CIA destroyed videotapes.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis - Central Intelligence Agency

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted in December that it had destroyed hundreds of hours of CIA videotape showing suspected terrorist interrogations.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said the tapes had been destroyed to protect the identities of interrogators, but other CIA officials have said they were destroyed to protect the interrogators from potential prosecution.

The CIA had withheld two 2002 videotapes showing harsh interrogations from a congressional investigation and then later destroyed them in 2005 despite a federal court hearing that was then underway.

Philip D. Zelikow, executive director of the September 11 commission, said the commission had made formal written requests for CIA documentary evidence of interrogations, but the tapes were not provided. The CIA has disputed that such requests were ever made. Zelikow said that the commission would retrieve its materials from the National Archives to demonstrate what was requested and how the CIA responded at the time. The commission concluded its work in 2004.

In 2003, attorneys for terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui sought videotapes of interrogations. In November 2005, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema asked for confirmation of whether the government had video or audio tapes of specific interrogations. The government denied it had such tapes for the interrogations requested. In November 2007, the CIA admitted that it had failed to hand over tapes of enemy combatant witnesses.

The CIA has justified the tapes' destruction as necessary to protect undercover officers' identities, but critics charge...