Officials Relieved Secret Is Shared
Employees at CIA headquarters stood transfixed at television sets yesterday in a moment one senior official called “electric” as President Bush told the nation about the agency’s covert prison system — a program once considered so secret that even Bush did not know the details. “I know it’s going to make a lot of people sleep well at night,” one counterterrorism officer said of the disclosure. The feeling of relief by the very people carrying out the program was a striking indication of how deeply attitudes have changed within the government about the administration’s unorthodox counterterrorism tactics and the need to shroud them in secrecy. Full Story