Who done it?
Sometime late in 2005, the CIA destroyed videotapes showing hundreds of hours of interrogations of two top Al Qaeda suspects -- while continuing to imply to the 9/11 commission and the courts that no such interrogation tapes had ever existed.
What was on those tapes that made CIA officials so eager to destroy them, instead of just selling them to the producers of "24" and retiring in comfort? And who authorized (or knew of) their destruction?
Not our national Decider, who insists, via White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, that he didn't decide anything whatsoever, because he has "no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction." That's in contrast to former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, who apparently knew all about the tapes but didn't bother to share the news with her boss.
Unidentified administration sources assure us, though, that Miers recommended that the CIA preserve the tapes. (It's not hard to imagine her words: "Gee, if these interrogation tapes just happened to be lost or destroyed, it would sure make it tough for anyone to bring future war crimes or torture prosecutions against anyone in this administration, so I hope the CIA will take really good care of those tapes.")
Over at the CIA, another unidentified "former official" said no one at the White House ever ordered the CIA not to destroy the tapes -- at least not in so many words: "They never told us, 'Hell, no,' " he told the New York Times. And current and former officials said that the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, was in on the whole discussion about the tapes. Meanwhile, still another anonymous "official" asserted that Rizzo was out of the loop and "angry" at the tapes' destruction.
When it was his turn to pass the buck, current CIA Director Michael V. Hayden helpfully reminded Congress that he wasn't even at the CIA in 2005 and therefore had no idea who ordered that the tapes be destroyed, though he naturally intends to look into it.
As the president told ABC News, "It will be interesting to know what the true facts are." Uh-huh. But in many ways, the question of who ordered that the tapes be destroyed completely misses the point. It probably won't be all that difficult to answer that question -- congressional inquiries are fairly good at that sort of thing. We may even see some prosecutions come out of this, because the tapes were, arguably, crucial evidence in criminal prosecutions and other legal proceedings. Those who want heads to roll for this will probably get their way.
