House Calls Former Top Spy to Hill

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

House Calls Former Top Spy to Hill

Thursday December 13, 2007 10:31 PM

By PAMELA HESS

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House Intelligence Committee
has summoned the CIA official who ordered the
destruction of interrogation videotapes, launching what
will likely be several months of hearings.

The panel wrote to CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden
Thursday requesting that he send Jose Rodriguez, the
agency's former top spy, to a hearing next Tuesday.
Rodriguez retired from his role as head of the National
Clandestine Service in August, but is still at the
agency preparing for retirement.

Hayden told CIA employees last week that the videotapes,
made in 2002, showed the CIA's interrogations of two
terror suspects. The CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005.
The tapes were made to document how CIA officers were
using new, harsh questioning techniques that had been
approved by the White House to force recalcitrant
prisoners to talk.

The panel is also calling on acting CIA General Counsel
John Rizzo to testify. Central to the investigation is
whether Rodriguez sought and got permission from agency
lawyers to destroy the tapes.

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