WASHINGTON, July 10: There’s a dissident faction within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that ‘intentionally undermines’ the policies of US President George Bush, says a high-ranking Republican Congressman.

In a letter to Mr Bush released to the media on Monday, Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, noted that rumours about the existence of such a group have circulated in the US capital for a long time.

“In fact, I have been long concerned that a strong and well-positioned group within the agency intentionally undermined the administration and its policies,” he wrote.

The CIA has refused to comment on the charge.

The allegations stem from a CIA leak investigation that centred on former CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose husband, retired ambassador Joseph Wilson, made a 2002 trip to Niger to check on reports that Iraq had secretly tried to purchase uranium ore there.

The Bush administration had used those reports to accuse the government of then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein of trying to secretly build a nuclear arsenal, charges that were used to justify the March 2003 US-led invasion of the country.

Ms Plame’s name was disclosed to the public in July 2003 by conservative columnist Robert Novak after her husband accused the Bush administration in a newspaper article of “exaggerating the Iraqi threat”.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Richard Cheney, was indicted in connection with the illegal blowing of the cover of the secret agent.

In his letter to Mr. Bush, Mr. Hoekstra also charged that the administration might have violated the law by failing to inform Congress of some secret intelligence programs and risked losing Republican support on national security matters.

Mr. Hoekstra expanded on his concerns in a television appearance on Sunday, saying that when the administration withholds information from Congress, “I take it very, very seriously.”

“I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which our committee has not been briefed,” Mr. Hoekstra wrote. “If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies.”

He added: “The US Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution.”

On Sunday, Mr Hoekstra said that Gen. Michael Hayden, President Bush’s choice to succeed Porter Goss at the CIA, is “the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time.”