Senators Want CIA to Release 9/11 Report

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Senators Want CIA to Release 9/11 Report

Thurs May 17, 2007
By KATHERINE SHRADER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON
(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. ``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-Qaida 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.

If they get it, it will consist of about 300 pages with 90% blacked out on the grounds of "national security".


All that will be visible will be a few vague references to bin Laden, Atta Boy and alCIAda .... oops i mean al qaida


That's my bet. Takers ?

http://digg.com/politics/Senators_want_CIA_to_release_9_11_report_2

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2849981

 http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/senators_want_cia_release_911_report.htm

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Saturday May 19, 2007 - Facts are stupid things. - Ronald Reagan
By fred7004
Over
the past few years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has
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Senators Want CIA to Release 9/11 Report
By adanac
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 ...
Vancouver 9/11 Truth Movement's... - http://tribes.tribe.net/vancouver911truthmovement/threads/rss