McCarthy Believed CIA Lied to Congress

The Washington Post tells us that Mary McCarthy had been investigating "allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan". Last June a "senior CIA official" told Congress in a secure room that no actions of the CIA had violated international treaties for the treatment of prisoners.

When Mary heard this, she was startled, because she considered it a lie.

And it wasn't the only time Mary came across evidence that senior CIA official were lying to Congress about these matters. She had led the investigation into detainee treatment in both Iraq and Afghanistan:

McCarthy's findings are secret. According to a brief CIA statement about the probe in a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, investigators set out to examine "the conduct of CIA components and personnel, including DO personnel" during interrogations. Tens of thousands of pages of material were collected, including White House and Justice Department documents, and multiple reports were issued. Some described cases of abuse, involving fewer than a dozen individuals, and were forwarded to the Justice Department, according to government officials.

Another report, completed in 2004, examined the CIA's interrogation policies and techniques, concluded that they might violate international law and made 10 recommendations, which the agency has at least partially adopted. That report jarred some officials, because the Justice Department has contended that the international convention against torture -- barring "cruel, inhumane, and degrading" treatment -- does not apply to U.S. interrogations of foreigners outside the United States.

Little else is known publicly. The CIA inspector general's reports have narrow circulation. When IG inquiries involve covert actions such as foreign interrogations, for example, the agency briefs only the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, instead of the full panels. So only a handful of people in Washington knew what McCarthy knew.

This misconduct may have been her motivation, if so she did, to leak information about the CIA's secret prisons. She was fired last April as if she had done it, and she may yet face proscecution over it.

Let's see: leaking sensitive information as a whistleblower or lying to Congress to hide criminal acts, which would you rather be convicted of?