Stonewall Hayden

Well, so much for the testimony of CIA director Michael Hayden. Gen. Hayden, testifying yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed-door hearing, said he could not answer questions about the destruction of interrogation videotapes because he did not work at the agency at the time. The tapes, said to show the use of "waterboarding" and other enhanced interrogation techniques of two suspected al-Qaida insiders, were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005. The existence of the tapes was not revealed to the Sept. 11 Commission nor to federal courts that had requested government materials for trials of terror suspects. Of course, it's just clandestine business as usual for today's government, which is operating as though it's not subject to the U.S. Constitution. For Hayden to pass the buck is preposterous. He knows what went on from the previous directors, Porter Goss and George Tenet, or he simply is not fit for the job.