Washington - The Central Intelligence Agency revealed Friday that in 2005 it destroyed video tapes of officers subjecting two al- Qaeda terrorist suspects to harsh interrogation techniques. CIA Director Michael Hayden said the tapes were destroyed because they no longer contained valuable intelligence and posed a security risk to the agents involved if they ever went public.
"Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the programme, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers," Hayden said in a memo to employees obtained by Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.
Hayden sent the memo after receiving a tip the story of the tapes was about to appear publicly. He said the CIA disposed of the tapes after ensuring they were not the focus of any legislative or judicial inquiries and that videotaping stopped in 2002.
At least two tapes, made in 2002, documented the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, an associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and another high-level, unidentified al-Qaeda member.
The Washington Post reported that Zubaydah had been subjected to waterboarding, a controversial practice which simulates drowning, though it was unclear if it was specifically that technique which was documented on the video tapes in question.
Hayden's memo said Congress had been made fully aware of the tapes' existence and the decision to destroy them. The tapes were also not handed over to the September 11 commission, a broad independent inquiry into the 2001 terrorism attacks on New York and Washington, the intelligence leading up to it and their aftermath.
The American Civil Liberties Union in a statement late Thursday accused the CIA of destroying the tapes to protect the operatives from legal consequences.
"The destruction of these tapes suggests an utter disregard for the rule of law," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "Both Congress and the courts have repeatedly demanded that this evidence be turned over, but apparently the CIA believes that its agents are above the law."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto did not comment Friday on the stories published in the Washington Post and New York Times.
