Obama Backs CIA Chief Apologizing to Senators Over Search

Bloomberg News

President Barack Obama voiced full support for CIA Director John Brennan, who apologized to Senate intelligence committee leaders after an investigation found his agency inappropriately searched congressional computers.

'I have full confidence in John Brennan,' Obama said at an impromptu news conference at the White House today to discuss the economy, the conflict in the Middle East and border security.

The president also sought to put in context the anti-terrorist activities of the government underlying the current conflict between the CIA and Senate, which began with an intelligence committee probe of U.S. interrogation tactics following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

'Even before I came into office, I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong,' Obama said. 'We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.'

'There was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this,' he said. 'And you know, it's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect.'

After the Senate intelligence committee started investigating the tactics, the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general concluded that agency personnel searched the computers 'in a manner inconsistent' with an agreement with the committee, Dean Boyd, a CIA spokesman said yesterday.

Brennan 'Committed'

Brennan 'is committed to correcting any shortcomings related to this matter and, to that end, he is commissioning an Accountability Board at CIA' that 'could include potential disciplinary measures and/or steps to address systemic issues,' Boyd said.

The inspector general's report defused a rare public feud between the CIA and one of its oversight committees in Congress.

The dispute stemmed from a committee investigation of 'enhanced interrogation' techniques used by the CIA in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and confinement in small spaces.

'These are positive first steps,' Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committee's chairman, said in a statement responding to Brennan's apology. 'This IG report corrects the record and it is my understanding that a declassified report will be made available to the public shortly.'

Feinstein's Protest

In March, Feinstein, a California Democrat who usually champions the intelligence agencies, took to the Senate floor to protest that the CIA may have broken the law and violated the Constitution's provisions on separation of powers by secretly monitoring computers being used by committee staff and by withholding some documents in violation of an agreement.

The CIA, in turn, said that some Senate staff members had surreptitiously removed classified files from a CIA facility and asked the Justice Department to investigate.

The Justice Department said last month that there was insufficient evidence to continue criminal investigations into the CIA's or the Senate committee staff's actions.

Brennan's apology is an effort by the Obama administration to ease tensions between the CIA and the Senate panel as the lawmakers prepare to release a report sharply critical of the intelligence agency's 2001-2006 detention and interrogation program, said two U.S. officials.

Little Intelligence

The report found that the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques produced little timely, accurate and valuable intelligence in the war on terrorism, according to the officials, who have read it and agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because it hasn't been declassified. Former officials of intelligence agencies and President George W. Bush's administration dispute that conclusion.

The Senate committee also found that CIA officials either withheld information from, or misled, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration officials and the congressional oversight committees, the two officials said.

Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, said Brennan's job may be at risk.

'It could be an issue of constitutional proportions,' said Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in an interview for Bloomberg Television's 'Political Capital with Al Hunt,' airing this weekend.

'Lost Confidence'

Senator Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat on the intelligence committee, said in a statement that Brennan has failed to deliver on promises to change the CIA's culture and respect 'vigorous and independent congressional oversight.'

'From the unprecedented hacking of congressional staff computers and continued leaks undermining the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation program to his abject failure to acknowledge any wrongdoing by the agency, I have lost confidence in John Brennan,' Udall said.

In defending the agency and its director, Obama today also said that he had moved early in his administration to correct any CIA tactics 'that were wrong.'

'One of the first things I did was to ban some of the extraordinary interrogation techniques that are the subject of that report,' he said. 'And my hope is that this report reminds us once again that, you know, the character of our country has to be measured in part not by what we do when things are easy, but what we do when things are hard.'

'And when we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques, techniques that I believe and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture, we crossed a line,' he said. 'That needs to be understood and accepted. And we have to, as a country, take responsibility for that, so that hopefully we don't do it again in the future.'

To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net Mark Silva, Don Frederick