By Tim Starks, CQ Staff

A Senate panel questioned the chief of the CIA on Tuesday about destroyed interrogation videotapes, an issue that will color House debate Wednesday over a conference report that would ban harsh interrogation tactics.

The conference report for the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization (HR 2082 — H Rept 110-478) probably will gain swift passage in the House, but faces a tough fight in the Senate and a veto threat.

Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which met behind closed doors with CIA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden , said they would call officials who were at the agency when the tapes were destroyed in 2005.

The panel’s vice chairman, Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, said Hayden — who did not join the agency until 2006 — was “very forthcoming based on what he could determine from the records,” and asserted there was “nothing illegal or unlawful” with the CIA’s interrogation techniques.

But Ron Wyden , D-Ore., without commenting on the discussions in the closed meeting, said, “In my view, the administration clearly has a long record of playing fast and loose with the rules when it comes to interrogations.”

Intelligence Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV , D-W.Va., said the panel hoped to get answers to such questions as who authorized the tapes’ destruction and why Congress was not fully informed about the CIA’s actions.

Senators would not say which officials they would call before the panel, and declined to answer most questions. Hayden said he gave a “narrative” and history of the tapes’ destruction and promised to deliver the pertinent agency officials to the committee, noting that the tapes were made under former CIA Director George J. Tenet and destroyed during the leadership of Tenet’s successor, Porter J. Goss.

Reid Might Seek Special Counsel

A joint Department of Justice and CIA inspector general preliminary inquiry into the tapes has not ended questions from lawmakers, as interest widened among both Democrats and Republicans on Tuesday in learning more about the tapes’ destruction and the CIA’s interrogation techniques.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., said he would call for appointment of a special counsel if the Intelligence panels don’t get cooperation.

“This damage to our moral authority will matter to the history books, but more importantly, it matters right now,” Reid said.

“It puts our troops at greater risk if captured. It impairs our relationships with nations who ought to be our allies. It impedes our ability to fight an effective war on terror.”

He said the investigations must find out what happened: “The possibility of obstruction of justice is very real.”

Although Rockefeller has maintained that the Intelligence panels can handle the investigation, one member of the House Intelligence panel, Rush D. Holt , D-N.J., joined calls for an independent counsel.

Sens. Patrick J. Leahy , D-Vt., and Arlen Specter , R-Pa., the chairman and the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey seeking information about what Justice knew about the tapes.

Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to the Archivist of the United States to ask whether the CIA violated the Federal Records Act, which requires the preservation of official government records. The House Intelligence Committee was preparing for its own closed-door briefing with Hayden.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, said he supports congressional investigations into the CIA’s destruction of its interrogation videotapes.

“I think we need to get to the bottom of why the tapes were made, why they were destroyed, under what authority were they made, under what authority were they destroyed,” he said.

“Frankly, the president didn’t know, Congress didn’t know about the existence of the tapes or that they were destroyed,” Boehner said. “It is troubling, and I’m glad that they’re investigating.”

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. , D-Del., asked in a written request to the White House that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney preserve any records related to the tapes or their destruction.

Mukasey declined to answer questions at a news conference on his views on “waterboarding,” an interrogation technique that simulates drowning. He said he was “in the process” of getting up to speed on the CIA interrogation program and trying to determine whether that program “conforms” with Justice legal memos.

The conference report contains a provision that has drawn a veto threat from the White House because it would confine the CIA to the interrogation tactics permitted by the Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations, which bans techniques such as waterboarding.

The bill demands legal documents related to the administration’s interrogation and detention policies. It is not clear when the Senate will take up the conference report, where it faces a possible filibuster by Republicans.

Mukasey said the Justice-CIA inquiry would determine whether the department knew about the tapes. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff , at the same news conference, declined to answer questions about what he knew about the tapes. He left a position at Justice in 2003.

The House Rules Committee cleared the path late Tuesday for floor debate on the conference report. By voice vote, it approved a closed rule that waives all points of order.

Edward Epstein contributed to this story.