http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestne...ex.php?id=10554MichaelMoore.comDecember 12th, 2007 2:42 am
US intel chief faces grilling amid torture claimsBy Roland Lloyd Parry / AFP
WASHINGTON - The CIA chief was grilled by US lawmakers Tuesday over the destruction of interrogation videos, as the White House insisted that the United States does not practice torture.
Michael Hayden was being questioned behind closed doors by members of the Senate Intelligence Committee about his revelation last week that tapes made in 2002 were destroyed in 2005, when Congress was investigating allegations that terror suspects were tortured.
"I'm very delighted to come on down and lay out the facts as we know them," Hayden said before the encounter. A similar hearing was to follow Wednesday before members of the lower House of Representatives.
Pressed by reporters at the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino refused to comment on what methods are allowed to interrogate terror suspects, insisting however that the United States does not practice torture.
"I can say that any interrogations have been legal and that they have been fully briefed to the United States Congress," Perino reiterated.
"I am saying that the United States does not torture."
The affair raises difficult questions for the administration, which has been criticized for its treatment of suspects in what it calls the "war on terror" launched in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"This latest news of destroyed tapes raises far more questions than we have answers," Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday ahead of the hearing.
"Who was responsible for destroying the tapes? Was something being covered up? The possibility of obstruction of justice is very real," he said.
The tapes, made before Hayden took up his post at the Central Intelligence Agency, reportedly show harsh interrogation methods, including "waterboarding," a form of simulated drowning that human rights groups, lawmakers and a former CIA official describe as torture.
Retired agent John Kiriakou, who led a CIA team that captured and interrogated Al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, said using the "waterboarding" technique was torture, but was necessary and yielded crucial information.
"I have no doubt that the information gleaned from Abu Zubaydah stopped terror attacks and saved lives," he told CNN news on Tuesday.
The technique involves covering a suspect's mouth with material and pouring water over it, prompting a choking sensation that feels like drowning. Kiriakou said the method broke Zubaydah in about 30 seconds.
Hayden has denied the use of torture and said the tapes, intended as an internal check on how interrogations were carried out, were destroyed to prevent any leak that could identify and endanger CIA agents.
The White House has stopped short of denying any involvement in the affair, while the Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog have opened a preliminary inquiry.
Kiriakou told NBC news Tuesday that the decision to use waterboarding came from President George W. Bush's administration.
"This was a policy decision that was made at the White House with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department," he said.
Human Rights Watch criticized Hayden's assertion that the tapes were destroyed to protect CIA agents' identities.
"Millions of documents in CIA archives, if leaked, would identify CIA officers. The only difference here is that these tapes portray potentially criminal activity," said the group's Washington director Tom Malinowski.
Hayden has said committees in Congress overseeing intelligence matters were informed of the interrogation videos "years ago" and of plans to dispose of them.
But lawmaker Jane Harman, who served on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002, told CNN on Monday the committee was told of the tapes' existence but kept in the dark about their destruction.