WASHINGTON (Agencies)
The U.S. Justice Department has said it was launching a preliminary inquiry into the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes of al-Qaeda operatives.
"The Department of Justice and the CIA announced today (Saturday) that the Justice Department's National Security Division initiated a preliminary inquiry in conjunction with the CIA's Office of Inspector General regarding the destruction of the interrogation videos," the department said in a statement.
The preliminary inquiry will gather facts "to determine whether there is sufficient predication to warrant a full investigation," it said.
The declaration came as the White House was facing another clash with Congress after furious Democratic lawmakers demanded a probe into the CIA's destruction of tapes showing harsh interrogations of captured al-Qaeda operatives.
The Central Intelligence Agency's admission that it destroyed tapes of at least two interrogations in 2005, at a time when Congress was probing torture allegations, sparked outrage among lawmakers and human rights groups.
The recordings were disposed of despite appeals by White House and Justice Department officials, who advised the CIA in 2003 against destroying the materials, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Rep. Jane Harman, senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence committee at the time, said she had asked the CIA's top lawyer in February 2003 not to destroy any recordings after being briefed on the interrogations.
"The briefing raised a number of serious concerns and led me to send a letter to the General Counsel. Both the briefing and my letter are classified so I cannot reveal specifics, but I did caution against destruction of any videotapes," said Harman of California.
"This matter must be promptly and fully investigated," she said. |
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“Very troubling” In a note to his staff on Thursday, CIA director Michael Hayden said they were destroyed to protect the identities of the CIA agents shown in the tapes.
"It is a startling disclosure," said Senate number two leader
Richard Durbin. He asked the Justice Department to investigate whether CIA officials committed obstruction of justice by discarding the tapes.
Durbin called the destruction of the tapes "very troubling."
Hayden, however, said government lawyers who reviewed the tapes found that the detainees were not subjected to illegal abuse and that the decision to destroy them was made by the CIA.
The White House said President George W. Bush did not recall knowing about the videotapes or the decision to destroy them in 2005, but it stopped short of denying any White House involvement.
Bush has "complete confidence" in Hayden, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters, adding that the president has directed his official lawyer to work with an internal CIA probe into what happened.
Hayden told his staff that keeping the tapes would have risked the lives of CIA agents.
"Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers," he said.
Democrats, however, rejected his explanation. "It's a pathetic excuse," Senator Carl Levin told reporters.
"You would have to burn every document in the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it, under that theory."
Hayden did not say how many detainees were videotaped but alluded to media reports which said interrogations of at least two al-Qaeda operatives were filmed.
The New York Times reported the tapes showed "severe interrogation techniques" used on Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first suspects interrogated by the CIA in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks. |
