Senator calls on CIA to declassify Iraq documents

Senate Armed Services ranking member Carl Levin, D-Mich., Monday called on CIA Director George Tenet to declassify documents regarding the number of key suspected Iraqi weapons sites that U.S. intelligence officials say they have shared with the United Nations.

The effort is the latest part of Levin's quest for bipartisan hearings on the government's actions leading up to the war in Iraq, and one issue he wants explored is whether the CIA withheld information to avoid undermining the administration's Iraq policy.

But while Levin suggested that Tenet's public statements that he had shared information with the United Nations contradicts the classified information provided to senators, Levin is not calling for Tenet's resignation just yet.

"I want to withhold judgment," Levin told reporters at a briefing Monday.

Tenet has declined to share the top weapons site information publicly, citing "secrecy arrangements" with the United Nations, but U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told Levin in a June 11 letter that he had no problem with making public the number of sites the CIA provided to the United Nations before the war began.