Pentagon Tries to Explain Secret Group

[rodeodance]

love the titel to this one.

Diane Fiensteign wrote Rummy a letter.
Many think he is bypassing Congressional oversite.



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20050125/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/pentagon_spy_teams

Pentagon Tries to Explain Secret Group

Tue Jan 25, 2:17 AM ET


By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) says the political uproar over the disclosure of a secret military intelligence group is overblown and based on misinformation about the group's makeup and mission.

Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon's top intelligence official, rushed to Capitol Hill on Monday after some members of Congress reacted strongly to a Washington Post report that revealed the existence of the group, which is managed by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and other Democrats called for hearings, but Republicans balked.

"According to The Washington Post, the Department of Defense (news - web sites) is changing the guidelines with respect to oversight and notification of Congress by military intelligence. Is this true or false?" Feinstein wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Feinstein and others appeared puzzled by the disclosure that the Pentagon had created a new battlefield intelligence group — "strategic support teams," in Pentagon parlance — to perform clandestine missions that had been largely the province of the CIA ......