Abu Zubayah was arrested in March, 2002. He was interrogated under "harsh techniques" including waterboarding. He gave up Khalid Sheik Mohammad and identified and provided incriminating information about Jose Padilla.

In his early F.B.I. interviews, Mr. Zubaydah, who had been badly wounded during his capture, identified Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks. He also identified Jose Padilla, an American who was convicted in a Miami federal court in August on terrorism-related charges, as a low-ranking follower of Al Qaeda.

Government officials said that during Mr. Zubaydah’s interrogation sessions, his C.I.A. questioners used a number of tactics: noise, stress positions, freezing temperatures, isolation and waterboarding, in which a subject is made to believe he is being drowned. Mr. Zubaydah is the first person known to be subjected to waterboarding by the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Human Rights Watch, in its report on secret detentions, wrote this about Zubayah:

Zubayda was reportedly in U.S. custody in Pakistan under CIA control, as of June 2002.

According to Time magazine, a “well-placed American military official” said that the U.S. had initially looked for an ally to conduct an interrogation. “Someone is going to squeeze him…We’ve been out of that business for so long that it's best handled by others. …It's not pulling out fingernails, but it's pretty brutal.” However, confirming his capture on April 3, 2002, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, “We have him. He is under U.S. control at the present time. We are responsible for him…. He is receiving medical care, and we intend to get every single thing out of him to try to prevent terrorist acts in the future.”

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times, however, reported that U.S. officials initially withheld painkillers from Zubayda, who was shot during his capture, as an interrogation device.

When Zubayda was captured, the debate between the CIA and FBI over interrogation tactics reportedly re-heated (after the al-Libi case, above). This time, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III reportedly decided to hold back FBI involvement. “Once the CIA was given the green light . . . they had the lead role,” a senior FBI counterterrorism official told the Washington Post.

U.S. officials say that Zubayda has provided intelligence on al-Qaeda’s efforts to build a “dirty bomb” and that his information helped lead to the arrest of Jose Padilla, the American allegedly plotting to use such a weapon in the United States. U.S. intelligence and national security officials told the Washington Post that Zubayda’s information led to the apprehension of other al-Qaeda members, including Ramzi Binalshibh, Omar Faruq, Rahim al-Nashiri, and Muhammad al-Darbi. All four remain under CIA control. The 9/11 Commission report refers to the intelligence reports of seven interrogation sessions with Zubayda, dating from February 2002 to April 2004.

One interesting aside: According to a report at the time, during his interrogations, Zubayah said Osama bin Laden refused to work with Saddam Hussein. Khalid Sheik Mohammed said the same thing.

Abu Zubaydah, a Qaeda planner and recruiter until his capture in March 2002, told his questioners last year that the idea of working with Mr. Hussein's government had been discussed among Qaeda leaders, but that Osama bin Laden had rejected such proposals, according to an official who has read the Central Intelligence Agency's classified report on the interrogation. In his debriefing, Mr. Zubaydah said Mr. bin Laden had vetoed the idea because he did not want to be beholden to Mr. Hussein, the official said.

Separately, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Qaeda chief of operations until his capture on March 1 in Pakistan, has also told interrogators that the group did not work with Mr. Hussein, officials said.

The Bush administration has not made these statements public, though it frequently highlighted intelligence reports that supported its assertions of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda as it made its case for war against Iraq.

Maybe that's another reason they wanted the tapes destroyed -- the contents detracted from Bush and Cheney's unfounded claims that Osama and Saddam were in cahoots which was partially used to justify the war in Iraq.

Or, perhaps they wanted to destroy the tapes because of an investigation into the deaths of three of the secret detainees:

The C.I.A.'s inspector general has begun an investigation into the deaths of three lower-level detainees held by the C.I.A in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department is also examining the deaths.

The secret detention system houses a group of 12 to 20 prisoners, government officials said, some under direct American control, others ostensibly under the supervision of foreign governments.

And before anyone gives Bush a pass because he didn't personally know about the tapes destruction, consider this, from the same article:

Regarding American anti-torture laws, one administration figure involved in discussions about the memorandums said: ''The criminal statutes only apply to American officials. The question is how involved are the American officials.''

The official said the legal opinions say restrictions on procedures would not apply if the detainee could be deemed to be in the custody of a different country, even though American officials were getting the benefit of the interrogation. ''It would be the responsibility of the other country,'' the official said. ''It depends on the level of involvement.''

There will be an investigation. Then- Deputy White House chief of staff Harriet Miers and DOJ officials advised the CIA in 2003 not to destroy the tapes. Nonetheless, in November, 2005, the CIA chief ordered them destroyed without informing the agency's lawyer, John Rizzo, who reportedly was angry when he found out.

Congress didn't learn of the tapes' destruction until a year later.

The first notification to Congress by the C.I.A. about the videotapes was delivered to a small group of senior lawmakers in February 2003 by Scott W. Muller, then the agency’s general counsel. Government officials said that Mr. Muller had told the lawmakers that the C.I.A. intended to destroy the interrogation tapes, arguing that they were no longer of any intelligence value and that the interrogations they showed put agency operatives who appeared in the tapes at risk.

The lawmakers, including Jane Harman, objected. Then,

According to two government officials, Mr. Muller then raised the idea of destroying the tapes during discussions in 2003 with Justice Department lawyers and with Harriet E. Miers, who was then a deputy White House chief of staff. Ms. Miers became White House counsel in early 2005.

The officials said that Ms. Miers and the Justice Department lawyers had advised against destroying the tapes, but that it was not clear what the basis for their advice had been.

There will be multiple investigations over the tapes destruction. The Senate Intelligence Committee has said it will open one. Also today, the Justice Department and CIA announced they will conduct a joint investigation.

Why is the CIA getting to investigate itself?