An angry row has erupted over whether former vice president Dick Cheney had directed the CIA eight years ago to conceal from Congress a counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June. Panetta told a House committee that Cheney was behind the secrecy, US sources say. Panetta – who took over directorship of the CIA under President Obama's administration – is said to have abandoned the project only when he learnt of it on June 23. There has been no comment from Cheney. But former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden angrily struck back at assertions the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11, 2001 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers. Hayden maintained that top members of Congress were kept well-informed all along the way, notwithstanding protests from some that they were kept in the dark. “One of the points I had in every one of the briefings was to make sure they understood the scope of our activity ‘They've got to know this is bigger than a bread box,' I said,” said Hayden, who also previously headed the National Security Agency. “At the political level this had support,” said the one-time CIA chief, jumping foursquare into an escalating controversy that has caused deep political divisions and lingering debate on the counterterrorism policies of an administration now out of power. On Friday, a team of US inspectors general called the surveillance program “unprecedented.” Their report also questioned the program's legal rationale and the excessive secrecy that enshrouded it. Hayden, who in 2001 designed and carried out the secret program, said that he personally briefed top lawmakers on the entire surveillance operation and said he felt that they supported it. The details of the wider surveillance program described by the federal investigative report remain classified. The program included the wiretapping of American phone and computer lines and was intended to detect communications from the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. That was revealed by the New York Times in 2005 and later confirmed by then-president George W. Bush. Several Democratic members of the House and Senate expressed surprise and concern Friday about the still-secret surveillance program. Some members of Congress are calling for a full independent inquiry and others are urging further congressional investigations. The allegations come as Democrats in Congress are trying to push through new rules that would increase the number of members of Congress who are told about covert operations. The White House is threatening to veto the bill, fearing that operational secrecy could be compromised. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed that the CIA misled her about interrogation methods including waterboarding, while other senior Democrats have quoted Panetta as admitting that his agency regularly misled Congress before he took office.
