WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2007
Justice, CIA To Hold Inquiry Over Tapes
Source Tells CBS News Interrogation Videos Were Destroyed To Avoid Criminal Prosecutions Of Officials
-
Play CBS Video Video Criminal Probe Over CIA Tapes? Members of the Senate called for a criminal investigation over the destruction of tapes of the CIA interrogation of 9/11 operatives. David Martin reports.
-
CIA Director Michael Hayden told agency employees that the tapes had been destroyed because it was feared that keeping them "posed a security risk." (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
-
Interactive 21st Century Spying The biggest overhaul of the U.S. intelligence community in half a century.
-
Interactive Under The Gun Learn more about some interrogation techniques used by police.
The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted.
In a statement, CIA Director Mike Hayden says he welcomes the inquiry as "an opportunity to address questions" and pledges the agency's full cooperation.
Hayden told agency employees Thursday that the recordings were destroyed out of fear the tapes would leak and reveal the identities of interrogators.
He said the sessions were videotaped to provide an added layer of legal protection for interrogators using new, harsh methods authorized by U.S. President George W. Bush.
Yet a well informed source told CBS News the videotapes were destroyed to protect CIA officers from criminal prosecution, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
The CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, is preserving all remaining records related to the videotapes and their destruction, according to Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general.
Justice Department officials, lawyers from the CIA general counsel's office and the CIA inspector general will meet early this coming week to begin the preliminary inquiry, Wainstein wrote Rizzo on Saturday.
"I understand that your office has already reviewed the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the videotapes, as well as the existence of any pending relevant investigations or other preservation obligations at the time the destruction occurred. As a first step in our inquiry, I ask that you provide us the substance of that review at the meeting," Wainstein wrote.
Congressional Democrats had demanded that the Justice Department investigate. Some accused the CIA of a cover-up and described the CIA's explanation as "a pathetic excuse."
The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, said Attorney General Michael Mukasey should find out "whether CIA officials who destroyed these videotapes and withheld information about their existence from official proceedings violated the law."
Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy accused the CIA of a cover-up.
"We haven't seen anything like this since the 18½-minute gap in the tapes of President Richard Nixon," he said in a Senate floor speech. The gap, which Nixon's secretary attributed to an accidental erasure, played a major role in the loss of support that resulted in Nixon's resignation.
Quote
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."We haven't seen anything like this since the 18½-minute gap in the tapes of President Richard Nixon.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent letters to Hayden and Mukasey asking whether the Justice Department gave legal advice to the CIA on the destruction of the tapes and whether it was planning an obstruction-of-justice investigation.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Friday that President George W. Bush did not recall being told about the tapes or their destruction. But she could not rule out White House involvement in the decision to destroy the tapes, saying she had asked only the president about it, not others.
Perino refused to say whether the destruction could have been an obstruction of justice or a threat to cases against terror suspects. If the attorney general should decide to investigate, "of course the White House would support that," she said.
In a daily press briefing dedicated almost solely to the topic of the CIA tapes, Perino responded 19 times that she didn't know or couldn't comment.
At least one White House official, then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers, knew about the CIA's planned destruction of videotapes in 2005 that documented the interrogation of two al Qaeda operatives, ABC News reported Friday. Three officials told ABC News that Miers urged the CIA not to destroy the tapes. White House officials declined to comment on the report.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From War On Terror
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
... - 16
- next
See all 305 CommentsSo Al Capone and Lucky Luciano are going to investigate Lucky''s mob to determine whether or not there is a mafia...
The really funny part is there are Bushbot suckers out there who will actually believe the result.....
SearingTruth
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December 23, 1791
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com
,, I would suggest reading the entire article then remember why the Gang of 8 was reduced to the Gang of 4
U.S. law requires the CIA to inform Congress of covert activities and allows the briefings to be limited in certain highly sensitive cases to a "Gang of Eight," including the four top congressional leaders of both parties as well as the four senior intelligence committee members.
------- Iraq''s War of Roses wasn''t a war of necessity.... It was a war of choice for the 1st time in our nations history.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html?hpid=topnews
While we may be in agreement that Saddam was nuts (but so is GW Bush for that matter along with many other world leaders), Saddam didn''t invade Kuwait to access their oil reserves.
Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi oil reserves *in* Iraqi territory, and Saddam didn''t like that bit.
Up until that point, Saddam, even while murdering the Kurds, was still receiving US (and other) support in the way of chemicals, weapons and military equipment.
Heck, we wanted him to fight the Iranians and we gave his the intelligence information he needed, as well as ensuring he had an adequate supply of weapons to do so.
We put him into a position where he could do what he wanted - and we supported him until he was of no more use to us.
We (the United States) need to stop messing in other countries politics and affairs.
Heck, how much damage have we caused in Central and South America because of our interference?
Posted by j-whitman at 06:01 PM : Dec 09, 200
j-whitboy....Saddam was a nuts you know that, but he gave my company a $1.5 billion contract to buil a railroad in 1980 and a $500 million to build an expressway. Unfortunately he was a nuts. He owned a country with the second world largest oil reserve and still wanted more. First he invaded Iran to take the Shat al-arab region which was rich in oil. After 8 years in a unwindable war he decided to invade Kuwait and if George Bush didnt have kicked his asss he would be so powerfull that certainly Saudi Arabia would be next.
Posted by j-whitman at 07:25 PM : Dec 09, 2007
j-whitboy....Lack of progresssssssssssssssssss? You have to be kidding. The surge is a historical success. US troops and Iraqis death toll are at lowest ever. There are no more truck bombers on crowded market,no more death squads, no more car bombers factories and you still say theres a lack of progress? Give us a break buddy.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
... - 16
- next
See all 305 Comments