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CIA Destroyed Videos of Interrogations
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ShareDecember 06, 2007 5:30 PM
The CIA destroyed videos of suspected terrorists being interrogated using the agency's highly controversial questioning methods, known as "enhanced interrogation methods." The admission has angered human rights groups who have objected to the secretive program for years, which they say uses techniques that amount to torture.
"If these videos were leaked, people would be horrified by them," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch, "and they would begin to ask the obvious question -- does this amount to criminal behavior?"
CIA Director Mike Hayden sent a message to CIA employees today saying "the press has learned" that the CIA videotaped interrogations in 2002 and that the tapes were subsequently destroyed in 2005. The decision to destroy the tapes was made by the CIA, but he says the leaders of the congressional intelligence committees knew about the tapes and the decision to destroy them.
Hayden offers an explanation for why the tapes were destroyed -- "no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries" and offers another defense of the interrogation techniques used by the CIA.
John Sifton, a human rights attorney who is active in cases involving the CIA's secret prison program, said today that the destruction of the tapes is a scandal.
"This is a major piece of the mosaic of evidence, and now it's gone," said Sifton. "They should be ashamed of themselves."
President Bush revealed to the public the existence of the CIA's secret prisons last year, but he would not reveal the details of the agency's interrogation procedures.
But CIA officers have told ABC News they involve six escalating steps, ending in what's known as waterboarding, in which prisoners are made to feel they are drowning. Human rights groups call it torture, but the president has insisted that the United States "does not torture." The CIA has since banned waterboarding.
Human rights advocates say that if the CIA destroyed videos of suspects being waterboarded, they have destroyed evidence of torture.
"Even some Republican senators believe that waterboarding is a form of torture," said Malinowski. "It is a serious offense to destroy evidence of what may have been a crime scene."
While human rights groups have criticized the secret program, the Bush administration has insisted that the questioning resulted in information that stopped more attacks on U.S. soil.
"This program has been and remains one of the most vital tools in our war against the terrorists," President Bush said last year.
The president described how the CIA produced a cascading series of arrests. Starting with the first of the captured al Qaeda leaders, Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah had refused to cooperate until the CIA used what the president called an alternate set of interrogation procedures.
"Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives," the president said.
That led the CIA to one of the plotters of the 9/ll attacks, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, taken into custody in Pakistan.
He too was subjected to the CIA's procedures and quickly broke.
Giving up the location of his al Qaeda boss, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, the mastermind of the 9/ll attacks. KSM also provided information that helped the US stop another planned attack, Bush said.
Full message from CIA Director Michael Hayden:
Message from the Director: Taping of Early Detainee Interrogations
The press has learned that back in 2002, during the initial stage of our terrorist detention program, CIA videotaped interrogations, and destroyed the tapes in 2005. I understand that the Agency did so only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries—including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. The decision to destroy the tapes was made within CIA itself. The leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency"s intention to dispose of the material. Our oversight committees also have been told that the videos were, in fact, destroyed.
If past public commentary on the Agency's detention program is any guide, we may see misinterpretations of the facts in the days ahead. With that in mind, I want you to have some background now.
CIA's terrorist detention and interrogation program began after the capture of Abu Zubaydah in March 2002. Zubaydah, who had extensive knowledge of al-Qa'ida personnel and operations, had been seriously wounded in a firefight. When President Bush officially acknowledged in September 2006 the existence of CIA’s counter-terror initiative, he talked about Zubaydah, noting that this terrorist survived solely because of medical treatment arranged by CIA. Under normal questioning, Zubaydah became defiant and evasive. It was clear, in the President's words, that "Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking."
That made imperative the use of other means to obtain the information -- means that were lawful, safe, and effective. To meet that need, CIA designed specific, appropriate interrogation procedures. Before they were used, they were reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and by other elements of the Executive Branch. Even with the great care taken and detailed preparations made, the fact remains that this effort was new, and the Agency was determined that it proceed in accord with established legal and policy guidelines. So, on its own, CIA began to videotape interrogations.
The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages. At one point, it was thought the tapes could serve as a backstop to guarantee that other methods of documenting the interrogations -- and the crucial information they produced -- were accurate and complete. The Agency soon determined that its documentary reporting was full and exacting, removing any need for tapes. Indeed, videotaping stopped in 2002.
