PDA

View Full Version : CIA Admits It Destroyed Tapes Of Interrogations



Gold9472
12-06-2007, 11:34 PM
CIA admits it destroyed tapes of interrogations

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/06/america/06cia.php

By Mark Mazzetti
Published: December 6, 2007

WASHINGTON: The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the CIA's secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said. The CIA said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made "within the CIA itself," and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Goss declined this afternoon to comment on the destruction of the tapes.

The existence and subsequent destruction of the tapes are likely to reignite the debate over the use of severe interrogation techniques on terror suspects, and their destruction raises questions about whether CIA officials withheld information from the courts and from the presidentially appointed Sept. 11 commission about aspects of the program. It was not clear who within the CIA authorized the destruction of the tapes, but current and former government officials said it had been approved at the highest levels of the agency.

The Times informed the CIA on Wednesday evening that it planned to publish in Friday's newspaper an article about the destruction of the tapes.. Today, the CIA director, General Michael V. Hayden, wrote a letter to the agency workforce explaining the matter.

The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had made formal requests to the CIA for transcripts and any other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.

CIA lawyers told federal prosecutors in 2003 and 2005, who relayed the information to a federal court in the Moussaoui case, that the CIA did not possess recordings of interrogations sought by the judge in the case. It was unclear whether the judge had explicitly sought the videotape depicting the interrogation of Zubaydah.

Moussaoui's lawyers had hoped that records of the interrogations might provide exculpatory evidence for Moussaoui — showing that the Al Qaeda detainees did not know Moussaoui and clearing him of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot.

General Hayden's statement said that the tapes posed a "serious security risk," and that if they were to become public they would have exposed CIA officials "and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers."

"What matters here is that it was done in line with the law," he said. He said in his statement that he was informing agency employees because "the press has learned" about the destruction of the tapes.

General Hayden said in a statement that leaders of Congressional oversight committees were fully briefed on the matter, but some Congressional officials said notification to Congress had not been adequate.

"This is a matter that should have been briefed to the full Intelligence Committee at the time," an official with the House Intelligence Committee said. "This does not appear to have been done. There may be a very logical reason for destroying records that are no longer needed; however, this requires a more complete explanation. "

Staff members of the Sept. 11 commission, which completed its work in 2004, expressed surprise when they were told that interrogation videotapes existed until 2005.

"The commission did formally request material of this kind from all relevant agencies, and the commission was assured that we had received all the material responsive to our request," said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as executive director of the Sept. 11 commission and later as a senior counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"No tapes were acknowledged or turned over, nor was the commission provided with any transcript prepared from recordings," he said.

Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.

If tapes were destroyed, he said, "it's a big deal, it's a very big deal," because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations.

General Hayden said the tapes were originally made to ensure that agency employees acted in accordance with "established legal and policy guidelines." General Hayden said the agency stopped videotaping interrogations in 2002.

"The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages," his statement read

In October, federal prosecutors in the Moussaoui case were forced to write a letter to the court amending those CIA declarations. The letter stated that in September, the CIA notified the United States attorney's office in Alexandria, Va., that it had discovered a videotape documenting the interrogation of a detainee. After a more thorough search, the letter stated, CIA officials discovered a second videotape and one audio tape.

The letter is heavily redacted and sentences stating which detainees' interrogations the recordings document are blacked out. Signed by the United States attorney, Chuck Rosenberg, the letter states that the CIA's search for interrogation tapes "appears to be complete."

There is no mention in the letter of the tapes that CIA officials destroyed last year. Moussaoui was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison.

John Radsan, who worked as a CIA lawyer from 2002 to 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, said the destruction of the tapes could carry serious legal penalties.

"If anybody at the CIA hid anything important from the Justice Department, he or she should be prosecuted under the false statement statute," he said.

A former intelligence official who was briefed on the issue said the videotaping was ordered as a way of assuring "quality control" at remote sites following reports of unauthorized interrogation techniques. He said the tapes, along with still photographs of interrogations, were destroyed after photographs of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib became public in May 2004 and CIA officers became concerned about a possible leak of the videos and photos.

He said the worries about the impact a leak of the tapes might have in the Muslim world were real.

It has been widely reported that Zubaydah was subjected to several tough physical tactics, including waterboarding, which involves near-suffocation. But CIA officers judged that the release of photos or videos would nonetheless provoke a strong reaction.

"People know what happened, but to see it in living color would have far greater power," the official said.

Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been pushing legislation in Congress to have all detainee interrogations videotaped so officials can refer to the tapes multiple times to glean better information.

Holt said he had been told many times that the CIA does not record the interrogation of detainees. "When I would ask them whether they had reviewed the tapes to better understand the intelligence, they said 'What tapes?'," he said.

Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane contributed reporting.

simuvac
12-06-2007, 11:52 PM
Ah! You beat me to it by a few minutes! I just posted this under New News....

Can you fucking believe this shit?

simuvac
12-06-2007, 11:55 PM
Add another case of obstruction of justice to the 9/11 Commission fiasco.

Gold9472
12-07-2007, 12:00 AM
I'm somewhat suspicious of Zelikow making that statement. Almost as if they were trying to make the CIA the scapegoat.

simuvac
12-07-2007, 12:37 AM
I'm somewhat suspicious of Zelikow making that statement. Almost as if they were trying to make the CIA the scapegoat.

If I were to speculate madly, I would say there never were any tapes.

Of course, your reading is saner. Like you say, it gets Zelikow off the hook, and makes it appear like yet another CIA cock-up (which, of course, is fully justified under the law).

Gold9472
12-07-2007, 12:41 AM
Well... the CIA has always been the "scapegoat" of 9/11... The one organization that gets the most "heat."

N320AW
12-07-2007, 08:13 PM
It's amazing how the guilty seem to always dig their hole just a little deeper!

AuGmENTor
12-07-2007, 08:14 PM
What's MORE amazing is that they get away with it!

PhilosophyGenius
12-08-2007, 01:36 AM
But it's all over the news...

Gold9472
12-08-2007, 10:28 AM
C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/washington/08intel.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The chief of the agency’s clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.

The disclosures provide new details about what Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said was a decision “made within C.I.A. itself” to destroy the videotapes. In interviews, members of Congress and former intelligence officials also questioned some aspects of the account General Hayden provided Thursday about when Congress was notified that the tapes had been destroyed.

Current and former intelligence officials say the videotapes showed severe interrogation techniques used on two Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first three terror suspects to be detained and interrogated by the C.I.A. in secret prisons after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Top C.I.A. officials had decided in 2003 to preserve the tapes in response to warnings from White House lawyers and lawmakers that destroying the tapes would be unwise, in part because it could carry legal risks, the government officials said.

But the government officials said that Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the agency’s clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations, had reversed that decision in November 2005, at a time when Congress and the courts were inquiring deeply into the C.I.A.’s interrogation and detention program. Mr. Rodriguez could not be reached Friday for comment.

As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in 2003, Porter J. Goss, then a Republican congressman from Florida, was among Congressional leaders who warned the C.I.A. against destroying the tapes, the former intelligence officials said. Mr. Goss became C.I.A. director in 2004 and was serving in the post when the tapes were destroyed, but was not informed in advance about Mr. Rodriguez’s decision, the former officials said.

It was not until at least a year after the destruction of the tapes that any members of Congress were informed about the action, the officials said. On Friday, Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from 2004 to 2006, said he had never been told that the tapes were destroyed.

“I think the intelligence committee needs to get all over this,” said Mr. Hoekstra, who has been a strong supporter of the C.I.A. detention and interrogation program. “This raises a red flag that needs to be looked at.”

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.

At the time of the briefing in February 2003, the lawmakers who advised Mr. Muller not to destroy the tapes included both Mr. Goss and Representative Jane Harman of California, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Ms. Harman described her role on Friday. Mr. Goss’s role was described by former intelligence officials.

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.

A message left at Mr. Muller’s law office on Friday was not returned, and White House officials would not comment about Ms. Miers’s role.

It was also not clear when the White House or Justice Department were told that the tapes had been destroyed, or whether anyone at either place was notified in advance that Mr. Rodriguez had ordered that the step be taken. Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said Friday that President Bush had “no recollection” of being made aware of the tapes’ destruction before Thursday, when General Hayden briefed him on the matter.

In his message to C.I.A. employees on Thursday, General Hayden said that the leaders of the intelligence committee had been informed of the agency’s “intention to dispose of the material,” but he did not say when that notification took place.

Several former intelligence officials also said there was great concern that the tapes, which recorded hours of grueling interrogations, could have set off controversies about the legality of the interrogations and generate a backlash in the Middle East.

According to one former intelligence official, the C.I.A. then decided to keep the tapes at the C.I.A. stations in the countries where Abu Zubaydah and Mr. Nashiri were interrogated.

Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan, and it has been reported that he was taken to Thailand for part of his interrogation. It is unclear where Mr. Nashiri was interrogated by C.I.A. operatives.

Mr. Nashiri, a Qaeda operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula until his capture in 2002, is thought to have planned the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen.

The current and former intelligence officials said that when Mr. Rodriguez ultimately decided in late 2005 to destroy the tapes, he did so without advising Mr. Rizzo, Mr. Muller’s successor as the agency’s top general counsel. Mr. Rizzo and Mr. Goss were among the C.I.A. officials who were angry when told that the tapes had been destroyed, the officials said.

Mr. Rodriguez retired from the agency this year.

The Senate Intelligence Committee announced Friday that it was starting an investigation into the destruction of the videotapes.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the committee, said, “Whatever the intent, we must get to the bottom of it.”

Gold9472
12-08-2007, 10:32 AM
"scapegoat" anyone?

AuGmENTor
12-08-2007, 11:43 AM
But it's all over the news...Since when does that matter? You could in all honesty converse more intelligently about scrubs or heros or one of those other mind numbing shows before you could about this. KNOWING something is ONE thing. The attitude to do something constructive with that information is much more rare of a trait. I am using you as an example, but it is true of most people these days.

simuvac
12-08-2007, 01:31 PM
Bush says: "Tapes? What's a tape?"

Bush: 'No recollection' of tapes



Story Highlights
NEW: Bush learned of CIA interrogation tapes on Thursday, White House says
Sources: Former White House counsel knew of tapes
Members of Congress call for investigations
Michael Hayden discusses the videotapes in letter to CIA employees
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush "has no recollection" of videotapes of CIA interrogations of some al Qaeda suspects or of plans to destroy the tapes, a White House spokeswoman said.

Bush and Vice President Cheney learned about videotaped interrogations of some al Qaeda suspects on Thursday, when CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed them about the existence of the tapes and their subsequent destruction, administration officials said Friday.

The interrogations -- using newly approved "alternative" interrogation techniques -- of two al Qaeda suspects were recorded in 2002, Hayden said Thursday in a letter to CIA employees. They were destroyed three years later when the agency determined they had no intelligence value and could pose a security risk, he said.

"I spoke to the president this morning about this," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "He has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday. He was briefed by General Hayden yesterday morning."

The vice president learned about the tapes and their destruction at the same time, another administration official told CNN.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, said that was "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."

Later Friday, two senior administration officials told CNN that then-deputy White House counsel Harriet Miers was aware of the tapes and told the CIA not to destroy them.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of potential investigations on the matter, said they believe this is "exculpatory" for the White House because it shows a top official had told the CIA not to destroy the tapes. The officials also said the information about the tapes was not relayed to the president until this week.

Democrats reacted strongly to the news of the existence of the tapes and their subsequent destruction, particularly given the continuing controversy over use of harsh interrogation techniques -- believed to include waterboarding, a technique that involves restraining a suspect and pouring water on him to produce the sensation of drowning -- and whether they constitute torture.

"It is a startling disclosure," Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, said Friday on the Senate floor. "The United States of America -- a nation where the rule of law is venerated -- has now been in the business of destroying evidence. Evidence of a very sensitive nature -- evidence which clearly should have been protected for legal and historic purposes."

Durbin said he was sending a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey calling for an investigation into whether any laws were broken by "CIA officials who covered up the existence of these videotapes."

The Justice Department later said it had received Durbin's letter, but would not comment other than to say it had begun gathering facts. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, joined Durbin's call for an investigation.

Democrat disputes CIA chief's account

In his letter to CIA employees, Hayden wrote that the leaders of the CIA's congressional oversight committees were informed of the videos "years ago" along with the agency's intent to destroy them.

But Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, -- who was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee when the tapes were made and when they were destroyed -- told CNN that was "not true."

Harman said she'd attended a classified briefing in 2003 that "raised some concerns in my mind," prompting her to send a classified letter to the CIA's general counsel.

"Obviously they both remain classified," she said, "but I have raised with the CIA my view that no videotape should be destroyed. Let me just leave it there. ...

