If I were Panetta, I'd be ticked off...

Having spent the day running around the Daley Center today for my day job, I'm just now getting around to reading the news of the day. First stop: Drudge where there's a link to an article reporting on the creation of a new interrogation unit, supervised by the White House, led by the FBI, but of course, we're assured that their decisions will be made 'independently.' (Wish I could insert one of those rolling eyes emoticons here.)

If the administration has already decided that investigators must abide by the Army Field Manual while conducting interrogations, what's the point of this new department? The optimist in me tried to read between the lines, wondering if this could be another example of the administration governing through loopholes. What I mean is for a second, I wondered if this could be a signal, an admission from the administration that every situation is different, and that when lives are in danger, civilian or military, sometimes the rules of the Army Field Manual just might not cut it.

But, my hopes were shattered later on in the article. The entire structure has apparently been set up, if I understand it correctly, to work as a sort of liaison on behalf of detainees, to ensure that they are not 'tortured' and that, when they are sent back to their mother countries, that they have a safe trip.

With the economy in decline, the deficit projections having been increased by another $2 trillion, unemployment on the rise, states' budgets sinking deeper into the red, and citizens up in arms in fear of the government taking over the health care industry, the Obama administration is spending it's time looking after the rights of terror suspects.

Which brings me to another issue, why is this task force necessary at all? Isn't that what we have the CIA for? Even with Obama distancing himself from policies implemented by the CIA during the Bush administration, he has his own guy in there now. It seems like everyone has their hand in this new unit except for Leon Panetta. What happened to moving forward? This seems like another situation in which the President's rhetoric and his actions don't match up.