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House Intel Chair: CIA has misled us for years

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-09 17:02

WASHINGTON: As lawmakers prepare to debate intelligence legislation, Democrats are accusing senior CIA officials of repeatedly misleading Congress.

Republicans charge the timing of the allegations and a threat from President Barack Obama to veto the intelligence bill are just political maneuvering to protect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Letters by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and other members of the panel say CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.

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Exactly what actions Panetta disclosed to the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 is unclear, but committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat, said the CIA outright lied in one case.

"These notifications have led me to conclude that this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one case) was affirmatively lied to," Reyes wrote to Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the committee's senior Republican. A copy of his letter was obtained by The Associated Press.

Reyes said in the letter that he is considering opening a full investigation.

Panetta brought the matters to the committee's attention, CIA spokesman George Little said Wednesday.

"It is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta's actions back that up," Little said. "It was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees."

Reyes, in a later statement, said: "I believe that CIA has, in the vast majority of matters, told the truth. But in rare instances, certain officers have not adhered to the high standards. ... Both Director Panetta and I are determined to make sure this does not happen again."

Seven Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Panetta on June 26 asking that in light of his disclosure he revise a statement he made in May to CIA employees that it was not CIA policy or practice to mislead Congress.

The cryptic letter and CIA statement came on the eve of a House debate on an intelligence bill. The debate is expected to revive a partisan argument that has raged on and off for months about whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew in the fall of 2002 about the CIA's use of waterboarding weeks earlier.

Waterboarding, which simulates drowning, is an interrogation technique the CIA used on three prisoners in 2002 and 2003. Obama has called waterboarding torture.

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