Cheney Role in CIA Secrecy Questioned

Intelligence officials say on Capitol Hill, it's now open season on the agency.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at the American Enterprise Institute on U.S. national security in Washington, D.C., May 21, 2009.

(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

"What we're seeing here is really the politicization of National Defense," Scheuer said. "Is that really the road we want to go down now?"

The growing spat between congress and intelligence agencies heated up in May, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said "The CIA was misleading the Congress" on such interrogation methods as water-boarding, a centuries-old mock drowning technique.

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Some Republicans, hoping to show that Pelosi wrongly accused the agency of failing to inform her of those methods, are now joining the call for investigations.

"Why after the speaker says I've been lied to consistently over a period of years, why haven't there been hearings?" Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., told ABC News.

A former CIA official told ABC News that after 2006 the agency was under no restriction to withhold information about the project. Nevertheless, a House Intelligence Committee member said, information about the ultra-secret program was deliberately withheld, on orders.