"Segue to two years later, we have now learned that the tapes have been destroyed," she said. "I was still the ranking member of the committee, (and) no one ever informed me that tapes were being destroyed."

Former Rep. Porter Goss, R-Florida -- who was head of the CIA when the tapes were destroyed -- was told about the tapes when he served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a former intelligence official told CNN. The official said that Goss agreed with Harman that the tapes should not be destroyed and, when he became director of the agency in 2004, he let "the appropriate people" know his opinion.

The official said Goss was unhappy when he learned after the fact that the tapes were destroyed. Goss resigned in May 2006; Hayden was his successor.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, currently the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, was chairman of the committee after Goss joined the CIA until the Democrats won control of the House last year, covering the time when the tapes were destroyed. He told CNN he was never briefed about the tapes' existence or their destruction.

Other senators and representatives added their voices to the calls for investigations, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Michigan; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan; and presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware. And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that panel "will be doing their own investigation."

Daniel Marcus, who was general counsel for the 9/11 commission investigating lapses in intelligence and security prior to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, said the commission was not informed about the videotapes and that the decision to destroy them "reflected very bad judgment."

Tapes were 'an internal check,' chief says

Osama bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubayda was one of two al Qaeda suspects whose interrogations were videotaped, according to a government official with knowledge of the tapes.

A government official with knowledge of the CIA's interrogation practices described the detention and interrogation program as "very tightly held." This was a "highly compartmentalized program," the official said. "Relatively few" people had "knowledge of or access to" the tapes even within the agency.

Hayden, who was not CIA director at the time of either the interrogations or their destruction, said in his letter to CIA employees that the tapes were made as "an internal check" on the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques, which, he said, became necessary after Zubayda's "defiant and evasive" response to "normal questioning."

John McLaughlin, who was deputy CIA director when the tapes were made, told CNN he and then-CIA Director George Tenet were told the interrogations were being taped after they had already begun. He said the reasons for the taping were consistent with what Hayden said in his letter. Neither McLaughlin, now a CNN analyst, nor Tenet were with the agency when the tapes were destroyed.

Hayden said the tapes were viewed in 2003 by the Office of the General Counsel and the Office of the Inspector General, both of which said the interrogation techniques used were lawful.

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.

"Beyond their lack of intelligence value -- as the interrogation sessions had already been exhaustively detailed in written channels -- and the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them, the tapes posed a serious security risk," Hayden said. "Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al Qaeda and its sympathizers."

Levin called the security risk concern "a pathetic excuse."

"They'd have to burn every document at the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it under that theory," he said.

Hayden, in his letter, said he was providing the background information to CIA employees because he expected possible "misinterpretations of the facts in the days ahead."

Current and former government officials said that Jose Rodriguez, head of the CIA's clandestine service at the time, authorized the tapes' destruction. Rodriguez, who resigned from the agency earlier this year, was not immediately available for comment.

CNN's Pam Benson, Kathleen Koch and Terry Frieden contributed to this report.

MrDark71
12-08-2007, 02:20 PM
"let's put some distance from ourselves and Bob .....he has a history rogue activities ...and he's currenty being investigated in..help me out here..."

CIA Director plyed by James Sheridan in Syrianna

Gold9472
12-08-2007, 07:36 PM
9/11 Commission's Lee Hamilton '52 Reacts to CIA Destruction of Torture Tapes

http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=20521

12/8/2007

9/11 Commission's Lee Hamilton '52 Reacts to CIA Destruction of Torture Tapes
Lee Hamilton CSPAN.jpgDecember 8, 2007, Greencastle, Ind. - "Did they obstruct our inquiry? The answer is clearly yes," says Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission, in the wake of reports the CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects. "Whether that amounts to a crime, others will have to judge," adds Hamilton, a 1952 graduate of DePauw University, in today's Detroit Free Press.

The article details demands by congressional Democrats "that the Justice Lee Hamilton Students 2004-2.jpgDepartment investigate why the CIA destroyed" the tapes. It notes, "White House press secretary Dana Perino said President George W. Bush didn't recall being told about the tapes or their destruction. But she didn't rule out White House involvement, saying she hadn't asked others about it."

Meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune reports "the former chairmen of the Sept. 11 commission, who said the CIA assured them repeatedly during their inquiry that no original material existed from its interrogations of Qaeda figures, said they were furious to learn about the tapes ... Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton said they had made clear in hours of negotiations and discussions with the CIA, as well as in written requests, that they wanted all material connected to the interrogations of Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody in order to get a complete understanding of the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks for their 2004 report."

Access the complete articles at the Free Press and the Herald Tribune.

Lee Hamilton, who served 34 years in Congress and Hamilton Bush Baker.jpgwas also co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, was recently named one of "America's Best Leaders" for 2007 by U.S. News & World Report.

On October 25, Hamilton and James A. Baker III (seen in photo at left with President Bush) became the inaugural recipients of the Churchill Award for Statesmanship for their work in leading the Iraq Study Group.

"I had an undergraduate experience at DePauw University that certainly opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities," Hamilton said in an interview earlier this year. He is a frequent visitor to his alma mater, and in October 2006 discussed the Iraq war and other matters at DePauw Discourse 2006: Issues for America. Access a story -- including video and audio clips -- here.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:29 AM
Inquiry into why CIA tapes destroyed

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22895446-2703,00.html

Correspondents in Washington | December 10, 2007

THE US Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog have announced a joint inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists, as the latest scandal to rock US intelligence gathered steam.

The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted.

"I welcome this inquiry and the CIA will co-operate fully," CIA chief Michael Hayden said in a statement yesterday.

"I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes."

The House Intelligence Committee is launching its own inquiry next week. Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes said it would investigate not only why the tapes were destroyed and Congress was not notified, but also the interrogation methods that "if released, had the potential to do such grave damage to the United States of America".

"This administration cannot be trusted to police itself," said Mr Reyes, a Democrat.

The Senate Intelligence Committee also is investigating.

General Hayden told agency employees last week that the recordings were destroyed out of fear the tapes would be leaked and reveal the identities of interrogators. He said the sessions were videotaped to provide an added layer of legal protection for interrogators who were using new, harsh methods authorised by President George W. Bush as a way to break down the defences of recalcitrant prisoners.

The CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, is preserving all remaining records related to the videotapes and their destruction. Kenneth Wainstein, an assistant attorney-general, asked that they be handed over with any relevant internal reviews.

Justice Department officials, lawyers from the CIA general counsel's office and CIA inspector-general John Helgerson will meet early this coming week to begin the preliminary inquiry, Mr Wainstein said.

Mr Helgerson has been highly critical in classified reports of the agency's treatment of detainees. In October, the CIA confirmed that a close Hayden aide was reviewing his work, raising concern in Congress that the independence of the office was under attack. The White House had no immediate comment on the inquiry. Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the White House would support Attorney-General Michael Mukasey if he decided to investigate.

Angry congressional Democrats had demanded the Justice Department investigate. Some accused the CIA of a cover-up.

The man now at the centre of the storm is Jose Rodriguez, who retired as head of the CIA's clandestine directorate of operations in August, but will leave the agency at the end of the year.

Mr Rodriguez decided the tapes should be destroyed, one former and one current intelligence official said.

A career spy, Mr Rodriguez was promoted to the job by then-CIA director Porter Goss.

Mr Goss had learned of the tapes' destruction "a couple of days" after it happened, a government official said. The official said Mr Goss did not order an investigation or inform Congress.

Mr Goss was upset by the tapes' destruction but did not take any action because the decision was within Mr Rodriguez's authority, a former intelligence official said.

The CIA's spy service has broad latitude to take actions to protect operational security.

The tapes were destroyed soon after The Washington Post inlate 2005 revealed the existence of secret overseas prisons, which angered the co-operating governments.

Another intelligence official said Mr Rodriguez was concerned the tapes would be leaked and that the interrogators seen in the tapes would be targeted by al-Qa'ida. "Rodriguez felt he had good reasons to deep-six the tapes. They had people's faces on them. It's not like a name getting out," the official said.

The Justice Department and CIA inspector-general inquiry is expected to focus on whether Mr Rodriguez had the inherent authority to destroy the tapes or had the endorsement of CIA legal advisers or any senior officials.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:30 AM
CIA's destruction of terror tapes probed

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/cias-destruction-of-terror-tapes-probed/2007/12/09/1197135285851.html

Mark Mazzetti, Washington
December 10, 2007
Advertisement

THE US Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog have begun a preliminary inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of hundreds of hours of videotapes showing interrogations of top al-Qaeda operatives.

The announcement comes amid new questions about which officials inside the CIA were involved in the decision to destroy the videotapes, which showed severe interrogation methods used on two al-Qaeda suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

The agency operative who ordered the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was Jose Rodriguez, then chief of the CIA's national clandestine service.

A government official who spoke recently with Mr Rodriguez said the spy chief told him he had received approval from lawyers inside the clandestine service to destroy the tapes.

This disclosure could broaden the scope of the inquiry into the tapes' destruction.

Several officials said top lawyers at the White House and the Justice Department advised the CIA in 2003 not to destroy the videos.

Current and former intelligence officials said the agency's senior lawyer, John Rizzo, had not been notified about the decision and was angered to learn about the destruction of the tapes, which could complicate the prosecution of Abu Zubaydah and others.

Investigators will gather facts to determine whether a full inquiry is warranted. If it is determined that any agency employee broke the law, the standard procedure would be for the inspector-general to issue a criminal referral to the Justice Department.

The investigation comes after the Senate and House intelligence committees started their own investigations into the destruction of the tapes.

Officials have acknowledged that the destruction of evidence such as the videotaped interrogations could raise questions about whether the CIA was seeking to hide vital evidence of coercion.

A review of records from military tribunals indicates that five lower-level detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were initially charged with offences based on information provided by or related to Abu Zubaydah.

Military defence lawyers said the fact that interrogation tapes were destroyed could provide a way to challenge other cases that may be based on information from Abu Zubaydah, though such challenges would face major legal obstacles under rules for military prosecutions.

The destruction of the tapes has intensified the focus on Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in March 2002.

As one of the first close associates of Osama bin Laden to be caught after the September 11 attacks, he became a test case on which the CIA built and then adjusted its program of aggressive interrogations and overseas secret jails.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:30 AM
US intelligence under fire for CIA tapes, Iran report

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gKoYN5aCFVYaDBAWfyhSoJUu1QNA

17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US intelligence community came under fire over the weekend on two fronts, as conservatives criticized a recent CIA report on Iran's nuclear program and the Justice Department announced a probe into the agency's destruction of videotapes showing interrogations of terror suspects.

The intelligence services are still trying to restore their credibility following the debacle over alleged weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the main justification for the US-led 2003 invasion.

After months of increasingly bellicose rhetoric from President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over the threat of Iran's nuclear program, the US intelligence agencies on Monday declared with "high confidence" that Iran halted a secret nuclear weapons program in 2003 in response to international pressure.

The assessment of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) overturned long-held US policy assumptions that Iran is bent on obtaining nuclear weapons, regardless of international demands or sanctions.

Democrats in Congress, who said the Bush administration was overstating the Iranian threat, now took a back seat to conservative Republican critics, who said the report understated the Iranian threat.

Chief among them was former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who wrote in a commentary this week that "the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported."

Cheney, speaking in Kansas City Friday, said the United States and its allies "must keep the pressure on Iran to stop enriching uranium and to come clean about all its nuclear activities, past and present."

A top US intelligence official on Saturday issued an unusual statement responding to the critics.

"The task of the Intelligence Community is to produce objective, ground truth analysis," said Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence.

"We feel confident in our analytic tradecraft and resulting analysis in this estimate," Kerr said in a brief written statement.

Kerr said he issued the statement "in response to those questioning the analytic work and integrity of the United States Intelligence Community."

"National Intelligence Estimates contain the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community regarding the likely course of future events and the implications for US policy," he said.

Also Saturday, the Department of Justice announced it would launch an inquiry with the Central Intelligence Agency's internal watchdog office to determine whether a full-blown investigation was needed on the destroyed interrogation tapes, the DOJ announced.

"I welcome this inquiry," CIA Director Mike Hayden said in a statement, adding that his agency would fully cooperate with investigators.

"I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes," Hayden said.

Hayden became CIA director in May 2006, replacing Porter Goss, who headed the CIA from September 2004.

The inquiry announcement came one day after Democrats in Congress demanded an immediate investigation after the spy agency admitted to disposing of the videotapes to protect the identities of CIA agents.

Democratic lawmakers charged the CIA's decision was a cover-up designed to hide proof of possible abuse and torture of detainees.

Senator Ted Kennedy and other Democrats said an inquiry should determine whether the CIA broke the law by destroying the tapes in 2005 -- a time when Congress was investigating allegations of torture.

