House Committee Wants U.S. to Remove Veil of Secrecy From 3 Covert Programs : Foreign aid: Funding for rebels in Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia is too controversial to remain under wraps, legislators argue.

The House Intelligence Committee will press the Bush Administration this week to lift the official veil of secrecy on America’s three largest covert programs--aid to anti-Communist rebels in Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia.

In what would be a sweeping change in U.S. intelligence policy, the powerful committee will call on the government to abandon the long-cherished practice of running such huge military aid programs as secret operations.

Instead, the government should give such aid in the open, justifying its position to Congress and the American public through the normal political process, the committee will argue in proposing the changes to the full House of Representatives.

The three ongoing covert aid programs have grown too large and controversial to remain secret, said Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), Intelligence Committee chairman, and they have lost much of their original anti-Communist rationale now that the Cold War has ended.

Administration officials are almost certain to reject the committee’s appeal for openness. But it is doubtful that they will be able to prevent Congress from imposing severe reductions in covert funding for the three ongoing programs.

The loyal support that the three big programs enjoyed in Congress over the past decade appears to be waning sharply with the collapse of Communist regimes around the world and the fiscal pressures created by the growing federal deficit.

Making the programs overt, Beilenson said, would permit “public debate on their merits and greater assurance that the programs are consistent with larger U.S. foreign policy goals,” including respect for human rights and promotion of democratic systems throughout the world.

Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), a former Intelligence Committee chairman and leading member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is joining the call for openness. “There are increasing doubts about U.S. policy that is made and executed entirely in secret,” he said.

Administration officials, however, maintain that the traditional rationale for keeping such programs secret remains valid: avoiding embarrassment to aid recipients and to countries through which the aid is funneled.

Critics dispute that argument. The three ongoing programs are more “overt-covert” than truly secret, Beilenson said. For example, the leader of the Angolan rebels, Jonas Savimbi, lobbied openly in Washington last week for his share of the “secret” aid.

The Administration is seeking about $372 million in funding for the three programs during the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1: $300 million for Afghanistan, $60 million for Angola and $12 million to $13 million for Cambodia.

The Senate already has slashed the Afghan request by one-third and deleted all funds for Cambodia. Amendments that would sharply reduce aid to Angola are expected to be offered on the House floor this week.

The Administration cites two key reasons for full funding. It contends that the three programs should be maintained to ensure that promising developments in all three countries lead to peaceful settlements. President Bush said last week, for instance, that aid to Angola will continue until a cease-fire is signed and a date set for “free and fair elections” to end the 15-year-old civil war.

Administration officials also stress that the Soviet Union, despite its economic troubles, continues to ship military goods to Afghanistan and Angola. The three Communist regimes have huge arsenals already, and even if the flow of Soviet supplies were cut off, U.S. aid would be needed to prevent U.S. allies from being overrun, they argue.

Afghanistan is by far the biggest covert aid program, having provided rebel forces with about $3 billion since the 1979 Soviet invasion. But the Soviets have withdrawn their troops from Afghanistan, eliminating the original justification for the effort.

Today, Beilenson said, the rebels are “a loose coalition of at least seven separate factions,” often paralyzed by infighting. Helping some factions at the expense of others undermines efforts to forge a consensus among the groups for negotiating with the Moscow-backed government in Kabul.

Some of the largest and best-armed groups are fundamentalists “whose goals for a new Afghanistan are in stark contrast with our own,” Beilenson said. But the Administration remains unwilling to negotiate with Moscow for a mutual cutoff of aid to the rebels and the government, he said.

In Angola, U.S. aid to the rebels was resumed in 1986 after Congress repealed a decade-old prohibition on military aid to either side in the civil war. Bush’s first foreign policy move after taking office was to reaffirm assistance for Savimbi, a favorite of Republican conservatives.

Human rights abuses by Savimbi and his followers have been alleged recently by Amnesty International, including several cases in which women and their children, whom Savimbi reportedly called witches, were burned to death. Savimbi’s supporters reject the charges as “character assassinations” by defectors and opponents.

Support for Savimbi also has been undermined by successful U.S.-Soviet efforts to achieve broad political settlements in southern Africa, including independence for Namibia, loosening of apartheid in South Africa and the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. State Department officials said Cuba has pulled out about 28,000 troops on schedule and is expected to remove the last 12,000 next year.

Even so, the Soviets reportedly are sending the Angolan government $800 million a year in military aid, according to State Department estimates. Administration officials note that that is more than 10 times the amount it is seeking for the rebels.

The Cambodian covert effort began in 1979 after Vietnam invaded the country to oust the widely detested Pol Pot regime. The military aid has gone to two non-Communist rebel groups that are part of a three-group coalition seeking to overthrow the Hanoi-backed government.

The rebel coalition includes the Khmer Rouge, however, so critics complain that U.S. aid appears to be indirectly supporting the Khmer Rouge, whose forces reportedly are gaining strength as the Vietnamese invaders have withdrawn. The Khmer Rouge is blamed for the deaths of 1 million Cambodians during its 3 1/2-year rule in the late 1970s.