WASHINGTON, Dec 15: The US government has asked a Congressional committee to suspend its probe into the destruction by the CIA of videotapes, citing ‘significant risks’ to its own investigation, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The US Justice Department’s request Friday to the House Intelligence Committee came after the panel had summoned two CIA officials to testify next week – a hearing that now is likely to be postponed, the daily reported.

The committee had demanded that the CIA produce by Friday all cables, memorandums and e-mail messages related to the videotapes, as well as the legal advice given to agency officials before the tapes were destroyed.

The deadline passed without the arrival of any of those documents, the Times wrote.

The inquiries by the Justice Department and Congress began after the disclosure last week that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of the 2002 interrogations of two Al Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

The Justice Department request came one day after the House of Representatives adopted a bill requiring US intelligence agencies to renounce all forms of torture by following explicit rules set out by the US military.

Thursday’s vote came amid a furor over the intelligence agency’s destruction of the videotapes, which reportedly showed harsh interrogations.

The provision passed by the House, part of a 2008 intelligence budget, says the military’s rules on interrogation methods must apply to civilians as well, including CIA staff.

The measure still needs to be passed by the Senate and the White House warned President George W. Bush would veto the bill. Democrats in Congress apparently lacked enough votes to overcome the expected veto, with the House bill passing by a vote of 222 to 199.—AFP