2005 CIA interrogation videotapes destruction

Abu Zubaydah was held at a black site in Thailand starting in the spring of 2002. Near the beginning of Zubaydah's detention, a video camera was set up to continuously tape him. Tapes were also made of another early CIA detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who arrived in October. The tapes were made from April to December 2002. Ninety tapes were made of Zubaydah and two of al-Nashiri. Twelve tapes depict interrogations using "enhanced interrogation" techniques, Soon after the taping had stopped, CIA clandestine operation officers were pushing for the tapes to be destroyed. However, the general counsel of the CIA, Scott W. Muller, advised the CIA director, George Tenet, to not destroy the tapes on the CIA's authority. Instead, Muller notified the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in February 2003 that the CIA would like to have them destroyed. Representatives Porter Goss (who later served as CIA Director) and Jane Harman thought that would be politically and legally risky. Days after the photographs from Abu Ghraib became public in May 2004, the CIA tapes were discussed among CIA and White House lawyers. Muller, representing the CIA, met with Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and John B. Bellinger III. The three White House lawyers recommended that the tapes not be destroyed. The cable was not copied to anyone other than Rodriguez's chief of staff. It was against standard procedure to act on the advice of agency lawyers without copying them on a decision. ==Requests for interrogation tapes==

Beginning in 2003, lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui asked for videotapes of interrogations of detainees that might help prove Moussaoui was not involved in the September 11 attacks. From May to November 2005, Judge Leonie Brinkema was also pressuring the CIA to turn over any videotapes of detainee interrogations as evidence in the trial against Moussaoui. The tapes were not provided to the 9/11 Commission, which used classified transcripts of interrogations of Zubaydah in writing its report. ==Making the destruction of the tapes public, December 2007==

On December 6, 2007, The New York Times advised the Bush administration that they had acquired, and planned to publish, information about the destruction of tapes made of Zubaydah's interrogation, believed to show instances of waterboarding and other forms of possible torture. Michael Hayden, the Director of the CIA, sent a letter to CIA staff the next day, briefing them on the destruction of the tapes. Hayden asserted that key members of Congress had been briefed on the existence of the tapes, and the plans for their destruction. Senator Jay Rockefeller, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, disputed Hayden's assertion, saying that he only learned of the destruction of the tapes in November 2006, a year after their destruction. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and one of just four senior members of Congress who was briefed on the existence of the tapes, acknowledged being briefed. Harman responded to Hayden's assertions by saying she had objected, in writing, to the tapes' destruction. "I told the CIA that destroying videotapes of interrogations was a bad idea and urged them in writing not to do it," Harman stated. ==Investigation==

On December 8, 2007, the CIA Office of Inspector General and the Department of Justice announced a preliminary joint investigation into the destruction of videotapes of interrogations of the first two detainees in the CIA's custody. Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced the appointment of Connecticut federal prosecutor John Durham to start a criminal investigation of the destruction of the tapes on January 2, 2008. Hayden claimed that the continued existence of the tapes represented a threat to the CIA personnel involved, saying that if the tapes were leaked they might result in CIA personnel being identified and targeted for retaliation. In February 2009, the Obama administration revealed that the CIA had destroyed ninety-two videotapes that contained hundreds of hours of the interrogations. On November 8, 2010, Durham closed the investigation without recommending any criminal charges be filed. ==See also==