Congress ‘kept in the dark’ about CIA programme

THE chairwoman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said yesterday the Bush administration may have broken the law if it ordered the CIA to conceal the existence of a counter-terrorism programme.

Senator Dianne Feinstein said that CIA director Leon Panetta told senators last month that former US vice president Dick Cheney as vice president had ordered the programme not be disclosed to congress.

Feinstein says that congress was kept in the dark and that, in her words, “that’s something that should never, ever happen again”.