Why Did The CIA Destroy Detainee Tapes?

Source Tells CBS News Interrogation Videos Were Destroyed To Avoid Criminal Prosecution Of CIA Officers

(CBS/AP) 
Also in the fall of 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case involving the legal rights of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. It decided in June 2006 that al Qaeda prisoners are protected by the Geneva Conventions' prohibitions of torture and cruel treatment.

At the time, the CIA also was worried that its operatives involved in prisoner interrogation might be subject to legal charges involving treatment of detainees. Some agency employees have bought liability insurance as a hedge against that possibility.

The decision to destroy the tapes was made by Jose Rodriguez, then the head of the CIA's clandestine directorate of operations under CIA Director Porter Goss.

Hayden said members of the congressional intelligence committees were made aware in February 2003 both of the tapes and the CIA's ultimate plan to destroy them. That claim was denied by several members of the panels, including Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who at the time was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The Senate Intelligence Committee did not learn of the tapes' destruction until November 2006, and Chairman Jay Rockefeller, who then was the ranking minority member on the committee, said he was not told in 2003 of the plan to destroy them. The House Intelligence Committee learned of the tapes' destruction in March 2007.

Republicans were mostly silent about the CIA disclosure. McCain, a presidential candidate, said while campaigning in New Hampshire Friday that he would not side with the Democrats' calls for an investigation because he believed the CIA's actions were legal.

"That doesn't mean I like it," McCain added.

"Of course I object to it," he said of the tapes being destroyed. "Right now, our intelligence agencies need credibility, and this is not helpful to that."

At least one of the tapes showed the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002. Zubaydah, under harsh questioning, told CIA interrogators about Ramzi Binalshibh, the alleged accomplice in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush said publicly in 2006. The two men's confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hayden told agency employees the interrogations were legal, and said the tapes were not relevant to "any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries."

Lawyers for U.S. detainees believe otherwise.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which coordinates the work of all attorneys representing U.S. prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, says the CIA may have destroyed crucial evidence a court said it was entitled to in 2004.

The center said Friday it is now "deeply concerned" the CIA may have destroyed evidence relating to Majid Khan, a former CIA detainee now held at Guantanamo.

Amnesty International, another prominent global human rights organization that regularly criticizes the U.S. government's secret detention and interrogation practices, also sharply criticized the tapes destruction.

"It falls into a pattern of measures that have been taken that obstruct accountability for human rights violations," Amnesty spokesman Rob Freer told CBS News reporter Larry Miller.

Revelations about the tapes also may affect current terror trials.

Convicted terror conspirator Jose Padilla's lawyers claimed in a Florida federal court that Abu Zubaydah was tortured into saying Padilla was an al Qaeda associate. The Justice Department dismissed Padilla's allegations as "meritless," saying Padilla's legal team could not prove that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured.

Padilla and his two co-defendants will be sentenced next month. They face life in prison on three terror-related convictions.

Then-U.S. District Judge Mukasey, now attorney general, signed the warrant used by the FBI to arrest Padilla in May 2002. That warrant relied in part on information obtained from Abu Zubaydah, court records show.

In a separate case, attorneys for al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in 2003 began seeking videotapes of interrogations they believed might help their client. In November 2005 a federal judge ordered the government to disclose whether it had video or audio tapes of specific interrogations. Eleven days later, the government denied it had them.

Gerald Zerkin, one of Moussaoui's lawyers in the penalty phase of his trial, recalled some of the defense efforts to obtain testimony from or video or audio tapes of the interrogations of top al Qaeda detainees. "Obviously the important witnesses included Zubaydah, Binalshibh and KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed). ... Those are the guys at the head of the witness list," Zerkin said. He could not recall specifically which tapes he requested or the phrasing of his discovery requests, which he said were probably still classified.

The tapes also were not provided to the special commission that studied government actions before and after the 2001 attacks. The commission relied heavily on intelligence reports about Abu Zubaydah and Binalshibh's 2002 interrogations. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency did not subvert the 9/11 commission's work.

"Because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point," he said, "they were not destroyed while the commission was active."

[jackie0428]

Assembled dignitaries in Constantinople, Turkey today have discovered that "Islamophobia" is a serious, serious problem, that must be addressed at the government level. It doesn''t seem to have occurred to anyone there that Muslims might have any responsibility for the rise in "Islamophobia," if there has been such a rise, or that they can do anything themselves to eradicate it. No one seems to have realized how easy -- yes, easy! -- it would be to stamp out "Islamophobia" once and for all. Here''s how. If Muslims want to end "Islamophobia" instantaneously, here''s how they can do it:
1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.
If Muslims do those five things, voila! "Islamophobia" will vanish.

[readmy-2009]

I''ve been reading everything with one thought in mind:
Thank God i don''t live in America.
Let me explain. You''re Constitution is one of the most beautiful works ever written. It has been used as a guideline for others in establishing democracies. But it is no longer a working document in your country. You''re rights as citizens have slowly been eroded by a maniacal and moronic president under the guise of "protecting" you from evil-doers. Whilst your own C.I.A. and military, as recorded on tape, contain some the worst on the planet. Corporations make all the important decisions. Your health care system is a disgrace any evolved nation would have been rid of years ago. And your economy is in a shambles. All of these things can be fixed. but the loss of your inalienable rights as citizens is something you won''t change by discussing it. You''ll have to stand up...like you suggest so many other people do....and demand them...and fight for them...and wrest control of your destiny back from the Military-Industrial Complex. Quaint term, isn''t it.. now? Ike was right.
He warned you.

