A high-ranking Republican lawmaker, in a letter made public on Sunday, exposed what he sees as a dissident faction within the CIA that he says "intentionally undermined" the policies of US President George W. Bush.
Rumors about the existence of such a group have circulated in the US capital for a long time, but the comments by Representative Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, mark the first time they were confirmed by an official with intimate knowledge of the intelligence community.
"In fact, I have been long concerned that a strong and well positioned group within the agency intentionally undermined the administration and its policies," Hoekstra wrote in a letter to Bush dated May 18.
The CIA declined to comment on the charge when queried by Agence France Presse.
The document has been obtained by the New York Times and posted on its Web site in its entirety. Hoekstra confirmed its authenticity in a television interview on Sunday, but did not elaborate on his concerns.
The allegations stem from a CIA leak investigation centered on former CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose husband, retired ambassador Joseph Wilson, made a 2002 trip to Niger to check on reports that Iraq had secretly tried to purchase uranium ore there.
The Bush administration had used those reports to accuse the government of then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein of trying to secretly build a nuclear arsenal, charges that were used to justify the March 2003 US-led invasion of the country.
Plame's name was disclosed to the public in July 2003 by conservative columnist Robert Novak after her husband accused the Bush administration in a newspaper article of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat."
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted in connection with revealing the cover of the secret agent, which could be illegal.
Libby was the first to publicly hint at the existence of a dissident faction inside the CIA in a New York Times interview prior to his indictment last October.
He was quoted as saying the CIA was engaged in a "perverted war" over the war in Iraq and resorted to "selective leaking" of information in order to drive its point home.
He also insisted that Wilson had been sent to Niger by people within the CIA without the knowledge of George Tenet, the then-director of central intelligence, or the White House.
Hoekstra, whose letter was never intended for publication, said his argument about the faction was supported by the Plame affair "as well as by the string of unauthorized disclosures from an organization that prides itself with being able to keep secrets."
In another first, the chairman went on to name some names.
They included Stephen Kappes, a former CIA director of operations, who is now slated to become deputy director of the whole agency.
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