Dec 9, 2007 12:20 am US/Central
Justice, CIA To Look Into Destruction Of Tapes
Source Tells CBS News CIA Tapes Were Destroyed To Avoid Prosecution
WASHINGTON (CBS News) ―
The Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog announced
Saturday a joint inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of
videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists as the latest
scandal to rock U.S. intelligence gathered steam.
The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted.
"I welcome this inquiry and the CIA will cooperate fully," CIA
Director Mike Hayden said in a statement. "I welcome it as an
opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction
back in 2005 of videotapes."
The House Intelligence Committee is launching its own inquiry next
week. It will investigate not only why the tapes were destroyed and
Congress was not notified, but also the interrogation methods that "if
released, had the potential to do such grave damage to the United
States of America," said Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, on
Saturday.
"This administration cannot be trusted to police itself," Reyes said.
The Senate Intelligence committee is also investigating.
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 President Bush as a way to break down the defenses of
recalcitrant prisoners.
The CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, is preserving all
remaining records related to the videotapes and their destruction.
Kenneth L. Wainstein, an assistant attorney general, asked that they be
handed over along with any relevant internal reviews.
Justice Department officials, lawyers from the CIA general counsel's
office and CIA Inspector General John Helgerson will meet early this
coming week to begin the preliminary inquiry, Wainstein wrote Rizzo on
Saturday.
Helgerson has been highly critical in classified reports of the
agency's treatment of detainees. In October, the CIA confirmed that a
close Hayden aide was reviewing his work, raising concern on Capitol
Hill that the independence of the office was under attack.
The White House had no immediate comment on the inquiry. On Friday,
presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the White House would support
Attorney General Michael Mukasey if he decided to investigate.
Angry congressional Democrats had demanded the Justice Department investigate. Some accused the CIA of a cover-up.
The man now at the center of the storm is Jose Rodriguez, who
retired as head of the CIA's clandestine directorate of operations in
August 2007, but will leave the agency at the end of the year.
Rodriguez decided the tapes should be destroyed, one former and one
current intelligence official told The Associated Press. A career spy,
Rodriguez was promoted to the job by then-CIA Director Porter Goss.
Goss learned of the tapes' destruction "a couple of days" after it
happened, a government official familiar with the events said. The
official said Goss did not order an investigation or inform Congress.
Goss was upset by the tapes' destruction but did not take any action
because the decision was within Rodriguez's authority, a former
intelligence official told the AP. The CIA's spy service has broad
latitude to take actions to protect operational security.
"Though Goss believed this was a bad judgment it falls within
prerogatives of the directorate of operations," said the former
official, who like other current and former officials spoke on
condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The tapes were destroyed shortly after The Washington Post in late
2005 revealed the existence of secret overseas prisons, which angered
the cooperating governments.
Another intelligence official said Rodriguez was concerned the tapes
would leak and the interrogators seen in the tapes would be targeted by
al-Qaida. "Rodriguez felt he had good reasons to deep-six the tapes.
They had people's faces on them. It's not like a name getting out," the
official said.
The Justice Department and CIA inspector general inquiry is
expected to focus on whether Rodriguez had the inherent authority to
destroy the tapes or had the endorsement of CIA legal advisers or any
senior officials.
There are more than 100 attorneys inside the CIA, and it is
possible those inside the clandestine service arrived at their own
conclusions about the advisability of destroying the tapes.
"The operations people size up their lawyers to make sure they
are not always going to say no," said John Radsan, who was assistant
general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004 and now teaches at William
Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn.
"It looks like Rodriguez is being pushed over the deck on this. Will he grab other people?" he said.
Rodriguez destroyed the tapes at a time of national debate over
interrogation practices involving suspected terrorists. He could not be
reached for comment.
In December 2005, Congress passed legislation that prohibits
torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of all U.S.
detainees, including those in CIA custody. Earlier in the year, the
Senate Intelligence Committee was trying to determine if CIA
interrogators were complying with interrogation guidelines. The CIA
refused twice in 2005 to provide the committee with its general
counsel's report on the tapes, according to the current chairman, Sen.
Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
Detainees' treatment was also an issue before the Supreme Court
in the fall of 2005. The court heard a case involving the legal rights
of detainees held at the Navy's base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It
decided in June 2006 that al-Qaida prisoners are protected by the
Geneva Convention's prohibitions on torture and cruel treatment. At the
time, the CIA also was concerned that its operatives involved in
interrogations might be subject to legal charges over the treatment of
detainees. Some agency employees have bought liability insurance as a
hedge against that possibility.
The tapes showed interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, the first
high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002. Zubaydah, under harsh
questioning, told CIA interrogators about alleged Sept. 11 accomplice
Ramzi Binalshibh. The two men's confessions also led to the capture of
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. government said was the mastermind
behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The other taped interrogations showed Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,
the alleged mastermind of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which left
17 U.S. sailors dead. He and Zubaydah are now being held at Guantanamo.
Then-CIA General Counsel Scott Muller told the leadership of
the House and Senate intelligence committees about the tapes and the
intention to destroy them. That included then-Senate Intelligence
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., Rockefeller, Rep. Jane Harman,
D-Calif., and Goss, who was then House Intelligence Committee Chairman.
None ever requested to view the tapes, according to the government
official.
The White House was scrambling this weekend to determine who in
the administration knew about the tapes and when, including Harriet
Miers, who was a deputy White House chief of staff in 2003. Miers
became White House counsel in early 2005.
Bush "has no recollection" of hearing about either the tapes'
existence or their destruction before being briefed about it Thursday
morning, White House press secretary Perino said.
Bush has "complete confidence" in Hayden's handling of the matter, Perino said.
Hayden took over the CIA in 2006.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
