Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6; John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee; and Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of defence staff. Dearlove, who had just returned from Washington, said “military action was now seen as inevitable . . . the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action”. Straw agreed with Dearlove. He said Bush had “made up his mind to take military action. But the case was thin”.

It's kind of funny, isn't it? We seem to get more transparency out of the CIA director than we do out of the president:

WASHINGTON -- Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon E. Panetta has told lawmakers that CIA officials misled Congress "for a number of years" since 2001, according to a letter released Wednesday from seven Democratic lawmakers.

The lawmakers say the CIA also withheld information about unspecified "significant actions."

The letter didn't identify when Mr. Panetta made the statements or to what they referred.

"This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods," the letter continued.

CIA spokesman George Little said "it is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress." Mr. Little said the CIA itself "took the initiative to notify the oversight committees" about the lapses.

The release of the letter is the latest twist in a tussle between House Democrats and the CIA. Earlier this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of misleading her in briefings about the agency's use of waterboarding, an allegation refuted by the agency and challenged by Republicans.

It also comes one day before the House is scheduled to debate an intelligence bill. President Barack Obama issued a veto threat on Wednesday over provisions that would require more expansive briefings of intelligence committee members on sensitive matters.

You have to hand it to those hypocritical Republicans. They are once again controlling this debate because they and their little media enablers keep changing the subject from torture to whether torture is efficient.

Is that really the debate we want to be having in the United States of America? I'm sure there are still are some immoral techniques we haven't used yet. Is it okay to start, on the off chance that they work?

Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

The Republicans who gave on-the-record interviews were Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Rep. John Kline.

Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers for publicly discussing classified information, while Republicans said Democrats are trying to hide the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective.

GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record interviews that they were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks.

[...] “I am absolutely shocked that members of the Intelligence committee who attended a closed-door hearing … then walked out that hearing — early, by the way — and characterized anything that happened in that hearing,” said Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). “My understanding is that’s a violation of the rules. It may be more than that.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) said, “Members on both sides need to watch what they say.”

Both Schakowsky and Reyes accused GOP members of playing politics with national security.

“I think they are playing a very dangerous game when it comes to the discussion of matters that were sensitive enough to be part of a closed hearing,” Schakowsky said.

This isn't the first time Hoekstra has done this, either. From ABC News in 2007:

For the second time in as many weeks, a senior House Republican may have divulged classified information in the media.

In an opinion article published in the New York Post Thursday, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., reported the top-secret budget for human spying had decreased -- the type of detail normally kept under wraps for national security reasons.

"The 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill cut human-intelligence programs," Hoekstra wrote in the piece, in which he also criticized "leaks to the news media."

Formerly the chairman of the intelligence committee, Hoekstra is now its highest ranking Republican. In its recent budget authorizations, that committee kept from public view all figures and most discussion of spending on such classified items as human spying. Hoekstra's apparent slip was first noted on the liberal Web site, Raw Story.

"If Mr. Hoekstra wants to break ranks and disclose that information, that's fine with me," said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert who has long pushed to declassify overall spending on intelligence. "But it is the sort of thing he has harshly criticized in the past."

Indeed, Hoekstra's penchant for openness appears to be selective. He has aggressively attacked unnamed opponents guilty of such leaking, accusing them of "recklessly and illegally" disclosing secrets "for political or other motives" in reports published by his committee.

He's even exacted punishment for suspected transgressions. Last October, Hoekstra stripped the credentials of a Democratic committee aide he believed may have leaked a then-classified document to The New York Times. A month later, he quietly reinstated the aide's access.

What do we say, boys and girls? "It's okay if you're a Republican!"

During a televised Senate debate in Ohio last night, Republican Mike DeWine was asked about his attendance record on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was also asked if he would authorize the chairman and vice-chairman to release his attendance record. Watch as he stumbles around and never really answers the question:

Download | play - WMV Download | play - QT

DeWine of course falls into the typical right-wing response of "attack the opponent", which also backfired. He talked about the times Sherrod Brown missed votes, which turned out to be mainly during Brown's recovery from a broken back and while tending to a family illness.

Where was Mike Dewine for all those Senate Intelligence Committee meetings? Check out the new ad and get all the information about DeWine's no shows .

Norah O'Donnell reported on Hardball tonight that Congressman Jane Harman, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says there is a second NIE that deals entirely with Iraq and its impact on the global war on terror. Harman demands that this alternate report -- which is being stamped "Draft" for purposes of not having to release it -- be made public immediately. Very, very sneaky...

TPM has more: There's a second damning Iraq report floating around the intelligence community. At least, that's according to Rep. Jane Harman (CA), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. At an event this morning, Harman disclosed the existence of a classified intelligence community report that gives a grim assessment of the situation in Iraq, and called for it to be shared with the American public -- before the November elections. The report has not been shared with Congress, although sources say a draft version may have circulated earlier this summer. It is a separate report from the one revealed by major news outlets Sunday, which is said to conclude that the war in Iraq has made the U.S. less secure from terrorist threats.

(guest blogged by Mike L)

Greenwald:

"Recently, close Bush ally, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, was found by investigators to have leaked highly sensitive, classified information to Fox News' Carl Cameron and CNN's Dana Bash while Shelby served on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- an unauthorized and serious leak which, for some odd reason, the Bush Justice Department refused to prosecute. No Bush followers, at least that I know of, objected to the decision to allow Sen. Shelby to leak with impunity...read on

I actually have much more information about this part of Glenn's article that I'll post when I get a few more confirmations, but part of the reason Shelby got away with it was because :

"Two witnesses interviewed by the FBI in its probe of classified information leaked from a joint congressional inquiry in 2002 say they are very concerned about cooperating with a Senate Ethics Committee review of the matter because Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) has not recused himself from the review--read on"

Bill Frist threatens to re-structure the Intelligence Committee in order to block NSA hearings

Glenn Greenwald:

"Frist specifically threatened that if the Committee holds NSA hearings, he will fundamentally change the 30-year-old structure and operation of the Senate Intelligence Committee so as to make it like every other Committee, i.e., controlled and dominated by Republicans to advance and rubber-stamp the White House’s agenda rather than exercise meaningful and nonpartisan oversight....read on"

Anything that involves Sen. Pat Roberts is damned to be worthless.

As georgia10 notes:

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted today not to investigate the crimes of President George W. Bush. Instead, it will create a subcommittee for "oversight" of the illegal eavesdropping program....read on

Senator Rockefeller had this to say after the committee's vote:

"This committee is basically under control of the White House,'' Rockefeller told reporters after the two-hour meeting today in Washington. "It's an unprecedented bout of political pressure from the White House.''

FDL says that "there is no such thing as a moderate Republican."

Glenn:

"There are lots of people who appear to be morbidly depressed -- to the point of conceding defeat -- as a result of yesterday’s unilateral obstruction by the incomparable White House shill Sen. Pat Roberts of the long-planned and long-promised investigation into the operational aspects of the NSA program by the Senate Intelligence Committee. That defeatist reaction and the borderline-self-pitying sentiments which accompany it are, for literally countless reasons, completely unwarranted...read on"

You know how I feel about Roberts.