Former Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration’s antiterrorism policies – including warrantless domestic surveillance, ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, and the US Guantánamo prison camp – during a speech in May at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
(Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
With reports that the former vice president kept Congress in the dark, Democrats call for an official probe of a mysterious CIA program.
By Cheryl Sullivan | Staff writer
Now what will Dick Cheney have to say?
The former vice president, self-appointed defender-in-chief of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies, is again the man of the hour amid news reports that he concealed from Congress information about the development of a top-secret CIA counterterrorism program.
In the days since members of the House and Senate intelligence panels learned of the still-unspecified CIA program on June 24, and in the hours since The New York Times reported July 11 that Congress was kept out of the loop for eight years on Mr. Cheney’s “direct orders,” America’s former No. 2 has been mum.
Allegations of illegal action
Cheney may well opt to remain silent – on this particular matter, at least – given that some Democratic lawmakers on Sunday implied or flat-out stated that such a failure to inform Congress is illegal. Intelligence panel members from both the House and the Senate say Congress should investigate.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D) of Illinois, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said a formal probe is needed of the CIA’s practices and the Bush administration’s decision to keep Congress in the dark.
“What it does is really propel a prompt investigation,” she said over the weekend in an interview with Politico. “An explicit decision was made at the highest levels not to report this program.”
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