PANEL ASKS HELP OVERSEEING COVERT ACTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301310052-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 52
• Publication Date: April 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

SI-AT
' Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301310052-4
3 April 1987
PANEL ASKS HELP OVERSEEING COVERT ACTION
BY ROBERT DOHERTY
WASHINGTON
Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee called Friday for an
independent "watchdog" to help oversee U.S. covert activity and prevent
Congress from being left in the dark about programs such as the U.S. arms sales
to Iran.
The committee's chairman and vice chairman said the panel would examine
"alternative methods of independent aUditing,L2._and have asked national security
adviserFrankcarbacciandactintev'Yor their views.
'The committee is
11:' David Boren, D-Okla.,
-70 integral part of that
covert operations, to
intensifying its oversight of covert actions," Sens.
and William Cohen, R-Maine, said in a statement. "An
is fffriTIMMT17Fiunit, independent Of those conducting
audit the activity."
In an interview, Cohen, the panel's vice chairman, said the committee was not
certain how the auditing would be done but said it could be "along the lines
of" the General Accounting Office, the agency that conducts investigations at
the request of Congress.
Auditors could examine covert actions in "spot checks, so they are not
monitoring every single thing but rather that the bureaucracy understands that
they'd be subject to (scrunity)," Cohen said.
"Having that audit agency or unit there ... as a watchdog will serve as an
Incentive to (follow) the established guidelines," he said.
Cohen said he was unsure the idea "is going to be met with acceptance by the
administration." He also did not know if the establishment of such an auditing
group would require a change in federal law.
Boren and Cohen said the U.S. intelligence community generally has been
helpful in providing information on covert actions to the committee but stressed
the panel is solely dependent on those agencies for data.
"We only know as much as they tell us. They usually tell us everything but
not always," said Cohen. "This is just a sort of safety valve against
potential future abuses."
He said the audit group could help the congressional intelligence panels to
keep track of the existence of covert activities and money spent on them.
The Maine Republican said the move was, in part, a response to the sale of
U.S. arms to Iran. Members of Congress have been critical of the White House
decision not to inform Capitol Hill of the initiative for nearly 11 months.
A subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee is holding hearings on a
bill that would require the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of any
"significant" covert activity and to provide in advance to the congressional
intelligence committees a copy of presidential directives authorizing secret
operations.
The law now says the president in certain cases does not have to give prior
notice and can inform Congress later "in a timely fashion."
House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas said at a hearing on the bill earlier this
week that President Reagan could have averted "the colossal misjudgments" of
the Iran-Contra scandal if Congress had been informed.
But House Republican leader Robert Michel of Illinois called the proposed law
"the functional equivalent of a foreign policy straitjacket."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301310052-4