Cia

Opponents of a liquefied natural gas terminal in eastern Baltimore County stepped up their attacks Tuesday, hosting an appearance by a former CIA officer who said the $400 million project lacks critical safeguards and raises the specter of terrorism and piracy. "The more I looked into this project, the more I thought the company building it does not care about the safety implications," said Charles S. Faddis, who retired a year ago as chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's anti-terrorism unit and is a security consultant, based in Davidsonville, and a writer who has published two books on security issues.

TOM WARDELL BRADEN, 92 Commentator, ex-CIA agent Tom Braden, a former CIA operative who became a syndicated newspaper columnist, liberal co-host of the CNN talk show Crossfire and author of Eight Is Enough, a 1975 memoir that inspired a popular television series, died of natural causes Friday at his Denver home, his family said. He was 92. Mr. Braden was the father of eight children whose misadventures provided amusing grist for many of his newspaper columns and led to the ABC comedy-drama Eight Is Enough, which aired from 1977 to 1981 and starred Dick Van Patten.

Many Americans have long suspected the Bush administration wasn't being completely truthful about the interrogation techniques used to extract information from terrorist suspects captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials conceded some methods were "harsh," but they insisted no detainees were tortured or seriously mistreated. Now a long-suppressed report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has surfaced to give the lie to those denials. The report's contents, presented to U.S. authorities in 2007 but made public only this week, describe in graphic detail officially sanctioned beatings, torture and abuse of prisoners in secret CIA prisons around the world that clearly violated U.S. and international law. The ICRC investigators, who interviewed 14 "high value" detainees at Guantanamo in 2006, cited cases in which prisoners were soaked with water and forced to stand naked in icy cells for days at a time, or confined in coffin-like wooden boxes too small to stand up in. Prisoners were deprived of sleep, food and medical care, punched, slapped or slammed into walls, and subjected to simulated drowning in a technique known as "waterboarding."

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Leon E. Panetta has chosen Republican former Sen. Warren B. Rudman as a special adviser, turning to a respected politician to help guide the agency through a congressional investigation of the CIA's interrogation program. The decision represents an unusual step for the CIA, which has faced similar probes in recent years without enlisting such high-profile help. But the move reflects a recognition of the stakes of a Senate inquiry into one of the agency's most controversial programs in recent years, as well as the political instincts of its new director.

WASHINGTON - The Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to launch an investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs under President George W. Bush. The panel thus sets the stage for a sweeping examination of some of most secretive and controversial operations in recent agency history. The probe is aimed at uncovering new information on the origins of the programs as well as scrutinizing how they were executed - from the conditions at clandestine CIA prison sites to the interrogation regimens used to break al-Qaida prisoners, according to Senate aides familiar with the inquiry plans.

WASHINGTON - Outgoing CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday that the most pressing issues facing his successor include Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon and surging violence in Mexico - but not the war in Iraq. Hayden also defended the agency's use of harsh interrogation methods and said he had advised the incoming administration against going too far in dismantling the agency's counterterrorism programs. "These techniques worked," Hayden said of the agency's interrogation program during a farewell session with reporters who cover the CIA. "One needs to be very careful" about eliminating CIA authorities, he said, because "if you create barriers to doing things ... there's no wink, no nod, no secret handshake.

President-elect Barack Obama secured the support of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, for his choice to head the CIA yesterday, significantly improving the odds that former California congressman Leon E. Panetta will be the next chief of the spy service. Feinstein, who as chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee will preside over Panetta's confirmation hearing, said yesterday that she had spoken with Panetta by phone and that she would support his confirmation. "I believe all systems are go," she said in an interview at the Capitol.

Leon E. Panetta has shown himself to be an astute, accomplished and politically adept public servant. But all his management skills and political acumen can't make up for what he lacks as President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency - real experience in the spy business. The much-maligned agency gets more right than it gets credit for and could use an outsider to assess its problems and challenges in the post-9/11 world. But without a mastery of the basic techniques of intelligence-gathering and an understanding of the conflicts within the bureaucracy, Mr. Panetta would be hard-pressed to inspire its professionals and re-invigorate their pursuit of its mission.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta to serve as the next director of the CIA, apparently concluding that a spy chief who understands politics might be more important than one with deep experience in intelligence matters. The surprise pick of Panetta, a former congressman and Clinton administration official, would give Obama a CIA director with unquestioned loyalty to the White House and an experienced managerial hand to steer the new administration away from intelligence scandals.

WASHINGTON - President Bush has broadened the power of the nation's spy chief, the White House announced yesterday, drawing measured praise from intelligence analysts and complaints from members of Congress who said they were not consulted. In strengthening the role of the director of national intelligence, Bush reduced the authority of the CIA in some areas. Congress created the intelligence director's job after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to help coordinate all of the nation's spying operations, but the director's effectiveness has been hampered by interagency power struggles and a lack of control over spending.