CIA Destroyed Videos Showing Interrogations

Mansfield also said that the CIA did not withhold evidence from the Sept. 11 commission, contending that its members did not ask specifically for tapes. "The tapes were destroyed only when it was determined that they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries," he said.

Zubaydah was captured in March 2002, becoming the first of the "high-value" detainees in CIA custody and the first to be subjected to harsh interrogation methods, which included sleep deprivation as well as waterboarding. Zubaydah, who was shot and gravely wounded during his capture, later became "defiant and evasive," according to Hayden, leading to the decision to apply more aggressive measures.

Hayden said the methods shown on the videotapes were legal under guidelines approved by the Justice Department and the Bush administration, and he said the interrogation provided "crucial information."

Intelligence officials have acknowledged that the CIA used waterboarding on three prisoners after the 2001 attacks but say the agency stopped the practice in 2003. The technique was revived as a political issue in recent months during the confirmation process for Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, who refused to say whether waterboarding is considered torture under U.S. law. Most Senate Democrats voted against his nomination as a result, giving Mukasey the lowest level of Senate support of any attorney general in the past half-century.

The waterboarding ban was added to the 2008 intelligence authorization bill through an amendment offered by one of the few Democrats to support Mukasey, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Under the amendment, no prisoner in U.S. custody "shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual."

The Army field manual on interrogations was amended last year to explicitly prohibit eight aggressive and controversial interrogation tactics, including some methods used on military prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq and the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The manual also singles out the use of waterboarding.

"The national debate over torture will end if this amendment to place the CIA under the Army Field Manual becomes law," Feinstein said in a statement.

But Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) accused Democrats of trying "to kill an important tool in our efforts to fight terror."

Staff writer Walter Pincus and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.