There are plenty of ways to hide the identities of individuals on videotape. That's why the claim that the decision to destroy the interrogation tapes was made internally, in one department of the CIA, against the demands of the White House, Justice, and Congress and was done largely to protect the identities of the interrogators -- that's why we'd be wise to cling to our suspicions. It's very hard for video-savvy individuals (that's 300 million Americans and growing) to accept that the reason for the destruction of the tapes was the safety of CIA personnel and that it was carried out by a department head.
And yet that's the latest "common wisdom."
There's an additional reason being floated: revealing the contents of the tapes might "set off controversies about the legality of the interrogations and generate a backlash in the Middle East." That's possible. And it's tacit confirmation that the interrogation methods were well outside of the limits of international law.
The Senate Intelligence Committee announced Friday that it was starting an investigation into the destruction of the videotapes.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the committee, said, “Whatever the intent, we must get to the bottom of it.”
"Getting to the bottom" of intent is a notoriously difficult operation. In the meantime, we may have to be content to sit still and think what we're told.
Current and former intelligence officials say the videotapes showed severe interrogation techniques used on two Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first three terror suspects to be detained and interrogated by the C.I.A. in secret prisons after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Top C.I.A. officials had decided in 2003 to preserve the tapes in response to warnings from White House lawyers and lawmakers that destroying the tapes would be unwise, in part because it could carry legal risks, the government officials said.
But the government officials said that Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the agency’s clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations, had reversed that decision in November 2005, at a time when Congress and the courts were inquiring deeply into the C.I.A.’s interrogation and detention program. Mr. Rodriguez could not be reached Friday for comment.
As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in 2003, Porter J. Goss, then a Republican congressman from Florida, was among Congressional leaders who warned the C.I.A. against destroying the tapes, the former intelligence officials said. Mr. Goss became C.I.A. director in 2004 and was serving in the post when the tapes were destroyed, but was not informed in advance about Mr. Rodriguez’s decision, the former officials said...
Etc., etc. Fishy? Yes. Read the whole report. See if your nose doesn't twitch.
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