WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog announced Saturday a joint inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists as the latest scandal to rock U.S. intelligence gathered steam.
The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted.
"I welcome this inquiry and the CIA will co-operate fully,'' CIA Director Mike Hayden said in a statement. "I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes.''
The House Intelligence Committee is launching its own inquiry next week. It will investigate not only why the tapes were destroyed and Congress was not notified, but also the interrogation methods that "if released, had the potential to do such grave damage to the United States of America,'' said the panel's chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) on Saturday.
"This administration cannot be trusted to police itself,'' Reyes said.
The Senate Intelligence committee is also investigating.
Hayden told agency employees Thursday that the recordings were destroyed out of fear the tapes would leak and reveal the identities of interrogators. He said the sessions were videotaped to provide an added layer of legal protection for interrogators using new, harsh methods authorized by President George W. Bush as a way to break down the defences of recalcitrant prisoners.
The CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, is preserving all remaining records related to the videotapes and their destruction, according to Kenneth Wainstein, assistant attorney general.
Justice Department officials, lawyers from the CIA general counsel's office and the CIA inspector general will meet early this coming week to begin the preliminary inquiry, Wainstein wrote Rizzo on Saturday.
"I understand that your office has already reviewed the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the videotapes, as well as the existence of any pending relevant investigations or other preservation obligations at the time the destruction occurred. As a first step in our inquiry, I ask that you provide us the substance of that review at the meeting,'' Wainstein wrote.
The White House had no immediate comment on the decision. On Friday, presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the White House would support Attorney General Michael Mukasey if he decided to investigate.
Angry congressional Democrats had demanded the Justice Department investigate. Some accused the CIA of a coverup.
The man now at the centre of the storm is Jose Rodriguez, who retired as head of the CIA's clandestine directorate of operations in August 2007, but will leave the agency at the end of the year. Rodriguez decided the tapes should be destroyed, one former and one current intelligence official told The Associated Press. A career spy, Rodriguez was promoted to the job by then-CIA director Porter Goss.
Goss learned of the tapes' destruction "a couple of days'' after it happened, a government official familiar with the events said. The official said Goss did not order an investigation or inform Congress.
Goss was upset by the tapes' destruction but did not take any action because the decision was within Rodriguez's authority, a former intelligence official said. The CIA's spy service has broad latitude to take actions to protect operational security.
"Though Goss believed this was a bad judgment it falls within prerogatives of the directorate of operations,'' said the former official, who like other current and former officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The tapes were destroyed shortly after The Washington Post in late 2005 revealed the existence of secret overseas prisons, which angered the co-operating governments.
Another intelligence official said Rodriguez was concerned the tapes would leak and the interrogators seen in the tapes would be targeted by al Qaeda. "Rodriguez felt he had good reasons to deep-six the tapes. They had people's faces on them. It's not like a name getting out,'' the official said.
The Justice Department and CIA inspector general inquiry is expected to focus on whether Rodriguez had the inherent authority to destroy the tapes despite legal and political recommendations otherwise, or if he had the endorsement of any senior officials.
"It looks like Rodriguez is being pushed over the deck on this,'' said John Radsan, who was assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004 and now teaches at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn. "Will he grab other people?''
Rodriguez destroyed the tapes at a time of national debate over interrogation practices involving suspected terrorists. He could not be reached for comment.
