the Global Observatory

Hidden Away

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about an unidentified program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney. The concealment orders were issued from an undisclosed location and later confirmed, again, from an undisclosed location.

The report that Mr. Cheney issued the orders from an undisclosed location has deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration placed a high priority on its secrecy.

CIA Director Leon Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates, briefed Senate and House intelligence committees Saturday.

According to sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Senators and Congressmen were shocked to learn that even the CIA was unaware of Mr. Cheney’s location when he issued the orders. A spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the committee will expend all necessary resources to find Mr. Cheney’s location at the time he issued the orders. “We will find where he was,” she said.

“He may have gone hunting or may have been meeting with oil industry officials,” said a source on condition of anonymity. “It was hard to say at the time. His office just told us that Mr. Cheney’s location could not be disclosed.”

Efforts to directly contact Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful. Mr. Cheney’s spokesman, however, refused to comment on the CIA program but said that the whereabouts of the former Vice President were regularly kept secret.

“It’s not a big deal. Mr. Cheney was frequently at undisclosed locations only because of his dear love for his nation’s security. What if anything happened to President Bush?”