The CIA agrees to cooperate with Hill's tapes probe.

[lily]

A step in the right direction (http://www.newsweek.com/id/80996)

The CIA agrees to cooperate with Hill's tapes probe.

Faced with the threat of subpoenas, the CIA has reversed its position from
last week and is now signaling that the agency will cooperate with an
aggressive congressional investigation into the destruction of hundreds of
hours of videotapes believed to show the use of waterboarding and other
enhanced interrogation techniques on two suspected top Al Qaeda leaders,
Newsweek has learned.

News that the CIA would cooperate with the congressional inquiry came one
day after House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes and
ranking member Rep. Pete Hoekstra sent CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden a
letter saying their panel would proceed with its probe--despite a joint
request last week from the agency's Inspector General and the Justice
Department urging the committee to back off. The agency's apparent change of
heart came in the wake of a New York Times report alleging that top White
House lawyers were consulted and discussed the fate of the tapes, a
development that raises the political stakes in the congressional probe.

Tuesday's letter to the agency from Reyes and Hoekstra warned Hayden
directly that their committee intended to subpoena documents and testimony
from top CIA officials. The panel also began drafting subpoenas seeking,
among other items, all records of communications about the tapes between the
CIA and other executive branch officials--a request that would cover the
agency's consultations with the White House. Copies of unsigned subpoenas
have already been provided to the CIA.

The House panel is also seeking testimony--for a hearing tentatively
scheduled for Jan. 16--from two central figures in the tapes controversy:
acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo and Jose Rodriguez, former chief of
the CIA's National Clandestine Service. Rodriguez is said to have given the
order to destroy the tapes in Nov. 2005 after consulting with agency
lawyers. In addition, the committee wants copies of all agency records
relating to the retention and destruction of the tapes, along with any legal
advice agency officials received. The House panel has asked for the CIA to
begin turning over the documents by the end of this week.

Hoekstra told Newsweek that the CIA has told the committee that they are "99
percent confident" that Rizzo will "show up" for the January 16 hearing.
Hoekstra added that ultimately, the committee wants to hear from "all the
people involved in the decision making, including the White House."

Just last week, the Justice Department and the CIA inspector general sent
the House panel a letter asking it to delay its inquiry to allow a
preliminary investigation into whether the destruction violated any criminal
laws to proceed. But Reyes and Hoekstra refused to back down and this week,
a committee official said, Justice officials said the department no longer
had any objection to the CIA cooperating. Reyes and Hoekstra subsequently
fired off their letter raising the prospect of subpoenas if the CIA didn't
fully cooperate.

[bishop]

call me jaded, but i doubt anything will come out of this.. there'll be a media circus, and possibly an indictment - followed by a painfully long litigation process. some sacrificial lamb will be presented, as was the case in abu ghraib, and the policy makers will get the free pass.

the administration's attempts to scare the court were laughable. they have lost the ability to scare people into compliance a long time ago. seems old habits die hard.

[lily]

call me jaded, but i doubt anything will come out of this.. there'll be a media circus, and possibly an indictment - followed by a painfully long litigation process. some sacrificial lamb will be presented, as was the case in abu ghraib, and the policy makers will get the free pass.

I agree. I mentioned the same thing in another thread on one of the other scandles of this administration....it's becoming a predictible pattern. The only thing new is either a pardon or a commute....but I'm an optimist. As each new scandle pops up, I always hope that this is going to be the last one, they can't possibly get away with this.....and then another one pops up, even bigger than the last one. I knit and I've found out the hard way, one missed stitch, one dropped piece of yarn and the whole thing comes unraveled.

[K-D-K-D-K]

This is all but a liberal witch hunt to bash the CIA and the Bush Administration. So what if terrorists were tortured and possibly killed. We are at war and they were collateral damage as they were extracting information that could protect the US from being attacked. How else are you suppose to treat them? Take them to Taco Bell in exchange for information. Get real folks, these people deserve nothing but the upmost harsh conditions the human body can endure. Kind of like the good ole fashion KKK interrogations of a black in the south which worked well in getting information from communist blacks that were a threat to the American family valued southern white communities. Bush and co are doing the right thing. They are protecting America at the expense of the enemy.

[bishop]

but I'm an optimist. As each new scandle pops up, I always hope that this is going to be the last one, they can't possibly get away with this.....and then another one pops up, even bigger than the last one. I knit and I've found out the hard way, one missed stitch, one dropped piece of yarn and the whole thing comes unraveled.

but really, how long has this cycle of scandle and escape continued? there were issues of a similar sort during reagan's presidency, and they've continued in every single presidency to date.

they have already gotten away with this as far as i'm concerned.. we've all known about these secret torture chambers for years, as well as torture occurring at gitmo, and in iraq/afghanistan... the red cross, for instance, has been reporting this since 2004.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1130-01.htm

i'm completely desensitized to the corruption that exists in the establishment (not solely this particular administration) that the destruction of this evidence doesn't phaze me in the slightest. they'll get away with it, americans will elect another establishment politician who will commit new scandals, which will also be swept under the carpet. so goes the status quo.

[lily]

This is all but a liberal witch hunt to bash the CIA and the Bush Administration. So what if terrorists were tortured and possibly killed. We are at war and they were collateral damage as they were extracting information that could protect the US from being attacked. How else are you suppose to treat them? Take them to Taco Bell in exchange for information. Get real folks, these people deserve nothing but the upmost harsh conditions the human body can endure. Kind of like the good ole fashion KKK interrogations of a black in the south which worked well in getting information from communist blacks that were a threat to the American family valued southern white communities. Bush and co are doing the right thing. They are protecting America at the expense of the enemy.


KD...........if everything was A-Ok........why destroy the evidence?[hr]
i'm completely desensitized to the corruption that exists in the establishment (not solely this particular administration) that the destruction of this evidence doesn't phaze me in the slightest. they'll get away with it, americans will elect another establishment politician who will commit new scandals, which will also be swept under the carpet. so goes the status quo.


Bishop......I don't think I've ever done this before, but look up some of Fishingriver posts. He explains it quite well.

[NortheastCynic]

This is all but a liberal witch hunt to bash the CIA and the Bush Administration. So what if terrorists were tortured and possibly killed. We are at war and they were collateral damage as they were extracting information that could protect the US from being attacked. How else are you suppose to treat them? Take them to Taco Bell in exchange for information. Get real folks, these people deserve nothing but the upmost harsh conditions the human body can endure.This assumes that all those who are tortured are terrorists...Which has never been proven. Give some thought to the fact that innocent people could have been tortured or killed by the gov't. If that doesn't give you some pause, then...wow.
Kind of like the good ole fashion KKK interrogations of a black in the south which worked well in getting information from communist blacks that were a threat to the American family valued southern white communities. Bush and co are doing the right thing. They are protecting America at the expense of the enemy.Of all of the despicable things that have been written on these boards, this might be the worst. Congrats KDKDK, you've just lowered the bar.:clapper:

Seek :help:

-NC