C.I.A. Deleted Large Sections, Officials Say

By NEIL A. LEWIS

An estimated 20 percent of a Senate committee’s report on faulty Iraq intelligence was deleted at the request of the C.I.A., Congressional officials said Friday. The deletions have renewed a debate about whether Central Intelligence Agency officials were trying to suppress certain information to avoid embarrassment.

The C.I.A. originally asked that about half the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report be blacked out. However, the Congressional officials said that while the agency’s original requests included many items that were "unreasonable and arbitrary," they now believed that most of the sections that will remain blacked out relate to national security.

But Tom Blanton, the executive director of the National Security Archive, a research group affiliated with George Washington University, asserted that the deletions were intended to prevent embarrassment at the agency.

Mr. Blanton said the public report deleted the committee’s reasoning for three key conclusions: that the agency knowingly misled Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; that it withheld reservations about its information from an October 2002 white paper that was instrumental in making the case for war against Iraq; and that it misled Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat.

Congressional officials said some of those portions might still be restored to the public version.

When Congress released its report about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks a year ago, some members complained that the Bush administration had deleted a whole section because it was embarrassing to the Saudi government.

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