By Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t
The CIA destroyed videotapes showing its agents subjecting high-level al-Qaeda detainees to waterboarding after the agency’s inspector general issued a classified report in the spring of 2004 that concluded the interrogation methods used on the prisoners “appeared to constitute cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, as defined by the International Convention Against Torture.”
Details about when the videotapes were expected to be destroyed were revealed in a February 2003 letter released last week by Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-California). Harman was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee at the time she wrote the letter to the CIA advising the agency against destroying the videotapes. Prior to writing the letter to then CIA General Counsel Scott Muller, Harman had been briefed about the CIA’s interrogation methods against so-called high-level detainees. The CIA declassified Harman’s letter at the congresswoman’s request.
Harman’s letter provides a more thorough account of the possible reasons CIA officials destroyed the videotaped interrogations, which, according to public accounts, took place in November 2005, more than two years after Harman sent a letter to Muller voicing disapproval about purging the videotapes. It also suggests intelligence officials heeded prior warnings to preserve the videotapes and destroyed the videotapes only after evidence of the agency’s covert interrogation practices were revealed publicly in news reports.