In a letter filed to a U.S. District Court today, the government acknowledges that the CIA destroyed 92 tapes that recorded the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The CIA had previously acknowledged that it had destroyed tapes of interrogations, but at the time Director of National Intelligence Michael Hayden said 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". That doesn't seem to be the case. The letter was filed in response to a motion by the ACLU to hold the CIA in contempt of court for its destruction of records that it was ordered by the judge to produce.
Both the timing and amount of tapes destroyed suggest that the CIA was deliberately destroying records it knew would be of interest to "internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries." The 9/11 Commission had previously requested records and transcripts of the interrogation of CIA prisoners. ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said in a statement that "The large number of videotapes destroyed confirms that the agency engaged in a systemic attempt to hide evidence of its illegal interrogations and to evade the court's order. Our contempt motion has been pending in court for over a year now – it is time to hold the CIA accountable for its flagrant disregard for the rule of law.”
The government is gathering information about the content of the destroyed tapes, information reconstructing the content of the records, and the names of any witnesses who may have viewed the tapes before their destruction. In the letter, the government also stated that some of the information may be "statutorily protected from disclosure, such as the names of CIA operatives who have reviewed the tapes."
-- A. Serwer
