U.S. President George Bush (left) and Vice-President Dick Cheney have to answer yet another difficult question: who destroyed the CIA tapes and why?
Photo: AP, AP
|
 |
CIA under Fire for Destroying Interrogation Tapes
A scandal has rocked the United States as it was revealed that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogation of terrorism suspects. Kommersant sources closed to the Democratic Party say that “the destruction of CIA tapes was part of a plan to get rid of materials that could become evidence in case President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are prosecuted after they leave the White House”. Opponents of the incumbent administration do not rule out that incumbent leaders may go on trial for crimes committed during their time in office. Kommersant’s special correspondent Dmitry Sidorov reports from Washington.
No Tape No Problem
The U.S. Justice Department announced on Saturday a preliminary inquiry into the CIA destroying in 2005 videotaped interrogations of two high-profile al-Qaeda members, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim Nashiri who are in custody in the Guantanamo Bay prison. Investigators believe that Abu Zubaidah was involved in plotting 9/11 terrorist attacks while Abd al-Rahim Nasiri took part in an attack against the U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Cole in 2000. Assistant Attorney-General Kenneth Wainstein said that he had already sent a notification to the CIA’s acting General Counsel John Rizzo.
The Justice Department and the CIA will now hold a joint investigation to establish whether a full probe into the incident is needed.
The Justice Minister has asked the CIA for guarantees to preserve all remaining records related to the incident. CIA chief Michael Hayden promised cooperation with the Justice Minister and expressed hope that the investigation will answer “questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes”.
The CIA interrogation tapes were destroyed back in late 2005 right after world media reveal reports about CIA secret overseas prisons, but the scandal broke up in Washington only after The New York Times reported on its website last Wednesday that it would reveal information about the destruction of CIA videotaped interrogations of suspected terrorists. CIA Director Michael Hayden addressed employees of his agency on Thursday as it was clear that the destruction of videotapes can no longer be concealed.
He listed official reasons behind the destruction in his statement to his colleagues. The videotapes made in 2002 were part of the CIA’s secret program of keeping in custody and interrogating terrorism suspects. Mr. Hayden said in his statement that the destroyed tapes posed a serious threat to the security of CIA employees. “Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaida and its sympathizers,” Michael Hayden said.
The Bush administration joined efforts to downplay the scandal. The White House made clear that it had nothing to do with the incident. Presidential spokesperson Dana Perino said that “George Bush has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday”.
A New Watergate
However, the reasoning of the CIA and the White House did not satisfy critics of the Republican administration. The Democrats launched a powerful attack on the White House late last week.
They are convinced that the destroyed information could prove widely spread tortures in the Guantanamo Bay facility authorized by President Bush’s program of interrogating terrorism suspects. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said “the tapes’ destruction was another troubling aspect of the interrogation program.” John Rockefeller, chair of the Senate’s intelligence committee, urged for an immediate independent investigation of the case. Mr. Rockefeller was indignant that the Senate “was not consulted on usage nor the decision to destroy the tapes” and said his panel had asked the CIA and the White House for information about the usage of the tapes and chronology of their appearance and destruction.
Senator Edward Kennedy gave the fieriest reaction to the situation: “We haven’t seen anything like this since the 18 ½ gap in the tapes of President Richard Nixon.” Mr. Kennedy invoked the ghost of Watergate drawing a comparison with the scandal over an investigation of spying on President Nixon’s political opponent which forced him to step down.
The Bush administration and the CIA chiefs are in for a big trouble not only in the Senate but they may also face a federal investigation. But it will happen only if Attorney-General Michael Mukasey, nominated by President Bush and recently endorsed in the Congress, gives the green light to an inquiry from the Senate majority’s leader Richard Derbin.
Say the CIA, Think the White House
It is not the first time that the destruction of classified materials became known to public. In May 1997, the CIA admitted to destroying of documents back in the 1960s on the secret mission to topple the Iranian government in 1953. Then CIA chiefs Robert Gates (now Defense Secretary) and James Woolsey promised to declassify information on the cases, which they still haven’t done. The same thing happened to data on the CIA-orchestrated coup in Guatemala and a failed operation against Cuba.
The latest scandal over documents destruction broke when Samuel Berger, President Bill Clinton’s former National Security Advisor, went on trial. In 2005, Mr. Berger started cooperating with the Justice Department as he admitted that in 2003 he took out in his socks documents on the Clinton administration’s antiterrorist activities from the U.S. National Archive on two occasions. Mr. Berger then was fined $10,000 and was stripped of access to classified information for three years.
Kommersant sources close to the White House say that the current scandal is largely politicized in the view of the 2008 presidential election. “Democrats keep playing political games, and they use every opportunity to break new scandals that could damage the Bush administration and the Republican party,” one of the sources said.
Kommersant sources report that in case the Senate holds hearings on the case, some of which are likely to be public, the lawmakers would want to know who gave the order to destroy the videotapes. “Senators will try to understand the role of the White House in the scandal,” the source said.
Sources close to the Democratic Party say that “the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes was part of a plan to get rid of materials that could act as evidence in a possible trial for President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney after they leave office in the White House.” The Republicans’ opponents thus believed that the current administration may be prosecuted for the crimes committed during their time in office. Kommersant sources said “the Bush administration systematically destroys such documents”. They, however, were unable to give specific examples on President Bush’s knowledge of this practice.
CIA chief Michael Hayden will have to suffer the most severe blow in any case. The scandal can at least question his competence in his present job. But even the highest-ranking officials in the White House may find it hard to avoid big troubles at the background of the upcoming presidential election and an invigorated power struggle in the United States as President Bush and Vice-President Cheney remain the main target of the Democrats.
Dmitry Sidorov
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 10, 2007
|
|
|
