I don’t think this spells the likelihood of a reputation re-birth for a certain former Vice President:
In an exclusive report, the New York Times revealed on Saturday that the order to conceal a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years came directly from former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Even current CIA Director Leon Panetta did not learn of the program until June 23, more than four months after he took over running the agency. He informed both Congressional intelligence committees the next day.
The Times report came on the same day that former CIA Director Michael Hayden was insisting, in an interview with the Associated Press, that Congressional leaders had been kept consistently informed of the Bush administration’s surveillance programs.
“”One of the points I had in every one of the briefings was to make sure they understood the scope of our activity,” Hayden told the AP. “At the political level this had support.”
According to the AP, Hayden asserted that senior members of the intelligence committees were briefed about four times a year, other Congressional leaders more occasionally, “and he said the meetings nearly always occurred at the White House, with Vice President Dick Cheney in attendance.”
Cheney’s involvement is further underscored by the the inspector general’s report released on Friday, which shows that the vice president’s office played a central rule in limiting awareness of the National Security Agency’s program of warrantless wiretapping to just a handful of officials. Even then-Attorney General John Ashcroft did not receive an accurate description of one program until two years after he had certified it as legal.
UPDATE: Former CIA Director says Congress DID KNOW about what was going on.
