3/2/05 - Senate Intelligence Chairman Opposes C.I.A. Abuse Inquiry

By contrast, the proposal by the Democratic vice chairman, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, outlined by his staff for the first time on Tuesday, calls for "an investigation into all matters that have any tendency to reveal the full facts about the detention, interrogation and rendition authority and practices" used by government agencies for intelligence purposes.

Mr. Rockefeller said in a recent interview that he believed that the committee should begin an inquiry even before the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general completes at least a half-dozen reviews now under way.

The C.I.A. has said it will provide its reports to the committee, but in Congressional testimony last month, Porter J. Goss, the intelligence chief, said he did not know when the reviews would be completed.

Among other things, Mr. Rockefeller is asking the committee to conduct an inquiry into "all presidential and other authorities for detention, interrogation and rendition for intelligence purposes" since the Sept. 11 attacks. The word rendition refers to the transfer of suspects to another country's custody, an extrajudicial practice that the C.I.A. has used widely since the attacks.

Mr. Rockefeller also wants the panel to review "the full facts" concerning the detention, interrogation and rendition practices by American government agencies, said his spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi. In addition, a one-page draft proposal that Mr. Rockefeller gave to Mr. Roberts last month calls for a review of "the full facts" of what American agencies know about the detention and interrogation practices of the governments to which detainees are sent. Mr. Roberts said in an interview last month that he and his staff were reviewing a proposal by Mr. Rockefeller. The Republican senator said at the time that he was not sure that a formal investigation was warranted, but he suggested that the two sides could agree on a review, saying, "'I don't anticipate any difference of opinion regarding the subject."

But on Tuesday, an aide to Mr. Roberts said the senator did not believe that a formal inquiry was warranted. The subject of interrogation and detention "will continue to be a focus of oversight for us," said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of sensitivity about the internal discussions among the committee's senior members.

Within the C.I.A., there has been growing concern over the possibility that career officers could be prosecuted or otherwise punished for their conduct during interrogations and detentions of terrorism suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks. Government officials say that the episodes being reviewed by the agency's inspector general date from 2002, and that at least three involve the deaths of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is not clear whether the episodes under review include those involving an estimated three dozen senior leaders of Al Qaeda being held by the C.I.A. in secret prisons around the world, about which virtually all details have remained secret.

To date, only one C.I.A. employee, a contract worker from North Carolina, has been charged with a crime in connection with the treatment of prisoners, stemming from a death in Afghanistan in June 2003. But the officials have confirmed that the agency had asked the Justice Department to review at least one other case, from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in November 2003, to determine if a C.I.A. officer and interpreter should face prosecution.