Editorial: CIA must come clean

Monday, May 21, 2007 | 7:57 a.m.

A frank public discussion of how federal agencies conducted business before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks is in the nation's best interests so that mistakes are not repeated.

Unfortunately, the CIA remains the only counterterrorism agency that has not released any portion of its internal investigation related to the attacks. We agree with members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence who are seeking to have the CIA declassify the executive summary of the agency's probe, which studied the conduct of CIA officials before and after New York City and Washington were attacked.

As the Associated Press reported Thursday, Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., have introduced legislation that would also demand the agency explain why any material has been withheld.

Wyden, who has read the classified inspector general's report, has said that the CIA wants to keep the document classified to preserve political security rather than national security. But sparing current and former CIA officials from potential embarrassment is no reason to keep the report under wraps.

The AP has already reported, relying on unidentified sources, on portions of the report that both criticized and praised numerous senior officials. Former CIA director George Tenet recently released a book on his tenure at the helm of the nation's top spy agency. Other books and media reports have also weighed in on the agency's performance before 9/11.

Americans have already received bits and pieces of the CIA story from numerous sources, but that is hardly enough.

A release of the executive summary could help put the information in the proper perspective so that in the future we can make intelligent decisions about the nation's security. As Wyden said, the public deserves to know exactly what the CIA was doing "in those critical months before 9/11."