Senators want to make CIA release 9/11 report

'Stars who had excelled'
In an October 2005 statement Goss said the officers involved in counterterrorism were “stars who had excelled in their areas” singled out by the CIA to take on difficult assignments. “Unfortunately, time and resources were not on their side, despite their best efforts to meet unprecedented challenges,” he said.

Goss rejected a recommendation from CIA Inspector General John Helgerson that the agency form accountability review boards to examine any personal culpability. Bond said that move was regrettable.

In his statement, Goss also noted that the agency had received a Freedom of Information Act request for the report, and that a review process was ongoing. But the CIA has not released any documents to The Associated Press or other organizations that began requesting the information at least 20 months ago.

The law requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 days, but officials rarely meet those deadlines and often blame lengthy backlogs.

Groups including the National Security Archive have clashed with the agency over its FOIA policies. Last year, the archive gave the CIA its prize for the agency with the worst FOIA record. Called the “Rosemary Award,” it’s named after President Nixon’s secretary, Rosemary Woods, who erased 18 minutes of a key Watergate conversation on the White House tapes.

The citation noted that CIA’s oldest FOIA requests could apply for drivers’ licenses in most states. “CIA has for three decades been one of the worst FOIA agencies,” archive Director Thomas Blanton said this week.

Sensitive issue within the CIA
Many of the individuals highlighted in the inspector general’s report are likely to have retired. But some are believed still to be in senior government positions, making the report’s findings even more sensitive at the CIA and perhaps elsewhere within the intelligence community.

The AP has reported that the two-year review of what went wrong before the suicide hijackings harshly criticized a number of the agency’s most senior officials.

That includes Tenet, former clandestine service chief Jim Pavitt and former counterterrorism center head Cofer Black, according to individuals familiar with the report, who spoke in 2005 on condition they not be identified.

Yet the report also offered some praise for actions of Tenet and others.

Pavitt is now a principal with The Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm, and Black is vice chairman of Blackwater USA, an international security firm whose clients include the CIA and other U.S. agencies.

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