The C.I.A. as History's Editor

[struggle4progress]

If only the Central Intelligence Agency had been half as vigilant on the road to the Iraq war as it has been in redacting the Senate's critique of its failures. The Senate Intelligence Committee remains in a tug of war with the Bush administration over the panel's overdue report on intelligence bunglings, with the C.I.A. allowed to play the role of censor. After weeks of delay, the agency has decreed that much of the report is too sensitive for the public to know.

The C.I.A.'s censors returned a version of the report that committee staff members call a blacked-out work of art. It is rife with deletions, which amount to as much as 40 percent of the 400 pages. No one is discussing specific redactions, but the C.I.A.'s performance only feeds suspicions that the administration is trying to chisel away the painful truth.

The C.I.A. claims that much of the Iraq report is about intelligence sources and methods that must remain classified. But intelligence committee professionals know how to produce reports that compromise few secrets. The wholesale job of bowdlerization reported by The Times's Douglas Jehl this week will only further tatter the C.I.A.'s reputation as Congress considers reforming the agency.

This is about nothing less than telling the public the truth about how it was led into Iraq. Committee leaders must fight for a forceful accounting. If the White House cannot be prodded to get a fairer job from the C.I.A., the committee should ask Senate approval to present a properly revealing version of the report directly to the public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/18/opinion/18FRI3.html?th