But The Washington Post reported Sunday that a bipartisan group of members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was given given a detailed briefing about the CIA's interrogation techniques as early as 2002 and mainly approved of them.

The tapes reportedly showed harsh interrogation methods used on Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first suspects interrogated by the CIA in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The tapes were of possible interest to a former blue-ribbon panel examining the September 11 attacks.

Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the bi-partisan panel, said the CIA had clearly obstructed the commission's work and his colleague Thomas Kean accused the CIA of lying.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:30 AM
Preliminary inquiry into the destruction of videotapes by the CIA

http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=458292&lng=1

12/9/2007

The Justice department in the US has confirmed it has opened a preliminary inquiry into the destruction of videotapes by the Central Intelligence Agency. The probe comes days after CIA director Michael Hayden admitted that that tapes documenting interrogations of terrorism suspects had been destroyed. He maintained it was done to protect the identities of the agents involved.

The opposition Democrats condemned the action and said crucial evidence may've been withheld from official proceedings. Critics have denounced some interrogation techniques used in the US as torture.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:31 AM
The facts behind the CIA tape inquiry
A preliminary investigation has begun into whether the agency acted illegally in destroying video of interrogations.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogateqa9dec09,1,3993528.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

By Times Staff Writers
December 9, 2007

The Justice Department and CIA have announced a preliminary investigation into whether CIA officials obstructed justice or engaged in an illegal coverup by destroying videotapes in 2005 that showed the interrogations of two terrorism suspects.

Question: What are the CIA tapes?

Answer: Beginning in 2002, the CIA held terrorism suspects in secret locations and interrogated them, using highly controversial techniques that critics say are tantamount to torture. The techniques included sleep deprivation, stressful physical positions and waterboarding, or simulated drowning. In at least two cases, the CIA videotaped the interrogations, compiling hundreds of hours of clear images of American agents sometimes engaging in harsh treatment of foreign prisoners. One prisoner was Abu Zubaydah, the CIA's first terrorism detainee; the other has not been identified.

Q: When were the tapes destroyed?

A: The CIA destroyed the tapes in late 2005. At that time, Congress was adopting new restrictions on the use of harsh detainee treatment and the Army was rewriting its field manual to emphasize the need for moderation. At the same time, domestic U.S. prosecutions of terrorism suspects -- including Zacarias Moussaoui and Jose Padilla -- were underway. An issue in those cases was what other suspected terrorists had said about the defendants while under interrogation. Also at that time, the Sept. 11 commission, which failed in its effort to obtain records of interrogations before issuing its 2004 report, was completing a year of follow-up reports that criticized U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.

Q: Why did the CIA destroy the tapes?

A: Director Michael V. Hayden told the CIA workforce last week that the tapes were destroyed because they were "not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries" and, if made public, could identify CIA employees who would be vulnerable to retaliation by militants.

Q: Was that explanation accepted?

A: No. Members of Congress said the tapes had potential value to ongoing congressional proceedings, and critics said they could have had a high degree of relevance to the Sept. 11 commission and in terrorism trials. Critics also said the CIA could have obscured any images of Americans in the tapes, and noted that the agency possesses vast amounts of other material that could identify CIA employees which have not been destroyed. As important to many critics, the tapes could have settled years of debate about the nature of U.S. treatment of detainees, including questions about how they were interrogated and whether it constituted legal questioning, harsh treatment or torture.

Q: Did the CIA provide adequate notice that it was going to destroy the tapes?

A: Hayden said the CIA told Congress about the tapes and its plans to destroy them and that it consulted with appropriate agency officials, including the CIA general counsel and inspector general. However, lawmakers said the CIA provided only cursory information about the tapes and did not detail the plans to destroy them. Other top CIA officials may have disagreed with the decision, and it is not known what the CIA inspector general, an agency watchdog who has been critical of detention practices, had to say about the tapes.

Q: Did others agree with the decision to destroy the tapes?

A: Many did not. Members of Congress, including Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), then a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, warned the CIA not to destroy the tapes. In addition, then-White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers was reported to have told agency officials to preserve them.

Q: Are the tapes germane to trials of suspected terrorists?

A: Possibly. Attorneys in the case of Moussaoui, who is serving a life sentence, want the judge to review the issue. Padilla faces sentencing in the near future. More important, the CIA initially told U.S. prosecutors that no such tapes existed, an assertion provided to judges in sworn legal documents that later had to be corrected when the tapes' existence was revealed.

Q: What happens next?

A: The Justice Department and CIA will determine whether a full investigation is warranted. In Congress, members of the intelligence and judiciary committees -- and possibly others -- will have to decide how deeply to investigate. In courts, judges may be asked to rule whether the CIA acted improperly in not revealing the existence of the tapes and whether they might have affected the outcomes of trials.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:32 AM
Justice, CIA watchdog launch inquiry
It's a first step to see whether the agency acted criminally in destroying videotapes of terrorism suspects' interrogations.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogate9dec09,1,7646278.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 9, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General said Saturday that they had launched a joint inquiry into the CIA's controversial destruction of videotaped interrogations of two Al Qaeda suspects. The preliminary inquiry would be a first step in determining whether a full investigation and potential criminal charges were warranted.

The probe had been under discussion since shortly after CIA Director Michael V. Hayden disclosed Thursday that CIA officials had made the videotapes in 2002 and destroyed them three years later. The Justice Department has asked for an initial meeting with the CIA's legal staff and inspector general, John L. Helgerson, early this week.

"I welcome this inquiry, and the CIA will cooperate fully," Hayden said Saturday in a statement. "I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes."

Hayden's disclosure, made in a letter to employees, has caused an uproar in Congress and among some human rights advocates and defense lawyers. Many have called for investigations, charging that the agency lied about the tapes' existence and then destroyed them to cover up evidence of extremely harsh, possibly illegal interrogations.

One staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaking on condition of anonymity because the inquiry is ongoing, said the CIA's actions could amount to obstruction of justice and false testimony to Congress -- both federal crimes -- because the agency did not turn over requested interrogation tapes to the congressionally appointed Sept. 11 commission.

The CIA has agreed to "preserve any records or other documentation that would facilitate this inquiry," Asst. Atty. Gen. Kenneth L. Wainstein, head of the Justice Department's national security division, said in a letter Saturday to the CIA's acting general counsel, John A. Rizzo.

At least one member of Congress and, reportedly, a senior White House official claim to have told the CIA to preserve the tapes before they were destroyed.

"Everybody from the top on down told them not to do it and still they went ahead and did it anyway," a senior U.S. official familiar with the internal discussions said Saturday. The fact that the tapes were destroyed despite those warnings figures prominently in the inquiry, the official said.

The decision to destroy the tapes was reportedly made by the head of the CIA's clandestine operations at the time, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.

Democratic leaders demanded Friday that Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey order a full Justice Department probe. It was unclear Saturday what role Mukasey played in the launching of the inquiry.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) said Saturday that the inquiry would be "an important first test for Atty. Gen. Mukasey." He said his committee would begin its own probe, also reviewing "what was depicted on the tapes -- the interrogation practices that were authorized at the highest levels of government."

The Senate Intelligence Committee has announced an inquiry as well.

The White House said Saturday that it supported the Justice-CIA inquiry.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said he could not comment on any aspect of the inquiry except to say it would focus foremost on the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the tapes.

"We are just beginning and gathering the initial facts," he said.

In Hayden's letter to employees Thursday, the CIA director implied that one of the videotaped interrogations was of Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al Qaeda lieutenant captured in Pakistan in March 2002. The second suspect was identified Saturday as Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen.

A U.S. intelligence official said Saturday that the CIA did not videotape the interrogations of any other suspected senior Al Qaeda operatives. The practice was discontinued sometime in 2002.

Hayden's letter said the sessions were taped for the legal protection of interrogators using harsh new procedures to get Zubaydah and other defiant prisoners to talk.

Hayden also said that the Office of the Inspector General examined the tapes in 2003 "as part of its look at the agency's detention and interrogation practices," but he did not say whether the office approved of what was on the tapes.

And Hayden said that the existence of the tapes was disclosed to congressional oversight committees "years ago," and that the agency later notified the panels of the tapes' destruction.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:32 AM
Probe into destroyed CIA interrogation videos begins

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5363362.html

By JOSH WHITE
Washington Post
12/9/2007

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department and the CIA announced Saturday that they have started a preliminary inquiry into the CIA's 2005 destruction of videotapes that depicted harsh interrogation of two terrorist suspects.

The announcement follows congressional demands Friday for an investigation into the CIA's action despite warnings from the White House and congressional leaders to preserve the tapes.

CIA Director Michael Hayden disclosed the destruction of the tapes Thursday in a letter to his staff, telling them that the identities of the interrogators in the 2002 sessions needed to be protected. Some lawmakers have rejected that explanation.

In a letter sent Saturday, Kenneth Wainstein, of the Justice Department's national security division, wrote to CIA General Counsel John Rizzo to confirm the inquiry and asked the CIA to preserve evidence and documents.

Wainstein indicated in the letter that he will be working with the CIA inspector general's office to determine "whether a further investigation is warranted."

Hayden said in a statement released Saturday that the CIA will cooperate fully with the joint inquiry.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:32 AM
CIA is accused of torture cover-up

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3022192.ece

Sarah Baxter
12/9/2007

The CIA has been accused of covering up the torture of two top Al-Qaeda terror suspects after it emerged that White House and justice department officials and senior congressmen warned it against destroying hundreds of hours of videotape of the interrogations in 2003.

The tapes were destroyed in November 2005, the month in which The Washington Post exposed the CIA’s imprisonment of suspected terrorists at “black sites”. Last night the justice department and the CIA’s internal watchdog launched an investigation.

The tapes show the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who are now held in Guantanamo Bay. Zubaydah is believed to have been “waterboarded”, a technique that induces panic by simulating drowning, while al-Nashiri has complained that he was extensively tortured.

Harriet Miers, the White House counsel for President George W Bush, told CIA officials she opposed the destruction of the tapes, according to Bush administration sources. Porter Goss, who went on to become director of the CIA in 2004, also warned against their destruction when he was a senior congressman in charge of the House intelligence committee.

The destruction of the tapes occurred on Goss’s watch, but it appears he was not warned in advance by Jose Rodriguez, the head of the agency’s clandestine service. The existence of the tapes was kept secret from members of the September 11 commission, which had asked for all material relating to detainees.

Lee Hamilton, the co-chairman of the September 11 commission, said: “It certainly raises a suspicion of a cover-up, of activities they’re not proud of . . . activities they might even think are criminal.” The CIA had clearly obstructed the inquiry, Hamilton added.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 10:54 AM
What about this?

Controllers' 9/11 Tapes Willfully Destroyed (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5507&postcount=1)
F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=22004&postcount=1)
Cassette Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Recollections Destroyed (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=86898&postcount=2)

AuGmENTor
12-09-2007, 11:23 AM
What about this?

Controllers' 9/11 Tapes Willfully Destroyed (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5507&postcount=1)
F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=22004&postcount=1)
Cassette Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Recollections Destroyed (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=86898&postcount=2)You've quantified everything right there Jon. They do it over and over. The news covers it, and the people just switch over to another channel. My attitude on topics like this has really started changing of late. The "People" are going to get exactly what they deserve for their lifetime of acceptance.

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 11:30 AM
You've quantified everything right there Jon. They do it over and over. The news covers it, and the people just switch over to another channel. My attitude on topics like this has really started changing of late. The "People" are going to get exactly what they deserve for their lifetime of acceptance.

What about this?

Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36429&postcount=1)

AuGmENTor
12-09-2007, 04:58 PM
Are you trying to piss me off on purpose?

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 06:32 PM
Are you trying to piss me off on purpose?

heheheheheh...

Gold9472
12-09-2007, 07:29 PM
Senator seeks tougher CIA tapes inquiry

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22171303/

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
updated 6 minutes ago

The controversy over the CIA's destruction of videotapes allegedly showing harsh interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects grew on Sunday with an influential Democrat calling for a special counsel investigation.

A joint investigation by the US justice department and the CIA inspector-general was announced at the weekend. But Joseph Biden, the chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said this would not be sufficiently independent.

Mr Biden questioned the ability of Michael Mukasey, the new attorney-general, to oversee an internal inquiry, given his previous refusal to tell Congress the "waterboarding" - or simulated drowning - interrogation method constituted torture.

"He's the same guy who couldn't decide whether waterboarding was torture and he's going to be doing this investigation," said Mr Biden. "I think it's clearer and crisper and everyone will know what the truth [is] . . . if he appoints a special counsel; steps back from it."

The Senate and House intelligence committees are also investigating the destruction of the tapes, which showed the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, an alleged 9/11 planner, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden.

Michael Hayden, the CIA's director, has defended the tapes' destruction, saying it protected agents' identities. But several Bush administration officials had reportedly warned the intelligence agency not to destroy them.

