inexplicable failure, in view of his Harvard Law School background and commitment to constitutional rights, is his unwillingness to name a statutory inspector general (IG) at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

First, some background. The CIA's transgressions in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s led to the creation of a statutory and independent IG, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The efforts of CIA Director William Casey to prevent the attorney general from receiving reports on illegalities led Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, and David Boren, D-Oklahoma, to sponsor a bill to create an independent IG.

The most recent IG, John Helgerson, proved to be an effective watchdog. This earned him the ire of the last four CIA directors, who mounted an unprecedented attack on the CIA's only genuinely independent watchdog. Helgerson retired in February 2009 and has not been replaced.

Clearly, CIA management prefers to operate without oversight. But it is less clear why President Obama, apparently with the shocking support of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-California, has chosen to name no successor to Helgerson.

Read the full article at:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/071510a.html

[Festivito]

1. Those good ole boys already have too much of the absolute power.

And, that, as we know, corrupts absolutely.