By Xinhua
Beijing : Former members of the Sept. 11 commission accused CIA of withholding videotapes of interrogations of al Qaeda suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, which obstructed the commission’s investigation, U.S. media reported Sunday.
A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.
The Sept. 11 commission’s chairmen, Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean, said CIA made a conscious decision to impede the panel’s inquiry.
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield on Saturday said the CIA gave the commission “a wealth of information” and did not destroy the tapes while the commission was active.
A CIA spokesman said the agency had been prepared to provide the Sept. 11 commission with the tapes, but was never asked to do so.
Philip Zelikow, the panel’s former executive director, concluded that “further investigation is needed” to determine whether the CIA’s withholding of the interrogation tapes from the commission violated U.S. law.
“I don’t know whether that’s illegal or not, but it’s certainly wrong,” Kean said of the CIA’s decision not to disclose the existence of the tapes. Hamilton, a Democrat and former Indiana congressman, said the agency “clearly obstructed” the commission’s investigation.
The CIA said on Dec. 6 it destroyed hundreds of hours of videotape in 2005 and the taped interrogations were believed to show a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding that rights activists have condemned as torture.