Secret CIA Documents: CIA Officers May Have 'Lied' About Permission To Destroy Torture Tapes
Intelligence officials say CIA Director Porter Goss was upset over destruction.
Apr. 16, 2010 — -- Newly released internal CIA documents seem to show then-Director Porter Goss laughing when told he'll take the heat for the destruction of detainee interrogation videotapes, including tapes showing the waterboarding of top al Qaeda prisoner Abu Zubaydah.
But according to a former CIA official familiar with the meeting where the destruction of tapes was discussed, Goss was angry over not being informed until after the tapes had been destroyed. Goss had not approved the decision and was "beside himself" when he learned of the destruction, according to three former senior intelligence officials.
More than 100 pages of internal CIA documents released late Thursday show confusion in the upper ranks of the CIA about the destruction of scores of detainee interrogation videotapes in late 2005.
The documents and emails reveal the CIA at odds over who ordered the destruction of the videotapes and that several Agency and White House officials were "livid" over the tapes' destruction.
The videos were taken at a secret CIA prison in Thailand in 2002, and later stored at the CIA station in Bangkok for three years before they were ordered destroyed.
Jose Rodriguez, then the CIA's top clandestine service official, ordered the destruction of the videotapes, which showed the waterboarding and interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, alleged al Qaeda mastermind of the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Rodriguez believed that if the tapes were ever viewed out of context, "they would make us look terrible, it would be 'devastating' to us," according to one of the emails released.
The email, which describes a meeting on Nov. 10, 2005, the day after Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed, seems to show then director Goss agreeing with Rodriguez's decision.
Sent to the CIA's number three official shortly after the meeting, the email suggested that Goss had approved of the destruction and "laughed" and acknowledged that he "would take the heat" for the decision. "All in the room agreed," said the email, that release of the tapes would be a major problem.
