Mike Rogers Takes on White House Over Interrogation Tactics

Washington - Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. promises to take on the White House's soft peddle approach to questioning terrorists.  Rep. Rogers wants Congress to lonch and investigation into how the Obama administration is prosecuting the war on terror. Just because they are not calling it "The War on Terror" anymore does not make it go away.  Since 2008, Rogers has been slamming President Obama for handling this war on terror as a law enforcement issue and not a war.  In January Rogers will be the new chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Rogers said, "We went from an intelligence-based approach to a law enforcement-based approach, and we really never asked the question, 'Are we safer?'" While Rogers says he does not want terror suspects to be tortured, he does believe in robust combatant interrogation. He does not believe that the Army Field Manual goes far enough as it requires interrogators to only use 19 approved techniques.

"Remember, an FBI agent can use certain psychological techniques against a gangster in New York City that the Army Field Manual would not allow a CIA case officer to use on a foreign terrorist sent here to blow up Americans," he scoffs. "There's a contradiction here that we have to get to the bottom of."
Rogers wants do close down the, so called, High-Value Interrogation Group (HIG). This is a special team of sensitivity trained interrogators that White House put together to question, with kit gloves, captured suspected terrorists around the world.
Rogers claims that the HIG is nothing more than a politically created group which has done little to protect American citizens, but cost a tremendous amount of money to maintain and fly around the world.  He says that it is just another layer of bureaucracy that limits the ability of case officers to get to the bottom of what the suspect was up to and limits information obtained about larger groups.
Then there is the Mirandizing of terror suspects. Rogers said, "Those kinds of things can get hindered when a law enforcement agent says, 'Hey, you have the right to remain silent, oh by the way, if you can't afford a lawyer, we'll give you one, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.'"
Rogers has also indicated that he may be in favor of eliminating the director of national intelligence position altogether. In the wake of the serious gaff from the current position holder, James Clapper. When he was asked about a major terror arrest in London, he knew nothing about it.
To make matters worse, the administration defended Clapper. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said we should, "be fair" to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. See story at http://www.under5cents.com/search/label/Good%20Old%20Boy.
Roger lamented on the whole department,"more inboxes, more bureaucracy." It is assumed that bureaucracy is a bad thing.

What do you think?
P. V. Street