Quotes of the Morning: Streamlining Scandals

“The CIA took the first step toward a criminal investigation of a leak of possibly classified information on secret prisons to The Washington Post, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The agency's general counsel sent a report to the Justice Department about the Post story, which reported the existence of secret U.S. detention centers for suspected terrorists in Eastern Europe.
[…]
On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert called for a congressional investigation into the disclosure of the existence of the secret prisons. The leaders made the request in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sidestepped questions on secret prisons, saying the United States was in a ‘different kind of war’ and had an obligation to defend itself.
If the Post story is 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," wrote Frist, R-Tenn., and Hastert, R-Ill., asking for a joint leak probe by the Senate and House intelligence committees.
The newspaper's story of a week ago said the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, part of a covert prison system set up by the agency four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries. Those countries, said the story, include several democracies.”
-Associated Press, November 8, 2005

“You see, it seems that we’ve been running old Soviet era prisons tucked away in places where little things like the Geneva Conventions don’t really have much impact. Yep, we run the gulags now. The most important thing though is that the media found out. It means that there was a leak of classified information. Oddly enough, when it comes to investigating leaks that make America look bad, the leadership of the Senate is all about the oversight..”
-Skippy

“The congressional probe would seek to determine not only whether the information contained in the Washington Post report was classified, but also whether it was accurate, according to a letter to congressional intelligence committees by Senate majority leader Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House.
A spokesperson for the House intelligence committee said the committee had not received the letter.
In the draft letter, Mr Frist and Mr Hastert said that, if accurate, the disclosure of the prisons could have ‘long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences’ that would imperil national security.”
-MSNBC, November 9, 2005

“I’m sure that we’ll get to the heart of this in no time. We need to find out which Democratic operative leaked this information on our gulags in order to weaken America in a time of war!”
-Skippy

“Vice-President Dick Cheney discussed the existence of secret US prisons abroad with a group of Republican senators last week, according to Senator Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican.
Details about Mr Cheney's meeting emerged on Tuesday just hours after Republican congressional leaders released the draft of a letter calling for an investigation into whether a story in the Washington Post last week about the prisons was based on leaked, classified information.
[…]
Mr Lott told reporters that ‘a lot’ of the details of the Washington Post story mirrored information that was discussed at a Republican luncheon a day before the story appeared. A spokesperson for the senator did not return a call.”
-MSNBC, November 9, 2005

“Wow.. They’re getting good at this. It took the Plame investigation two years to get to Cheney’s doorstep. It only took this scandal a few hours. That’s efficiency for you. I’m kind of guessing that Dubya isn’t going to me spending a lot of time on Trent Lott’s new porch.”
-Skippy