by D. Cupples | In 2005, the CIA destroyed two video tapes showing the 2002 "interrogation" of suspected al Qaeda operatives. The agency destroyed the tapes despite the fact that Congress, the 9/11 Commission, and Justice Department prosecutors were interested in them -- meaning CIA officials may have obstructed justice (see U.S. Code).
What's bizarre is not that the agency destroyed the tapes but that the information hit the headlines. The New York Times reports:
"The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques [i.e., torture]. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said. (NY Times)
That's because torture is illegal in the U.S. (18 U.S.C 2340 & 2341), and Congress was investigating the CIA's secret detention programs. The Times continued:
"The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss....
Couldn't the CIA have protected its agents by turning over the tapes to Congress (or other interested parties) under seal? The Times continued:
"The existence and subsequent destruction of the tapes are likely to reignite the debate over the use of severe interrogation techniques on terror suspects, and their destruction raises questions about whether C.I.A. officials withheld information about aspects of the program from the courts and from the Sept. 11 commission appointed by President Bush and Congress. It was not clear who within the C.I.A. authorized the destruction of the tapes, but current and former government officials said it had been approved at the highest levels of the agency." (NY Times)
The court that heard the criminal case of Zacarias Moussaoui (a suspects reportedly tortured on one of the tapes) had requested tapes and transcripts. Before the tapes were destroyed, CIA lawyers told prosecutors (which told the court) that the agency didn't have such evidence.
Current CIA Director Michael Hayden claims that congressional committees were notified before the tapes were destroyed, but a House Intelligence Committee official said that notification wasn't adequate. Similarly, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission said that the Commission was never even informed that such video tapes had existed.
Hayden said that torture sessions were routinely recorded as an "internal check," to ensure that employees were interrogating properly. And yet, the CIA stopped recording interrogations in 2002.
The Associated Press reported:
"Rep. Jane Harman of California, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and one of only four members of Congress informed of the tapes' existence, said she objected [in writing] to the destruction when informed of it in 2003."
Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan commented:
"This administration commits war-crimes, hides the evidence from federal law officers and the 9/11 Commission and then destroys the evidence completely. Give that some time to sink in."
See Memeorandum for other bloggers' comments.
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