Key Senate Panel Backs the Idea of an Inspector General for CIA

WASHINGTON —  Despite strong objections from CIA Director William H. Webster and the Bush Administration, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has approved an amendment to the 1990 intelligence authorization bill that would create an independent inspector general for the agency, according to congressional sources.

The sources said the amendment, proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., was approved “by a strong majority” of the 15-member committee during a closed-door meeting Tuesday. Both committee Chairman David L. Boren, D-Okla., and ranking Republican Sen. William S. Cohen of Maine voted for the amendment, the sources said.

The amendment calls for the appointment by the president, with the consent of the Senate, of an outside inspector general who would have the authority to carry out inspections, investigations and audits of agency activities.

The sources said that one concession made to the CIA was to drop from the language of the amendment a section that would have given the independent inspector general the power to issue subpoenas to enforce his authority over the agency.

The Senate move to establish an independent inspector general for the agency has come in reaction to the CIA’s role in the Iran-Contra affair. If approved by the whole Congress, it probably would become the main reform in congressional oversight procedures to emerge from that controversy.

But the White House may still veto the authorization bill either because of this amendment or another aimed at cutting off the president’s use of his special contingency fund to finance any covert activity about which he has not informed Congress.

The House version of the authorization bill for intelligence activities does not include any provision for establishing an independent inspector general. But the House last week passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. Dave McCurdy, D-Okla., calling for full congressional access to all reports issued by the CIA’s own inspector general.

Webster said in an interview Monday that he felt that the appointment of an independent inspector general was “the wrong way to go” and that he had informed the Senate and House intelligence committees of his opposition.

“I’ve never refused a request. So I don’t know why we need this kind of language in statutory form,” he said defending the current system of appointing an inspector general from within the agency.

“I do not believe it will be as strong an IG (inspector general) or as effective an IG. I disagree with the premise that having people from within the agency rotating through the IG makes it less effective,” he said.