Senator accuses CIA of cover-up

CIA Director John Brennan, under fire because of the Senate report on torture, is facing new heat over his role in what a senior lawmaker calls an apparent cover-up involving bogus intelligence used by the George W. Bush administration to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who is ending 36 years in the Senate, plans to press Brennan one last time to fulfill a pledge to support the full declassification of a CIA cable debunking the claim that the leader of the 9-11 hijackers met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Czech capital of Prague months before the attacks.

“Director Brennan’s apparent refusal to do what he has committed to do — to ask the Czech government if it objects to release of the cable — now takes on the character of a continuing cover-up,” Levin plans to tell the Senate today, according to a draft of his speech obtained by McClatchy Newspapers, which owns the Star-Telegram.

At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters Wednesday, Levin said Czech officials told him “they have no objection” to releasing the cable.

Levin also pointed out that the former chief of the Czech counterintelligence service, who was in the post at the time of the alleged meeting, published a memoir this year in which he asserted that the CIA pressed him to confirm the encounter and that U.S. officials pressured the Czech government when he couldn’t do so.

“Without any regard to us, they used our intelligence information for propaganda press leaks. They wanted to mine certainty from unconfirmed suspicion and use it as an excuse for military action,” Jiri Ruzek wrote. “We were to play the role of useful idiot.”

The CIA declined to comment. But a U.S. intelligence official said Levin was told that the full cable can’t be released without damaging intelligence sources.

“Two successive CIA directors have explained to Sen. Levin and his staff that the release of further information would jeopardize intelligence and sources. Suggestions of some ulterior motive here are absurd,” said the U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

Today’s speech might be the final floor appearance for Levin, who did not run for re-election last month. The Republicans will take control of the Senate when the new congressional session begins in January.

False intelligence

Levin, the longtime chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for years has been at the forefront of efforts to expose the false and exaggerated intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

He was also an ardent supporter of releasing the CIA torture report.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly cited the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and Ahmed Samir al Ani to bolster the Bush administration’s assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with al Qaeda and could pass Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — which didn’t exist — to the terrorist group.

“The notion of such a meeting was a centerpiece of the administration’s campaign to create an impression in the public mind that Saddam was in league with the al Qaeda terrorists who attacked us on 9-11,” Levin plans to tell the Senate, according to the speech draft.

“Now why am I bringing up a CIA cable from more than a decade ago?” the draft says. “This is about giving the American people a full account of the march to war as new information becomes available. It is about trying to hold leaders who misled the public accountable.”

This story was originally published December 11, 2014 at 8:12 AM with the headline "Senator accuses CIA of cover-up."