Lawmaker Accuses CIA of Coverup

Nov. 20, 2008— -- A classified CIA report shows the agency operated a drug interdiction program outside of the law and that officials lied to Congress in an attempt to cover it up, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., is pushing for the declassification of the report, issued by the CIA inspector general, which is critical of the Narcotics Air Bridge Denial program, an agency initiative designed to shoot down suspected drug smuggling aircraft in South America.

The report, according to a congressional source, harshly criticizes the program, which dates back to the mid-1990s.

In April 2001, one of Hoekstra's constituents lost family members who were traveling in South America as missionaries after a plane they were in was shot down by the Peruvian Air Force because of faulty information provided by the CIA.

Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter Charity were both killed in the incident; her husband Jim and their son Cory, as well as the plane's pilot, Kevin Donaldson, survived.

The U.S. government suspended the program in 2001 after the Peru incident. It relaunched it in Colombia in 2003.

"The IG reports states that parts of the intelligence community, parts of the CIA were acting outside of the law with the drug interdiction program at the time that the Bowers' plane was shot down. That there was an active coverup within the community," Hoekstra said at a news conference in Washington Thursday. "It was enabled by a culture that failed to recognize either internal or external accountabilities."

The IG report, which remains classified, is said to uncover systemic problems in the program which led to the shoot down and other incidents. Hoekstra has called for the Justice Department to review the facts in the matter and requested that prosecutors review the report to determine if a criminal investigation is warranted.

In response to Hoekstra's accusations, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said, "[the] CIA takes very seriously questions of responsibility and accountability."

"The only accountability process worthy of this agency is one conducted with care, candor, and common sense. That's the single goal here. It's still unfolding, and it's not something that should ever be subjected to political pressure of any kind," he said.

Hoekstra said at the press conference that the CIA withheld information from lawmakers and other government officials.

"After the shoot down the CIA denied Congress, the National Security Council and the [Justice] Department access to key findings of internal reviews that established and documented the sustained significant violations of the established procedures," Hoekstra said. "The Inspector General found that CIA officials made false or misleading statements to Congress. The IG found the CIA never informed the Department of Justice of significant material information in connection with consideration of potential criminal charges."

According to an official briefed on the matter, in 2005 the Justice Department declined to prosecute the case after reviewing it with the CIA Inspector General.

Spokesman Gimigliano said that CIA Director Michael Hayden reviewed the report in late August, but that he has reached "no decisions at this point regarding conclusions and recommendations sent forward by the IG."

"This process is still open," he continued. "In fact, the director has sought input from a cleared outside expert, one who would know the complex issues involved in an air interdiction program."

Gimigliano also noted that the agency has shared the report with the Justice Department.

An unclassified portion of the report said that within hours of the incident, "CIA officers began to characterize the shootdown as a one-time mistake in an otherwise well-run program. In fact, this was not the case."

Another unclassified section of the report says the "routine disregard of the required intercept procedures" in the program "led to the rapid shooting down of target aircraft without adequate safeguards to protect against the loss of innocent life."

According to participants in the program interviewed for the report, performing the takedowns according to the established protocol would have "taken time and might have resulted in the escape of the target aircraft," the report continues. Because the procedure was difficult to follow, so "it was easier to shoot the aircraft down than to force it down."

"The result," the report says, "was that, in many cases, suspect aircraft were shot down within two to three minutes of being sighted by the Peruvian fighter -- without being properly identified, without being given the required warnings to land, and without being given time to respond to such warnings as were given to land."

Those actions were in violation of Presidentially-mandated intercept procedures, according to the report.

"Bottom line, if this program and these people had been held accountable for implementing procedures," Hoekstra said, "the Bowers plane would never have been shot down."