State Secrets

Cheney Linked to CIA Terror Program

Vice president withheld information from Congress.

More secrets emerge about the Bush administration. Former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the concealment of a secret CIA counterterrororism program for eight years, The New York Times reports, though the scope of the program is unknown. CIA Director Leon Panetta told the Senate and House intelligence committees that he ended the program when he first learned about it from subordinates on June 23. Officials say the program did not involve the much-criticized CIA interrogation program or domestic intelligence gathering. "They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year," The Times reports. Congressional officials differ on the program's significance. The news comes on the heels of an inspectors general report that said only three lawyers in the Department of Justice knew of President Bush's secret domestic wiretapping program.