CIA Dir. Leon Panetta enraged at AG Eric Holder; Resignation Looms

The move to prosecute CIA officers for their conduct during the war on terrorism is threatening to throw President Obama’s national security team into turmoil – beginning with the possible resignation of CIA Director Leon Panetta.

Panetta engaged in a “profanity-laced screaming match” at the White House, according to ABC News.com, over a plan by Attorney General Eric Holder to launch an investigation over the treatment of detainees captured in Afghanistan and other countries. At issue is how far officers should have gone in their interrogation of such terrorists as the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.

The threat to investigate the nation’s frontline spies comes after Panetta took on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her comments that she had never been brief regarding harsh interrogation techniques being used against Al-Qaida members. Panetta sided with his team and the written record in insisting that she had been briefed.

“You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year,” a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.

For full article: http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/panetta_cia_holder_quit/2009/08/24/251673.html

Obama’s “Look Forward” Policy: AG Eric Holder begins Bush/CIA Witchhunt

The Justice Department released a long-secret report Monday chronicling abuses inside the Central Intelligence Agency’s overseas prisons, showing how interrogators choked a prisoner repeatedly and threatened to kill another detainee’s children.

The decision was a significant blow to the C.I.A, and Mr. Holder said he would be criticized for undercutting the intelligence agency’s work. He said that he agreed with President Obama’s oft-expressed desire not to get mired in disputes over the policies of former President George W. Bush, but that his review of reports on the C.I.A. interrogation program left him no choice.

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/us/politics/26intel.html?hp

Meanwhile, Rep. John Conyers is calling for the special prosecutor be given “full authority” to follow the investigation through and prosecute, regardless of where it leads.