Intel Chair Feinstein Slaps at Obama’s Choice

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Intel Chair Feinstein Slaps at Obama’s Choice of Panetta as CIA Director

Tuesday, January 06, 2009
By Staff


(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who this week assumes the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, took a slap yesterday at President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Leon Panetta to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director,” she stated shortly after the selection of Panetta was revealed in television reports. “My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”

A spokesman for Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D.-W.V.), who served as intelligence chairman in the last Congress, indicated that Rockefeller was "puzzled" by Obama’s selection of Panetta.

Rockefeller “thinks very highly of Panetta,” the aide told The Los Angeles Times. “But he’s puzzled by the selection. He has concerns because he has always believed that the director of CIA needs to be someone with significant operational intelligence experience and someone outside the political realm.”

Panetta has no experience in intelligence but a great deal of experience in politics. He served in the House of Representatives from 1976 until 1993. He then became budget director for President Bill Clinton, and then Clinton’s White House chief of staff.

Panetta also served on the Iraq Study Group that issued a report critical of the conduct of the Iraq War in 2006.

Some liberals are hailing Panetta's opposition to the use of torture in interrogating terrorist suspects. In an article last year in the Washington Monthly, Panetta wrote that fear had transformed America from a nation that championed human dignity into a "nation of armchair torturers."

"We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that," Panetta wrote.







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Ozark_Sunshine at 11:49 AM - January 06, 2009
For once I agree with the Feinstein. Having served in the military and intelligence community, it is a must to have a trained professional at the head of the community. Of course a trained professional in the Presidents chair would know that. Sad how we have to face the most dangerous time in our history with a man who has no credentials, credibility nor character in that chair. The POTUS is not a position you learn in on the job training.

Hisemiester at 11:32 AM - January 06, 2009
Not frequent do I agree with Feinstien, however on this one, I do agree. Another thing, If I were still in intelligence gathering, I would prior to his being seated as the Chairman of the CIA, resign and disappear. This man knows nothing about intelligence gathering and will most likely get a good many operatives killed. Is that the aim of Mr. Obama? Most likely so. All I can say, with Obama's cabinet picks, God help America. We are surely going to need Gods intervention.