House panel leaders promise probe of CIA videotape destruction(CIA failed to fully inform Congress)

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

CAPITOL HILL (AP) - Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee say the CIA failed to fully inform Congress that it was videotaping the interrogations of terrorist suspects and that it destroyed the tapes in 2005.

The panel met today with agency director Michael Hayden during a three-hour closed-door session, a meeting that Democratic Chairman Sylvestre Reyes (sil-VES'-tur RAY'-uhs) says will be the first step in a long-term investigation. Hayden did acknowledge that the CIA could have done a better job at keeping "the committee alerted and informed."

The panel's senior Republican says the probe will include calling other witnesses, including Hayden's predecessors, George Tenet and Porter Goss.


Read more: http://www.kjrh.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=82e84687-aa57-4734-98c3-4926b731a0a7

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Hayden: "We Could Have Done an Awful Lot Better"
By Paul Kiel - December 12, 2007, 2:12PM
What a difference a scandal makes. Coming out of his briefing to the House intelligence committee today, CIA Director Michael Hayden was penitent: "particularly at the time of the destruction we could have done an awful lot better at keeping the committee alerted and informed."

It's a markedly different tone from the one he took last week. Then, he released a statement about the tapes' destruction and claimed that the intelligence committees had received ample notification of the intention to destroy the tapes and then their actual destruction. Both committees said that wasn't true. Now he apparently agrees.

Today was the second of Hayden's initial briefings on the scandal. Yesterday's was to the Senate intelligence committee, where he said that even though he's in charge at the CIA, he's not really the guy to be talking to: "Other people in the agency know about this far better than I." Hayden says he learned of the tapes' destruction as far back as last year, when he was the principal deputy director of national intelligence and before he took over at the CIA in May of 2006.

more:http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004889.php

[L. Coyote]

1. The crime is termed "Obstruction of Congress" and is an impeachable offense

if Bush, Cheney, et.al. had a role in the obstruction, any role.

Law requires informing Congress.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Don't hold your breath.

[L. Coyote]

3. I won't. But, a One Million Americans Hunger Strike is a good idea.

Something with critical mass is needed ASAP! To STOP the critical MESS.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. 1 million of us starving ourselves all the way to death

would no doubt be viewed as a good thing by many politicians in both parties.

[maddezmom]

5. House Panel to Question Two Former Spy Chiefs on CIA Videotapes (and Negroponte)

Source: Bloomberg

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Former CIA directors George Tenet and Porter Goss will be questioned by a House panel investigating why the spy agency destroyed videotapes of suspected terrorists being interrogated.

House Intelligence Committee leaders outlined the probe's widened scope as the current Central Intelligence Agency chief, Michael Hayden, acknowledged to reporters that the agency ``could have done an awful lot better'' in informing Congress about the tapes' destruction. Hayden publicly disclosed the destruction in a Dec. 6 letter to agency employees.

John Negroponte, the former national intelligence director, will also be asked what he knew about the tapes, lawmakers said after Hayden was questioned behind closed doors for three hours today in Washington.

``You obviously have to have Mr. Tenet here. You have to have Mr. Goss,'' Michigan Representative Peter Hoekstra, the panel's top Republican, told reporters after Hayden's closed testimony. ``This made its way into the office of the DNI (director of national intelligence.) So we're going to have to have John Negroponte come in,'' Hoekstra said.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20071212/pl_bloomberg/asuo0b34kmfi_1

[L. Coyote]

6. WOW. This is no small matter anymore. Is the meltdown happening yet?

Will there be competing versions of the "real truth"?