Mr Biden said: "It appears there may be an 'obstruction of justice' charge here. . . I think this leads right into the White House. There may be a legal and rational explanation, but I don't see any on the face of it."

The US administration has been criticised around the world over a CIA secret prison programme in which terrorist suspects were interrogated using harsh methods such as waterboarding.

The tape scandal comes as the US intelligence community is under attack from neo-conservatives over the release of an intelligence report saying Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

Gold9472
12-10-2007, 08:46 PM
White House goes mum on CIA video case

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/White_House_goes_mum_on_CIA_video_c_12102007.html

Published: Monday December 10, 2007

The White House said Monday it would not answer questions about the CIA's destroying interrogation tapes of terrorism suspects, citing ongoing investigations into what some have called a cover-up.

Spokesman Dana Perino said that US President George W. Bush's official lawyer had requested a no-comment policy while the US Justice Department and Central Intelligence Agency looked into the simmering controversy.

"Until that process works itself out, I'm going to adhere to their request," she told reporters. "I think that that's appropriate, and I'll adhere to it."

When a reporter noted that the White House has similarly stonewalled questions about other potentially embarrassing issues, and suggested that such a policy was politically expedient, Perino bristled.

"I can see why that cynicism that usually drifts from this room could come up in this regard. What I can tell you is that I try my best to get you as much information as I can, and in this regard I've been asked by our Counsel's office not to comment, and I'm not going to," she said.

But she repeated that Bush had no recollection of being told about the tapes or about their destruction in 2005 until briefed last week following media reports.

Some of Bush's Democratic critics and human rights groups have denounced the decision as an attempt to cover up interrogation practices widely seen as torture -- despite Washington's insistence that it does not torture.

The videotapes, made in 2002, reportedly showed harsh interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first suspects interrogated by the CIA after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

CIA director Michael Hayden, who was not leading the agency when the tapes were destroyed, has said that doing so was necessary to avoid having the recordings leak to the public, revealing the identity of CIA questioners.

AuGmENTor
12-10-2007, 11:12 PM
STOP! PLEASE!! I can't TAKE any more!!!

Gold9472
12-11-2007, 01:36 PM
Ex-CIA interrogator says waterboarding is torture

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnN11502781.html

Tue 11 Dec 2007, 16:53 GMT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA officials extracted valuable information from a terrorism suspect after he was subjected to waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique that has been condemned as torture, a former CIA interrogator told U.S. new media.

Suspected al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaida offered to cooperate less than a minute after CIA officials subjected him to the controversial technique, former CIA interrogator John Kiriakou told ABC News and the Washington Post.

"It was like flipping a switch," Kiriakou told the Post. He said the session yielded valuable information and probably helped prevent attacks, but he now believes waterboarding is torture and "Americans are better than that."

Kiriakou, who now works in the private sector, came forward as the CIA faced sharp criticism for destroying a videotape of the interrogation, along with another showing the interrogation of a second suspected al Qaeda member.

Critics have charged that the agency destroyed the tapes to hide evidence of illegal torture. The CIA said it destroyed the tapes in 2005 to protect the interrogators from possible retaliation. A judge had ordered the tapes to be preserved as possible evidence in a lawsuit filed by captives at the Guantanamo Bay military prison.

The Justice Department, the CIA and two congressional committees all plan to investigate the tape destruction.

Abu Zubaida was captured in Pakistan in the spring of 2002, one of the first high-level al Qaeda operatives to come into U.S. custody after the September 11, 2001, hijacking attacks.

He was defiant and uncooperative until he was waterboarded that summer, said Kiriakou, who did not participate in the interrogation but was briefed by those who did. The next day he offered to tell his captors everything he knew, Kiriakou said.

Many countries, U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have denounced waterboarding as torture. It is believed the technique has not been used by the CIA since 2003.

Gold9472
12-11-2007, 01:36 PM
Destruction of C.I.A. Tapes Cleared by Lawyers

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/washington/11intel.html?ei=5065&en=baf5762a95284c12&ex=1198040400&adxnnl=1&partner=MYWAY&adxnnlx=1197374964-hJBHTlq6gnDuSyE/V06lEQ&pagewanted=print

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
December 11, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 — Lawyers within the clandestine branch of the Central Intelligence Agency gave written approval in advance to the destruction in 2005 of hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting interrogations of two lieutenants from Al Qaeda, according to a former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the episode.

The involvement of agency lawyers in the decision making would widen the scope of the inquiries into the matter that have now begun in Congress and within the Justice Department. Any written documents are certain to be a focus of government investigators as they try to reconstruct the events leading up to the tapes’ destruction.

The former intelligence official acknowledged that there had been nearly two years of debate among government agencies about what to do with the tapes, and that lawyers within the White House and the Justice Department had in 2003 advised against a plan to destroy them. But the official said that C.I.A. officials had continued to press the White House for a firm decision, and that the C.I.A. was never given a direct order not to destroy the tapes.

“They never told us, ‘Hell, no,’” he said. “If somebody had said, ‘You cannot destroy them,’ we would not have destroyed them.”

The former official spoke on condition of anonymity because there is a continuing Justice Department inquiry into the matter. He said he was sympathetic to Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former chief of the clandestine branch, who has been described by intelligence officials as having authorized the destruction of the tapes. The former official said he was concerned that Mr. Rodriguez was being unfairly singled out for blame in the destruction of the tapes.

The former official said Mr. Rodriguez decided in November 2005 that he had sufficient authority to destroy the interrogation videos, based on the written authorization given to him from lawyers within the branch, then known as the Directorate of Operations.

The C.I.A. has said that the two interrogations shown in the videotapes occurred in 2002, and that the taping of interrogations stopped that year. On Monday, however, a lawyer representing a former prisoner who said he was held by the C.I.A. said the prisoner saw cameras in interrogation rooms after 2002.

In describing the decision to destroy the tapes, current and former officials said John A. Rizzo, the agency’s top lawyer at the time, was not asked for final approval before the tapes were destroyed, although Mr. Rizzo had been involved in discussions for two years about the tapes.

It is unclear what weight an opinion from a lawyer within the clandestine service would have if it were not formally approved by Mr. Rizzo. But the former official said Mr. Rodriguez and others in the clandestine branch believed the legal judgment gave them the blessing to destroy the tapes.

The former official said the leaders of the clandestine service believed they “didn’t need to ask Rizzo’s permission.”

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, is scheduled to appear before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday to answer questions about the tapes’ destruction. He has defended the action as having been “done in line with the law,” but the destruction has prompted sharp criticism from Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Officials at the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency were directed over the weekend to preserve any documents related to the destruction of the tapes.

The former intelligence official who described the decision to destroy the tapes said Mr. Rodriguez’s primary concern was the safety of C.I.A. agents whose faces could be identified in the tapes. The tapes were destroyed amid growing Congressional and legal scrutiny into the C.I.A’s detention and interrogation program.

Some former C.I.A. officials said they would be very surprised if a lawyer for the Directorate of Operations, or D.O., would give legal approval for such a controversial decision without consulting Mr. Rizzo.

“Although unlikely, it is conceivable that once a C.I.A. officer got the answer he wanted from a D.O. lawyer, he acted on that advice,” said John Radsan, who worked as a C.I.A. lawyer between 2002 and 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota. “But a streamlined process like that would have been risky for both the officer and the D.O. lawyer.”

Mr. Radsan added, “I’d be surprised that even the chief D.O. lawyer made a decision of that magnitude without bringing the General Counsel’s front office into the loop.”

In mid-2005, the name of the Directorate of Operations was changed to the National Clandestine Service.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined to comment for this article, citing the joint investigation into the matter by the Justice Department and the C.I.A’s inspector general.

The former prisoner who reported seeing cameras, Muhammad Bashmilah of Yemen, was seized by Jordanian intelligence agents in 2003 and turned over to the C.I.A., according to an investigation by Amnesty International, the human rights advocacy organization. He was flown from Jordan to Afghanistan in October 2003 and held there until April 2004, when he was flown by plane and helicopter to a C.I.A. jail in an unidentified country, Amnesty found. Mr. Bashmilah and two other Yemeni men held with him were flown to Yemen in May 2005 and later released.

Meg Satterthwaite, a director of the International Human Rights Clinic at New York University who is representing Mr. Bashmilah in a lawsuit, said Mr. Bashmilah described cameras both in his cells and in interrogation rooms, some on tripods and some on the wall. She said his descriptions of his imprisonment, in hours of conversation in Yemen and by phone this year, were lucid and detailed.

In a message to C.I.A. employees on Thursday, General Hayden said “videotaping stopped in 2002,” after officials “determined that its documentary reporting was full and exacting, removing any need for tapes.”

Asked Monday about Mr. Bashmilah’s claims, Mr. Gimigliano said he had nothing to add to General Hayden’s statement.

In a related legal action, lawyers representing 11 inmates of the American military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, filed an emergency motion on Sunday seeking a hearing on whether the government has obeyed a 2005 judge’s order to preserve evidence in their case.

The C.I.A.’s destruction of tapes “raises grave concerns about the government’s compliance with the preservation order entered by this court,” the lawyers, David H. Remes and Marc D. Falkoff, wrote in their motion.

The June 2005 order, signed by Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., of the United States District Court in Washington, required the government to “preserve and maintain all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees” at Guantánamo.

That preservation order, one of several issued in Guantánamo cases, may be relevant to the C.I.A. videotapes, Mr. Remes said. He noted that the government has said that “a senior Al Qaeda lieutenant” reported seeing one of his Guantánamo clients in Afghanistan, raising the possibility that the statements on the destroyed videotapes may be relevant to his case.

“There is never any justification for destroying materials that any reasonable person would believe might be requested in a civil or criminal proceeding,” said Mr. Remes, of the law firm Covington & Burling. “The C.I.A. had every reason to believe the videotapes would be relevant down the road.”

Gold9472
12-11-2007, 01:38 PM
The Man Who Ordered CIA's Tape Destruction
Jose Rodriguez Ordered Tapes Of Terror Interrogations Destroyed Without Telling CIA Director

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/10/eveningnews/main3604018.shtml

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2007

(CBS) He is the man who ordered the destruction of video tapes documenting the CIA’s interrogation of two high-level al Qaeda operatives.

The then-head of the clandestine service, Jose Rodriguez, ordered the tapes destroyed shortly after a Washington Post expose focused attention on the CIA’s secret prisons, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

“Well, I think there might have been concern that those tapes could have been called for by some outside body and the CIA would no longer maintain control over them,” said retired CIA officer John Brennan, who is now a CBS News consultant.

Brennan says Rodriguez was also worried the Justice Department was backing away from its earlier support of harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding.

“And that therefore agency officers who participated in those interrogation sessions may be subject to some type of prosecution,” Brennan said.

Rodriguiz ordered the tapes destroyed without telling then-CIA director Porter Goss and against the advice of the CIA’s own general counsel, the White House deputy counsel and the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

“I expressed concern about destroying any video tapes and said that would be a very ill-advised move by the agency,” Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said.

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou led the raid, which captured the al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, told CBS News he and at least one other CIA officer refused to use the harsh interrogation techniques.

That job, he said, was turned over to retired commandos under contract to the CIA.

Gold9472
12-11-2007, 10:59 PM
The CIA's Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 9/11 Connection

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html

Gerald Posner
Posted December 7, 2007 | 03:25 PM (EST)

On December 5, the CIA's director, General Michael V. Hayden, issued a statement disclosing that in 2005 at least two videotapes of interrogations with al Qaeda prisoners were destroyed. The tapes, which the CIA did not provide to either the 9/11 Commission, nor to a federal court in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, were destroyed, claimed Hayden, to protect the safety of undercover operatives.

Hayden did not disclose one of the al Qaeda suspects whose tapes were destroyed. But he did identify the other. It was Abu Zubaydah, the top ranking terror suspect when he was tracked and captured in Pakistan in 2003. In September 2006, at a press conference in which he defended American interrogation techniques, President Bush also mentioned Abu Zubaydah by name. Bush acknowledged that Zubaydah, who was wounded when captured, did not initially cooperate with his interrogators, but that eventually when he did talk, his information was, according to Bush, "quite important."

In my 2003 New York Times bestseller, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, I discussed Abu Zubaydah at length in Chapter 19, "The Interrogation." There I set forth how Zubaydah initially refused to help his American captors. Also, disclosed was how U.S. intelligence established a so-called "fake flag" operation, in which the wounded Zubaydah was transferred to Afghanistan under the ruse that he had actually been turned over to the Saudis. The Saudis had him on a wanted list, and the Americans believed that Zubaydah, fearful of torture and death at the hands of the Saudis, would start talking when confronted by U.S. agents playing the role of Saudi intelligence officers.

