How can Congress perform oversight functions when they are denied access?

by: Blue Girl

Fri Jul 17, 2009 at 10:16:42 AM CDT

A battle royal is simmering between Congress and the Pentagon over whether Chinese intelligence officers were given access to Uighur detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp - even as congress was routinely denied access to detainees - even though Congress is the body charged with oversight and denial of access is unprecedented.

Jay Alan Liotta, principal director of the Defense Department office responsible for detainee policy, told a House subcommittee on Thursday that he would not publicly comment on whether officials from China or any other nation were granted access to foreign citizens held at the detention facility.

He offered to release that information to the committee during a closed, classified session.

Lawmakers weren't happy about his answer.

Rep. James P. Moran , D-Va., said he would introduce an amendment to strip funding for Liotta's office if the Defense Department does not disclose, in open session, whether a Chinese delegation was allowed to question Guántanamo detainees who are members of a Muslim minority in China called the Uighurs.

"Unless we get a full and accurate answer, I intend to offer an amendment to defund that office, and I intend to go as high as we need to go," Moran said. "To not allow members of Congress to have communication with detainees, but you allow foreign intelligence agents ... that is an absolute insult to the U.S. Congress."

Members of Congress have been routinely denied access to the Guantánamo detainees.

"The American people have a right, without compromising national security, to understand what happened at Guantánamo, particularly in this case of the Uighurs," said Rep. Bill Delahunt , D-Mass., chairman of the subcommittee that conducted the hearing. "The answer that it should be in a classified setting is absurd."

Ranking Republican Dana Rohrabacher of California agreed, saying he recently was denied access to terrorism detainees.

I don't know about you, but this infuriates me.  What I'm pissed off about is that congress is apparently still being denied access to detainees.  

I want the sunlight pouring into that place and I want it now.  That starts with congressional access.

It is totally unacceptable that Representatives of the United States Congress - the body charged with the oversight of everything by virtue of the fact that they hold the fucking checkbook and deserve to know what the hell they - we - are paying for - are denied the basic access they need to perform their essential oversight functions.  

This is a policy that was put in place by Rumsfeld, and should have been stopped by Gates as soon as he took over as Pentagon chief, and sure as hell should have been abandoned before the close of business on January 20 of this year.  Since it is apparently still in place, per Congressman Rohrbacher, we need to start pressuring our congressmen and senators on the House and Senate armed services committees to get this policy abandoned right. now.  

The openness and transparency that was promised during the campaign needs to start with that festering sore in Cuba because it infects literally everything.  Until the curtains are thrown open and the light pours in, it will continue to do so.  

But we have our part to do, too.  Remember the wisdom of Franklin Roosevelt - "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."