WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released more than 5 million pages of declassified records to the public in the 2003 fiscal year, which included such documents as intelligence policy files and translated summaries of foreign publications.

    All the declassified records, including 1.5 million pages released on Sept. 30, the last day of fiscal 2003, in the form of digital images in a full-text searchable database called CREST, were made public at the National Archives facility in College Park, Maryland, the CIA said on Thursday.

    The release was made in support of a presidential executive order that provides for automatic declassification of unreviewed records of permanent historical value over 25 years old on December 31, 2006, according to the CIA.

    Among the documents, dated between 1945 and 1981, were intelligence daily serial publications, field information reports, policy files, research and development files, and ground photo caption cards and photo interpretation reports by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

    The CIA has in all released about 545,000 documents or 8.7 million pages in the CREST system, including Cold War finished intelligence documents, documents that chronicle major CIA programs such as the U-2 airborne system development and deployment, and translated summaries of foreign publications.

    The intelligence agency has also made public thousands of reelsof motion picture film and millions of ground-level photographs ofvirtually every country in the world at the College Park facility.

    Since its inception in 1995, the CIA Declassification Center has released some 27 million pages of formerly sensitive records. Enditem