Congress Wants Answers on CIA Tapes

Monday, December 10, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress summoned CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden to Capitol Hill to explain his agency's destruction of interrogation videotapes, as multiple investigations began into who knew about and approved the decision.

Hayden is to testify in a closed session Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and on Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.

Among the questions he'll face is whether Congress was notified about the tapes' destruction. The chairman of the House panel, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Hayden's assertion last week that lawmakers were informed "does not appear to be true."

Hayden told CIA employees on Thursday that the CIA had taped the interrogations of two terrorist suspects in 2002. He said Congress was notified in 2003 both of the tapes' existence and the CIA's intent to destroy them.

The tapes were destroyed in 2005 but Congress was not told until 2006 at the earliest. The House Intelligence Committee did not learn of the tapes' destruction until March 2007, and then indirectly during a general briefing about the CIA's interrogation program, Reyes said.

The tapes spanned hundreds of hours but "only a small fraction" showed the actual interrogation of the two men, a counterterrorism official said Monday.

Most of the tapes of one suspect, Abu Zubaydah, were to document his medical treatment, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the tapes are classified. Zubaydah came into CIA custody with a gunshot wound and the CIA wanted to prove it gave him proper medical care in the event he died, the official said.

The Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog are conducting a joint inquiry into the matter to determine whether a full investigation is warranted. With that review ongoing, the White House counsel's office has instructed White House press secretary Dana Perino not to get into details with reporters.

"I think that that's appropriate, and I'll adhere to it," Perino said Monday. She said her previous statement remains accurate — that President Bush has no recollection of hearing about the tapes' existence or their destruction before being briefed about it last Thursday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday she has no memory of the CIA videotapes.

Former White House counsel Harriet Miers did know about them, and recommended to the CIA in 2005 that the tapes not be destroyed, according to an official familiar with the probe. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about the inquiry.

White House employees have been directed by the counsel's office to preserve all documents and e-mails related to the matter, Perino said.

Attorneys for one detainee say the destruction of the tapes may have violated a court order and have asked a federal judge to hold a hearing. In a court filing, attorneys for Yemeni national Mahmoad Abdah point to a June 10, 2005, court order telling the government to "preserve and maintain all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees."

A court hearing on the tapes has not yet been set.

The destroyed tapes would also have been of interest to the Sept. 11 Commission, which pressed the CIA hard for access to interrogations of key detainees, including Zubaydah. The commission offered to send blindfolded staff to the locations of secret interrogations but was rejected, according to former commissioners Timothy Roemer and Richard Ben-Veniste.

Roemer said the commission made a "sweeping request" for all information pertaining to interrogations and detainees.

"I certainly am extremely frustrated and disappointed," Roemer said. The request "certainly included video or audiotapes."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said Monday he would wait until Attorney General Michael Mukasey clarifies the role of the Justice Department in the destruction of the tapes before deciding whether to call for a special prosecutor.

"If it looks like the Justice Department wouldn't be able to conduct a thoroughly neutral, impartial investigation themselves — if they were more deeply involved than anyone knows at the moment — that would tend for me to support that position," Conyers said.

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a Democratic presidential candidate and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for a special counsel on Sunday. Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he opposes the idea because investigating is the job of his committee.

Associated Press Writers Ben Feller, Matthew Lee and Cal Woodward contributed to this report.