According to Newsmax, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), who is retiring in January 2011, has called for President-elect Obama to fire CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden. Hoekstra is currently a ranking member on the House Permanent Select committee on intelligence.
Hoekstra blasted Hayden for keeping secrets from Congress and the American people. According to Hoekstra: “[Hayden has a] military way of doing things. They like to keep all of the problems within them and say, don’t worry, we’ll deal with it. What you’re seeing here is just a continuing pattern of the intel community being shaped in the model of the military. And I think that’s just wrong.”
“The intelligence community [has] people with a tremendous amount of power who abuse it, and the end result is Americans dying. It can’t get any uglier than that,” he said.
“Once again, this whole community is going to be run by the military. I just think that’s a huge mistake,” Hoekstra told Newsmax. “These guys are very talented, but they approach it in a very different way in regards to accountability and these kinds of things than a civilian might do.”
Of particular concern to Hoeksta was the way Gen. Hayden and CIA have handled the investigation of the April 2001 shoot-down of a single-engine Cessna over the Amazon River in Peru.
“Innocent Americans died, and they didn’t have to, because of a CIA that has a history of operating outside the rules and not being held accountable. I think a civilian would have responded very differently from how Mike Hayden has responded. I think it’s going to be a cover–I think it’s going to be a whitewash,” concluded Hoekstra.
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