Maravi

(HERALD, AFP) Democrats slam Cheney

Democrats slam Cheney
AFP.

WASHINGTON. Democrats yesterday lashed out at former vice president Dick Cheney, accusing him of abusing his power, amid reports he ordered the CIA to withhold information from Congress about a secret counter terrorism programme.

Lawmakers vowed to hold hearings on the nature of the alleged top secret programme and efforts to keep members of the US legislature in the dark.

"This is a question of whether the former vice president of the United States denied certain sensitive information to the intelligence leaders in Congress. That is not acceptable," said a senior member of the US Senate, Democrat Kent Conrad, who called the alleged failure to notify Congress about the programme "a serious breach".

Speaking yesterday on CNN television, Conrad said CIA notification to key members of Congress about its secret programmes "is required by law. That’s a serious matter".

Meanwhile, Representative Anna Eshoo, a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she would call for the panel to hire an outside counsel to investigate the issue.

"We have to know who gave the order for this, who gave the order to conceal this, where did they draw the money for this," the Democrat told the Washington Post in reports published yesterday.

Eshoo said the committee may have to use its subpoena power to interview some officials who oversaw intelligence issues during the Bush administration.

Officials were vague yesterday about the precise nature of the highly secret programme.

But an intelligence official speaking to the Washington Post said the project remained in the planning stages and never crossed the agency’s threshold for reporting to the administration and congressional overseers.

Two former agency officials told the daily it involved a series of proposals designed to provide US intelligence agencies with a "needed capability" — without providing details as to what was meant.

The latest proposal was aired in the spring of 2008 but was not carried out, the officials said, although they told The Post that it did not involve interrogations of detainees or surveillance of US-based communications.

Both were highly controversial practices that have been roundly condemned in many quarters, as the United States prosecuted its "war on terror" during the George W. Bush administration.

The New York Times, which first broke the story about the role alleged to have been played by Cheney in keeping the CIA programme under wraps, reported that Central Intelligence Agency chief, Leon Panetta, ended the programme when he first learned of its existence on June 23.

Panetta is reported to have revealed Cheney’s role in a closed briefing one day later to the Senate and House intelligence committees.

"Because this programme never went fully operational and hadn’t been briefed as Panetta thought it should have been, his decision to kill it was neither difficult nor controversial," an intelligence official told the newspaper, speaking on condition of anonymity. — AFP.

Labels: DICK CHENEY, NEOCONSERVATISM, WAR CRIMES

posted by MrK @ 3:47 PM