2003 letter told CIA: Trashing tapes would harm image
Rep. Harman discloses her warning against disposing of interrogation videos.
WASHINGTON — More than two years before the CIA destroyed interrogation videotapes, top officials were urged to preserve them by a senior lawmaker who warned that disposing of the recordings would "reflect badly on the agency."
The warning came in a February 2003 letter from Rep. Jane Harman of Venice, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
The letter was released publicly by Harman's office on Thursday, after its contents were declassified by the CIA, and one day after the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes.
The existence of Harman's letter had been reported; but its precise contents, previously unrevealed, provide details on then-classified discussions between the CIA and senior members of Congress about the tapes and the agency's desire to get rid of them.
Harman wrote the letter after learning in a classified briefing that the CIA planned to destroy the tapes. She urged the agency to reconsider. "Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future," she wrote.
The letter was addressed to the CIA's general counsel at the time, Scott W. Muller.
Harman's letter refers to a classified briefing in which Muller told panel members that the CIA had used "enhanced techniques" in interrogating Al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002, was subjected to interrogation methods including "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to feel that he is drowning.
"You discussed the fact that there is videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the [CIA] inspector general finishes his inquiry," Harman wrote. At the time, the inspector general's office was examining the detention and interrogation programs.
The advice that Muller and other administration lawyers offered on whether the tapes could be destroyed is likely to be a major avenue of inquiry for John H. Durham, the federal prosecutor named Wednesday to head the investigation.
Federal courts in Washington have ruled that government lawyers cannot assert the attorney-client privilege to avoid testifying in grand-jury and other proceedings about advice they gave.
