Inquiry into CIA tapes seen as payback for FBI

The Justice Department's criminal inquiry into the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency interrogation tapes will be carried out largely by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has been sharply at odds with the CIA over the agency's interrogation practices.

In some law enforcement circles, the prospect of the FBI interviewing high-level CIA officials, under the plan announced Wednesday, and rummaging in the files of the agency's secret interrogation programs represents a payback moment in the rich history of rivalry between the agencies.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, FBI officials have refused to allow agents to take part in CIA interrogations in which harsh methods were used, questioning the effectiveness of the techniques. Others have feared agents might be compromised if they later testified in criminal cases. Some former FBI officials have been among the most vocal critics of what the CIA calls enhanced interrogation techniques.

Some of the sharpest disputes between the agencies have focused on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, one of two terrorism suspects whose interrogations were recorded on the destroyed tapes. The tapes showed harsh interrogation techniques and were destroyed, according to the CIA, to protect the identities of personnel involved.

Some government officials have insisted that the most successful parts of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah came when FBI agents, using nonconfrontational interview techniques, extracted a wealth of information from him before the CIA authorized a tougher approach.

Inquiry into CIA tapes seen as payback for FBICIA officials have said their tactics were responsible for extracting the most important information from Abu Zubaydah. President George W. Bush has cited the Abu Zubaydah interrogation as an example of the success of the CIA program.

Leaders of both agencies have asserted for years that cooperation and coordination between the FBI and the CIA on counterterrorism issues have increased dramatically since 2001 attacks, which by accounts from each side, is true.

Nevertheless, despite the official pronouncements that the rivalry has ended, the investigation will be carried out against a backdrop of ill will that pervades the culture of the two agencies.

Law enforcement officials said Thursday that past disagreements would not influence the FBI investigation into the destroyed tapes.

They insisted the inquiry would be handled in a professional manner under the direction of a Justice Department team led by John Durham, a career U.S. prosecutor from Connecticut.

Intelligence officials have said they would cooperate fully with the criminal inquiry as they have with similar inquiries in the past.

Bush said Thursday that the White House would cooperate with the investigation. "I strongly support it," Bush said in an interview with Reuters. "And we will participate."

Bush, who was asked during the interview whether he was concerned that the investigation might raise questions about his counterterrorism policy, replied: "See what it says. See what the investigation leads to."

In another development Thursday, Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, released a letter she sent to the CIA in February 2003 in which she expressed concern about the agency's interrogation techniques and its intent to destroy videotape of Abu Zubaydah. That Harman had expressed those concerns was reported last month, but the contents of the letter had not been released.

The letter, declassified at Harman's request, was written shortly after she received a classified briefing about the agency's detention and interrogation program because she had become the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

The letter, dated Feb. 10, 2003, said Harman had been informed five days earlier by Scott Muller, then the agency's top lawyer, that the CIA planned to destroy the tape after its inspector general had completed an inquiry into the agency's detention and interrogation program.

In the letter, Harman urged CIA officials to reconsider their plan to destroy the videotape, which she said "would reflect badly on the agency." The letter from Harman asked whether White House officials had determined that the interrogation methods used by the CIA were "consistent with the principles and policies of the United States" and whether Bush had approved the methods.

In a brief reply, dated Feb. 28, 2003, and also released by Harman on Thursday, Muller did not answer directly, saying only that "a number of executive branch lawyers" had participated in the determination that "in the appropriate circumstances, use of these techniques is fully consistent with U.S. law."

The reply did not address the issue of videotapes.

Feuding between the FBI and the CIA dates to the founding of the intelligence agency in 1947.

In recent years, their debates have been sharpened by disputes about whether the CIA or the FBI bore greater responsibility for missing signals that might have uncovered the Sept. 11 plot before the attacks.