House panel criticizes CIA over tapes

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. House Intelligence Committee criticized the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing harsh interrogation tactics of detainees at secret prisons.

U.S. House of Representatives members heard testimony from the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, in a closed hearing Wednesday.

The committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said he was convinced the CIA skirted its duties to report to congressional oversight members regarding the tapes and their destruction, The Washington Post said Thursday.

House member Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., said Rizzo testified that the CIA's head of clandestine services, Jose Rodriquez Jr., acted autonomously when he ordered the tapes destruction in November 2005.

"It appears from what we have seen to date that Rodriguez may not have been following instructions" Hoekstra said.

Rodriquez didn't testify in the hearing, though his lawyer said Rodriquez ordered the destruction of the tapes after CIA lawyers gave their approval, the Post report said.

The tapes allegedly depict the water-boarding of two suspected al-Qaida leaders at a secret CIA prison in Thailand during interrogations in 2002. The CIA didn't reveal the existence of the tapes, nor their destruction, until 2005.

"It smells like a coverup, but the question is whether it was illegal or not," an anonymous source familiar with the House hearing told the Post