CIA Destroying Evidence of Torture? 92 Interrogation Tapes - Destroyed. [View All]

[TheBigotBasher]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/02/torture-obama-administration

The US Central Intelligence Agency revealed today that it had destroyed far more videotapes of terror interrogations than it had originally admitted, resuscitating a Bush administration scandal and increasing the pressure on Barack Obama to support a full investigation of the agency's detention practices during his predecessor's time in office.

Government lawyers acknowledged in 2007 that two videotapes and one audiotape had been destroyed. But new documents released today put the total number of tapes affected at nearly 100. "The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed. Ninety-two videotapes were destroyed," acting US attorney Lev Dassin wrote in a letter to a New York judge.

The controversy first arose during the lengthy trial of the September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, in which prosecutors first denied, then conceded, that tapes had once existed documenting the questioning of the al-Qaida operations chief Abu Zubaydah, and another unnamed detainee. Michael Hayden, director of the CIA at the time, told his staff the tapes had been destroyed because they "posed a security risk".

But the news prompted accusations that the agency might be destroying the evidence of harsh techniques such as waterboarding, which Hayden later admitted had been used on Zubaydah. George Bush did "not remember being made aware" of the tapes' existence, his press secretary claimed at the time.

As this was under the control of a dick by name and nature, it hardly comes as a surprise. What else has been destroyed?

(edit - changed title to destroyed just in case the post gets deleted)