Instead, when confronted by his "Saudi" interrogators, Zubaydah showed no fear. Instead, according to the two U.S. intelligence sources that provided me the details, he seemed relieved. The man who had been reluctant to even confirm his identity to his U.S. captors, suddenly talked animatedly. He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would kill him. He then asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi royal family. And Zubaydah provided a private home number and a cell phone number from memory. "He will tell you what to do," Zubaydah assured them

That man was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, one of King Fahd's nephews, and the chairman of the largest Saudi publishing empire. Later, American investigators would determine that Prince Ahmed had been in the U.S. on 9/11.

American interrogators used painkillers to induce Zubaydah to talk -- they gave him the meds when he cooperated, and withdrew them when he was quiet. They also utilized a thiopental sodium drip (a so-called truth serum). Several hours after he first fingered Prince Ahmed, his captors challenged the information, and said that since he had disparaged the Saudi royal family, he would be executed. It was at that point that some of the secrets of 9/11 came pouring out. In a short monologue, that one investigator told me was the "Rosetta Stone" of 9/11, Zubaydah laid out details of how he and the al Qaeda hierarchy had been supported at high levels inside the Saudi and Pakistan governments.

He named two other Saudi princes, and also the chief of Pakistan's air force, as his major contacts. Moreover, he stunned his interrogators, by charging that two of the men, the King's nephew, and the Pakistani Air Force chief, knew a major terror operation was planned for America on 9/11.

It would be nice to further investigate the men named by Zubaydah, but that is not possible. All four identified by Zubaydah are now dead. As for the three Saudi princes, the King's 43-year-old nephew, Prince Ahmed, died of either a heart attack or blood clot, depending on which report you believe, after having liposuction in Riyadh's top hospital; the second, 41-year-old Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died the following day in a one car accident, on his way to the funeral of Prince Ahmed; and one week later, the third Saudi prince named by Zubaydah, 25-year-old Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, died, according to the Saudi Royal Court, "of thirst." The head of Pakistan's Air Force, Mushaf Ali Mir, was the last to go. He died, together with his wife and fifteen of his top aides, when his plane blew up -- suspected as sabotage -- in February 2003. Pakistan's investigation of the explosion -- if one was even done -- has never been made public.

Zubaydah is the only top al Queda operative who has secretly linked two of America's closest allies in the war on terror -- Saudi Arabia and Pakistan -- to the 9/11 attacks. Why does Bush, and the CIA, continue to protect the Saudi Royal family and the Pakistani military, from the implications of Zubaydah's confessions? It is, or course, because the Bush administration desperately needs Pakistani and Saudi help, not only to keep Afghanistan from spinning completely out of control, but also as counterweights to the growing power of Iran. The Sunni governments in Riyadh and Islamabad have as much to fear from a resurgent Iran as does the Bush administration. But does this mean that leads about the origins of 9/11 should not be aggressively pursued? Of course not. But this is precisely what the Bush administration is doing. And now the cover-up is enhanced by the CIA's destruction of Zubaydah's interrogation tapes.

The American public deserves no less than the complete truth about 9/11. And those CIA officials now complicit in hiding the truth by destroying key evidence should be held responsible.

Gold9472
12-12-2007, 08:44 AM
Not many answers from CIA director

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nationworld/story/227338.html

PAMELA HESS; The Associated Press
Published: December 12th, 2007 01:00 AM

WASHINGTON – CIA Director Michael Hayden, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors Tuesday, failed to answer central questions about the destruction of secret videotapes showing harsh interrogation of terror suspects, the panel’s chairman said.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., called the committee’s 90-minute session with Hayden “a useful and not yet complete hearing” and vowed the committee would get to the bottom of the matter. Among lingering questions: Who authorized destruction of the tapes, and why wasn’t Congress told about it?

Hayden told reporters afterward that he had “a chance to lay out the narrative, the history of why the tapes were destroyed” and the process that led to that decision.

But since the tapes were made under one of his predecessors, George Tenet, and destroyed under another, Porter Goss, he wasn’t able to answer all questions, he said.

“Other people in the agency know about this far better than I,” Hayden said, and promised the committee he would make those witnesses available.

A similar session is set for today, when Hayden appears before the panel’s House counterpart.

One former senior intelligence official said Tuesday that the recordings were contained on older videocasettes, rather than modern digital tapes or disks, and that no verbatim transcripts were made. Instead, results of the interrogations were contained in classified summaries, the official said.

Hayden’s appearance followed disclosures by former CIA officer John Kiriakou who said that the use of a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah, a major al-Qaida figure, elicited information that “probably saved lives” but also amounted to torture.

Kiriakou’s public remarks prompted Hayden to send a reminder to CIA employees Tuesday about the importance of not disclosing classified information, intelligence officials said.

At the White House, press secretary Dana Perino said the CIA interrogation program approved by the president is safe, tough, effective and legal.

“It’s no secret that the president approved a lawful program in order to interrogate hardened terrorists,” Perino said. “We do not torture. We also know that this program has saved lives by disrupting terrorist attacks.”

Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002, is now being held with other detainees at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He told his interrogators about alleged 9/11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, and the two men’s confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.

AuGmENTor
12-12-2007, 09:11 AM
CIA destroyed tapes despite court orders

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071212/ap_on_go_co/cia_videotapes_courts;_ylt=Aux0BheePq.QXXobL16LUWK s0NUE

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
12/12/2007

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest interrogation tactics.

Normally, that would force the government to defend itself against obstruction allegations. But the CIA may have an out: its clandestine network of overseas prisons.

While judges focused on the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and tried to guarantee that any evidence of detainee abuse would be preserved, the CIA was performing its toughest questioning half a world away. And by the time President Bush publicly acknowledged the secret prison system, interrogation videotapes of two terrorism suspects had been destroyed.

The CIA destroyed the tapes in November 2005. That June, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. had ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued a nearly identical order that July.

At the time, that seemed to cover all detainees in U.S. custody. But Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the terrorism suspects whose interrogations were videotaped and then destroyed, weren't at Guantanamo Bay. They were prisoners that existed off the books — and apparently beyond the scope of the court's order.

Attorneys say that might not matter. David H. Remes, a lawyer for Yemeni citizen Mahmoad Abdah and others, asked Kennedy this week to schedule a hearing on the issue.

Though Remes acknowledged the tapes might not be covered by Kennedy's order, he said, "It is still unlawful for the government to destroy evidence, and it had every reason to believe that these interrogation records would be relevant to pending litigation concerning our client."

In legal documents filed in January 2005, Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler assured Kennedy that government officials were "well aware of their obligation not to destroy evidence that may be relevant in pending litigation."

For just that reason, officials inside and outside of the CIA advised against destroying the interrogation tapes, according to a former senior intelligence official involved in the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation.

Exactly who signed off on the decision is unclear, but CIA director Michael Hayden told the agency in an e-mail this week that internal reviewers found the tapes were not relevant to any court case.

Remes said that decision raises questions about whether other evidence was destroyed. Abu Zubaydah's interrogation helped lead investigators to alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Remes said Abu Zubaydah may also have been questioned about other detainees. Such evidence might have been relevant in their court cases.

"It's logical to infer that the documents were destroyed in order to obstruct any inquiry into the means by which statements were obtained," Remes said.

He stopped short, however, of accusing the government of obstruction. That's just one of the legal issues that could come up in court. A judge could also raise questions about contempt of court or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Kennedy has not scheduled a hearing on the matter and the government has not filed a response to Remes' request.

Gold9472
12-12-2007, 10:10 AM
Was Pelosi aware of CIA's tactics?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/12/EDR7TS7DI.DTL

Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

When the CIA destroyed those prisoner interrogation videotapes, were they also destroying the truth about Sept. 11, 2001? After all, according to the 9/11 Commission report, the basic narrative of what happened on that day - and the nature of the enemy in this war on terror that Bush launched in response to the tragedy - comes from the CIA's account of what those prisoners told their torturers. The commission was never allowed to interview the prisoners, or speak with those who did, and was forced to rely on what the CIA was willing to relay instead.

On the matter of the existence of the tapes, we know the CIA deliberately lied, not only to the 9/11 commission, but to Congress as well. Given that the Bush administration has for six years refused those prisoners any sort of public legal exposure, why should we believe what we've been told about what may turn out to be the most important transformative event in our nation's history? On the basis of what the CIA claimed the tortured prisoners said, President Bush launched a "Global War on Terrorism," (GWOT), an endless war that threatens to bankrupt our society both financially and morally.

How important were those "key witnesses" to the 9/11 Commission report?

Check out the disclaimer on page 146 about the commission's sourcing of the main elements laid out in its narrative:

"Chapters 5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al Qaeda members ... Assessing the truth of statements by these witnesses ... is challenging. Our access to them has been limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations where the actual interrogation took place. We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting. We were told that our requests might disrupt the sensitive interrogation process."

Videos were made of those "sensitive" interrogations, which were accurately described as "torture" by one of the agents involved, John Kiriakou, in an interview with ABC News. Yet when the 9/11 Commission and federal court judges specifically asked for such tapes, they were destroyed by the CIA, which then denied their existence.

Of course our president claims he knew nothing about this whitewash, and he may be speaking the truth, since plausible deniability seems to be the defining leadership style of our commander in chief.

But what about those congressional leaders who were briefed on the torture program as early as 2002? That includes Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, who has specialized in heartfelt speeches condemning torturers in faraway places like China.

Pelosi's press aide Brendan Daly told me that the Washington Post report on her CIA briefing was "overblown" because Pelosi, then the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee thought the techniques described, which the CIA insists included waterboarding, were planned for the future and not yet in use. Pelosi claimed that "several months later" her successor as the ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman of Los Angeles County, was advised the techniques "had in fact been employed" and wrote a classified letter to the CIA in protest, and Pelosi "concurred." Neither went public with her concerns.

Harman told the Washington Post "I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything." The "Gang of Four" is an insider reference to the top members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and not to the thugs who ran Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution.

Not only did the congressional Gang of Four fail to inform the public about the use of torture by our government but they also kept the 9/11 Commission in the dark.

Pelosi testified before the commission on May 22, 2003 but uttered not a word of caution about the methods used. However, more than two years later on Nov. 16, 2005, Pelosi stated correctly that on the basis of her "many years on the intelligence committee," she knew that "The quality of intelligence that is collected by torture is ... uncorroborated and it is worthless."

Hopefully I am missing something here, having admired Pelosi for decades, but if she and the others in the know have another version of these events, it's time to come clean. As matters now stand, they not only concealed torture but, more significantly, they abetted the waterboarding of our democracy.

Gold9472
12-12-2007, 01:02 PM
Which lie should we believe? CIA admits it destroyed evidence it said didn't exist.

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20071208163121510

by Nicholas Levis
CORRECTED & UPDATED
December 10, 2007

CIA claims it destroyed videotapes of interrogations central to the official story of September 11th. Writing in TIME magazine, former CIA agent and occasional "conspiracy theory" debunker, Robert Baer (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1692518,00.html) concedes that 9/11 skeptics seem all the more credible in the aftermath. Full-time debunker Gerald Posner (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html) also sees a cover-up.

The most important document in the official mythology of September 11th, The 9/11 Commission Report, is based largely on the reported statements of three prisoners: Khalid Shaikh Mohamed, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Abu Zubaydah. The Report describes these men as high-ranking members of Al Qaeda. U.S. authorities announced the captures of the three in the course of separate raids in 2002 and 2003. According to the CIA and U.S. military, they have been held ever since at "undisclosed locations," and have had contacts only with a handful of interrogators. No U.S. agency has ever produced any of them in a public proceeding, or even provided photographs of them in captivity.

Khalid Shaikh Mohamed (see entries (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=ksm&events=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&projects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search=Go) in the "Complete 9/11 Timeline") was originally reported as killed during an attempt to capture him in Pakistan on September 10, 2002. He apparently survived, for he was reported as captured alive in March 2003. Until 2004, it was considered a security breach for a U.S. government source even to mention his name, although he was publicly identified as the "9/11 mastermind" in 2002.

The 9/11 Commission asked to see Mohamed and other prisoners, and was denied. The CIA instead provided English-language transcripts of interrogations supposedly held at the Guantanamo prison, and told the Commission no videotapes of such interrogations existed. The Commission made no fuss about this denial of access, although its report portrays Mohamed in particular as the most important planner of the September 11th plot.

The Report cites Mohamed, Binalshibh and Zubaydah uncritically as primary sources, without expressing a shred of doubt that the transcripts constitute the mens' words, that the words are genuine and unedited, or that the prisoners really are who the CIA says they are. This is despite the fact that Ernest May (http://hnn.us/articles/11972.html), one of the architects of the Report, admitted in a May 2005 memoir that the Commission "never had full confidence in the interrogation reports as historical sources." One top CIA official throws out an estimate that as much as 90 percent of information gleaned from Mohamed (or is that "Mohamed"?) is unreliable (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a080607ksmunreliable#a080607ksmun reliable).

