Lawmakers Demand Answers...

But can they, and the US public, handle the truth?

The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee want CIA Director Porter Goss to provide a public version of his agency's hard-hitting report on the failures leading up to Sept. 11, 2001.

In a letter made public Friday, Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and the panel's top Democrat, California Rep. Jane Harman, asked Goss to reveal as much of the report from his inspector general as possible.

"We believe the public has a right to know if people should be held accountable for those failures as a result of gross negligence or misconduct," Hoekstra and Harman wrote on Sept. 6. "More importantly, the public also should know what steps should be taken in the future for the CIA to address the findings of the report."

Spanning hundreds of pages, the report calls for disciplinary reviews for former CIA Director George Tenet and current and former officials who were involved in faulty intelligence efforts before the attacks.

Goss was one of the most outspoken critics of the way the CIA operated, and now he's on the other end. I don't buy the whole argument that pushing disciplinary measures against Tenet and others is going to affect the work at CIA. I think that if people realize that leadership is held accountable for their work, that people will take greater efforts to make sure that they get it right.