Editorial: No ducking tapes probe

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

President Bush has stood before the country and the world to forcefully drive home the point that "we do not torture." But his word stands in contrast to mounting evidence that the CIA has engaged in torture, at least since Bush ordered a global war on terrorism following the 9/11 attacks.

At that time Bush and his compliant attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, approved what have come to be known as "harsh interrogation techniques." It is known that waterboarding - wrapping a prisoner's mouth, strapping him to an inclined board and pouring water over his face until he begins to drown - was one of those techniques.

Does that constitute torture? Do other, undefined techniques, including those authorized by Congress last year under the Military Commissions Act, also meet the definition of torture?

These are questions destined for court, and for that reason, the CIA was advised by White House and Justice Department lawyers in 2003 not to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing harsh interrogations of two high-level al-Qaida suspects.

The tapes were made in 2002, ostensibly to prove to any inquiring court that the techniques were legal. In June 2005 a federal judge ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

A few months later, however, CIA officials destroyed the tapes, which by any measure constitute "evidence and information." The Bush administration, however, argues lamely that the judge's order does not apply because the interrogations took place overseas, in secret CIA prisons. The judge, of course, at the time of his order, had no knowledge of those prisons; they were secret until disclosed by The Washington Post in November 2005.

It is clear the judge wanted all evidence of prisoner interrogations preserved.

Now the Bush administration is demanding that it alone investigate why the tapes were destroyed and on whose order. It is leaning on the federal judiciary to stay away from the case and is arguing that the House Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, should postpone any action until after a joint Justice Department-CIA probe is complete - at some undefined point in the future.

We were encouraged to hear the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," pledge not to be bullied into complacency. He said a full investigation by the committee will be conducted, a pledge that has also been expressed by the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

It is frightening to think of a CIA and a Justice Department that could get away with declaring themselves free of congressional oversight.