We learned this week that CIA videotapes of at least some of these supposed interrogations -- tapes which were previously said not to have existed! -- are now said to have been destroyed in 2005. So far the CIA has copped to destroying hundreds of hours of tapes of Abu Zubaydah and of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, also identified as an Al Qaeda leader (captured in 2002, never produced in public).

The CIA claims -- bizarrely -- that this was done to protect the identities of the interrogators (apparently the Agency's 19th-century video technology is incapable of blurring out faces or distorting voices on a tape). The corporate media floated the idea that the motive was to cover up the use of torture, possibly waterboarding. But as the "evidence" from which the official 9/11 fable lives disappears further into a black box, naturally any breathing skeptic must wonder to what extent the tapes, or even the prisoners, existed in the first place. And granting that the tapes existed, was the motive behind their destruction to hide torture, or to hide evidence? Even a defender of the official story like former CIA agent Robert Baer knows this latest twist only adds to the stink (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1692518,00.html) of obstruction and fakery in everything the intelligence community says about 9/11. Gerald Posner, meanwhile, finds occasion to repeat a story (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html) told to him and to other sources such as Ron Suskind (author of The One Percent Solution), of how Zubaydah was supposedly duped by the CIA into naming three Saudi princes and a Pakistani general as accomplices to the terror network. All four of these personages subsequently turned up dead, the three princes in fact killed in separate incidents within a single week.

(Thanks to Paul Thompson and KJF for assists.)

Gold9472
12-12-2007, 04:10 PM
Torture tapes

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/12/torture-tapes.html

12/10/2007

When the CIA tells you that a piece of evidence has been destroyed, you should react as skeptically as you would to the death of a Marvel supervillain.

As you know, CIA Deputy Director of Operations Jose Rodriguez reportedly made the decision to destroy tapes of prisoner interrogation, allegedly to protect the identities of the interrogators. This action, we are told, ran contrary to the wishes of Porter Goss, who then ran the Agency.

According to Jon Ponder on BradBlog (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5420), a federal prosecutor reports the continued existence of either the same tapes or similar ones.



Charles Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote that his office viewed two videotapes of CIA interrogations of al-Qaida suspects as recently as September 19 and October 18 of this year --- contrary to Hayden's statement that the tapes were destroyed in 2005.Larisa (http://www.atlargely.com/2007/12/i-ask-again-whe.html) makes much the same point. This PDF (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20071207_intel_letter.pdf) gives you the actual letter from USA Rosenberg.

Larry Johnson (http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/dec/07/torture_tapes) compares the alleged destruction of these torture tapes to the "family jewels" -- a catch-all term for high-level CIA misdeeds uncovered in the 1970s. The most notorious of these "jewels" was the Agency's MKULTRA program. Richard Helms told both Congress and the CIA Inspector General that he ordered the destruction of all the voluminous documentation created by this massively-funded, cutting-edge research project. That statement was a lie. Those documents still exist.

So do the "nonexistent" interrogation tapes. Bank on it.

Added note: Here's an interesting response from "canuckjournalist," one of Larisa's readers (http://www.atlargely.com/2007/12/i-ask-again-whe.html):



I did research for Gerald Posner a couple of years ago; my best guess is that if he didn't see those tapes, he had viva voce evidence from an eyewitness who did.

As an old intelligence reporter [CBC and Globe and Mail, Toronto], my best theory here is that it's the Saudis who're being protected here. It's not beyond the realm of possibility---it's even likely---that Saudi intelligence officers were in on the Zubaydeh torture sessions.

Those faces or accents would give the game away and reveal the depth of Bush administration complicity with the Saudis, eg, the Jedda 'visa express'/9-11 attack team misidentification; the 'escape flights' to Riyadh after 9/11; the serial murder/suicides of the Saudi princes...and that doesn't begin to address Pakistani/ISI complicity.
Even before Posner wrote his egregious Case Closed, some folks thought that he was spookier than the Winchester mansion. His testimony to Congress on the Josef Mengele mystery was very strange, especially when compared to the reportage in his subsequent book. But that -- as I say too often -- is a tale for another time.

The idea of Saudi participation in the torture sessions is very intriguing. Let me mention another possibility: Israeli participation. We've heard odd reports of Israeli "experts" showing up at Abu Ghraib. Is it really so unthinkable to suspect that they helped in the interrogation of Zubaydah (http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Zubaydah)?

Don't expect Gerry to talk about that idea any time soon.

Ron Suskind has argued that Zubaydah was a minor player, a logistical "go to" guy, not a high-level planner. According to Suskind, Zubaydah is also loonier than Daffy Duck. Bush painted a very different picture, of course.

Perhaps the tapes would prove that the Suskind version is closer to the truth.

Gold9472
12-16-2007, 09:32 AM
Justice Dept.: Back off on CIA tapes

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071215/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_videotapes

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer Sat Dec 15, 6:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The controversy over destroyed CIA interrogation tapes is shaping up as a turf battle involving the courts, Congress and the White House, with the Bush administration telling its constitutional coequals to stay out of the investigation.

The Justice Department says it needs time and the freedom to probe the destruction of hundreds of hours of recordings of two suspected terrorists. After Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused congressional demands for information Friday, the Justice Department filed late-night court documents urging a federal judge not to begin his own inquiry.

The administration argued it was not obligated to preserve the videotapes and told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about them "could potentially complicate the ongoing efforts to arrive at a full factual understanding of the matter."

The documents represent the first time the government has addressed the issue in court. In the papers, acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey S. Bucholtz said Kennedy lacked jurisdiction and he expressed concern that the judge might order CIA officials to testify.

Congressional inquiries and criminal investigations frequently overlap and it is not uncommon for the Justice Department to ask lawmakers to ease off. The request for the court to stand down is more unusual. Judges take seriously even the suggestion that evidence was destroyed, but they also are reluctant to wade into political debates.

Legal experts say it will be up to Mukasey, a former judge who was only recently took over as the nation's chief law enforcer, to reassure Congress and the courts during his first high-profile test.

"We're going to find out if the trust Congress put in Attorney General Mukasey was well placed," said Pepperdine Law professor Douglas W. Kmiec, who served in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. "It's hard to know on the surface whether this is obstruction or an advancement of a legitimate inquiry."

Kennedy ordered the administration in June 2005 to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos, which involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Bucholtz argued that the tapes were not covered by Kennedy's court order because Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were not at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba. The men were being held overseas in a network of secret CIA prisons. By the time President Bush acknowledged the existence of those prisons and the prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, the tapes had been destroyed.

Lawmakers had reacted angrily to Mukasey's refusal Friday to give Congress details of the administration's investigation. He explained that doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure and said his department generally does not release information on pending cases.

"It's clear that there's more to this story than we have been told, and it is unfortunate that we are being prevented from learning the facts. The executive branch can't be trusted to oversee itself," according to a statement by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, Reps. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.

They said "parallel investigations occur all of the time, and there is no basis upon which the attorney general can stand in the way of our work." Mukasey's decision, lawmakers said, blocks congressional oversight of his department.

David Remes, a lawyer who represents a Yemeni national and other detainees, has called for a court hearing. He says the government was required to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.

Even if Kennedy agrees that the government did not violate his order, he still could schedule a hearing. He could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Those are serious matters, but Kennedy does not necessarily have to hold a hearing right away, said K. Lee Blalack, a Washington defense lawyer and former counsel to a Senate investigative committee.

"If the department takes six months on this and reports back, nothing prevents the judge from taking up the issue then," Blalack said.

Kmiec said much will depend on how much confidence Kennedy has in the Justice Department. The judge also might order a private hearing to protect national security, Kmiec said.

Zubaydah was the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002. He told his interrogators about alleged Sept. 11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, and the two men's confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks.

Al-Nashiri is the alleged coordinator of the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 sailors. Like Zubaydah, he is now at Guantanamo.

simuvac
12-16-2007, 01:19 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/sports/football/16spy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

The Patriots? The CIA? Could there be a connection?

:rulez:

dMole
12-16-2007, 02:20 PM
Tim has cracked the case! Truth be known, I'm much more afraid of New England than I am of al CIAda. Did you see what the Pats did to my Steelers? Shameful.

Some people say that the undefeated New England Patriots have ties to al Qaeda. Just like that elusive, wily, evil OBL. [paragraph Faux News parody/sarcasm meter sez: TILT! TILT!]

Gold9472
12-17-2007, 07:46 AM
Hoekstra defies Bush administration, pledges investigation into destroyed CIA tapes

http://www.kmeg14.com/Global/story.asp?S=7504671&nav=menu609_2_1

Associated Press - December 16, 2007 8:13 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee is defying the Bush administration and promising to investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.

The Justice Department has urged Congress not to look into the matter and advised intelligence officials not to cooperate with a legislative inquiry.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Congressman Peter Hoekstra (HUK'-struh) said he thinks Congress will issue subpoenas. He lambasted the intelligence community as "incompetent," "arrogant" and "political."

The CIA says it destroyed videos showing the harsh interrogation of top al-Qaida suspects. The CIA's director says the 2002 videos were destroyed in 2005 for fear the tapes would leak and reveal the identities of interrogators.

The Bush administration has asked Congress to postpone its review until it's clear where the government's preliminary inquiry will lead. They say they don't know how long that will take.

Gold9472
12-17-2007, 08:06 AM
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Harman_sees_Constitutional_crisis_over_CIA_1216.ht ml

Gold9472
12-18-2007, 07:44 PM
Judge Orders Hearing On CIA Interrogation Tapes

http://cbs4.com/national/CIA.tapes.hearing.2.613415.html

12/18/2007

WASHINGTON (CBS) ― A federal judge has ordered a hearing on whether the Bush administration violated a court order by destroying CIA interrogation videos of two Al Qaeda suspects.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice Department to stay out of the matter. He ordered lawyers to appear before him Friday morning.

In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Justice Department argued that the videos weren't covered by the order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas, not at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

David Remes, a lawyer who represents Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, asked for the court hearing. He said the government was obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.

"We want more than just the government's assurances. The government has given these assurances in the past and they've proven unreliable," Remes said. "The recent revelation of the CIA tape destruction indicates that the government cannot be trusted to preserve evidence."

Kennedy did not say why he was ordering the hearing or what he planned to ask. Even if the judge accepts the argument that government did not violate his order, he still could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

The Justice Department did not immediately comment. Its lawyers are working with the CIA to investigate the destruction of the tapes and had urged Kennedy to give them time to investigate.

Remes urged Kennedy not to comply.

"Plainly the government wants only foxes guarding this henhouse," Remes wrote in court documents this week.

The Bush administration has taken a similar strategy in its dealings with Congress on the issue. Last week, the Justice Department urged lawmakers to hold off on questioning witnesses and demanding documents because that evidence is part of the joint CIA-Justice Department investigation.

However, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, defied the Bush administration Sunday and pledged to investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, on the other hand, refused to give Congress details of the government's investigation into the matter Friday, saying doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure.

PhilosophyGenius
12-18-2007, 08:55 PM
Mohammed al-Kaboom: Okay okay, I'll admit it, we were protected by the ISI and CIA.

XYZ: .........what the hell are we going to do now?.....This is being recorded....

ABC: ......mmmm......good question.....

Gold9472
12-18-2007, 10:47 PM
What is Probably in the Missing Tapes

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20071214165538365

By Naomi Wolf (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/what-is-probably-in-the-m_b_76708.html), Monday, December 13, 2007*

To judge from firsthand documents obtained by the ACLU through a FOIA lawsuit, we can guess what is probably on the missing CIA interrogation tapes -- as well as understand why those implicated are spinning so hard to pretend the tapes do not document a series of evident crimes. According to the little-noticed but extraordinarily important book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (http://www.amazon.com/Administration-Torture-Documentary-Record-Washington/dp/0231140525) (Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, Columbia University Press, New York 2007), which presents dozens of original formerly secret documents - FBI emails and memos, letters and interrogator "wish lists," raw proof of the systemic illegal torture of detainees in various US-held prisons -- the typical "harsh interrogation" of a suspect in US custody reads like an account of abuses in archives at Yad Vashem.

More is still being hidden as of this writing -- as those in Congress now considering whether a special prosecutor is needed in this case should be urgently aware: "Through the FOIA lawsuit," write the authors, "we learned of the existence of multiple records relating to prisoner abuse that still have not been released by the administration; credible media reports identify others. As this book goes to print, the Bush administration is still withholding, among many other records, a September 2001 presidential directive authorizing the CIA to set up secret detention centers overseas; an August 2002 Justice Department memorandum advising the CIA about the lawfulness of waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation methods; documents describing interrogation methods used by special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; investigative files concerning the deaths of prisoners in U.S. custody; and numerous photographs depicting the abuse of prisoners at detention facilities other than Abu Ghraib.'

