[NYTr] Dept of "Justice" Starts Probe of Destroyed Torture Tapes

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by MichaelP

[Guess whaat they intend to find -- one guess enough, three guesses not 
needed. -M]

AFP via Yahoo - Dec 8, 2007

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071208/pl_afp/usattackstortureintelligence_071208231306

Agence France Presse

WASHINGTON  (AFP)  -  US  justice  officials  announced  on Saturday a 
preliminary  inquiry  into the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing 
harsh interrogations of Al-Qaeda operatives.

The  inquiry will be carried out jointly with the Central Intelligence 
Agency's  internal  watchdog  and would determine whether a full-blown 
investigation was needed, the Justice Department said in a statement.

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" 
described two days ago by the CIA director, the DOJ statement read.

"I  welcome  this  inquiry,"  CIA  Director  Mike  Hayden  said  in  a 
statement,   adding   that  his  agency  would  fully  cooperate  with 
investigators.

"I  welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen 
over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes," Hayden said.

The  move came one day after furious Democrats in Congress demanded an 
immediate  investigation after the spy agency admitted to disposing of the 
videotapes in 2005 to protect the identities of CIA agents.

Democratic  lawmakers  charged  the  CIA's  decision  was  a  cover-up 
designed to hide proof of possible abuse and torture of detainees.

"What  would  cause the CIA to take this action? The answer is obvious -- 
cover up. The agency was desperate to cover up damning evidence of their 
practices," Senator Ted Kennedy said Friday.

Kennedy  and  other Democrats said an inquiry should determine whether the 
CIA  broke the law by destroying the tapes in 2005 -- a time when Congress 
was investigating allegations of torture.

The  recordings  were destroyed despite appeals in 2003 by White House and 
Justice  Department  officials  as  well  as top lawmakers not to dispose 
of the tapes, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The  administration  of  US  President George W. Bush has faced fierce 
criticism at home and abroad over its treatment of terror suspects and the 
revelation  reinforced  charges  from lawmakers and rights groups that 
the  White  House  has  kept  its  interrogation  and  detention practices 
secret.

The  White House on Friday stopped short of denying any involvement in the 
affair,  saying only that Bush "has no recollection of being made aware 
of  the tapes or their destruction before yesterday (Thursday)" when 
Hayden briefed him.

Bush  has  directed  his  official  White House lawyer to work with an 
internal CIA investigation into what happened, spokeswoman Dana Perino 
said on Friday.

The tapes were of possible interest to a federal court trying a terror 
suspect  and  a  former  blue-ribbon  panel examining the September 11 
attacks.

That  former  commission expressed anger that the CIA had withheld the 
tapes  despite repeated requests for all pertinent information related to 
terror suspects.

Lee  Hamilton,  co-chair  of  the  bi-partisan panel, said the CIA had 
clearly obstructed the commission's work and his colleague Thomas Kean 
accused the CIA of lying.

"I'm  upset  that they didn't tell us the truth," co-chair Thomas Kean 
told the Times.

In  a  note  to his staff on Thursday and released later to the media, CIA 
director  Michael Hayden said the tapes were destroyed to protect the 
identities of the CIA agents shown in the tapes.

"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.

But Democrats 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  tapes  reportedly  showed harsh interrogation methods 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.

Hayden  said  government  lawyers  who  reviewed  the  tapes found the 
detainees were not subjected to illegal abuse and that the decision to 
destroy them was made by the CIA.

A  New  York  Times  report  on  Saturday,  however,  raised  yet more 
questions about how the CIA decided to dispose of the tapes.

Citing  unnamed  officials,  the  paper  said Jose Rodriguez, the then 
chief of the CIA's clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations, 
ordered  the  tapes destroyed without notifying the agency's lawyer or 
telling the CIA director in advance.