As part of the rigorous review that has defined the detention program, the Office of General Counsel examined the tapes and determined that they showed lawful methods of questioning. The Office of Inspector General also examined the tapes in 2003 as part of its look at the Agency's detention and interrogation practices. Beyond their lack of intelligence value -- as the interrogation sessions had already been exhaustively detailed in written channels -- and the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them, the tapes posed a serious security risk. 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-Qa'ida and its sympathizers.
These decisions were made years ago. But it is my responsibility, as Director today, to explain to you what was done, and why. What matters here is that it was done in line with the law. Over the course of its life, the Agency's interrogation program has been of great value to our country. It has helped disrupt terrorist operations and save lives. It was built on a solid foundation of legal review. It has been conducted with careful supervision. If the story of these tapes is told fairly, it will underscore those facts.
Mike Hayden
This post has been updated.
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December 6, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (75)
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If you log on to the CIA website you will no doubt read a bunch of hypocritical sentimentality.The ones I read with the most revulsion are the ones where they refer to themselves as a family and a community.I have much more respect for the Gambinos than I do for them.Philip Agee did the right thing.What America needs is a couple of dozen people like Philip Agee.
Posted by: Luis Rodriguez | Dec 6, 2007 10:07:54 PM
Sure makes you proud to be an American, eh?
Posted by: Dutch | Dec 6, 2007 10:13:55 PM
Innocence is for children. For the rest of us, let's be realistic for a moment. There's no way to convince whoever engages in these sort of barbaric practices that what they are doing is wrong, utterly immoral, or illegal-- they will justify it regardless. And when confronted, they will deny it. After torturing and killing another human, does anyone really believe these spooks will have any qualms about lying or destroying evidence to cover it up? These are the same people, after all, who are documented as having used chemical, biological and radioactive agents on US civilians to "see what would happen". Just the declassified crimes alone read like a Machiavellan horror story. Unfortunately, we have a long hypocritical history of condemning the crimes of other nations while engaging in the identical behavior ourselves.
Posted by: h5mind | Dec 6, 2007 10:16:33 PM
yeah it is important for us to torture it keeps the civilians of the united states safe so those human right activists should just shut their mouths because without the torture then we wouldn't be here for crying out loud.
Posted by: shane dawson | Dec 6, 2007 10:55:00 PM
Shane Dawson, do you really believe what you just wrote? My God man, have you served in the military, I bet the answer is no, well I will tell you I have served in our military, and I do not believe in torture, nor does our government period!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is the law, we do not torture, period!!!!! If our government has done so, and there is any proof, they will pay.
Posted by: Terry | Dec 6, 2007 11:44:23 PM
Destroying of evidence which no doubt shows criminal wrongdoing such as the countless emails and and now videotapes has become de rigeur for this administration. Outright contempt for the laws these public servants were sworn to uphold occurs each and every day, thanks largely to a Democratic leadership which as of yet has failed to enforce the rule of law so flagrantly and openly violated.
Posted by: Pea Brain | Dec 7, 2007 12:12:27 AM
If it's NOT TORTURE, let's do it to all criminals, next speeding ticket, up on the torture platform until they confess and repent. Suspected molester, up on the waterboard until they agree to sign the confession. Next shooting in the "hood", bring everyone in for a water-party and see how many confessors we can create.
Posted by: zuzu | Dec 7, 2007 5:08:25 AM
America is better than this and Americans should be angry that Bush and his corporate fascist machine has ruined our good reputation around the world. And now simply because we are Americans we can not travel anywhere a feel secure or liked or safe. Lie after Lie and the people i.e. Sheeples continue to buy it with the same stupid look on their faces and the ring in their nose. Have someone hold your head under water for two minutes over and over or tie you up and punch you in the kidneys or face and tell me its not torture. Toture is wrong, ineffective, and cowardly. "Hi daddy what did you do today at work?" As he bounces his child on his knee "Oh I placed electrods to someone and shocked them into jelly...Honey can you pass the rolls" Get Real!!
Posted by: cm | Dec 7, 2007 5:25:28 AM
Criminal behavior by a criminal administration.
Posted by: Sandra Lea | Dec 7, 2007 5:25:55 AM
Bush gets away with it because WE ARE LETTING HIM. Some are protecting his image by argueing about every little thing and defending his every little action, but, real Americans cannot get our voices heard, where do we sign-up to permit impeachment hearings?
