Congress Looks Into C.I.A. Obstruction As Calls for Justice Inquiry Rise

ERIC LICHTBLAU
NY Times
Saturday December 8, 2007

The Central Intelligence Agency faced the threat of obstruction-of-justice investigations on Friday from both the Justice Department and Congressional committees over the destruction of videotapes of interrogations of Qaeda operatives.

The Justice Department said it would review calls for a formal inquiry into the destruction of the tapes, while the House and Senate intelligence committees said they were opening investigations of their own into the episode, which Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, chairman of the Senate panel, called “extremely disturbing.”

Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said Friday that President Bush “has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction” before this week. She added that the C.I.A. and the White House counsel’s office were reviewing the facts and that they would cooperate with any Justice Department inquiry.

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The pressure for a full investigation into the handling of the tapes puts Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a difficult position early in his tenure because of the questions that arose at his confirmation hearings in October about his views on harsh C.I.A. interrogation tactics.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other liberal groups on Friday called for the appointment of an outside counsel to examine possible criminal acts by the C.I.A., arguing that the Justice Department had proved unable in the past to adequately investigate claims of prisoner abuse against the administration.

The tapes, which showed severe interrogation methods against two operatives from Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005, the C.I.A. acknowledged this week after being questioned about the issue by The New York Times. The agency said the tapes were destroyed in part to protect the identities of the interrogators.

Full article here.

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