(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-11 22:51

"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," Kiriakou said in an interview first broadcast Monday evening on ABC News' World News. "From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

Details of Zubaydah's interrogation came as Hayden prepared for two days of questioning by the Senate and House intelligence panels about the CIA's destruction of the videotapes. Both are closed sessions.

Kiriakou said he did not know the interrogation of Zubaydah was being recorded by the CIA and did not know the tapes subsequently were destroyed.

"Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get after using the waterboarding technique," Kiriakou, now retired from the CIA, told ABC News. "And I struggle with it."

He added: "What happens if we don't waterboard a person and we don't get that nugget of information and there's an attack. I would have trouble forgiving myself. ... At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do."

Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face. The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning.

Hayden told CIA employees last week that the CIA taped the interrogations of two alleged terrorists in 2002. He said the harsh questioning was carried out only after being "reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and by other elements of the Executive Branch." Hayden said Congress was notified in 2003 both of the tapes' existence and the agency's intent to destroy them.

The White House refuses to talk about specific types of interrogation techniques but insists that the United States does not torture.

The CIA destroyed the tapes in November of 2005. Exactly when Congress was notified and in what detail is in dispute.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller said the CIA claims it told the committee of the tapes' destruction at a hearing in November 2006. Rockefeller said, however, that the hearing transcript found no mention of that subject.

The House committee first learned the tapes had been destroyed in March 2007, according to Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

In last week's message, Hayden told CIA employees that "the leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency's intention to dispose of the material. Our oversight committees also have been told that the videos were, in fact, destroyed."

But Reyes said Monday that Hayden's claim that Congress was properly notified "does not appear to be true."

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