Posted by: zuzu | Dec 7, 2007 5:46:36 AM
If it's not torture....Lets do it to accused people and see how many confessions we can get, what if we did it when someone wasn't up-front about owning a dog/cat in the area. If it's NOT TORTURE, let the FUN begin!
Posted by: zuzu | Dec 7, 2007 6:11:39 AM
Call it hate, call it bigotry, call it whatever America's self-haters want to call it. The only thing we've done wrong in Iraq is not conducting war the way Sherman did during the Civil War. Total, complete destruction of the enemy and anything that would enable him to wage war against us. Horrible? Yes. Effective? Absolute. I don't care what the rest of the world thinks of us.
Posted by: Mike | Dec 7, 2007 6:30:20 AM
Oh my God! The CIA is keepig secrets!
Perhaps they should publish all their techniuqes, you know, so the bad guys can be better prepared. They can show all the intel too, maybe make it a weekly sit-com on ABC.
Posted by: hellooo | Dec 7, 2007 7:24:34 AM
"Beyond their lack of intelligence value ... and the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them, the tapes posed a serious security risk." Destroying the tapes is a records management issue. Having said that, three years seems a very short time for records documenting an operational activity of an organization. No organization has to keep records, in the absence of an ongoing or imminent criminal investigation, because it is incriminating. But there has to be a pre-existing records management plan in place with clearly identified events defining when it is appropriate for them to be destroyed for it to be considered acceptable records management. I don't think "security risk" (which appears to be the real reason fir mtheir destruction) is an acceptable criteria. It is too easy to hide ad-hoc decisions as a security risk and it seems too much like covering their backside. They could have burned them to a CD, stored the CD in a secure vault and deleted the records from their network if they were afraid of copying, hackers, etc. If the CIA does not have secure storage facilities, then the CIA itself is a national security threat.
Posted by: Blaine d'Entremont | Dec 7, 2007 7:49:51 AM
Can anyone believe or trust 100% the CIA actually destroyed those tapes? Or are they just saying the tapes were destroyed, because if revealed the tapes still exist, members of the CIA could be tried as war criminals? Because the tapes are so brutal, inhumane that they could sicken the psyche of humanity and go against the grain of anything considered civilized?
Posted by: Margo Tapes Still Exist | Dec 7, 2007 8:08:17 AM
Euphemise it any which way you want but "torture" is wrong: a sign of yellow-bellied weakness and repression practised by those too afraid to deal on an even-playing field! Why do we spend time encouraging children not to bully if we're only going to turn and claim that the same act in adulthood somehow makes one a "proud American"? Jeez, how stupid is this!
Posted by: Human_Plain_And_Simple | Dec 7, 2007 8:26:10 AM
This only adds Peter Goss (and probably several other CIA executives) to the list of folks who need to be prosecuted for violations of the War Crimes Act (among other laws). What Hayden did not say was among the factors considered before the tapes' destruction was whether they were evidence of a crime. If waterboarding was on those tapes - and it appears it was - then under our nation's prior prosecutions they evidenced a crime - a nationally and internationally recognized war crime (The U.S. has prosecuted, convicted and ordered years of prision at hard labor for numerous war criminals for waterboarding - the Dolittle raid interrogators among many). Destruction of the tapes with that knowledge (which the decision makers surely had) is a crime as well.
Posted by: dman | Dec 7, 2007 8:33:57 AM
This is what one can expect from the CIA overseen by President Bush. The Democratic Congress needs to censor the CIA and President BUSH.
Posted by: Kenneth | Dec 7, 2007 8:35:02 AM
Hey all you supporters of torture tactics,what if your son or daughter who was in the military was tortured? You would be partially responsible for your childs torture,because you endorse it. Torture supporters would have made excellent Nazis! I hear Cheney gets his pacemaker racing,when he hears about our people torturing others. And why are you torture supporters sooo scared? Afraid the boggeyman will get you no doubt! Like the scared little wimps you people are,and oh so gullible!
Posted by: AJ | Dec 7, 2007 8:41:18 AM
Oh Boo hoo, whould you rather us torture them...or us have another 9/11??? Thats what I thought.
Posted by: Ryan | Dec 7, 2007 9:10:48 AM
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