[readmy-2009]

erichsh: you poor misguided moron. when they begin rounding up citizens that have logged on to sites this...i hope you''re the first to go. and believe me chump..when they''re finished water-boarding you you''ll be confessing to being osama''s pimp. dumb sh*t.

[readmy-2009]

The C.I.A., as well as the White House and the Justice Department must think the American people are the most gullible nincompoops on the face of the earth. How many more times are we expected to believe fantasies and out-right lies? There is at present a dangerous "group denial" at work in the American politcal sphere, which states that "if we said it..it must be true. And if you don''t believe us, we''ll look into it." This has made America a laughing stock in the rest of the world. It began with a fraudulent Presidential election in which everyone was too afraid to ask the obvious. Who runs America?
I''m afraid to say...it isn''t the American people and it hasn''t been since the late fifties.
And it is no longer God Bless America.
It''s God Help America.

[dovv]

Support the Iraq Veterans Against the War
www.ivaw.org
www.bodyofwar.com

[jon2012-2009]

Make no mistake, we are witnessing the end of America as we knew it, and the installation of Fascism in it''s place. Democrat or Republican, it makes no difference, they are all Multimillionaire Errand Boys for their Corporate Owners.
Posted by veteran71 at 02:36 PM : Dec 08, 2007

I''ve seen this type of comment before. Even Democrats too? I''m not sure I buy that.

[abbe91]

"you might as well throw in Bush''''''''s connections with Ossama Bin Laden & Rudy Giuliani''''''''s connections with the Arab financeer of the Mastermind of 9/11"
..... definitely a MoveOn.org chump
Posted by userverify at 03:22 PM : Dec 08, 2007

First assertion: Bin Laden treated in an American hospital in Dubai two months before 9/11 ... The French "Le Figaro" ... Nothing to do with MoveOn
Second assertion: Giuliani''s ties with KSM are well documented.

Seems that the MSM do not always like to cover stories
which do not show the country in a nice role and it''s not new ... Google "Operation Northwoods" or "Prescott Bush+Thyssen" ...

[radiob-2009]

J go to the site and you will find the real authors of it.

[j-whitman]

radio,,,,, Chuckles Cheney isn''t alone on this --- Gonzales & Myers wrote the Executive Order.

[radiob-2009]

The torture authorization came from Cheney and Bush and can be found here at PBS.org. under FRONTLINE: cheney''s law. Harriet Myers at best was a dupe in this.

[j-whitman]

Radio,,, Did you notice, Harriet Myers is being dragged into it as an excuse ???? They say she authorized it. As if she had that authority, which she didn''t,, the CIA has it''s own lawyers.

Gonzales & Harriet Myers created this problem with torture they wrote the Executive Order, & now they say Harriet Myers wanted the CIA to hang on to them for possible investigation ????

--- LOL, these are the same Texas Bush lawyers who can''''t remember anything when it comes to laws they''''ve violated for Bush.

[j-whitman]

radio,,,, Yep, you''ld have to burn every single document they archive all the way back to WW2

[j-whitman]

userverify,,,, Speaking of Rudy ---- With all his immdediate family Mafia connections --- He could never pass a Background Investigation to obtain access to Top Secret intll he would need as President

[j-whitman]

userverify,,,, Nope --- I pay attention to the news & not the limited PNAC news or Murdoc''s Fox---- Never been to MoveOn.org or ever paid them any attention

[radiob-2009]

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, told reporters the CIA''s explanation that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of agents is "a pathetic excuse," adding: "You''d have to burn every document at the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it under that theory."


Documents do not disclose photos in which a CIA operative can be matched up to a name. "If" there was torture involved and this is the reasoning behind destroying the tapes, then it is not the agents or the agency itself that should be investigated but those above who authorized the torture. The possibility of the "defense" using these photos to circumvent the prosecution and endanger the lives of the agents has to be considered.

[j-whitman]

userverify,,,, Who are you blaming now for the White House f-ck ups ??? Clinton & Tenet ???? ---- You go back that far, you might as well throw in Bush''s connections with Ossama Bin Laden & Rudy Giuliani''s connections with the Arab financeer of the Mastermind of 9/11

[erichsh]

This is a subject near and dear to hearts of the rabid moveon.org left-wingers and their MSM buddies. Knock yourself out ranting and moaning about how evil and bad Bush/US etc are.... The rest of us are grateful that the CIA were giving these creeps a run for their money and protecting America in the process, and frankly couldn''t give a *** about the terrorist detainees.

[j-whitman]

userverify,,,, Excuse me, None of them like it except for the Chuckels Cheney people who helped give us the spun Iraq War of Roses.

[red164]

"There are no sides. There''''s no Sunnis and Shiites. There''''s no Democrats and Republicans. There''''s only HAVES and HAVE NOTS."
-Sen. Charles F. Meachum
in the movie, "Shooter"


Posted by veteran71 at 03:05 PM : Dec 08, 2007



TRUE TRUE TRUE

[j-whitman]

userverify,,,, None of our people in the CIA like going any further than our military does on prisoner treatment & interrigations.