According to what the New York Times reported, Philip Zelikow, the ex-commission executive director explains that the CIA did not hand over the tapes since they have come into light. Later, the CIA erased the footage of Al-Qaeda suspects being questioned.
The leaked memo also urges a further investigation into whether what the CIA did was illegal in terms of withholding those tapes. In defense, the CIA responded by saying that there was no specific requests for the tapes.
These tapes are reported to have images of interrogation techniques such as water-boarding. Water-boarding is a simulation of drowning. But, the CIA denies any uses of torture.
The footage was taken in 2002 by the CIA. It was erased in 2005 which is a year after the 9/11 commission ended its work. Early this month when the story of the deleted CIA tapes came into light, the 9/11 commission conduced an internal review.
The New York Times obtained a copy of Mr. Zelikow’s findings dated on December 13.
Former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, one of the chairmen of the commission told the newspaper that the CIA had obstructed their work. Currently, both the CIA and Department of Justice have launched their own investigations into the erasing of those tapes.
The CIA said the tapes were no longer of intelligence value and were deleted to protect its agents.