The CIA interrogation videotapes destruction occurred on November 9, 2005.
The
videotapes
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...
were made by the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
(CIA) during
interrogation
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful i ...
s of
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
suspects
Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah ( ; , ''Abū Zubaydah''; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi Arabian currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use ...
and
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri
Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri (; ar, عبد الرحيم حسين محمد عبده النشري; born January 5, 1965) is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of USS ''Cole'' and other maritime ...
in 2002 at a
CIA black site prison in
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
.
Ninety tapes were made of Zubaydah and two of al-Nashiri. Twelve tapes depict interrogations using "
enhanced interrogation techniques
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for the program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S ...
", a euphemism for
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
.
The tapes and their destruction became public knowledge in December 2007.
A criminal investigation by a
Department of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
special prosecutor,
John Durham
John Henry Durham (born March 16, 1950) is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut (D. Conn.) from 2018 to 2021. By April 2019, he had been assigned to investigate the origins of the Federa ...
, decided in 2010 to not file any criminal charges related to destroying the videotapes.
Creation and destruction
Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah ( ; , ''Abū Zubaydah''; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi Arabian currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use ...
was held at a
black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with ...
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
Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri (; ar, عبد الرحيم حسين محمد عبده النشري; born January 5, 1965) is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of USS ''Cole'' and other maritime ...
, 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,
reportedly including Zubaydah "vomiting and screaming" during a waterboarding session.
Soon after the taping had stopped, CIA
clandestine operation
A clandestine operation is an intelligence or military operation carried out in such a way that the operation goes unnoticed by the general population or specific enemy forces.
Until the 1970s, clandestine operations were primarily political in ...
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
George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Pr ...
, to not destroy the tapes on the CIA's authority. Instead, Muller notified the
House
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air ...
and
Senate Intelligence Committees in February 2003 that the CIA would like to have them destroyed. Representatives
Porter Goss
Porter Johnston Goss (; born November 26, 1938) is an American politician and government official who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 until 2004, when he became the last Director of Central Intellig ...
(who later served as
CIA Director
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) is a statutory office () that functions as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which in turn is a part of the United States Intelligence Community.
Beginning February 2017, the D ...
) and
Jane Harman
Jane Margaret Lakes Harman (born June 28, 1945) is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1993 to 1999, and from 2001 to 2011; she is a member of the Democratic Party. Harman was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee ...
thought that would be politically and legally risky.
Days after the photographs from
Abu Ghraib
Abu Ghraib (; ar, أبو غريب, ''Abū Ghurayb'') is a city in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq, located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000 (2003). The old road ...
became public in May 2004, the CIA tapes were discussed among CIA and White House lawyers. Muller, representing the CIA, met with
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive govern ...
,
David Addington
David Spears Addington (born January 22, 1957) is an American lawyer who was legal counsel (2001–2005) and chief of staff (2005–2009) to Vice President Dick Cheney. He was the vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at the Her ...
and
John B. Bellinger III. The three White House lawyers recommended that the tapes not be destroyed.
Tenet and Muller left the CIA in mid-2004.
By late 2004, several top leadership positions at the CIA had changed. Goss was Director,
John A. Rizzo was acting General Counsel, and
Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.
Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. (born October 21, 1948) is an American former intelligence officer who served as Director of the National Clandestine Service Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was the final CIA deputy director for operations (DDO) be ...
was chief of the Directorate of Operations. There was also a new White House Counsel,
Harriet Miers
Harriet Ellan Miers (born August 10, 1945) is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party since 1988, she previously served as White House Staff Secretary f ...
. In early 2005, Miers told Rizzo not to destroy the tapes without checking with the White House first.
On November 4, 2005, just after the ''Washington Post'' had printed a story about the existence of secret prisons run by the CIA in
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...
, Rodriguez called two CIA lawyers for their opinions. Steven Hermes, a clandestine service lawyer, told Rodriguez he had the authority to destroy the tapes.
Robert Eatinger, the top lawyer at the CIA
Counterterrorism Center
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Mission Center for Counterterrorism (often referred to as the Counterterrorism Mission Center or CTMC, formerly the Counterterrorism Center, or simply CTC) was established in 1986, and is a division of the CI ...
, said there was no legal requirement to keep the tapes.
The AP reported that, as both lawyers knew of standing orders from the White House not to destroy the tapes, neither thought Rodriguez would immediately act based on their advice.
