Senate Moves to Declassify CIA Report on 9/11

Wyden-Bond Amendment gives CIA Director 30 days to make findings public.

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(Washington, D.C.) - U.S. Senate legislation to implement unfinished recommendations of the 9/11 commission includes a bipartisan amendment to declassify the Executive Summary of the CIA Inspector General’s Report on 9/11.

The CIA report is the only major 9/11 government review that has not been made public, a fact that the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Kit Bond (R-MO) and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a senior member of the Intelligence Committee, have spent more than a year working to correct.

“Potential embarrassment is not an acceptable excuse for hiding the truth from the American people,” Wyden said. “The citizens of this country have a right to know how the Central Intelligence Agency performed in the days leading to 9/11. We need that information made public in order to ensure that there is true accountability.”

“Senators Wyden and Roberts worked patiently behind the scenes in the last Congress to get this report declassified, and I have now picked up the ball with Senator Wyden this Congress. Unfortunately, we haven’t made as much progress as I would like, and I’m not sure why. This amendment was the next logical step,” said Bond. “The executive summary should be declassified and released in a manner consistent with the protection of our sensitive sources and methods. Good intelligence is our best defense in protecting Americans from terrorist attacks and it is important we learn from past mistakes and get it right.”

The Inspector General’s report on CIA accountability and 9/11 was produced in response to a recommendation of the bipartisan Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11. The Joint Inquiry recommended that the Inspectors General of key agencies review their agencies’ performance prior to 9/11 and determine accountability where appropriate. The CIA Inspector General’s report was completed in 2005, but remains wholly classified. A similar report, regarding the FBI, was completed by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice and has since been redacted and released.

The amendment offered by Wyden and Bond would give the Director of the CIA 30 days to declassify the Executive Summary of the Inspector General’s report, removing only that information which must be redacted to protect national security. The Senators’ amendment was accepted by unanimous consent, today, as part of the “Improving America's Security by Implementing Unfinished Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007” (S.4), which passed the full Senate by a vote of 60 to 38.