Cheney Linked to CIA’s Concealing Secret Project from Congress for 8 Years

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11 July 2009 :: staff

Former US vice president Dick Cheney has been linked to the 8-year long cover-up of a secret CIA project about which Congress was never briefed, until last month. The current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, only learned of the secret project —details of which have still not been released— last month. He immediately ordered its closure. Now, it has been revealed that in a closed-door briefing last month with members of Congress, Panetta revealed that former vice-president Cheney ordered the project be concealed from Congress.

The New York Times, which broke the story, also noted:

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

The revelations come amid a fierce struggle between leading Democrats and Republicans in Congress over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s allegation that the CIA had concealed some of its abusive treatment of detainees at the time it was first done. There has also been a zealous effort to prevent the release of photos showing abusive interrogations.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and the eventual revelation by Pres. Bush himself that he had authorized the creation of secret “black site” prisons around the world, it was discovered the CIA had destroyed hundreds of videotapes of abusive interrogations, including some which reportedly led to the deaths of those being interrogated.

According to the Times report:

Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the C.I.A. interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities. They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.

During the 7 and a half years since the attacks of 11 September 2001, there has been a persistent recurring wave of accusations, denials and eventual admissions, regarding covert operations, interrogation techniques, extraordinary renditions, secret “black site” prisons scattered around the world, and even the direct use of techniques, like waterboarding, which the US itself has prosecuted as war crimes in the past.

Cheney himself has spent much of 2009 in a relentless push to justify the use of such techniques and to seek release of documents he said would support his claims of their effectiveness, but bar release of any documents that might demonstrate his personal involvement or a concerted effort to organize, order, implement and even oversee the use of abusive interrogation techniques.

That campaign to justify torture and to conceal the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to its use has led to a backlash against the former vice president, whom many blame for the extralegal abuses that embarrassed the US and —according to US counterterrorism experts— dramatically increased the risk of terrorist attack against US military and civilian interests. It is unclear whether this latest revelation puts Cheney in jeopardy of prosecution for conspiring to deceive Congress about intelligence operations.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has reportedly said he believes Congress would have been persuaded to approve such a program only in the panic of the first few days after the 11 September 2001 attacks, but no later. His remarks suggest the still-secret program may have been so far beyond the legal limits of the US system that even hardline counterterrorism hawks could not have justified it.

Cheney has made himself into the single most high-profile and impassioned defender of the right of the US government to operate in near total secrecy. He refused to release the names of advisers who had participated in his 2001 energy policy meetings, despite outstanding court orders; he pushed the case to the Supreme Court, which granted his claims of “executive privilege” in keeping the panel secret.

Some believe that verdict was seen by Cheney as a test case for government secrecy, and that it led to far bolder use of executive powers, with the idea in mind that the energy task force case was substantial enough precedent to conceal nearly any planning or decision-making behind a cloak of executive privilege and/or state secrets, two areas of executive authority not enshrined in the US Constitution, but rooted in extrapolations of British monarchical law and court rulings regarding private business.

Again, quoting the Times:

Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat of Illinois on the House committee, wrote on Friday to the chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat of Texas, to demand an investigation of the unidentified program and why Congress was not told of it. Aides said Mr. Reyes was reviewing the matter.

“There’s been a history of difficulty in getting the C.I.A. to tell us what they should,” said Representative Adam Smith, a Democrat of Washington. “We will absolutely be held accountable for anything the agency does.”

Rep. Hoekstra, for his part, says the CIA was not as forthcoming, in this and other matters, as it should have been, but stressed that the program was reportedly “not fully operational”. It remains to be seen —as no details have been released to date of what the program entailed— whether it is possible that the entire scope of the program was a fundamental violation of American law.

A Congressional investigation into the matter will almost surely lead to calls for prosecutions, should such illegality be found to be the case. Rep. Hoekstra’s statements suggesting the House could not have been brought to authorize such a program, once the fire of the post-9/11 moment had died down, are indicative that the program’s effectiveness would have been considered dubious and its legality unfounded.

A Reuters report suggests the CIA may have some “leeway” in what details of which programs it reveals to Congress. In general, in any case where added secrecy is sought, it is still required that at the very least the so-called “Gang of 8″ —the leaders of both parties in the House and Senate, and on each house’s Intelligence committee— be informed of the most secret activity.

Also this evening, it was reported that “Attorney General Eric Holder is considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s interrogation practices“. Though torture has not been specifically mentioned in conjunction with the revelations about Cheney’s role in concealing a secret CIA program, the legal issues to be examined could overlap in significant ways.