Heads up from a friend, an article one might have missed from Christmas Eve.* The LA Times' Greg Miller reports that the the CIA investigation of its top investigator John Helgerson has reached some conclusions.

The CIA has completed a controversial in-house probe of its inspector general and plans to make a series of changes in the way the agency conducts internal investigations, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson has consented to more than a dozen procedural changes designed to address complaints that investigations carried out by his office were unfair to agency employees, the officials said.

But the agency will not force Helgerson to revise previously issued reports or acknowledge flaws in the reports, including one report that was sharply critical of top CIA officials for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"The broader objective is to make the process fair, or fairer," said a senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the matter.

In particular, the official said, the changes are designed to give employees a greater ability to defend their actions and present their views in reports issued by the inspector general, whose job is to be an in-house watchdog.

The officials said the changes would probably be announced next month by CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who ordered the internal probe this year.

The investigation was criticized on Capitol Hill and by former agency officials as an attack on the independence of the inspector general.

Helgerson has released a statement this week making clear he is willing to tell investigators all he knows about the CIA's interrogaton videotapes, which his office viewed in 2004.

*Publication date fixed.

Posted by Laura at January 3, 2008 09:30 AM