CIA Failed To Fully Inform Congress About Destroyed Tapes

(The Politico)  CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged Wednesday that his agency failed to fully inform Congress that agents had videotaped the harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists and subsequently destroyed the tapes.

"We could have done an awful lot better job at keeping the committee alerted and informed," Hayden told reporters after a closed three-hour meeting with members of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the committee’s ranking Republican, suggested afterward that the panel planned to question former CIA Directors George Tenet and Porter Goss, who, respectively, presided over the agency when the interrogations were taped and the tapes later destroyed.

Hayden made a brief comment Tuesday after his closed-door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying he could not comment on the tapes because his predecessors were in charge at the time. But Wednesday he was downright chatty, apologizing for his agency's poor communication with Congress (Read: his predecessors' poor communication with Congress).

Lawmakers and bureaucrats have been throwing each other overboard since the tapes and their destruction were first reported.

"Other people in the agency know about this far better than I," Hayden told reporters Wednesday, after acknowledging that he first heard about the tapes - and their later destruction - during his tenure as deputy director of national intelligence - a posted he vacated in May 2006.

He closed his brief remarks to the crowd of reporters and cameras by saying the program was not his agency's program, but rather "America's program."

Hmmmm. America, did you know about this, too? We want answers!