C.I.A. Chief Cites Agency Lapse on Tapes

[tekisui]

WASHINGTON — Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, acknowledged on Wednesday that the C.I.A. had failed to keep members of Congress fully informed that the agency had videotaped the interrogations of suspected operatives of Al Qaeda and destroyed the tapes three years later.

Emerging from a closed session with members of the House Intelligence Committee, General Hayden said Wednesday that “particularly at the time of the destruction, we could have done an awful lot better at keeping the committee alert and informed.”

After a hearing that lasted nearly four hours, Representative Silvestre P. Reyes of Texas, the committee’s chairman, called parts of General Hayden’s testimony “stunning” and said lawmakers were just at the beginning of what would probably be a “long-term investigation.”

Government officials said Wednesday’s session was far more contentious than General Hayden’s classified briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee a day earlier. They said lawmakers had grilled 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.

more at link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/washington/13intel.html?ref=us