WASHINGTON — CIA Director Michael Hayden told lawmakers privately last week that three White House lawyers were briefed in 2004 about the existence of videotapes showing the interrogation of two al-Qaeda figures, and they urged the agency to be “cautious” about destroying the tapes, according to sources familiar with his classified testimony.
The three White House officials present at the briefing were David Addington, then Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief counsel; Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel; and John B. Bellinger III, then the top lawyer at the National Security Council, according to Hayden’s closed-door testimony before the Senate intelligence committee.
When told some high-ranking CIA officials were demanding that the tapes be destroyed, the White House lawyers “consistently counseled caution,” said one U.S. official familiar with Hayden’s testimony.
Another source said that Harriet Miers, another White House lawyer, followed up with a similar recommendation in 2005, making her the fourth White House lawyer “urging caution” on the action.
The ambiguity in the phrasing of Hayden’s account left unresolved key questions about the White House’s role. While Hayden’s account suggests a somewhat ambivalent White House view toward the tapes, other sources indicated that administration officials, particularly Miers, clearly advised against destroying the videos.
Also unexplained is why the issue was discussed at the White House without apparent resolution for more than a year.
According to CIA officials, the videos recorded the response of two top al-Qaeda figures incarcerated in 2002 at secret prisons to a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding and other “enhanced techniques” meant to pry loose secret information about terrorist plans.
The tapes were destroyed in November 2005, after the existence of the secret prisons was disclosed by The Washington Post, in what the CIA says was a security measure intended to protect the identities of agency officers who participated in the interrogations.
The disclosures about Hayden’s testimony came as the CIA, faced with a threat of congressional subpoenas, announced that it would begin turning over documents related to the tapes to oversight committees as early as today.
Reversing an administration decision last week to defer any cooperation with Congress, the CIA also said for the first time it will comply with lawmakers’ requests to allow CIA officers to testify about the tapes.
Rep. Sylvestre Reyes, D-Texas, who chairs the House intelligence committee, said Wednesday he will schedule a hearing for Jan. 16. He said he expects testimony from John Rizzo, the CIA’s general counsel, as well as Jose Rodriguez Jr., its former director of operations and the official said to have made the decision to destroy the tapes.
“Subpoenas have been prepared. We hope we don’t have to use them,” Reyes said.
Reyes’ committee has requested a broad range of documents related to the tapes.
