Feinstein blows it

Los Angeles Times reported A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States.

If Senators cannot be trusted with secret information, shouldn't they have their security clearance revoked, and thus lose their position on committees?

The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land. At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Islamic extremist targets along Pakistan's northwestern border.

Does she have no concept of the fact that their government might not be willing to help us if it kept secret what they are doing, but that they might not want their public to know how much they were helping us?

"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.

Did she accidentally blow it, or was it intentional?

The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital, and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.