May 18, 2007 07:17 AM UTC

Should this information be released to us? It's CYA, and is that good governance?

• 2 Comments
• by: Sir Robin

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing legislation that would force the CIA to release an inspector general’s report on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The agency is the only federal office involved in counterterrorism operations that has not made at least a version of its internal 9/11 investigation public.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and two other intelligence committee leaders – chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and senior Republican Kit Bond of Missouri – are pushing legislation that would require the agency to declassify the executive summary of the review within one month and submit a report to Congress explaining why any material was withheld.

`It’s amazing the efforts the administration is going to stonewall this,” Wyden said. `The American people have a right to know what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before 9/11…. I am going to bulldog this until the public gets it.’

He did say that protecting individuals from embarrassment is not a legitimate reason for protecting the report’s contents from public review. He also said the decision to classify the report has nothing to do with national security, but rather political security.

Republican Kit Bond said some intelligence officials have dismissed the inspector general’s report as `ancient history,’ which he doesn’t accept. He said the report has additional information which would be useful to the public.

`We have no desire to embarrass or throw cold water on the enthusiasm of the great men and women of the CIA, but let’s just take a clear and open look at what the IG found and see if we have all of those problems corrected,” Bond said.

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