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CIA destroyed video of 'waterboarding'
al-Qaida detainees
By Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
12/07/07 "The
Guardian" -- - The CIA destroyed video evidence of
the coercive interrogation of al-Qaida operatives held under its
secret rendition programme in order to shield agents from
prosecution, it was revealed yesterday.
The decision to destroy two videotapes documenting the use of
waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah and another high-value al-Qaida
detainee was made in November 2005 - as American media were just
beginning to focus on the existence of the secret CIA prison
network.
"The tapes posed a serious security risk," the CIA's director,
Michael Hayden, told agency employees in a statement yesterday.
"Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of
your CIA colleagues who had served in the programme, exposing
them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaida and its
sympathisers."
Hayden's message to CIA employees went out a day after he
learned that the New York Times planned to publish an article
today about destruction of the videotapes.
The revelation is bound to reignite debate in Congress about the
use of torture in the war on terror. But far more seriously for
the Bush administration, it raises the prospect that the CIA
withheld information from and obstructed the work of the
commission investigating the September 11 attacks as well as
lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 11th hijacker.
Officials from the September 11 commission told the New York
Times yesterday they had formally requested from the CIA
evidence of interrogations, and had been informed that all
materials had been handed over.
The Washington Post, which also carried a story on its website
yesterday about the destroyed videotapes, reported that the
order to destroy the tapes came from Jose Rodriguez Jr, then the
director of the CIA's clandestine operations.
The leaders of the house and Senate intelligence committees -
which were then under Republican control - were aware of the
existence of the footage and the CIA's decision to destroy the
material, Hayden said in his memo. However, Democratic committee
members who had long demanded that such interrogations be
videotaped, were not made aware of the existence of the tapes,
the Times reported.
Hayden said the interrogations were filmed in 2002 after George
Bush authorised the use of harsh interrogation, including the
controversial practice of controlled drowning, known as
waterboarding, against al-Qaida suspects.
"The agency was determined that it proceed in accord with
established legal and policy guidelines," Hayden wrote. "So, on
its own, CIA began to videotape interrogations."
However, the CIA soon discontinued the practice, and it is
believed that only two detainees were filmed while undergoing
interrogation. It has long been believed that Abu Zubaydah, a
Saudi believed to be a close associated of Osama bin Laden, was
subjected to harsh treatment following his capture in Pakistan
in March 2002.
The footage would have clarified what practices such as
waterboarding and sleep deprivation - both of which a gravely
wounded Abu Zubaydah was subjected to - involve.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
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