[CitizensTruth] ARTICLE-Panetta questioned on drone use

[Walterb306 at cs.com]

All,

FYI.

Beverley

Leon Panetta Questioned on Drone Use, Calls Secret Service on Questioner

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/47290

Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2009-10-24 10:36. 

By David Swanson 


Here are excerpts of a report from Susan Harman late Friday night:
Leon Panetta spoke today at the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, in the 
very fancy Mark Hopkins Hotel, on the top of Nob Hill. La di da. John got us 
2nd row seats. John wore a pink shirt and I wore my CodePink t-shirt and 
nobody stopped us or commented. 
Panetta described his work as director of central intelligence:
He said trust was essential: between the people and the government, between 
the branches of goverment, and between the parties. His swipe at 
accountability was a quote from Churchill: "If we open a quarrel between the past and 
the present, we will lose the future." He said "We conduct covert actions at 
the direction of the President." What about Congress? 
... He explained away going into Iraq as a failure to prioritize the 
quality of intelligence, and took great pride in his 3-level system. i.e., Bush 
should have been told the the WMD info was "low reliability." In Iraq, we are 
planning our "postwar footprint"—"as the military draws down, there will be 
no intelligence drawdown." That is, the CIA wil remain in Iraq forever. 
... We are concerned about attacks on our power grid, transportation 
system, or finance system. He joked that the audience had better be careful what 
we say in our emails and phone calls. Ha ha.
Then came the questioning:
John and I had handed in about a dozen question cards, fully convinced that 
they'd pick none of them. The first few questions were tame and boring: how 
much time do you spend with the President, do you have money problems, to 
which he said, "To be frank, the intelligence budget has done pretty well 
since 9/ll. We have more than adequate resources." But he added that the 
country as a whole can't continue to run a $2 trillion deficit. I was sitting 
right behind the timekeeper, and I saw her flip her chart that said 4 minutes 
left. I whispered to John that we had very litte time to do something, since 
there'd be applause, and they'd asked that we stay seated, so they could 
whisk him out. I was afraid we'd come for nothing. 
But then the nice lady, who'd been sorting the cards throughout the talk, 
outplayed Leon at his candor game. To our surprise, she read this question 
from John: "'Wired' magazine reported that the CIA not-for-profit branch, 
In-Q-Tel, invested in the internet data-mining software company, Visible 
Technologies; will the CIA use data-mining domestically?" Panetta rambled on about 
technology and said something about being "chartered" for international 
surveillance. He never denied the facts in the question. 
Then, to our astonishment (I think we both gasped), she said "One last 
question. There are many cards about drones," and she read several of ours! 
"Since proliferation of drone technology is a low-cost alternative to 
missile delivery – are DC insiders prepared to hear drones overhead?" 
"You've flown a drone a week to Pakistan since taking office. You've killed 
538 Pakistani civilians. Are we at war with Pakistan?" 
"In 2001 George Tenet said it would be a 'terrible mistake' to use drones 
as weapons. Why are you?" 
"Six of the 41 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan were on AlQuaeda. Who were the 
rest on?" 
"In May 09 you said "Predators are the only game in town. Are we really 
just playing a video game there?" 
He began answering by saying that of course he couldn't talk about 
Pakistan. 
So I started asking questions out loud. He kept claiming that "we didn’t 
kill that many civilians … there are others who use drones." And that it's not 
just drones that have killed people. 
He said he knew where I got the number, 500 murdered civilians (I turned 
slightly and told the audience, "Jane Mayer, current New Yorker"), and that it 
wasn't accurate. 
"Right, we have to trust you," I said. 
Quibbling over how many we've murdered is an admission that we've murdered 
some, although the entire CIA drone program in Pak is supposed to be secret. 

By now the 4 Secret Servce personnel had warned me to be quiet, and now 
they said I'd be arrested if I didn't leave, so I left, escorted by all of them 
and a couple of cops. I reminded the audience that we've killed 500 
innocent Pakistanis so far. 
John stayed. The Secret Service woman came over to him, stuck her face in 
his, and said "If you say anything, the same thing will happen to you." 
He asked her to go sit down, since she was disrupting the remainder of the 
talk. Thankfully she didn’t take it as an invitation! 
All 6 SS formed a spaced line between the exiting Panetta and the audience. 
Meanwhile, the director of security for the Hopkins, a small, beetley man, 
told me I could leave and never darken their door again, or be arrested. I 
agreed to leave. 
How tragic that I can never go to the Mark Hopkins again! As usual, the San 
Francisco cops were calm, polite, and not at all rough; I thanked them. On 
the other hand, I had to tell the SS woman not to touch me several times. 
John's summary: Such fear, protected cover, evasion & denial of visible 
fact … America is hated … America is running scared! But at least he admitted 
we can’t afford to continue for much longer. 
Susan's question: Was it worth it? Does it change anything—in the audience 
or in him? Who knows... Our actions are based more on the faith that war 
criminals should not be allowed to act like normal—and even respected—
citizens. Is that enough?
 



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