McCain: CIA lied about missing man

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain said Sunday that the CIA has not been forthcoming with Congress on details about an American who disappeared while on a secret intelligence mission to Iran.

Iran’s foreign minister asserted that Robert Levinson is “not incarcerated by the government, and I believe the government runs, pretty much, good control of thecountry.”

An Associated Press investigation published last week found that Levinson was working for the CIA investigating the Iranian government. The U.S. long has publicly described Levinson as a private citizen who traveled to an Iranian island on private business.

McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN’s State of the Union, “The CIA did not tell the truth to the American Congress about Mr. Levinson.”

McCain said he is confident the U.S. is doing all it can to learn what has happened to Levinson. But he said he is disturbed that the Obama administration has not been more forthcoming with information.

He said he doesn’t “think there’s any doubt” about whether Iran knows Levinson’s fate.

But Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, when asked on CBS’ Face the Nation where Levinson is, replied, “I have no idea.”

“If we can trace him and find him, we will certainly discuss” returning him to the United States, he added, though he made clear that “we have no traces of him in Iran.”

Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed a suggestion by Levinson’s family that the U.S. government was not doing enough to find out what happened to Levinson.

“There hasn’t been progress in the sense that we don’t have him back. But to suggest that we have abandoned him or anybody has abandoned him is simply incorrect … and not helpful,” he told ABC’s This Week.

“The fact is I have personally raised the issue not only at the highest level … but also through other intermediaries. So we don’t have any meeting with anybody who has something to do with Iran or an approach to Iran where we don’t talk to them about how we might be able to find not just Levinson, but we have two other Americans that we’re deeply concerned about.”

Right now, “we’re looking for proof of life,” Kerry said.

Iran’s media counselor at the United Nations called on Washington to explain Levinson’s mission in Iranian territory, after the AP investigation revealed that he had been on an unauthorized assignment for the CIA when he vanished on Iran’s Kish Island in March 2007.

U.S. officials have raised the Levinson case with Iranrepeatedly over the years. But until the investigation was published, it was not known that Levinson was hoping to gather information in his role as an independent contract investigator who expected to be compensated by a group of analysts at the CIA.

After he vanished, the CIA at first told lawmakers he had previously done contract work for the agency, but he had no relationship with the agency at the time and there was no connection to Iran. However, in October 2007, Levinson’s lawyer discovered emails in which Levinson told a CIA friend that he was working to develop a source with access to the Iranian government. The emails were turned over to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which touched off an internal CIA investigation.

Three veteran analysts were forced out of the CIA and seven others were disciplined as a result of a breach of agency rules.

The last photos and video of a bearded, emaciated Levinson were released anonymously to his family in 2010 and early 2011. Investigators said his trail has grown cold since.

NUCLEAR ACCORD

Meanwhile, Zarif said the Islamic Republic is committed to reaching an accord over nuclear activities even as the U.S. seeks to punish companies for possibly violating sanctions.

On CBS’ Face the Nation, Zarif said Sunday that it was “a very wrong move” for the U.S. government to freeze assets of companies doing business with Iran while a deal aimed at keeping his country from developing nuclear weapons is being pursued.

“We are committed to the implementation of the plan of action that we adopted in Geneva,” Zarif said. “But we believe that it takes two to tango.”

High-level talks in Vienna between six countries and Iran were disrupted after the Treasury Department on Thursday said it was freezing assets and banning transactions of entities that attempt to evade the sanctions, including by doing business with the National Iranian Tanker Co., Iran’s primary shipper of crude oil.

Thursday’s action by the U.S. freezes the American assets of firms in Panama, Singapore, Ukraine and elsewhere for maintaining covert business with Iran’s national tanker company. Other companies involved directly in the proliferation of material useful for weapons of mass destruction also were blacklisted from the U.S. market. American citizens are banned from any transactions with the listed individuals and firms.

Kerry appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week to defend the preliminary six-month accord that provides for a freeze on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a limited easing of sanctions.

Some U.S. lawmakers oppose the deal as inadequate and are pushing for new sanctions on Iran.

“Many of us are very skeptical about the conditions under which this pause is being undertaken,” McCain said Sunday on Face the Nation.

McCain said he was considering pushing for new sanctions that would go into effect if a broader deal isn’t reached in six months.

President Barack Obama has said he is committed to trying diplomacy to resolve the tensions with Iran.

The U.S. move comes as Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for even tougher measures to raise the pressure further on the Islamic Republic, despite the administration’s pleas for patience.

The West fears Iran’s nuclear program could allow it to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes like power generation and medical treatment.

Information for this article was contributed by Nasser Karimi and staff members of The Associated Press and by Tom Schoenberg, Greg Giroux, Kambiz Foroohar and Sandrine Rastello of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/16/2013

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