US Republican lawmakers last night called for a congressional investigation into leaks of information used by The Washington Postin an article on the CIA's secret global prison system.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert in a letter asked the intelligence committees to "immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information."
Democrats said instead of just investigating possible leaks related to that story, Republicans should allow a broad investigation on detainee abuses and whether the Bush administration manipulated intelligence before the Iraq war.
"If the speaker and the majority leader in the Senate are interested in this, they should join with us in getting to the bottom of what went on in bringing this country to war," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. Democrats had pushed for an independent commission to investigate abuses of terrorism suspects in US custody.
But voting 55-43, the Senate largely on party lines rejected the commission in an amendment to a defense policy bill.
Democrats said an independent review was essential to determine whether Bush administration policies led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere, but Republicans said the Pentagon already had conducted investigations and prosecutions were ongoing.
The Washington Post reported last week that the CIA has been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, part of a global covert prison system established after the September 11th, 2001, attacks.
The Bush administration has not confirmed or denied the report. In their letter, Mr Frist of Tennessee and Mr Hastert of Illinois said they wanted the intelligence committees to determine if the information given to the newspaper was classified and accurate, who leaked it and under what authority, and the actual and potential national security damage from it.
Asked whether the Republican leaders would seek an investigation of the secret prisons, Ron Bonjean, Mr Hastert's spokesman, said, "First we're looking into why we have people leaking classified information."
Agencies