Destroyed CIA videotapes showing the intense interrogation of two high-value terrorist suspects has sparked a battle between Congress and the Bush Administration, setting up what could be an explosive showdown complete with subpoenas and dueling investigations as many on Capitol Hill hope to reassert their body's co-equal status with the White House.

The top two members of the House Intelligence Committee presented a united front this weekend in promising a continued investigation into the tapes' destructions, squelching Justice Department hopes that Congress would stay on the sidelines. The statements came after Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to give Congress information on Justice's investigation into the tapes' destruction.

Mukasey, on Friday, sent a letter to top members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, saying a special prosecutor, for which some members of Congress have called, is unnecessary, and that the Justice Department and the inspector general of the CIA have the investigation under control. Justice then advised the CIA not to cooperate with the Intelligence panel's investigation, prompting the joint statement, while the two officials heading the investigation, assistant AG Ken Wainstein and CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, asked the congressmen to hold off.

"We are stunned that the Justice Department would move to block our investigation," panel chair Silvestre Reyes and ranking member Pete Hoekstra said in a statement. "It's clear that there's more to this story than we have been told, and it is unfortunate that we are being prevented from learning the facts." Reyes, a Texas Democrat, and Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, had asked CIA director Michael Hayden to turn over any documents and communications related to the tapes and their destruction.

The two Congressmen went on to urge Hayden to make two top CIA officials -- John Rizzo and Jose Rodriguez -- available for questioning this week. "We will use all the tools available to Congress, including subpoenas, to obtain this information and this testimony," they wrote.

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Hoekstra and California Democrat Jane Harman, also a member of the Intelligence committee, promised to continue their own investigation. "I think what we're going to do is we want to hold the community accountable for what's happened with these tapes. I think we will issue subpoenas," Hoekstra said. "It's important for Congress to hold [the intelligence] community accountable."

"On a bipartisan basis, the House Intelligence Committee wants to get to the bottom of this and isn't going to back off for the attorney general here, who I think, as I said, may be doing something that won't give the public confidence that it was a full and fair investigation," Harman said.

Later, the harshest criticisms came from Republican Hoekstra, a long-time member of the intel panel. "You've got a community that's incompetent. They are arrogant. And they are political. And they don't believe that they are accountable to anybody. They don't believe that they're accountable to the president," he said. "If they had done what they are supposed to do on the tapes -- keep us informed, listen to the kind of recommendations that my colleague Jane Harman made to them -- we wouldn't even be having this discussion today."