What did the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Know About Intelligence? And When, Senator Kerry?

4. THE SUBCOMMITTEE RECOMMENDS THAT THE CONGRESS CONSIDER ADOPTING ADDITIONAL OVERSIGHT MECHANISMS TO ENSURE THE CIA'S ACCOUNTABILITY ON THE PROVISION OF INFORMATION.

At various times, the Central Intelligence Agency provided information to the Subcommittee during the course of its investigation that was both misleading and untrue. Documents that existed were characterized as not existing. Information that was provided was incomplete. It required repeated efforts by the Subcommittee, extending over a year, to obtain more complete information, which was provided only following a meeting in February, 1992 between the Subcommittee chairman and Director Gates. Even then, as the CIA purported to provide a full account of its knowledge of BCCI, it cautioned the Subcommittee that its system of record-keeping could not guarantee that all information had in fact been provided. Moreover, information regarding certain persons who were shareholders, nominees, officers, or affiliates of BCCI, was provided solely in a summary form, containing relatively limited information and far less than is clearly in the CIA's possession.

Staff of the officer of the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency has recently requested meetings with Subcommittee staff to discuss these issues.

It is recommended that the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence consider whether the current procedures and mechanisms are adequate to ensure accountability by the CIA in its responses to Congressional requests. Of particular concern is the lack of any practical mechanism for members who do not serve on the Committees to insure the CIA's responsiveness to their legitimate requests, as well as the difficulties of establishing whether or not the CIA's responses to inquiries are forthright and accurate.

From Section 11--BCCI, the CIA, and Foreign Intelligence, Introduction

"On July 23, 1991, CIA director Webster replied to Senator Kerry's May 14 request by letter, admitting to the existence of two documents concerning BCCI, which were described as "extremely sensitive" and therefore restricted to being held by the Senate intelligence committee.(5) On reviewing these memoranda, Senator Kerry recognized that the earlier of the two documents, created in early 1986, contained startling information -- that the First American Bank in Washington was secretly owned by BCCI. The distribution list attached to the memorandum indicated that the CIA had communicated this information at the time to the Treasury Department. These was no indication that either Treasury or the CIA had ever advised the Federal Reserve, the primary regulator of First American, of this critical information.(SNAFU?)

Senator Kerry asked Judge Webster to declassify immediately the fact that the CIA had known as of 1986 that BCCI owned First American, and to begin the process of declassifying the entirety of both memoranda. On July 31, 1991, the CIA advised Senator Kerry that he could reveal the information concerning BCCI's secret ownership of First American, but no other information from the memos. The CIA had not yet acknowledged its own use of BCCI to the Subcommittee, or provided access to any other materials prepared by the CIA concerning BCCI.

When the single sentence from the 1986 memorandum was declassified, Senator Kerry supplied it immediately to the Federal Reserve, whose counsel expressed shock(I TELL YOU) that the CIA, Treasury, State Department, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had possessed this information in 1986 and never provided it to the Federal Reserve.(6)

On August 2, 1991, with Congress in recess, acting CIA director Richard Kerr chose to provide the first public account of the CIA's involvement with BCCI at the National Press Club, to a group of high school students, who were not permitted to ask questions.

During the August recess, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence began its audit of the CIA's relationship with BCCI, and requested that the CIA provide its auditors with all documents prepared by the CIA concerning BCCI. In the same period, the CIA began its own internal reviews of its handling of BCCI, including a management review, an intelligence review, and an "independent investigation" by the CIA's statutory Inspector General.(7) By the end of August, 1991, the CIA had determined that there were several hundred reports on BCCI by the CIA, of which perhaps four dozen contained substantial information regarding the bank.

Through early October, 1991, in response to further requests from Senator Kerry, the CIA continued to refuse to declassify any of the remainder of the information concerning BCCI on the ground that to do so might imperil sources and methods. The CIA also remained unwilling to permit staff outside the Intelligence Committees to review this material. As CIA legal staff later explained it, the CIA was unaccustomed to providing information pertaining to oversight issues to staff outside the Intelligence Committees, and felt uncomfortable with the questions being posed by the Subcommittee.(8)

Ultimately, Acting Director Richard Kerr agreed to testify before the Subcommittee concerning BCCI in public, after Senator Kerry advised the CIA that the nomination of CIA director Robert Gates would be delayed until the CIA provided such testimony."

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Senator Kerry did some good work here, why did the 'report' get buried by the Clinton Administration?--And what 'courage' did Senator Kerry show once HIS party moved into the White House--NONE, that I could see.

Also from Section 11--

"In the case of BCCI, former CIA officials, including former CIA director Richard Helms and the late William Casey; former and current foreign intelligence officials, including Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil; and principal foreign agents of the U.S., such as Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, float in and out of BCCI at critical times in its history, and participate simultaneously in the making of key episodes in U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the Camp David peace talks to the arming of Iran as part of the Iran/Contra affair."

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The 'timing' of this report's release during the 'lame duck' session of G.H.W. Bush is incredible. Why didn't the Clinton Administration go after this like a hound after a fox? It all happened during the Reagan/Bush years with a Democrat Congress.(Kerry knew, Clinton knew--why weren't the 'sheeple' advised?)(Because we can't handle the truth?)

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