waterboarding

CIA chief to testify about interrogation tapes

CIA Director Michael Hayden will testify before Congress today yet, according to the AP (via the Washington Times), we’ll have to settle for now for the spin:

Congress summoned CIA Director Michael V. Hayden to Capitol Hill to explain his agency’s destruction of interrogation videotapes, as multiple investigations began into who knew about and approved the decision.

Mr. Hayden is to testify in a closed session today before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and tomorrowbefore the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Among the questions he will face is whether Congress was notified about the tapes’ destruction. The chairman of the House panel, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat, said Mr. Hayden’s assertion last week that lawmakers were informed “does not appear to be true.”

Mr. Hayden told CIA employees on Thursday that the CIA had taped the interrogations of two terrorism suspects in 2002. He said Congress was notified in 2003 both of the tapes’ existence and the CIA’s intent to destroy them.