Congress's Probe of CIA Tapes Resisted

The CIA disclosed last week that it destroyed videotapes in 2005 depicting interrogation sessions for alleged al-Qaeda operative Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, commonly known as Abu Zubaida, and another suspect, later identified by officials as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Administration officials have said that lawyers at the Justice Department and the White House, including then-counsel Harriet E. Miers, advised the CIA against destroying the tapes but that CIA lawyers ruled their preservation was not required.

CIA officials said the agency's director, Michael V. Hayden, is prepared to cooperate with all investigators.

"Director Hayden has said the Agency will cooperate fully with both the preliminary inquiry conducted by DOJ and CIA's Office of Inspector General, and with the Congress," agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said. "That has been, and certainly still is, the case."

The Justice Department announced Dec. 8 that it had joined the CIA's inspector general in launching a preliminary inquiry into the tape destruction. Prosecutors asked the CIA to preserve any related evidence.

Leahy and Specter asked Mukasey on Dec. 10 for "a complete account of the Justice Department's own knowledge of and involvement with" the tape destruction. The two senators included a list of 16 separate questions, including whether the Justice Department had offered legal advice to the CIA about the tapes or had communicated with the White House about the issue.

Mukasey wrote to the lawmakers that Justice "has a long-standing policy of declining to provide non-public information about pending matters.

"This policy is based in part on our interest in avoiding any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence," Mukasey wrote to lawmakers.

The tape investigation is being led by Wainstein, who held his first substantive meeting on the case Wednesday with the CIA inspector general's office, according to a law enforcement official.

Several Democrats have raised questions about the propriety of an inquiry run by the Justice Department, whose lawyers were involved in offering legal advice about the tapes, and the CIA inspector general, whose office reviewed the tapes before they were destroyed.

Hayden said last week that the inspector general's office examined the tapes in 2003 "as part of its look at the agency's detention and interrogation practices."

Among those whom lawmakers want to testify is the CIA official who made the decision to destroy the tapes, Jose Rodriguez. The former director of clandestine operations has obtained private counsel and is studying his options.

His attorney, Robert Bennett, said: "If I determine that he has a good story, we're going to tell it. But I'm not going to let him be a pi¿ata for people with a political agenda during an election year."

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.