The Associated Press reports that intelligence officials whose work led to incorrect conclusions about the identities of suspected terrorists and even the deaths of detainees in American custody don't merely escape prosecution -- they're promoted.
For example, here's what happened to the analyst whose work led to the the torture of Khaled al-Marsri in U.S. custody in Afghanistan:
A hard-charging CIA analyst had pushed the agency into one of the biggest diplomatic embarrassments of the U.S. war on terrorism. Yet despite recommendations by an internal review, the analyst was never punished. In fact, she has risen to one of the premier jobs in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, helping lead President Barack Obama's efforts to disrupt al-Qaida.
Once they realized they had the wrong guy, they dropped him on a hill in the countryside in Eastern Europe. He tried to sue, but you know, state secrets, all that.
Marcy Wheeler rounds up the other officials who fell upward after breaking the rules:
Paul–the guy who let the inexperienced Matt freeze Gul Rahman to death–is now chief of the Near East Division.
Ron–who watched Albert stage a forbidden mock execution–now heads the Central European Division.
Albert–who staged the mock execution–was reprimanded, left the CIA, but returned to the CIA as a contractor involved in training officers.
Frances–who insisted Khaled el-Masri be rendered and tortured–was not disciplined and now heads the CIA's “Global Jihad” unit.
[...]
Steve was reprimanded–not for his interrogation of al-Janabi, but for not having him seen by a doctor. He retired and is back at CIA as a contractor.
Gordon–the Deputy at the Baghdad station at the time of the worst torture–was temporarily barred from working overseas and sent to training; he's now in charge of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Department of the Counterterrorism Center.
Between the political obstacles to criminal prosecutions, and the willingness of the courts to dismiss civil lawsuits whenever the government invokes the "state secrets" privilege, we essentially have a class of people operating in our intelligence services who are not bound by the law in any meaningful sense when it comes to actions they take in the line of duty. They're promoted rather than sanctioned when they act out of line, eliminating even any internal incentive to play by the rules.
Theoretically, even Republicans are opposed to this -- the AP quotes former Sen. Kit Bond saying:
"There are occasions when people ought to be fired," former Sen. Kit Bond said in November as he completed his tenure as the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Someone who made a huge error ought not to be working at the agency. We've seen instance after instance where there hasn't been accountability."
Both the Obama and Bush administrations agree: There shouldn't be any. And Congress isn't the slightest bit interested in doing anything about it.
