CIA veterans: tapes' destruction stems from agency's "almost tribal" fears

WASHINGTON — Shortly after he arrived as CIA director in 2004, Porter Goss met with the agency's top spies and general counsel to discuss a range of issues, including what to do with videotapes showing harsh interrogations of al-Qaida detainees.

"Getting rid of tapes in Washington," Goss said, according to an official involved in the discussions, "is an extremely bad idea."

But at the operational levels of the CIA — especially within the branch that ran the network of secret prisons — the idea of holding onto the tapes and hoping they would never be leaked to the public seemed even worse.

Citing what CIA veterans regard as a long record of abandonment by politicians in times of scandal, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the decision to destroy the tapes was driven by a determination among senior spies to guard against a repeat of that outcome.

The order to destroy the recordings came from Jose Rodriguez Jr., head of the CIA's clandestine service, the division that deploys spies overseas and carries out covert operations.

The service has been blamed for botched operations and spy scandals throughout the agency's history, beginning with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 up through failures before the Iraq war. It is one of three main divisions at the agency, with the others devoted to analysis and to development of science and technology for use in espionage.

But largely because of its unique capabilities, the clandestine service has long been the most influential branch in the agency. It has a reputation for undermining directors perceived as hostile to the service — including Goss — and has developed a fierce instinct for protecting the agency's interests.

The clandestine service "is almost tribal in nature," said a former senior CIA official. "They believe that no one else will look out for them so they have to look out for themselves."

That culture, current and former intelligence officials said, helps to explain why Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed despite cautions from senior lawmakers, White House lawyers and even the agency's director.

It may also account for why Rodriguez was not punished or fired after that decision was disclosed. Rodriguez is now in the CIA's retirement program and is expected to leave the agency in coming months.

His replacement at the CIA remains undercover.

Current and former officials close to Rodriguez said he issued the order largely out of a sense of obligation to undercover officers whose identities would have been exposed if the tapes were to surface.

"He did the right thing"

Even with the possibility of criminal charges looming, some CIA veterans who worked with Rodriguez said destroying the tapes was the honorable course at an agency that reveres leaders who protect spies and guard agency secrets.

"This boiled down to an issue of who had the responsibility to protect our officers' identities," said a former U.S. intelligence official. "That fell to Jose and he did the right thing."

The tapes were considered explosive because they included footage of CIA interrogators using rough interrogation tactics on al-Qaida captives.

One of the methods shown on the tapes is a suffocation technique known as "waterboarding" that simulates drowning and has been condemned by human-rights organizations and critics in Congress as torture.

The CIA has maintained that all of its interrogation methods were lawful and approved in advance by the Justice Department. The agency also has defended its handling of the tapes.

In a memo to employees earlier in December, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the recordings were destroyed "only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries."

However, the Sept. 11 Commission, which examined U.S. intelligence lapses before the terror attacks, had asked the CIA for all relevant materials related to the plot as part of its inquiry. After news of the tapes became public, panel members said they should have been given access to the tapes. Several attorneys representing terror suspects also have said they requested similar materials from the CIA.

The Justice Department and two congressional committees have launched investigations of the matter. The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena last week to compel Rodriguez to testify before the panel in January.

From the program's outset, CIA officials feared their role in running the secret prisons would leave them vulnerable if the political climate shifted.

In his memoir this year, CIA ex-Director George Tenet wrote: "We knew that, like almost everything else in Washington, the program would eventually be leaked and our agency and its people would be inaccurately portrayed in the worst possible light."

Many debates on tapes

The tapes, which were made in 2002, were kept for three years in overseas vaults where secret CIA detention facilities were located. During that period, there were numerous debates within the agency, and also with lawmakers and officials at the White House, over whether to destroy them.

The issue became more urgent in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, which inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment abroad and prompted new laws in the United States governing the treatment of detainees.

In the CIA, there was growing concern that the tapes might be leaked to the press or dragged into view by a court or congressional inquiry.

The issue of what to do with the tapes pitted lawmakers and political appointees concerned with potential legal and political fallout against career CIA officers concerned about protecting their subordinates.

Hayden's statement said the agency feared that officers who appeared on the tapes might end up with their covers blown and face retaliation by members of al-Qaida. But other officials said there also was concern that the tapes could put the officers in legal jeopardy.

Former officials said Goss and other CIA leaders were stunned when Rodriguez informed them in November 2005 that the tapes had been destroyed. But Goss did not reprimand or fire Rodriguez.

Goss was forced out of his job six months after the tapes were destroyed and replaced by Hayden, who has made a series of steps to align himself with the clandestine service.

As one of his first moves, Hayden brought back officials who had resigned under Goss to run the service.