by D. Cupples | Yesterday, CIA Director Michael Hayden spent a few hours behind closed doors (i.e., no media) getting grilled by the House Intelligence Committee about the agency's possibly illegal destruction of video tapes of detainees being illegally tortured. Days ago, Hayden said that the CIA had informed key congressional committee members about the torture tapes' destruction.
After yesterday's private grilling, Hayden told the press that the CIA "could have done an awful lot better at keeping the committee alert and informed." The New York Times reports:
"Government officials said that Wednesday’s session was far more contentious then General Hayden’s classified briefing to the Senate a day earlier. They said h lawmakers had aggressively questioned the C.I.A. director about the accuracy of the statement he sent to agency employees after learning that The New York Times was preparing to publish an article about the tapes.
"As General Hayden noted publicly after the Senate hearing on Tuesday, the tapes were destroyed before he arrived at the C.I.A. in May 2006. The Senate and House committees are expected now to turn their focus to officials directly involved in the decision, including Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who as head of the agency’s clandestine branch in 2005 ordered that the tapes be destroyed.... (NY Times-1)
Two questions: why did Hayden originally respond that the agency had briefed Congress about the tape destruction? And why has he changed his tune, claiming that the CIA did a bad job of briefing Congress? Given that Hayden wasn't at the CIA in 2005, on what grounds was either answer based? Couldn't he have just said "I don't know what happened," or "I'll get back to you after I look into it?"
Statements by other CIA officials are also troubling. Days ago, an anonymous one claimed that former Clandestine Branch director Jose Rodriguez got written approval from CIA lawyers to destroy the tapes. The same nameless official said that the White House lawyers advised Rodriguez to not destroy the tapes. (NY Times-2)
The Big question: did the White House really instruct the CIA to preserve the tapes? If so, where is the memo stating that (assuming that White House lawyers would want to cover themselves by putting the instructions in writing). Apparently, Congress has questions, too:
"Congressional investigators are particular interested in advice the C.I.A. received from White House lawyers from 2003 to 2005. Officials have said White House aides advised the C.I.A. to preserve the tapes, but the exact guidance they gave remains murky.
"Some in Congress are curious to know why, if Mr. Rodriguez had really ignored White House advice not to destroy the tapes, he was apparently never reprimanded for ordering their destruction." (NY Times-1)
That's a fair question. In time, we may even get an (accurate) answer: after Wednesday's multi-hour hearing, Representative Silvestre Reyes "called parts of General Hayden’s testimony 'stunning' and said lawmakers were just at the beginning of what would likely be a 'long-term investigation.'”
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Other BN-Politics' Posts:
* CIA Lawyers Authorized Destruction of Tapes? Plot Thickens
* "Necessary Torture": The Interview of John Kiriakou (Updated)
* Outsourcing America's Intelligence
* Intelligence Chief Misleads Public Again
* White House Whines About Congressional Oversight
* Whatever happened to the 190,000 Missing Weapons?
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