Posted on 06/15/2004 6:38:43 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA (news - web sites) has decided that about one-third of a U.S. Senate report criticizing prewar intelligence on Iraq (news - web sites) contains secret information that should not be released to the public, intelligence sources said on Tuesday.
After reviewing the roughly 400 pages for classified data, the intelligence agency returned the report to the Senate Intelligence Committee with brackets around 30 percent to 40 percent of the contents to signal the information was secret, intelligence sources said.
The report examines the intelligence on Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion last year, including estimates that Baghdad had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
President Bush (news - web sites) justified his decision to go to war by citing a threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. No large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons have been found.
A closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee meeting on Tuesday to discuss the report and the CIA's redactions ended without any decisions on how the panel would move forward toward making it public.
"We're going to try to vote on Thursday to approve the report. There have been no decisions in regard to the redactions," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said.
Members of the committee disagreed over some of the proposed conclusions, which also raised questions over when the report would be publicly released.
Roberts said it was unlikely the report would be released next week -- "not the way things are now." He would not identify the contentious issues.
The committee has several options to deal with the CIA's redactions. It could reword the passages that the agency identified as containing classified information, or take the unprecedented action of ignoring the intelligence agency's views and put out the full report as originally written.
The latter option was considered unlikely because the committee would not want to be seen as releasing classified information. "It's always an option, but probably as a last resort," Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record), an Indiana Democrat, said.
The CIA tried to preserve as much of the report in its original format as possible, but some sections contained information that revealed sources, operational techniques and intelligence collection methods, one intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.
"I think they (CIA) went way overboard. Clearly what they are doing is taking the heart of the report out of it," Sen. Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record), an Illinois Democrat, said.
Asked how critical the report was of the CIA and its director, George Tenet, who is leaving next month, Durbin replied: "I think it's very honest and there are parts of it that are very critical."
The report was expected to be highly critical of U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but less critical of the intelligence on terrorism, government sources say. It was expected to specifically criticize Tenet in some instances.
Because some Senators can't be trusted with our nation's security.
The CIA knows that everything they tell Congress is probably going to get leaked. They plan around this.
Probably leak???
That's like saying the sun will probably rise in the east.
Redacted or not, SECRET or NOT, if it is harmful to the administration it will be in the NEWS! Count on it!
Let's just hope no children get caught between the Senators on the Committee and the nearest microphone.
LOL! Even democrats and RINOs are cagey enough to save their ammunition for the most advantageous time. For some information, that time never comes.
Because we all know that formulae for WMD, how-to manuals, names of informants, etc is definitely something the public should know. Unlike some desk clerk's name in the CIA. Tit for tat?
Here comes another tarbaby.
Please Br'er Durbin! Roast me, BBQ me, anything! Just PLEASE, don't leak the report!
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