( CNN ) - The Justice Department and the CIA will jointly investigate the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects, a top official announced.
The Justice Department's assistant attorney general for national security, Kenneth L. Wainstein , announced the investigation Saturday in a letter to the CIA's top lawyer, John Rizzo.
"I welcome this inquiry and the CIA will cooperate fully," CIA Director Mike Hayden said. "I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes."
President Bush and Vice President Cheney learned about the videotapes Thursday, when Hayden briefed them about the tapes and their subsequent destruction, administration officials said Friday.
The tapes -- showing using newly approved "alternative" interrogation techniques -- were recorded in 2002, Hayden said Thursday in a letter to CIA employees.
The CIA 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.
But Rizzo was against the destruction of videotapes, a former intelligence official said Friday.
The ex-official, who did not want to be identified, told CNN that Rizzo didn't know they had been destroyed until it was already done.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, said explanations of the events were "stretching credulity."
"There's something going on here," Dodd, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said on CNN's "The Situation Room."
"We're not getting the full story, hence the reason why there should be an investigation. It goes to the heart of our national security, our protection, our safety, our isolation in the world. That's why this is so important."