CIA Tape Probes, Still Chugging Along

A House intelligence committee investigation into the destruction of CIA recordings reportedly showing waterboarding of Guantanamo Bay prisoners is on track to finish by June, according to a report in Congressional Quarterly.

That would in all likelihood make it the first of three investigations to report findings.  The Justice Department and the Senate intelligence committee have both said they intend to investigate the tapes’ destruction, and neither have said when they intend to complete their work.

News of the tapes’ destruction rocked the intelligence world in December. The existence of the tapes had not been disclosed to U.S. lawmakers or to the 9/11 Commission, which investigated the interrogations of certain terror suspects.

At the time they were reportedly destroyed, the CIA was under a court order to preserve information about torture and mistreatment of detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay facility. CIA chief Michael Hayden said at the time the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of the interrogators.

The Senate panel has agreed to postpone its probe until the Justice Department finishes looking into the matter.  A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Connecticut, which is leading the DoJ probe, told CQ reporter Tim Starks that it had no set date for conclusion.