Report says CIA witheld info from White House
By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press
November 21, 2008
Page 2 of 2
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield pledged the CIA's full cooperation with Congress, saying:
"This situation obviously calls for careful deliberations that will result in sound fair decisions."
Hoekstra also called Thursday for the declassification of the CIA report on the incident, which killed a Michigan woman and her infant daughter. The pilot, the woman's husband and her son survived.
He said the intelligence committee will likely hold hearings on the matter in the new year.
The incident occurred in April 2001 in Peru's remote Amazon region near the Colombian and Brazilian borders as part of the CIA's airbridge counternarcotics program. A CIA-contracted surveillance plane was supposed to identify drug-smuggling aircraft, and Peruvian and Colombian fighters were supposed to intercept them and order them to land. If they didn't follow those orders, the fighters had authority to shoot them down.
According to a U.S. report released by the State Department in 2001, the CIA aircraft initially identified the plane, but then grew concerned that it was an innocent flight, too late -- given language problems and established procedures -- to prevent the Peruvian fighter from firing.
The shoot-down was "even more senseless and avoidable than I originally imagined," Hoeskstra said.
"It is a blot, a dark stain," he said. "This is a sad day for the CIA."
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