Go to Original
Bush Allies in Congress Block Bill That Would Require Intelligence
Disclosures
By Mark Mazzetti
The New York Times
Tuesday 17 April 2007
Washington - The Bush administration's allies in Congress on Monday blocked
a bill that would require the White House to disclose the locations of secret
prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency and to reveal the amount spent
annually by American intelligence agencies.
The vote on the intelligence bill was a blow to Senate Democrats, newly in
control of Congress, who had hoped that they would be able to extract more details
from the White House about some of the most widely debated intelligence programs
begun after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Opponents of the legislation, led by Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican,
won enough support on Monday to prevent the bill from going to the Senate floor
for a final vote. But Congressional officials said that negotiations over the
measure would continue Tuesday, and Democrats said they were still hopeful the
bill could eventually pass.
Money for the 2007 intelligence budget was already appropriated last year through
the defense spending bill, so defeat of the bill would not hold up money for
the 16 agencies that make up the American intelligence network. The White House
last week threatened to veto the intelligence bill because it contained several
provisions it deemed objectionable, including a requirement that the Bush administration
give Congress a detailed report about C.I.A. prison locations and interrogation
methods used on high-level terrorism suspects.
Since 2002, the C.I.A. has detained and interrogated several top operatives
of Al Qaeda, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, suspected of being the mastermind
of the Sept. 11 attacks. Last year, President Bush announced that all C.I.A
prisoners had been transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and put in military
custody, but that the C.I.A. prisons would remain in operation.
The White House has since declined to say whether the C.I.A. currently has
any prisoners in custody.
The Senate bill also requires the White House to make public the annual budget
of the American intelligence agencies. The intelligence budget, which has long
been classified, is widely believed to be approximately $44 billion.
A White House statement issued last week said that publicly disclosing the
figures would allow adversaries to track annual changes in the budget, which
could compromise intelligence sources and methods.
Another of the bill's provisions would require the White House to hand over
any intelligence document to Congress within 30 days of its request, unless
the President makes a specific claim of executive privilege.
The White House statement called the provision "highly objectionable,"
and said it would "foster political gamesmanship and elevate routine disagreements
to the level of constitutional crises."
Democrats responded angrily to efforts to block the intelligence bill.
Harry Reid, of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, said that Republicans' "actions
don't match their rhetoric" on national security issues, and that passage
of the bill was necessary for American intelligence agencies to do their jobs
effectively.
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.
Print This Story
E-mail This Story