In a statement to employees on Thursday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the CIA director, acknowledged that the Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody.

"Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the programme, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers," Hayden said in a memo to employees.

CIA Director Michael Hayden claims the tapes were destroyed because they no longer contained valuable intelligence and posed a security risk to the agents involved if they ever went public. Hayden's memo said Congress had been made fully aware of the tapes' existence and the decision to destroy them. However, either he lies or something else is wrong with this claim:

Representative Jane Harman of California, who was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee in early 2003, said she specifically cautioned CIA officials then not to destroy any videotapes pertaining to interrogation practices.

"To my knowledge, the Intelligence Committee was never informed that any videotapes had been destroyed," Ms. Harman said. "Surely I was not."

At least two tapes, made in 2002, documented the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, an associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and another high-level, unidentified al-Qaeda member. The Washington Post reported that Zubaydah had been subjected to waterboarding, a controversial practice which simulates drowning, though it is unknown what form of torture or harsh interrogation was documented on the two tapes which were destroyed.

The tapes were also not handed over to the September 11 commission, a broad independent inquiry into the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the intelligence leading up to it and their aftermath.

The American Civil Liberties Union in a statement late Thursday accused the CIA of destroying the tapes to protect the operatives from legal consequences:

"The destruction of these tapes suggests an utter disregard for the rule of law," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "Both Congress and the courts have repeatedly demanded that this evidence be turned over, but apparently the CIA believes that its agents are above the law."

The New York Times also points out that CIA lawyers lied to federal prosecutors in 2003 and 2005, who then relayed the information to a federal court in the Zacarias Moussaoui case, that the CIA did not possess recordings of interrogations sought by the judge in the case.

"The damage is compounded when such actions [to destroy tapes] are hidden away from accountability," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, in a statement.

Hayden only sent the memo after receiving a tip the story of the tapes was about to appear publicly. He said the CIA disposed of the tapes after ensuring they were not the focus of any legislative or judicial inquiries and that videotaping stopped in 2002.