Rodriguez sent a cable to the CIA's
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populatio ...
station ordering the destruction of the tapes on November 8, 2005.
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.
Rodriguez informed Goss and Rizzo on November 10, 2005.
Rodriguez was never reprimanded for the destruction of the tapes.
According to Rodriguez's memoir,
Gina Haspel
Gina Cheri Walker Haspel (born October 1, 1956) formerly an American intelligence officer, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2018 to 2021. The first woman to hold the post on a permanent basis, she had previously worked ...
was responsible for "draft
nga cable" ordering the destruction.
Requests for interrogation tapes
Beginning in 2003, lawyers for
Zacarias Moussaoui
Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic language, Arabic: زكريا موسوي, '; born May 30, 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 att ...
asked for videotapes of interrogations of detainees that might help prove Moussaoui was not involved in the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
.
[
In May 2005, Senator ]Jay Rockefeller
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia (1985–2015). He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as governor of West Virgi ...
made a request on behalf of the Senate Judiciary Committee
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nomination ...
for the CIA to turn over a hundred documents related to the alleged torture of prisoners in American custody. In September, after Porter Goss
Porter Johnston Goss (; born November 26, 1938) is an American politician and government official who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 until 2004, when he became the last Director of Central Intellig ...
was named as the new Director of the CIA, Rockefeller renewed his request. Both times, he also mentioned the videotapes, which "undoubtedly sent a shiver through the agency".
From May to November 2005, Judge Leonie Brinkema
Leonie Helen Milhomme Brinkema (born June 26, 1944) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Early life and education
She was born as Leonie Milhomme in Teaneck, New Jersey. ...
was also pressuring the CIA to turn over any videotapes of detainee interrogations as evidence in the trial against Moussaoui. On November 14, the Department of Justice told the court that the CIA did not possess the videotapes that were requested.
The tapes were not provided to the September 11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", includin ...
, which used classified transcripts of interrogations of Zubaydah in writing its report. Philip D. Zelikow, the Executive Director of the Commission, stated, "We believe that we asked for such material and we are sure that we were not provided such material."
The ACLU claimed that at the time they were destroyed, the tapes should have been turned over according to a federal court order to comply with a FOIA request for information about interrogations. A federal judge ruled in 2011 that the CIA would not be sanctioned for the destruction.
Making the destruction of the tapes public, December 2007
On December 6, 2007, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' 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
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...
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
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
had been briefed on the existence of the tapes, and the plans for their destruction.[ ]Senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the e ...
Jay Rockefeller
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia (1985–2015). He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as governor of West Virgi ...
, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee
The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (sometimes referred to as the Intelligence Committee or SSCI) is dedicated to overseeing the United States Intelligence Community—the agencies and bureaus of the federal government of ...
, disputed Hayden's assertion, saying that he only learned of the tapes in November 2006, a year after their destruction.
Jane Harman
Jane Margaret Lakes Harman (born June 28, 1945) is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1993 to 1999, and from 2001 to 2011; she is a member of the Democratic Party. Harman was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee ...
, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee
The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), also known as the House Intelligence Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Adam Schiff. It is the primary committ ...
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
The CIA Office of Inspector General exists to perform an inspector general (IG) function at the Central Intelligence Agency.
The first IG was appointed in 1952.
The 1970s
The Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, and Pike Committee al ...
and the Department of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
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
Michael Bernard Mukasey (; born July 28, 1941) is an American attorney and former federal judge who served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States from 2007 to 2009.
Born in New York City in 1941, Mukasey attended Ramaz School, graduat ...
announced the appointment of Connecticut federal prosecutor John H. Durham
John Henry Durham (born March 16, 1950) is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut (D. Conn.) from 2018 to 2021. By April 2019, he had been assigned to investigate the origins of the Federa ...
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. Hayden stated that the tapes were destroyed "only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries."
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
*Panetta Review
The Panetta Review was a secret internal review conducted by Leon Panetta, then the Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, of the CIA's torture of detaineesMcGreal, Chri"Former senior Bush official on torture: 'I think what th ...
*UN Convention Against Torture
The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (commonly known as the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT)) is an international human rights treaty under the review of the United Nation ...
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:CIA interrogation tapes destruction
Central Intelligence Agency
Cover-ups
George W. Bush administration controversies
War on terror
Torture in the United States
Interrogations
November 2005 events in Thailand
November 2005 events in the United States