What we are likely to see if the tapes documenting the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri are ever recovered is that the "confessions" of the prisoners upon which the White House has built its entire case for subverting the Constitution and suspending civil liberties in this country was obtained through methods such as electrocution, beating to the point of organ failure, hanging prisoners from the wrists from a ceiling, suffocation, and threats against family members ("I am going to find your mother and I am going to fuck her" is one direct quote from a US interrogator). On the missing tapes, we would likely see responses from the prisoners that would be obvious to us as confessions to anything at all in order to end the violence. In other words, if we could witness the drama of manufacturing by torture the many violently coerced "confessions" upon which the whole house of cards of this White House and its hyped "war on terror" rests, it would likely cause us to reopen every investigation, including the most serious ones (remember, even the 9/11 committee did not receive copies of the tapes); shut down the corrupt, Stalinesque Military Commissions System; turn over prisoners, the guilty and the innocent, into a working, accountable justice system operating in accordance with American values; and direct our legal scrutiny to the torturers themselves -- right up to the office of the Vice President and the President if that is where the investigations would lead.

By the way: "The prohibition against torture [in the law] is considered to be a jus cogens norm, meaning that no derogation is permitted from it under any circumstances."

This is what the FOIA documents report, belying White House soundbites that "we don't torture" and explaining the intent pursuit on the part of the CIA and the White House of the current apparent obstruction of justice:

Late 2002 -- the FBI objects to the illegality of abuses being put into place by the Defense Department in its "special interrogation plan" to use isolation, sleep deprivation and menacing with dogs against prisoners.

Dec 2, 2002 -- Defense Secretary Rumsfeld personally issues a directive authorizing the use of stress positions, hooding, removal of clothing, and the terrorizing of inmates at Guantanamo with dogs.

Dec 3, 2002 -- at Baghram, interrogators kill an Afghan prisoner "by shackling him by his wrists to the wire ceiling above his cell and repeatedly beating his legs. A postmortem report finds abrasions and contusions on the prisoner's face, head, neck, arms and legs and determines that the death was a "homicide" caused by "blunt force injuries."

April 16, 2003 -- Rumsfeld approves yet another directive for abusive interrogation.

This directive for Afghanistan restores to the interrogators' arsenal many forms of torture that had been resisted by the FBI. [Notably, the FBI had resisted complying with the direct commission of torture since as early as 2002 because, as its Behavioral Analysis Unit complained to the Defense Department at that time in an internal email, "[i]not only are these tactics at odds with legally permissible interviewing techniques ...but they are being employed by personnel in GTMO who have little, if any, experience eliciting information for judicial purposes." In other words, as any trained interrogator knows, the abuses are both doubtless illegal and certainly ineffective for getting real intelligence. [Jaffer and Singh, [i]Timeline of Key Events, pp. 45-65,op. cit.]

Oct 22 2003 -- Final autopsy report relating to death of "52 y/o Iraqi Male, Civilian Detainee" held by U.S. forces in Nasiriyah, Iraq. Prisoner was found to have "died as a result of asphyxia...due to strangulation."

November 14, 2003 -- a sworn statement of a soldier stationed at Camp Red, Baghdad, states that "I saw what I think were war crimes" and that "the chain of command....allowed them to happen."

May 13, 2004 -- a sworn statement of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion recounts an incident in which "interrogators abused 17-year-old son of prisoner in order to 'break' the prisoner."

May 18, 2004 -- a Privacy Act statement of an Abu Ghraib sergeant notes that prisoners had been forced to stand "naked with a bag over their head, standing on MRE boxes and their hand[s] spread out...holding a bottle in each hand."

May 24, 2004 -- Sworn statement of interrogator who arrived at Abu Ghraib in October 2003, discussing use of military dogs against juvenile prisoners.

June 16, 2004 -- Marine Corps document describing abuse cases between September 2001 and June 2004, including "substantiated" incidents in which marines electrocuted a prisoner and set another's hands on fire.

Undated: Sworn statement of screener who arrived at Abu Ghraib in September 2003, indicating that prisoners at Asamiya Palace in Baghdad had been beaten, burned and subjected to electric shocks.

Subsequent internal documents record prisoners being stripped, made to walk into walls blindfolded, punched, kicked, dragged about the room, observed to have bruises and burn marks on their backs, and having their jaws deliberately broken. Still other reports document further incidents classified by the military itself as probable murders committed by US interrogators.

The book also reveals an extraordinary original transcript of a Dept. of the Army Inspector General interview with Lieutenant General Randall Marc Schmidt. Lt. Gen. Schmidt had interfaced with MG Geoffrey Miller on the one hand -- the most brutal overseer of such abuses, the one who was sent to "Gitmo-ize" other prisons -- and the honorable JAG military lawyers on the other hand, over the abuses under investigation at that time. [Lt. Gen. Schmidt advised MG Miller of his rights under Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice at that time -- in other words, those involved know something serious is at stake, p. a-16].

The transcript of this internal document reveals Lt. Gen. Schmidt's own words that it was his understanding that the directives to commit these acts, many of which are apparently war crimes, came right from the top.

The interview was not primarily intended to be a public document:

"An Inspector General" notes the document, "is an impartial fact-finder for the Directing Authority Testimony taken by an IG and reports based on that testimony may be used for official purposes. Access is normally restricted to persons who clearly need the information to perform their official duties. . In some cases, disclosure to other persons may be required by law or regulation or may be directed by proper authority." As in the case, clearly, here -- though the immense implications of this privately taken testimony have not reverberated fully yet in a public forum: "I thought the Secretary of Defense in good faith was approving techniques," testified Lt. Gen. Schmidt. "In good faith after talking to him twice. I know that -- and these weren't interrogations or interviews of him. This was our hour and forty-five minutes and then another hour and fifteen kind of thing were [sic] we sat in there and had these discussions with him." [Testimony of Lt. Gen. Randall M Schmidt, Taken 24 August 2005 at Davis Mountain Air Force Base, Arizona, Dept. of the Army Inspector General, Investigations Division, pp. a-30 to a-53, Jaffer and Singh, op. cit].

So what should Congress know as it decides what is to be done?

We torture, illegally, by directive; the directives come from the top; those who torture know it is probably criminal; when we torture prisoners, the guilty and the innocent, they will tell us anything they think we want to hear -- including implicate themselves falsely, as many reports from Human Rights Watch and other rights organizations testify to -- to make the torture stop; and the White House routinely uses that faked or coerced unverifiable "intelligence" to buttress its wholesale assault on our liberties.

As the CIA tries to spin its apparent crimes and claim that its waterboarding and other forms of criminal torture "saved lives" -- while conveniently offering no evidence to back that up, and while the administration withholds evidence to the contrary from the lawyers of the detainees -- we should bear in mind that the decades of research on torture summarized in the magisterial survey "The Question of Torture" show beyond the shadow of a doubt that prisoners being tortured will indeed "say anything." When American prisoners were tortured by the North Vietnamese, their confessions were phrased in Communist cliches.

We should note too -- as the White House tries to muddy the waters by pretending that there has ever been a "debate" about such acts as these -- that the US in the past prosecuted waterboarding itself: when the Japanese had waterboarded US prisoners they were convicted with sentences of fifteen years of hard labor.

We should also bear in mind that the Bush White House has deliberately crafted its memos and laws -- such as the Bybee/Gonzales "torture memo" and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 -- with a keen eye to seeking indemnification of its own guilt regarding having committed evident crimes, because those involved know quite well that acts committed could be criminal acts. (An historical note worth mentioning, when we consider how hyperalert the Bush White House has been to the issue of seeking retroactively to protect itself and its subordinates from prosecution for war and other crimes, is that the Nuremberg Trials eventually swept up influential Nazi industrialists such as Fritz Thyssen of IG Farben -- who relied on Auschwitz slave labor -- and with whom Prescott Bush had collaborated in amassing the Bush family millions; some of the sentences given to those industrialists found guilty in the postwar trials were severe.) For a moment postwar, the legal spotlight was also about to search out and hold accountable the several prominent US investors who had partnered with Nazi industrialists (see the exhaustively documented study of US/Nazi corporate collaboration, [i]IBM and the Holocaust.)

Prosecution for war crimes and other criminal acts, which the administration so clearly recognizes that it may well have committed -- which its legislation so clearly shows it realized it may well commit in advance of the commission -- is the only consequence the Bush team seems to be really afraid of as it attempts its multiple subversions of the rule of law. This is why the nation's grassroots call for a truly independent investigation into possible criminality is so very urgent and so necessary to restore the rule of law in our nation.

Mr. Mukasey could look up his own department's files and understand that waterboarding is a war crime; not only that, the US Military prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime itself in 1902 -- it had been used against prisoners in the Phillipines -- and those Americans who had committed it received convictions from the military. It is hopeless to rely on the Justice Department.

An independent special prosecutor must be appointed. The people who are found guilty, in America, must face justice.

Let the investigations begin.

Gold9472
12-19-2007, 08:01 AM
Bush Lawyers Discussed Fate of C.I.A.Tapes

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/washington/19intel.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel.

It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.

One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Some other officials assert that no one at the White House advocated destroying the tapes. Those officials acknowledged, however, that no White House lawyer gave a direct order to preserve the tapes or advised that destroying them would be illegal.

The destruction of the tapes is being investigated by the Justice Department, and the officials would not agree to be quoted by name while that inquiry is under way.

Spokesmen for the White House, the vice president’s office and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article, also citing the inquiry.

The new information came to light as a federal judge on Tuesday ordered a hearing into whether the tapes’ destruction violated an order to preserve evidence in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 16 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The tapes documented harsh interrogation methods used in 2002 on Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two Qaeda suspects in C.I.A. custody.

The current and former officials also provided new details about the role played in November 2005 by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the agency’s clandestine branch, who ultimately ordered the destruction of the tapes.

The officials said that before he issued a secret cable directing that the tapes be destroyed, Mr. Rodriguez received legal guidance from two C.I.A. lawyers, Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger. The officials said that those lawyers gave written guidance to Mr. Rodriguez that he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that the destruction would violate no laws.

The agency did not make either Mr. Hermes or Mr. Eatinger available for comment.

Current and former officials said the two lawyers informed the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, about the legal advice they had provided. But officials said Mr. Rodriguez did not inform either Mr. Rizzo or Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director, before he sent the cable to destroy the tapes.

“There was an expectation on the part of those providing legal guidance that additional bases would be touched,” said one government official with knowledge of the matter. “That didn’t happen.”

Robert S. Bennett, a lawyer for Mr. Rodriguez, insisted that his client had done nothing wrong and suggested that Mr. Rodriguez had been authorized to order the destruction of the tapes. “He had a green light to destroy them,” Mr. Bennett said.

Until their destruction, the tapes were stored in a safe in the C.I.A. station in the country where the interrogations took place, current and former officials said. According to one former senior intelligence official, the tapes were never sent back to C.I.A. headquarters, despite what the official described as concern about keeping such highly classified material overseas.

Top officials of the C.I.A’s clandestine service had pressed repeatedly beginning in 2003 for the tapes’ destruction, out of concern that they could leak and put operatives in both legal and physical jeopardy.

The only White House official previously reported to have taken part in the discussions was Ms. Miers, who served as a deputy chief of staff to President Bush until early 2005, when she took over as White House counsel. While one official had said previously that Ms. Miers’s involvement began in 2003, other current and former officials said they did not believe she joined the discussions until 2005.

Besides the Justice Department inquiry, the Congressional intelligence committees have begun investigations into the destruction of the tapes, and are looking into the role that officials at the White House and Justice Department might have played in discussions about them. The C.I.A. never provided the tapes to federal prosecutors or to the Sept. 11 commission, and some lawmakers have suggested that their destruction may have amounted to obstruction of justice.

Newsweek reported this week that John D. Negroponte, who was director of national intelligence at the time the tapes were destroyed, sent a memorandum in the summer of 2005 to Mr. Goss, the C.I.A. director, advising him against destroying the tapes. Mr. Negroponte left the job this year to become deputy secretary of state, and a spokesman for the director of national intelligence declined to comment on the Newsweek article.

The court hearing in the Guantánamo case, set for Friday in Washington by District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. over the government’s objections, will be the first public forum in which officials submit to questioning about the tapes’ destruction.

There is no publicly known connection between the 16 plaintiffs — 14 Yemenis, an Algerian and a Pakistani — and the C.I.A. videotapes. But lawyers in several Guantánamo cases contend that the government may have used information from the C.I.A. interrogations to identify their clients as “unlawful combatants” and hold them at Guantánamo for as long as six years.

