Lawyer: Goss Never Objected to Destroying CIA Videos [View All]

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Lawyer: Goss never objected on CIA tapes

Lawyer: Goss Never Objected to Destroying CIA Videos

MATT APUZZO
AP News

Jan 17, 2008 15:13 EST

Former CIA Director Porter Goss never criticized plans to destroy interrogation videotapes, a lawyer said Thursday as the investigation began shaping up as a matter of competing storylines.

Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who gave the order to destroy the tapes, is at the center of Justice Department and congressional investigations into who approved the plan and whether it was illegal. His attorney, Robert Bennett, said Goss and Rodriquez met several times to discuss the tapes and Goss was never critical of Rodriquez' decision.

After a first round of hearings on Capitol Hill, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Rodriguez defied orders that the tapes be preserved.

Bennett disputed that in a telephone interview, saying Goss offered Rodriguez "not a word of criticism when they met, either before or right after the destruction."

The tapes, made in 2002, showed the harsh interrogation by CIA officers of two alleged al-Qaida terrorists, both of whom are known to have undergone waterboarding, which gives the subject the sensation of drowning.

Rodriguez was the head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, which oversees spying operations and interrogations. Bennett said Goss was "well aware of the situation" when Rodriguez gave the order to destroy the tapes in November 2005.

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