Secret satellite plan questioned

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- The Senate Intelligence Committee has tried unsuccessfully to kill a super-secret, $9.5 billion spy satellite system, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The system, highly classified and under discussion for two years, could take photographs only in daylight hours and in clear weather, current and former government officials say.

Without specifying it is a satellite system, senators who oppose it have said only it is an extremely expensive classified intelligence acquisition program.

Some Republicans questioned whether four democrats who publicly hinted their concerns broke congressional rules.

But Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va., said he checked with intelligence officials before delivering a carefully worded statement on the Senate floor, saying the classified program was unnecessary and too costly, without saying it was a satellite system.

Republican Porter Goss, the new director of central intelligence who chaired the House Intelligence Committee until his appointment last summer, is a champion of the system.

Critics of the plan, including Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, question whether the system could really go undetected by American adversaries.