-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: May 19, 2007 7:52:48 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: CIA Stonewalling Release of 9/11 Report
Senators Pressing CIA
to Release 9/11 Report
WASHINGTON, May 18, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/18/politics/main2824376.shtml
(AP) A bipartisan group of senators is pushing legislation that
would force the CIA to release an inspector general's report on the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The CIA has spent more than 20 months weighing requests under the
Freedom of Information Act for its internal investigation of the
attacks but has yet to release any portion of it.
The agency is the only federal office involved in counterterrorism
operations that has not made at least a version of its internal
9/11 investigation public.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and two other intelligence committee
leaders — chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and senior Republican
Kit Bond of Missouri — are pushing legislation that would require
the agency to declassify the executive summary of the review within
one month and submit a report to Congress explaining why any
material was withheld.
The provision has been approved by the Senate twice, but never made
into law.
In an interview, Wyden said he is also considering whether to link
the report's release to his acceptance of President Bush's
nominations for national security positions.
“It's amazing the efforts the administration is going to stonewall
this,” Wyden said, seen at left in an April 3, 2007 file photo.
“The American people have a right to know what the Central
Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before
9/11.... I am going to bulldog this until the public gets it.”
Completed in June 2005, the inspector general's report examined the
personal responsibility of individuals at the CIA before and after
the attacks. Other agencies' reviews examined structural problems
within their organizations.
Wyden, who has read the classified report several times, wouldn't
offer any details on its findings or the conversations he has had
with CIA Director Michael Hayden, former CIA Director Porter Goss
and former National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.
But he did say that protecting individuals from embarrassment is
not a legitimate reason for protecting the report's contents from
public review. He also said the decision to classify the report has
nothing to do with national security, but rather political security.
Hayden declined to be interviewed about the report. In a statement
Thursday, his spokesman Mark Mansfield said the CIA director wants
the agency to learn from any past mistakes, but doesn't want to
dwell on them.
“Given the formidable national security challenges our nation
faces, now and down the road, General Hayden believes it is
essential for the Agency to move forward,” Mansfield said. “That's
where our emphasis needs to be.”
The agency's actions prior to Sept. 11 have gotten renewed
attention with the release of a memoir by former CIA director
George Tenet. He has been criticized for not doing more to warn
Bush about the al Qaeda threat.
In interviews about his memoir, he has said instead he worked the
bureaucracy beneath the president by asking then-National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others for action.
Bond said some intelligence officials have dismissed the inspector
general's report as “ancient history,” which he doesn't accept. He
said the report has additional information which would be useful to
the public.
“We have no desire to embarrass or throw cold water on the
enthusiasm of the great men and women of the CIA, but let's just
take a clear and open look at what the IG found and see if we have
all of those problems corrected,” Bond said.
In an October 2005 statement Goss said the officers involved in
counterterrorism were “stars who had excelled in their areas”
singled out by the CIA to take on difficult assignments.
“Unfortunately, time and resources were not on their side, despite
their best efforts to meet unprecedented challenges,” he said.
Goss rejected a recommendation from CIA Inspector General John
Helgerson that the agency form accountability review boards to
examine any personal culpability. Bond said that move was regrettable.
In his statement, Goss also noted that the agency had received a
Freedom of Information Act request for the report, and that a
review process was ongoing. But the CIA has not released any
documents to The Associated Press or other organizations that began
requesting the information at least 20 months ago.
The law requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 days,
but officials rarely meet those deadlines and often blame lengthy
backlogs.
Groups including the National Security Archive have clashed with
the agency over its FOIA policies. Last year, the archive gave the
CIA its prize for the agency with the worst FOIA record. Called the
“Rosemary Award,” it's named after President Nixon's secretary,
Rosemary Woods, who erased 18 minutes of a key Watergate
conversation on the White House tapes.
The citation noted that CIA's oldest FOIA requests could apply for
drivers' licenses in most states. “CIA has for three decades been
one of the worst FOIA agencies,” archive Director Thomas Blanton
said this week.
Many of the individuals highlighted in the inspector general's
report are likely to have retired. But some are believed still to
be in senior government positions, making the report's findings
even more sensitive at the CIA and perhaps elsewhere within the
intelligence community.
The AP has reported that the two-year review of what went wrong
before the suicide hijackings harshly criticized a number of the
agency's most senior officials.
That includes Tenet, former clandestine service chief Jim Pavitt
and former counterterrorism center head Cofer Black, according to
individuals familiar with the report, who spoke in 2005 on
condition they not be identified.
Yet the report also offered some praise for actions of Tenet and
others.
Pavitt is now a principal with The Scowcroft Group, an
international business advisory firm, and Black is vice chairman of
Blackwater USA, an international security firm whose clients
include the CIA and other U.S. agencies.
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