Panetta sails through 2nd round of questions

Former congressman Leon
Panetta breezed through a second round of questioning Friday on his nomination
as the new director of the CIA, with a final vote expected next week.

The 16-year House member and
three-year chief of staff to former President Clinton appeared before the
Senate Intelligence Committee for a 90-minute hearing after initial questioning
on Thursday.

{mosads}As he did in the previous
round of questions, Panetta took pains to promise the committee that he would
improve relations between the agency and Congress through regular reports,
notifications and appearances. He also pledged to roll back controversial
policies that began in the Bush administration such as harsh interrogation
techniques, use of non-government employees to conduct interrogations, and the
extraditing of prisoners to other countries where torture was condoned.

Unlike Thursday, Panetta
tempered his condemnation of those policies by stating he did not believe the
Bush administration acted insincerely.

“They made wrong decisions,
they made mistakes, but I don’t question their sincerity,” Panetta said.
“Sometimes they believed that the ends justify the means, and that’s where I
think things sometimes go wrong.”

Republican committee members
again made little mention of Panetta’s lack of experience in the intelligence
community — the GOP’s initial refrain when the nomination was first announced
on Jan. 5 — and avoided pressing him too pointedly.

Speaking briefly to reporters
after the hearing, Panetta pointed to his long political career when asked why
GOP senators have dropped their concern over his experience.

“I think that 40 years of
experience kind of counter-balances that,” he said. “I think they know I have
sufficient knowledge in working with the intelligence community, and that kind
of experience will help in this job.”

Committee Chairwoman Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.) said a final vote on Panetta’s confirmation will likely be
held next week.

Under questioning from his
toughest GOP critic, committee ranking member Kit Bond of Missouri, Panetta
clarified his statement Thursday that the CIA extradited prisoners to foreign
countries for torture. Panetta said the CIA sought and received assurances from
those foreign governments that the prisoners would not be treated inhumanely,
and that as director he would act similarly.

Bond also pressed Panetta on
President Obama’s recent executive order restricting interrogation techniques
to those published in the U.S. Army Field Manual, suggesting that the CIA has
lost its ability to obtain information from prisoners suspected of terrorism.

Panetta responded that while
the presidency is infused with broad powers, torture remains illegal under U.S.
laws and that Obama is not above those laws.

Panetta was also questioned
by Feinstein about how to prevent the CIA from distributing false information
such as the weapons data that led to the Iraq war. Panetta said the CIA needs
to improve the training of its foreign agents and interrogators, and to deepen
agents’ knowledge of the countries to which they are assigned.

“One of the reasons I was
interested in chairing this committee was so I can make sure that never happens
again,” Feinstein said in response. “I cast a vote (for the Iraq war) that I
will have to live with every day of my life. I think about it every day.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
noted that as Clinton’s chief of staff Panetta was sent memos that warned the
Clinton administration of the possibility of a U.S. attack through airplane
hijacking by terrorists.

Panetta acknowledged the
warnings but said they were more directed at the possibility of a hijacking in
the Philippines, not in the continental United States.