CIA funds liberal efforts

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The CIA's Counterterrorist Center has spent more than $15 million in the past three years funding studies, reports and conferences produced by former Democratic administration officials and other critics of the Bush administration.

The latest effort was a $300,000 grant by the CIA to the Atlantic Council for a study co-authored by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who wrote a best seller accusing the Bush administration of failing in the war on terrorism by invading Iraq.

"The products of the [center] have a consistent theme: They criticize the Bush administration and provide ammunition for the Kerry campaign," said one U.S. official who has read the resulting reports and studies.

This official said the academic outreach is the Counterterrorist Center's way of "buying off" criticism of the CIA and the intelligence community by providing hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts and conferences.

Disclosures of the funding come after a highly critical report of the September 11 commission that faulted the CIA for its counterterrorism efforts after the attacks. The report said the CIA, as of 1997, still identified al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a financier and failed to understand that he was the leader of the terrorist group that directed the September 11 attacks.

Bush administration officials say the CIA's funding of counterterrorism studies and conferences through the center, known as the CTC, raises questions about whether the agency is violating its charter by getting involved in activities that influence U.S. policy.

The funding also raised questions among administration and congressional officials involved in intelligence activities about whether the CIA selectively funds counterterrorism studies and conferences at liberal or Democratic-oriented research organizations, while shunning activities at Republican-oriented, conservative centers.

An investigation by The Washington Times of the CIA's funding of think tanks shows that the CTC's academic outreach program has not funded any studies or conferences at conservative organizations.

Bush administration intelligence and policy officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, disclosed other recent funding activities by the CTC program, in addition to the one at which Mr. Clarke was co-chairman. They include: