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Hayden: "We Could Have Done an Awful Lot Better"
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.
Accordingly, Senate intelligence committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) says that former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo and current General Counsel John Helgerson will testify in the next week. Jose Rodriguez, who decided to destroy the tapes, will also be up.
The same people will likely appear before the House committee. Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) says that Hayden's testimony today was "just the first step in what we feel is going to be a long-term investigation." So there's plenty of apologizing left to do.
Comments (11)
History wrote on December 12, 2007 2:15 PM:Hayden is history
and bush will be fired by congress for this
EH wrote on December 12, 2007 2:37 PM:Easier to ask forgiveness...
FMArouet wrote on December 12, 2007 2:37 PM:I believe that John Helgerson is still the Inspector General at CIA, not the General Counsel.
Helgerson has apparently been at odds with General Hayden and Hayden's operative, John L. Deitz (whom Hayden brought over from NSA). Concerned by Helgerson's investigation of the torture issue, Hayden assigned his man Deitz to investigate Helgerson's IG staff.
There was a little WaPo coverage on this issue. If you would like more detail, I diaried the topic at DK here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/13/10198/708/82/397559
Note, by the way, that Deitz was General Hayden's General Counsel at NSA when Hayden as DIRNSA was implementing the various facets of the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping, proprietary data collection, and data-mining program.
Based on press coverage of CIA IG Helgerson's past behavior, he appears to be a public servant who possesses genuine personal integrity. He will be likely to answer senators' and congressmen's questions honestly and forthrightly. Let's hope that they ask Helgerson some penetrating questions and not just waste their assigned minutes pontificating and blathering.
The same kind of forthrightness should not be expected of former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, whose pattern will likely be to evade, obfuscate, and "fail to recollect." Rizzo was surely a key player in crafting the torture policies and in tweaking their justification, implementation, and coverup.
Joe Bonham wrote on December 12, 2007 2:48 PM:I'd fire his ass just to show I could.
madamab wrote on December 12, 2007 3:18 PM:I am shocked, shocked! that the Administration lied about how much Congress knew...
nofltwlt wrote on December 12, 2007 4:18 PM:I'll finish his statement.
"We could have donw an awful lot better" for Americans.
Mary wrote on December 12, 2007 4:20 PM:"Accordingly, Senate intelligence committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) says that former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo and current General Counsel John Helgerson will testify in the next week."
Umm - do you perhaps mean former CIA General Counsel Scott Muller - who has been reported as being involved in briefings and discussions on destruction of the tapes, and current Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo?
It would be lovely if, in addition to having his nomination withdrawn, Rizzo had stepped down as Acting, but if so I missed it.
Helgerson is IG (not Gen.Couns) and you have to wonder if his investigation caused the September 13 knock on DOJ's door with the non-destroyed tapes?
Breaks your heart for this country to see a man like Hayden has shown himself to be wearing that uniform.
FMArouet wrote on December 12, 2007 4:45 PM:Mary--
Thanks for the clarification: Rizzo is of course the former Acting General Counsel.
Even the normally timid, complicit Senate Intelligence Committee under Sen. Jay Rockefeller's chairmanship could not bring itself to confirm Rizzo as the General Counsel for CIA, at least not without risking a major public battle.
army193 wrote on December 12, 2007 5:30 PM:Hayden: "We Could Have Done an Awful Lot Better"
When the next Drug Dealer come into court all he should say "I could done an Awful lot better." Case dismissed
freepatriot wrote on December 13, 2007 12:45 PM:he could have done a much better job, of following the laws and stuff
if he robbed a bank,he'dbe charged with a crime
instead, he just lied about destroying evidence of officially sanctioned torture
no big deal
it's not like we're talking about a blowjob or something
anonymous wrote on December 13, 2007 12:47 PM:So, Hayden now confirms that congressional leaders were not fully notified and did not aid and abet in the destruction as so many haters of the congressional Demcratic leadership have asserted on these threads.
But let the rants against Democratic facilitation of torture continue by all means.