December 09, 2007	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 28, 1428

WASHINGTON: The White House faced another clash with Congress on Saturday after furious Democratic lawmakers demanded a probe into the CIA’s destruction of tapes showing harsh interrogations of captured Al Qaeda operatives.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s admission that it destroyed tapes of at least two interrogations in 2005, at a time when Congress was probing torture allegations, sparked outrage among lawmakers and human rights groups.

The recordings were disposed of despite appeals by White House and Justice Department officials, who advised the CIA in 2003 against destroying the materials, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

In a note to his staff on Thursday, CIA director Michael Hayden said they were destroyed to protect the identities of the CIA agents shown in the tapes.

“It is far more plausible that CIA officials eliminated evidence that could have been used to hold interrogators accountable for illegal acts of torture — as well as the more senior administration officials who ordered or approved those acts,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

“It is a startling disclosure,” said Senate number two leader Richard Durbin, who asked the Justice Department to investigate whether CIA officials committed obstruction of justice by discarding the tapes.

Hayden, however, said government lawyers who reviewed the tapes found that the detainees were not subjected to illegal abuse and that the decision to destroy them was made by the CIA.

The White House said President George Bush did not recall knowing about the videotapes or the decision to destroy them in 2005, but it stopped short of denying any White House involvement.

Bush has “complete confidence” in Hayden, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, adding that the president has directed his official lawyer to work with an internal CIA probe into what happened.

Hayden told his staff that keeping the tapes would have risked the lives of CIA agents.

But Democrats rejected his explanation.

“It’s a pathetic excuse,” Senator Carl Levin said. “You would have to burn every document in the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it, under that theory.”

Hayden did not say how many detainees were videotaped but said interrogations of at least two Al Qaeda operatives were filmed.

The New York Times reported the tapes showed “severe interrogation techniques” used on Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first suspects interrogated by the CIA in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

The revelation raises difficult questions for the Bush administration, which has faced fierce criticism over its treatment of terror suspects, with lawmakers and rights groups charging the White House has withheld information about its interrogations and detention practices.

“No part of our government should engage in practices that are so horrific that we cannot bear to see them on tape,” Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy said

Human rights groups also called for an immediate probe and said the move amounted to destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice.

Hayden said the tapes were made to ensure new interrogation methods were within legal limits.

The tapes were also designed to serve as an accurate account of interrogations but the agency later decided that there were already sufficient documentary records, and videotaping stopped in 2002, he said.—AFP