Sen. Feinstein's Tortuous, Biased Report

Perspective is a scarce commodity in these United States.  Too many Americans have forgotten that sickening feeling watching television video of the two airplanes demolish the Twin Towers in New York City.  They don't recall their piercing anguish, their frail helplessness, their fierce anger.

That day, September 11, 2001, will forever be etched in the memory of those who lost loved ones, friends and co-workers.  Nearly 3,000 Americans perished in the bloodiest attack on U.S. soil.  But apparently members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have developed amnesia about that day.

They have forgotten that within hours of the attacks, the Congress and the American people were up in arms, demanding retribution. Most leaders, including Democrats, felt the possibility of another attack was imminent.  With one voice, Americans besieged their government to protect the homeland.

Many in Washington, including Senator Diane Feinstein, clamored for answers on the failure of the intelligence apparatus to uncover the plot.  The Central Intelligence Agency was publicly flogged for dereliction of duty.  Americans implored their leaders to strike back swiftly at the enemy.

In this environment, the CIA and other intelligence agencies were thrust into a new battle against terror.  They had no roadmap, no previous experience with attacks on the homeland.  Urgency was the watchword.  Politicians implored the CIA to develop intelligence to prevent another attack.

By any measure, the intelligence community did its job.  But 13 years later, the Democrat-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee decided to rewrite history.  Under Sen. Feinstein's iron hand, the group issued a scathing critique of the CIA in a document the media gleefully dubbed The Torture Report.

The paper is nothing more than an armchair quarterback's assessment of the interrogation techniques employed by an intelligence agency under intense fire to produce results. The 6,000-page report is one-sided, incendiary and a gift to those jihadists who want to recruit terrorists to kill Americans.

Sen. Feinstein's motive was never to unearth the truth about the interrogation techniques used to extract information from battle-hardened terrorists.  If it had been, her band of Democrats on the committee would have interviewed CIA agents and detainees to learn their side of the story.

Instead, the partisan group spent five-years trolling through documents, sifting the most damaging details they could find to second-guess the use of enhanced interrogation. In a rush to release the report, Sen. Feinstein ignored pleas from her president and the secretary of state to delay making it public.

Her intent was to embarrass the CIA because she caught them snooping on her and the committee staff after leaks began appearing in the media.  Her vendetta extended to former President George Bush, the man Democrats like Feinstein still yearn to put on public trial for unleashing the CIA.

Her agenda also included wrapping up the report before she was replaced as the committee chairperson after the new Republican majority was ushered in the Senate.  The senator and President Obama longed for another opportunity to show the world how contrite America has become about its past.

But, for the most part, this was about a senator out for revenge.  The Californian was willing to put American lives in jeopardy to achieve her objectives.  Her document airing the agency's dirty laundry was hardly news, since Democrats had publicly complained about the CIA's use of torture for years.

Within hours of the release of The Torture Report, an independent publisher announced that a 528-page declassified summary would be available in bookstores before New Year's Day.   Sen. Feinstein thus cemented her legacy before she was replaced in the chairman's role.

Media coverage of the report was predictably sanctimonious.  News outlets, with few exceptions, relished the opportunity to whipsaw the intelligence community, former president Bush and Republicans.  But a couple of courageous Americans spoke out about the committee's hindsight.

Among them was Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and noted lawyer.  "Public opinion polls (at the time) showed a vast majority of Americans supporting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques if it would stop a terrorist attack," Dershowitz declared.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden insisted that he had fully informed Sen. Feinstein and the committee about interrogation methods in 2006.  He denied misleading the committee, a charge the senator lobbed after Bush Administration officials complained Feinstein was aware of the tactics.  

Thirteen years after bloody September 11th, Sen. Feinstein and the other Democrats on her committee decided to play Monday Morning Quarterback.  However, their reconstruction failed to provide sufficient retrospective on the clear and present danger the country faced in the wake of the attacks.

Instead, Sen. Feinstein and the other cowardly Democrats performed a hatchet job on the CIA.  That may be the cruelest verbal torture ever heaped on the brave men and women who staff the intelligence agency.  For that, the senator and her rubber-stamp committee deserve the nation's everlasting scorn.