WASHINGTON — Reversing a position it has held for months, the White House on Tuesday agreed to brief all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees on a controversial domestic wiretapping operation -- just as the architect of the program is facing a contentious confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill.
In making the concession, the Bush administration is seeking to improve the prospects of the president's nominee to be the next CIA director, Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, by preempting attacks from lawmakers angry that they have been kept in the dark on domestic spying activities.
Meanwhile Tuesday, Verizon Communications Inc. became the second phone company to deny that it gave customer calling records to the National Security Agency as part of a separate program in which the NSA is accused of assembling records on tens of millions of U.S. citizens. BellSouth Corp. issued a similar statement Monday, leaving only AT&T among the three companies named by USA Today as having granted access to electronic databases.
Ever since news reports revealed last year that President Bush had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on U.S. residents without court warrants, the White House has insisted it was too risky to reveal details of the program to more than a select group of lawmakers.
The decision to abandon that position came after the White House received warnings from prominent Republican lawmakers, including Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, that Hayden would face a hostile hearing if members voting on his confirmation were not trusted with information on the most controversial program he ran.
"It became apparent that in order to have a fully informed confirmation hearing, all members of my committee needed to know the full width and breadth of the president's program," Roberts said in a written statement.
Hayden served as director of the NSA for five years, and played a major role in designing and overseeing the program, which involved intercepting the international communications of thousands of U.S. residents in an effort to identify and track terrorist suspects. Hayden now serves as the deputy director for national intelligence, but was tapped two weeks ago by Bush to take the helm at the CIA.
Bush addressed the controversy again Tuesday, defending the program as necessary to fight terrorism, but also repeating his earlier statements that the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval.
