From Reuters: (for full text from website, click here).

U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday began investigating why the CIA destroyed videotapes that recorded al Qaeda suspects undergoing waterboarding, while a former interrogator said the controversial technique yielded important information but amounted to torture.

CIA Director Michael Hayden testified behind closed doors to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has launched one of several investigations to determine if the agency broke any laws when it destroyed the tapes in 2005.

"There are other people in the agency who know about this far better than I, and I have committed them to come on down and answer all the questions the committee might have," Hayden said after the hearing.

Many countries, U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have denounced the simulated drowning technique as torture. Reports of its use, as well as harsh treatment of terrorist suspects, have damaged the U.S. image around the world.

The full House of Representatives could vote as early as Wednesday to outlaw waterboarding. Drafted by negotiators for the House and Senate Intelligence committees, the measure would require U.S. interrogators to comply with the Army Field Manual, which bans interrogation methods seen as torture.

From the New York Times..William Glaberson's "From a Critic of Tribunals to Top Judge"

This should be enough of a hook:

Back in 2002, a master’s degree candidate at the Naval War College wrote a paper on the Bush administration’s plan to use military commissions to try Guantánamo suspects, concluding that “even a good military tribunal is a bad idea.”

It drew little notice at the time, but the paper has gained a second life because of its author’s big promotion: Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann of the Marines is now the chief judge of the military commissions at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.