WASHINGTON - CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001, the chairman and other members of the House Intelligence Committee said in letters revealed on Wednesday.
LETTER ON EVE OF DEBATE
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 is an interrogation technique the CIA used on three prisoners in 2002 and 2003. It is a form of simulated drowning that President Barack Obama has called torture.
Exactly what actions Mr Panetta disclosed to the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 is unclear, but committee chairman Silvestre Reyes said that 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,' Mr Reyes wrote in a letter on Tuesday to Rep Peter Hoekstra, the committee's senior Republican. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.
Mr 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,' Mr Little said in a statement to the AP.
'It was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.'
Mr 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. -- AP
