Under a subpoena threat, the CIA is expected to quickly begin turning over to the US Congress documents related to the destruction of videotapes showing the harsh interrogation of two terror suspects.
The CIA could begin producing the material as early as Thursday (local time), according to senior intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of ongoing investigations into the destruction of the tapes in 2005.
President George W. Bush declined to address the controversy yesterday, saying at a White House news conference he was confident that administration and congressional investigations "will end up enabling us all to find out what exactly happened." He repeated his assertion that his "first recollection" of being told about the tapes and their destruction was when CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed him on it earlier this month.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat, said on Wednesday the CIA had agreed to turn over the documents sometime this week after he prepared subpoenas for former and current CIA officials and attorneys if they don't voluntarily come before the committee to testify about the tapes. The document request includes records related to the September 11 Commission and to Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, whose attorneys were seeking interrogation videos.
The panel rejected a Bush administration request that it defer to an executive branch preliminary inquiry and has launched its own investigation into the videotape destruction.
Reyes wants acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo and Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the National Clandestine Service, to testify to the committee on January 16. Rodriguez is the official who directed that the tapes, which document the interrogation of two Al-Qaida suspects in 2002, be destroyed.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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