US Congress members vowed on Sunday to investigate the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes despite Justice Department advice that the agency not cooperate.
The top Republican member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee and a leading Democratic voice on security joined in a blistering attack on the CIA and on the complex network of US intelligence agencies in general, which they described as arrogant, incompetent and unaccountable.
"We want to hold the (intelligence) community accountable for what's happened to these tapes," Republican US Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan said on "Fox News Sunday." "We will issue subpoenas. Our investigation should move forward.
"I have high confidence that the community is broken. I'm talking about the leadership in general."
Hoekstra said CIA Director General Michael Hayden should be held accountable for what he called misleading statements by the agency during his term, which began in 2006 after the tapes had been destroyed.
It is believed that the tapes, destroyed in 2005, depicted the use of a simulated drowning technique called waterboarding.
The disclosure earlier this month that the CIA destroyed lengthy recordings of the harsh 2002 interrogations osuspects has prompted furious denunciations from lawmakers and human rights advocates.
"It smells like the cover-up of the cover-up," Democratic US Rep. Jane Harman of California, chairwoman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said on the Fox program.
The Justice Department, under new Attorney General Michael Mukasey, whose contentious confirmation focused on his refusal to call waterboarding illegal torture, has said it would investigate the destruction.
But the Democratic-led Congress has launched its own probes. The Justice Department last week urged the CIA not to cooperate, saying it could interfere with the department's investigation. Mukasey also rejected a congressional request for information about the Justice Department's probe. "I warned them not to destroy the videotapes," Harman said. "They did it anyway and they didn't tell us.
"Congress does absolutely need to exercise its constitutional authority," to investigate, she said. The CIA said it destroyed the tapes lawfully and did so out of concern for the safety of agents involved in the negotiations if the recordings were ever made public.
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