- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
former CIA official will head a congressional investigation into U.S.
intelligence agency failures related to the Sept. 11 attacks, despite some
objections he was too close to the spy agency to have an independent eye,
congressional sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
-
- Former CIA Inspector General Britt Snider, who reviewed
the agency's internal probe of the computer misuse scandal involving
former
CIA Director John Deutch, was selected to lead the congressional
investigation,
sources said. Snider retired from the CIA last year.
-
- Snider's appointment and the joint investigation by the
House and Senate Intelligence committees into why U.S. intelligence
agencies
failed to detect the plot that resulted in the hijacked plane attacks
that killed about 3,000 people were to be announced on Thursday.
-
- The Senate Intelligence Committee voted in a closed
session
on Wednesday to approve launching the investigation, but only after a
contentious debate over whether a former CIA official could be impartial
in investigating the spy agency's shortcomings.
-
- Some senators, including committee Vice Chairman Richard
Shelby, an Alabama Republican, questioned whether a review into the
failures
of the intelligence community would be sufficiently independent if it
were led by Snider who has close ties to CIA Director George Tenet,
sources
said.
-
- Snider served with Tenet on the staff of the Senate
Intelligence
Committee and then as special counsel to Tenet when he became CIA director,
before getting the post of CIA inspector general in 1998.
-
- In his 1999 report on the CIA's investigation of Deutch,
who put classified material onto unclassified home computers, Snider said
no one had intentionally impeded the review, but that Tenet could have
been more aggressive.
-
- Other senators, including Senate Intelligence Committee
Chairman Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, pushed for Snider's appointment
because of his long-term experience in the intelligence community and
the recommendation of former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman who has
held intelligence-related posts, sources said.
-
- Those advocating Snider's appointment noted that he knew
the CIA, had the requisite security clearances and could do a credible
job, sources said.
-
- Snider did not return a telephone call seeking
comment.
-
- The investigation would look at what the intelligence
community knew at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks and what it had since
learned that it should have known beforehand, congressional sources
said.
-
- It would also look at the intelligence community's
history
of dealing with terrorism going back to the early 1980s, how it reacted
to previous attacks and what could be done to improve its ability to
uncover
terror threats, sources said.
-
- The investigation will have its own staff and the
committees
will conduct joint open and closed hearings. The time frame for the first
hearing was uncertain, sources said.
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