There is a slow but brewing rebellion taking place in intel circles after President Obama signed orders to shackle counter-terrorism efforts.

“We are going to continue to defend this country, no matter what”, one operative told me.

The President commands the CIA, yet we all know by now that the CIA has always been a thorn in the executive branch’s fanny, especially when they’ve disagreed with or didn’t respect the man in the oval office.

Barack Obama had better learn the lesson that LBJ spoke about when he said it was better to keep the CIA inside the tent pissing out rather that on the outside of the tent pissing in. Right now he’s pissing the wrong people off.

Today’s WSJ:

“Most politicians would rather do anything than make a difficult choice, and it seems President Obama hasn’t abandoned this Senatorial habit. To wit, yesterday’s executive order on interrogation: It imposes broad limits on how aggressively U.S. intelligence officers can question terrorists, but it also keeps open the prospect of legal loopholes that would allow them to press harder in tough cases.

While that kind of double standard may resolve a domestic political problem, it’s no way to fight a war. The human-rights lobby and many Democrats are still experiencing hypochondria about the Bush Administration’s supposed torture program, and their cheering about this “clean break” means they may be appeased. But the larger risk is that Mr. Obama’s restrictions end up disabling an essential tool in the U.S. antiterror arsenal.

Effective immediately, the interrogation of anyone “in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government” will be conducted within the limits of the Army Field Manual. That includes special-ops and the Central Intelligence Agency, which will now be required to give prisoners gentler treatment than common criminals. The Field Manual’s confines don’t even allow the average good cop/bad cop routines common in most police precincts.

The Army Field Manual is already the operating guide for military interrogations. The crux of the “torture” debate has been that the Bush Administration permitted more coercive techniques in rare cases — fewer than 100 detainees, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden. Yesterday Mr. Obama revoked the 2007 Presidential carve-out that protected this CIA flexibility.

The techniques that had been permissible until yesterday remain classified but were widely believed to include such things as stress positions, exposure to cold and sleep deprivation. Senior officials have said they stopped waterboarding in 2003 — which in any case was only used against three senior al Qaeda operatives and succeeded in breaking these men to divulge information that foiled terror plots.

The unfine print of Mr. Obama’s order is that he’s allowed room for what might be called a Jack Bauer exception. It creates a committee to study whether the Field Manual techniques are too limiting “when employed by departments or agencies outside the military.” The Attorney General, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will report back and offer “additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies.”

After yesterday’s order I spoke with some old chums to get their take and nearly unanimously they told me that they will continue to use whatever means necessary to get the information necessary to do their job. It’s not that they will blatantly disobey, that would be treason, but as some know they have a million and one ways to set bad leaders up for failure.

Just ask George Tenet.