Article & Journal Resources

By Mark Mazzetti
Published: December 7, 2007

WASHINGTON: Angry Democratic lawmakers called for investigations Friday into the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction in 2005 of at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody.

Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts accused the CIA of "a cover-up," while Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois said it was possible that people at the agency had engaged in obstruction of justice. Both called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate.

"We haven't seen anything like this since the 18½ -minute gap on the tapes of Richard Nixon," Kennedy said in a speech on the Senate floor, as reaction to the disclosure about the videotapes seemed to intensify minute by minute.

Durbin, the Democratic whip, said he had written Mukasey to ask for an inquiry into "whether CIA officials who destroyed these videotapes and withheld information about their existence from official proceedings violated the law."

The speeches by Kennedy and Durbin followed an angry statement by Representative Jane Harman of California, head of the Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment. Harman, who was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee in early 2003, said she cautioned CIA officials then not to destroy any videotapes pertaining to interrogation practices.

"To my knowledge, the Intelligence Committee was never informed that any videotapes had been destroyed," Harman said. "Surely I was not."

Late Thursday, Senator John Rockefeller 4th, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he committee "must review the full history and chronology of the tapes, how they were used, and the reasons for destroying them." At least one Republican lawmaker has also expressed dismay over the destruction of the tapes.

The CIA's destruction of the tapes came in the midst of congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

President George W. Bush "has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before Friday," the chief White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Friday.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects - including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody - to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said.

"But that excuse won't wash," Senator Kennedy said Friday. "Does the director believe the CIA's buildings are not secure? Would it be beyond the agency's technical expertise to preserve the tapes while hiding the identity of its employees? Does the director believe that the CIA's employees cannot be trusted not to leak materials that might harm the agency?

"Or does he know that the interrogation techniques are so abhorrent that they could not remain unknown much longer?"

Harman, now head of the Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment, said, "This matter must be promptly and fully investigated." She noted that in early 2003 she received "a highly classified briefing" on CIA interrogation practices from the agency's general counsel, and that she had expressed "serious concerns" in a letter to the lawyer afterward.

"I call for my letter of February 2003, which was never responded to and has been in the CIA's files ever since, to be declassified," Harman said.

In a statement to employees on Thursday, General Michael Hayden, the CIA director, said that the decision to destroy the tapes was made "within the CIA" and that they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.

The destruction of the tapes raises questions about whether agency officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sept. 11 commission about aspects of the program.

The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which was appointed by Bush and Congress, and which had made formal requests to the CIA for transcripts and other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.

The disclosures about the tapes are re-igniting the debate over laws that allow the CIA to use interrogation practices more severe than those allowed to other agencies. A congressional conference committee voted late Wednesday to outlaw those interrogation practices, but the measure has yet to pass the full House and Senate and is likely to face a veto from Bush.

The New York Times informed the intelligence agency on Wednesday evening that it was preparing to publish an article about the destruction of the tapes. In his statement to employees on Thursday, Hayden said that the agency had acted "in line with the law" and that he was informing CIA employees because "the press has learned" about the matter.