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CIA obstructed 9/11 investigators: report

22/12/2007 22h06

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The CIA obstructed an official US commission investigating the September 11 attacks by withholding tapes of interrogations of Al-Qaeda operatives, according to former panel members quoted in a report on Saturday.

A review of documents by former members of the 9/11 commission revealed the panel made repeated, detailed requests to the spy agency in 2003 and 2004 for information about the interrogation of members of the extremist network but were never notified of the tapes, the New York Times reported.

The review of the commission's correspondence with the Central Intelligence Agency came after the agency earlier this month revealed it had destroyed videotapes in 2005 that showed harsh interrogations of two Al-Qaeda members.

The review, written up in a memo prepared by Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the 9/11 commission, said that "further investigation is needed" to resolve whether the CIA's failure to hand over the tapes violated federal law.

The memorandum does not assert that withholding the tapes was illegal but states that federal law penalizes anyone who "knowingly and wilfully" withholds or "covers up" a "material fact" from a federal inquiry, the newspaper said.

The revelation adds to pressure on President George W. Bush's administration, already under fire over the affair by human rights groups and lawmakers who allege it has tried to cover up proof of torture.

The CIA responded that the panel never specifically asked for interrogation videos.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield told AFP the agency had gone to "great lengths" to satisfy the panel's requests, and that commission members had been provided with details from interrogations of detainees.

"The 9/11 Commission certainly had access to, and drew from, detailed information that had been provided by terrorist detainees. That's how they reconstructed the plot in their comprehensive report," he said.

"Because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active."

The two chairs of the commission, former Democratic lawmaker Lee Hamilton and former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, told the newspaper the review showed the CIA had actively tried to obstruct the panel's work.

Kean said the panel would give the memorandum to federal officials and lawmakers in Congress who are investigating the destruction of the tapes. Hamilton said the CIA "clearly obstructed" the panel's probe.

According to the memo posted on the New York Times' website, the commission was interested in interrogations of Al-Qaeda members because it was trying to reconstruct the events leading up to the attacks of September 11, 2001, on New York and Washington.

The commission made initial general requests for intelligence information from interrogations, including the two detainees on the destroyed videotapes, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rashim al-Nashiri, said the memorandum.

It followed up with more requests for "very detailed information" about the context of the interrogations, the credibility of statements from detainees, the quality of language translation and other issues.

"The commission was dissatisfied with the answers it received to these questions," the memorandum said.

None of the officials who communicated with the panel ever revealed the existence of the videotapes, it said.

The CIA spokesman cited public comments about cooperation from the CIA made by the 9/11 Commission, which said "the CIA provided great assistance."

"The CIA has cooperated fully in making available both the documents and interviews that we have needed so far on this topic," it said.

"As Director (CIA Director Michael) Hayden pointed out in his December 6th statement, the tapes were destroyed only when it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries," Mansfield added.

A senior intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that news stories about interrogation techniques had already appeared when the commission made its final report.

"If the commission had wanted to make an issue of how the information was obtained from the detainees as opposed to what was learned from them, they had an opportunity to do so at the time," the official said. "They didn't do that."

 

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