"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Harry Krause wrote:
Only the Republicans could come up with
something as nefarious as this gem:


GOP leaders urge probe into secret prisons leak

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, said they've 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 Wednesday 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 move comes a day after Democrats called for an independent
investigation into the treatment of prisoners in American custody. (Full
story)

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, 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.

CNN's Ed Henry and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.



Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/...obe/index.html


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I love this quote:

"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.



Really? You mean if it got out the US is operating secret prisons
overseas, it might further damage our already tanked reputation as the
moral leader of the world?

Naw.

Now, why would you want a secret prison? Why, to torture the prisoner
secretly, of course.

THIS is going to be a scandal with legs. Not the disclosure, but the fact
that these torture cells exist.



Update from a CNN broadcast: Republican US Senator Trent Lott says he
suspects a fellow Republican US Senator leaked the info to the Washington
Post. He says the Administration gave the information about the secret
torture prisons only to the GOP. That is an interesting revelation...the
Bush Administration is giving up to date intel only to one side?

"THIS" has the earmarks of a first-rate scandal. Love it.

Hogwash. Rockefeller knew about them more than 3 years ago.