WASHINGTON — An internal investigation by the CIA found that agency officials engaged in a cover-up to hide agency negligence in the downing of a private airplane over Peru in 2001 as part of mistaken attack on an aircraft suspected of carrying illegal narcotics. Excerpts of an internal CIA report released Thursday accuse agency officials of lying to members of Congress and withholding crucial information from criminal investigators and senior Bush administration officials. The disclosure could lead to the reopening of a probe into whether agency officials committed crimes in the attack on the aircraft, which was transporting American missionaries, and then covering it up. The attack killed Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter and injured three others, including Bowers’ husband and young son. It was carried out by a Peruvian warplane working with CIA surveillance craft. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, described the revelations as ‘a dark stain’ on the CIA and called for information to be shared with the Justice Department to determine whether reopening the investigation is warranted. ‘To say these deaths did not have to happen is more than an understatement,’ said Hoekstra, […]