Before many of the readers here were even born, the CIA was caught in a web of lies and destruction of evidence, mainly by one man his name was Dr Sidney Gottlieb it dealt with LSD experiments on unwitting Americans and canadians picked up in bars and had LSD slipped into their drinks and then taken to a safe house for observation.
One of the other projects DR Gottlieb was involved in was an office at Fort Detrick, Maryland called the Special Operations Division (SOD) it was the liason office between the CIA and the Army dealing with human experiments with biological weapons at Fort Detrick called Operation Whitecoat, they also funded experimentation at Edgewood Arsenal from 1955 thru 1973, which when the Church Committee started investigating, the funding for Edgewood experiments stopped, the Army continued other chemical weapons and drug experiments on their own until 1975, when Congressional exposure led to the experiments being stopped.
So the revelation that the CIA ordered the destruction of the tapes/DVD's, audio tapes, etc of the "harsh interrogation techniques" is not surprising to me. I am just surprised they admitted to it.
During the trial of the "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla there was supposedly tapes of them interviewing him under the influence of LSD or similar drugs, which at trial were not to be found. The government had no problem convicting him none the less. He was not even charged for the "dirty bomb" they got him on conspiracy charges and supporting Al Qaeda.
What led the CIA to admit to destroying the evidence is the fact that the NY Times called them for comment on the subject as they were getting ready to go to press with the story. So Director Hayden notified all the CIA employees of the existence of the evidence and the fact he ordered it destroyed to protect the agents and their families from retribution if the tapes had become public.
BS, if the tapes had been shown publicly the faces could have been blurred out, using the names of the agents could have someone facing charges, unlike the White House escapades ala Valerie Plame.
The government has a long history of destroying evidence and then claiming hey "prove it", move on, nothing to see here.
I know 7119 other veterans or their widows or children are still waiting for the truth of the experiments at Edgewood Arsenal that ended 32 years ago. Some of these men have waited since 1955 for the truth to come out 52 years, many have died waiting, last count in FY2000 was 2098 of the men were deceased, and 2200 disabled, who knows what the numbers are now, but the government, DOD, the CIA nor the VA cares.
They used and abused us, just as they abused the detainees at Gitmo and the renditions to secret jails around the world.
Does intelligence work need to be done, yes, but there are laws and even federal agents should have to obey them, remember "No one is above the law, not even the President"
ooops anyone got a spare signing statement?