Via NY Transfer News Collective * 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.
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