July 9 2009
PressTv- Head of the US Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, has admitted to the agency’s reservation of facts and dissemination of false records since 2001.
In his Congressional testimony published on Wednesday, Panetta did not disclose manners in which the agency misled US lawmakers.
However, a number of Congress members indicated in a letter that the CIA director had prior knowledge of the veracity of allegations implicating the agency.
Seven Democrat representatives signed the letter to Panetta in which they wrote, “Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week.”
The letter refers to an earlier CIA statement that denied any propagation of disinformation.
In a mid-May statement, the CIA boss had informed the organization’s employees, “Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and values.”
The former account prompted the legislators to demand transparency from CIA, saying, “In the light of your testimony, we ask that you publicly correct your statement of May 15, 2009.”
However, the agency has defended its earlier stance on the issue with the CIA spokesperson George Little stressing that Panetta ‘stands by his May 15 statement’.
“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 in a statement.
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“As the letter from these … representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.”
Also in May, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused CIA of concealing information on the so-called enhanced interrogation methods in order to elicit data from the ‘terror’ suspects held indefinitely at the leased Cuban territories of Guantanamo Bay.
The US launched its war on terror in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks which targeted the country’s financial, defense and political headquarters.
Washington in return waged an ongoing war in Afghanistan and Iraq based on intelligence circulated through CIA edicts.