Probing the probers

Riding Democratic gains in both houses last year, Schiff already holds plum assignments on the appropriations and judiciary committees.

He joins the intelligence committee one week after its month-old, bipartisan investigation determined who gave the 2005 order to destroy the recordings made three years prior.

Those tapes, reportedly filmed inside a secret CIA prison in Thailand, showed al-Qaida suspects undergoing what committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, described as "enhanced interrogation techniques."

A former CIA operative said publicly
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last month that one of the suspects was subjected to simulated drowning, also known as waterboarding.

"There are some very substantial, overlapping issues here," Schiff said. "In particular, are techniques being used legal or constitutional? Those questions have to be answered."

Ranking Republican member Peter Hoekstra of Michigan complained last week that the CIA's chief of clandestine operations ordered the tapes destroyed despite being discouraged from doing so.

At the direction of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the Justice Department is conducting a parallel probe to determine whether the CIA official had obstructed justice or acted illegally by ordering the tapes destroyed.

Republicans and Democrats have complained Congress was never informed the CIA had taped interrogations or subsequently destroyed them.

In December, Justice Department officials admitted several interrogation recordings existed, despite having told a federal judge in 2005 there was none amid scrutiny and criticism over the CIA's secret detention program.

Alarmed by a possible breakdown in authority, Schiff echoed Hoekstra's concerns the world of spycraft has grown unaccountable.

"We want to get to the bottom of what tapes existed, what happened to them, why were they destroyed?" Schiff said before boarding a plane to South Carolina. "Not just to ascribe responsibility, but with an eye to determine what happened. There's a concern in the Congress that information they may have requested may not have been fully provided to them."

The investigation's results, he said, could be important to future reform efforts to change how the agencies are structured.

The network of intelligence agencies was dramatically reshaped in 2004 in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Agencies were unified under the authority of a presidential appointee to improve their coordination.

The White House has remained silent about the controversy over the tapes and their destruction.

That didn't stop a federal judge Thursday from ordering the Bush administration to explain their destruction.

U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts gave the White House three weeks to respond.

todd.ruiz@sgvn.com

(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444

www.insidesocal.com/pasadenapolitics