The CIA’s top lawyer reportedly advised against the tapes’ destruction and similar counsel is said to have come from then White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
The tapes showed the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and a second high-level al-Qaeda member who was not identified. Zubaydah has been identified by U.S. officials, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity, as one of three al-Qaeda suspects who the CIA subjected to "waterboarding," a technique that simulates drowning.
The tapes were destroyed on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations. They were destroyed after the Justice Department (DOJ) told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys.
The CIA also failed to turn the tapes over to the 9/11 Commission despite their request. The Commission demanded all documentation related to its work and largely used on classified interrogation transcripts to construct its account of the events of that day. The Commission was Congressionally mandated to investigate the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The recordings were destroyed despite orders from judges that required the government to preserve records related to its interrogation programs. The judges’ rulings came in connection with lawsuits filed by Guantanamo detainees who went to court to challenge the basis of their detention.
Multiple investigations of the tapes’ destruction are already underway. The House Intelligence Committee chairman, Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), and ranking Republican Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) yesterday announced that the panel will conduct its own investigation. The lawmakers said that Hayden's assertion that the committee had been "properly notified" of the destruction "does not appear to be true."
It is likely the Senate Intelligence Committee will also investigate the matter, and the Justice Department (DOJ) and the CIA inspector general's office have already begun a preliminary inquiry into the tapes' destruction.
At the White House daily press briefing Monday, Press Secretary Dana Perino announced she was “not allowed” to discuss the issue because it might compromise ongoing investigations. .
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