CIA Destroyed Al Qaeda Interrogation Tapes

Here we go; yet another fabricated "scandal." Fasten your seat belts, my friends.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of al Qaeda suspects because they no longer had "intelligence value" and they posed a security risk, CIA director Michael Hayden said Thursday.

The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005, Hayden said in a letter to CIA employees obtained by CNN.

They were made as "an internal check" on the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques, believed to include waterboarding, a technique that involves restraining a suspect and pouring water over them to produce the sensation of drowning.

The agency made the decision to destroy the tapes "only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries," Hayden said. (H/T - CNN.com)

I've gotta be honest; in the hierarchy of great scandals, I think this story ranks somewhere below Ashlee Simpson's SNL lip-sync. Of course, the MSM will treat it like Watergate II.

Look, the interrogations were done in 2002. Three years later, they were destroyed. Three years! Who saves anything for three years? It's not like the CIA was going to have the family over for a movie night sometime in 2045!

Similarly, what intelligence value would these tapes hold three years after the fact? None. As such, there was absolutely no reason to hold on to them for any longer. I can see the argument now:

"Wait a minute! They should have been held until a Senate subcommittee could dissect them frame-by-frame."

If that is the prevailing opinion, then who decides the time limit for the archived footage? Should the CIA hold on to these tapes for ten years? Fifty years? Where does it end? By that reasoning, one could argue that we should have kept every record from every event in American history. Does anyone want us to hold on to the log books for the Merrimack and the Monitor until the end of time?

Sorry, but unless you want the federal government to turn into your insane, pack-rat uncle that never throws anything away, this "scandal" is a non-story.