“We hope to establish a procedure to review the government’s handling of evidence in our case,” said David H. Remes, a lawyer representing the 16 detainees.

Jonathan Hafetz, who represents a Qatari prisoner at Guantánamo and filed a motion on Tuesday seeking a separate hearing, said the videotapes could well be relevant.

“If the government is relying on the statement of a witness under harsh interrogation, a videotape of the interrogation would be very relevant,” said Mr. Hafetz, of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school.

In addition to the Guantánamo court filings, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal judge to hold the C.I.A. in contempt of court for destroying the tapes. The A.C.L.U. says the destruction violated orders in a Freedom of Information Act case brought by several advocacy groups seeking materials related to detention and interrogation.

dMole
12-19-2007, 12:15 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/19/cia.tapes.ap/index.html?iref=topnews

Newspaper: Gonzales in on tape destruction talks



Story Highlights
New York Times reports White House lawyers discussed action with CIA
Former attorney general was administration counsel at the time
Harriet Miers and Cheney's chief of staff also named
Judge orders hearing on whether destruction violated court order
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Alberto Gonzales and other top White House lawyers took part in discussions about destroying CIA videotapes of interrogation of two al Qaeda suspects, the New York Times reported Tuesday night on its Web site.

At least four top White House lawyers discussed the issue with the CIA between 2003 and 2005, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials the newspaper did not identify.

Gonzales, the former attorney general who served as White House counsel until early 2005, was among those who took part, the officials said.

Also involved, according to the Times' sources, were David Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet Miers, who succeeded Gonzales (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Alberto_Gonzales) as White House counsel.

One former senior intelligence official told the Times there had been "vigorous sentiment" among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes.

Other officials asserted that no one at the White House advocated destroying the tapes, the newspaper said. Those officials added that no White House lawyer gave a direct order to preserve the tapes or advised that destroying them would be illegal.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy on Tuesday ordered Justice Department lawyers to appear before him at 11 a.m. Friday to discuss whether destroying the tapes, which showed two al Qaeda (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Al_Qaeda) suspects being questioned, violated a court order.

The Justice Department has urged Congress and the courts to back off, saying its investigators need time to complete their inquiry. Government attorneys say the courts don't have the authority to get involved in the matter and could jeopardize the case.

For now, at least, Kennedy disagreed. Attorneys in unrelated cases, meanwhile, began pressing other judges to demand information about the tapes.

In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

The Justice Department argued that the videos weren't covered by the order because the two men were being held in secret CIA (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Central_Intelligence_Agency) prisons overseas, not at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

David Remes, a lawyer who represents Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, said the government was obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.

"We want more than just the government's assurances. The government has given these assurances in the past and they've proven unreliable," Remes said. "The recent revelation of the CIA tape destruction indicates that the government cannot be trusted to preserve evidence."

Kennedy did not say why he was ordering the hearing or what he planned to ask. Even if the judge accepts the argument that the government did not violate his order, he still could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Also Tuesday, lawyers for a man convicted of terrorism charges alongside Jose Padilla asked a federal judge in Miami to force the government to turn over any remaining evidence regarding Zubaydah's interrogation.

Prosecutors have acknowledged that Zubaydah provided information identifying Padilla as an al Qaeda operative working on a purported "dirty bomb" plot, leading to his May 2002 arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Lawyer Ken Swartz said information about his client, convicted terrorism supporter Adham Amin Hassoun, might be found in those interrogations.

In a third case, this one involving another Guantanamo Bay detainee, attorney Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice asked U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington to schedule a hearing. Kessler's order, filed in July 2005, is almost identical to Kennedy's, and Hafetz says he worries key evidence was destroyed.

The Justice Department had no comment on Kennedy's decision to hold a hearing. Its lawyers are working with the CIA to investigate the destruction of the tapes and urged Kennedy to give them space and time to let them investigate.

Remes had urged Kennedy not to comply.

"Plainly the government wants only foxes guarding this henhouse," Remes wrote in court documents this week.

The Bush administration has taken a similar strategy in its dealings with Congress on the issue. Last week, the Justice Department urged lawmakers to hold off on questioning witnesses and demanding documents because that evidence is part of a joint CIA-Justice Department investigation.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey also refused to give Congress details of the government's investigation into the matter Friday, saying doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure.

Gold9472
12-20-2007, 08:09 AM
New York Times Agrees to Story Correction on White House Role in Destroyed CIA Tapes

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317445,00.html

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — The New York Times Wednesday issued a statement agreeing to correct a story it ran earlier in the day suggesting the White House was well involved in the discussions about whether to destroy CIA tapes showing interrogation methods of two Al Qaeda terrorists.

The decision to run a correction online and in the print edition of Thursday's paper was based on the subheadline of the story.

"The White House has not challenged the contents of our story, but it questioned the precision of the second deck of our headline: 'White House Role Was Wider Than It Said,'" reads the statement by the paper. "While Bush administration officials have discussed the White House role in the tapes episode (asserting, for example, that Harriet Miers opposed the destruction of the tapes) 'the White House' has not officially said anything on the subject."

The slight movement in the newspaper's position came after White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called for a correction to the story that suggested top White House lawyers were more involved than previously acknowledged in discussions over what to do with the tapes before they were destroyed in 2005.

Perino issued a statement calling for the correction to the story subheadline, seen in Times print editions. She told reporters that the newspaper's editors informed her that they agreed to retract the headline and run a correction.

"Well, it says, 'The White House role was wider than it said,' implying that I had either changed my story, or I or somebody else at the White House had misled the public. And that is not true," Perino said during Wednesday's press briefing.

The Times story — published Tuesday night on its Web site and in Wednesday's print editions — says that the lawyers involved in the CIA tape discussions included Miers, the former White House counsels Miers and Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and John Bellinger, some of the Bush administration's most powerful current and former legal advisers.

The Times cited unnamed current and former administration and intelligence officials, reporting, "The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged."

The Times writes that one former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter "said there had been 'vigorous sentiment' among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes."

While other officials told The Times "no one at the White House advocated destroying the tapes ... [H]owever, that no White House lawyer gave a direct order to preserve the tapes or advised that destroying them would be illegal."

In addition to calling for a correction to the headline, Perino's statement Wednesday called the story "pernicious and troubling."

"The New York Times today implies that the White House has been misleading in publicly acknowledging or discussing details related to the CIA's decision to destroy interrogation tapes," Perino said.

But she said that couldn't be the case because the White House has been under strict orders not to comment publicly.

"Under direction from the White House General Counsel while the Department of Justice and the CIA Inspector General conduct a preliminary inquiry, we have not publicly commented on facts relating to this issue, except to note President Bush's immediate reaction upon being briefed on the matter.

"Furthermore, we have not described — neither to highlight, nor to minimize — the role or deliberations of White House officials in this matter.

"The New York Times' inference that there is an effort to mislead in this matter is pernicious and troubling, and we are formally requesting that New York Times correct the sub-headline of this story."

Perino provided a number of examples in press briefings with President Bush, herself and White House spokesman Tony Fratto declining to comment on the matter.

In one briefing on Dec. 10, a reporter asked Perino if Miers knew about the CIA tapes and whether she asked the CIA not to destroy them, which some reports have indicated.

"No. No. It's going to unfortunately be one of those briefings — I'm not able to comment on anything regarding that, except for what I said on Friday," Perino replied, "which is now, and since then, the Justice Department and the CIA have started a preliminary inquiry. We are supportive of that. We are in the fact-gathering stage, and we are providing them information. So beyond that I am not able to comment or characterize."

This latest news follows Tuesday's ruling by a federal district court judge who ordered the administration to appear in court Friday to answer questions over whether it violated a 2005 order the judge issued to preserve records related to detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy on Tuesday ordered Justice Department lawyers to appear before him Friday at 11 a.m. The Justice Department has urged Congress and the courts to back off, saying its investigators need time to complete their inquiry. Government attorneys say the courts do not have the authority to get involved in the matter and could jeopardize the case.

For now, at least, Kennedy disagreed. Attorneys in unrelated cases, meanwhile, began pressing other judges to demand information about the tapes.

In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Justice Department argued that the videos were not covered by the order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas, not at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Gold9472
12-20-2007, 07:28 PM
House Judiciary witness: Destroyed CIA tapes are 'ultimate cover-up'

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Witness_tells_House_Judiciary_destroyed_tapes_1220 .html

David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Thursday December 20, 2007

The CIA's official explanation for destroying at least two videotapes depicting severe interrogation techniques "fails the straight-face test," an expert witness told the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

In a hearing focused on the Justice Department's role in the tapes' destruction and the legality of torture tactics, George Washington University Law School professor Stephen Saltzburg heavily rebuked CIA reasoning that the decision was made in part to protect the identify of interrogators.

"The rationale for destroying the tapes to protect the identity of the interrogators is almost as embarrassing as the destruction itself," said Saltzburg, who is also general counsel for the National Institute of Military Justice. He said that the tapes could easily have been modified to obscure the faces of those involved, and that regardless, the CIA keeps a written record of which officers interrogated detainees.

"And so the explanation for destruction fails the straight-face test," he said. "The only plausible explanation, I believe, is that the CIA wanted to assure that those tapes would never be seen by any judicial tribunal -- not even a military commission -- and they would never be seen by a committee of Congress."

Continued Saltzburg, "With [the CIA tapes] gone, we have the ultimate cover-up. The indisputable evidence no longer exists, and memories will undoubtedly differ about what happened."

He also chided Congress for not choosing to rein in CIA practices.

"It's vitally important for this Congress to recognize that it's part of the interrogation process," he said. "This Congress decided not to restrict the CIA, at least not explicitly. And it decided not to confine the CIA to interrogation techniques that are contained in the Army Field Manual."

A representative from the Justice Department was invited to testify before the committee, but was not present at the hearing.

Another hearing witness, former CIA general counsel and DOJ prosecutor John Radsan, was pressed by committee member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) as to whether interrogators resorting to torture could be prosecuted criminally if a legal definition of the practice could be agreed upon.

"If the tapes clearly depict torture," said Scott,"let's kind of think who could be guilty of a criminal offense."

Responded Radsan, "If we agree that the conduct on those tapes [is torture], that person who did the conduct is guilty...that's for sure." He offered the same analysis for those authorizing torture.

In statements before witnesses were called, Democratic committee members also admonished the White House for its alleged role, as reported by the New York Times, in participating in discussions about the tapes with the CIA.

"It is important that we investigate these allegations carefully," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), "because if true, we may be facing the possibility of a dangerous and criminal abuse of powers at the highest levels of our government."

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) called on the US to take a moral stand on the issue of torture , and said the country should separate itself from other nations engaging in the practice.

"This government has to be based on truth and transparency, and it certainly must be based on security, the protection of America," she said. "But the United States does not make those practices of violating the law, violating the Constitution, violating the international convention on torture -- it must not make that the norm...therefore we must not draw to the practices of foreign dictators, but we must stand alone as a beacon of light shining around the world to ensure the principles of freedom and equality and justice reign strong in this nation."

This video is from CNN.com, broadcast on December 20, 2007.

Video At Source

Gold9472
12-20-2007, 07:30 PM
Bush: My answer on when I learned about CIA tape destruction 'sounds pretty clear to me'

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Bush_My_answer_on_when_I_1220.html

Published: Thursday December 20, 2007

At his year-end press conference, President Bush spoke on the economy, but the very first question after his opening remarks was about the ongoing CIA tape destruction controversy.

Bush complained that Congress had stuffed a year-end spending bill with hundreds of projects that he called wasteful and instructed his budget director to explore options for dealing with them. He said he will ask his budget director to review options for eliminating spending he considers wasteful in the half-trillion dollar spending bill that Congress just passed.

The president did praise Congress for sending him "a spending bill to fund the day to day operations of the federal government. They passed this bill without raising taxes." But he complained that the measure was done so late in the year that it could slow the processing of tax returns to millions of Americans.

He said his administration would "work hard to minimize" such a delay.

The president got a little testy when a reporter asked him for more details on when he first learned about his administration's destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.

"It sounds pretty clear to me when I say the first recollection is when Mike Hayden briefed me," Bush said. "It sounds pretty clear to me."

Bush said he will reserve judgment about the CIA tape affair until several inquiries are finished.

Later, in a question about the 2008 presidential race, Bush was asked about what qualities he thought a potential president should possess.

After a moment of reflection, he said that strong guiding principles and the willingness to call on frank assessments from advisers were key.

"What are the principles that you will stand on in good times and bad times? What will be the underpinning of your decisions? What will it be?" the president said he would ask current Oval Office seekers. "Because a president needs to be consistent, and a president needs to understand that what may look like a non-issue today could be a big issue tomorrow."

Taking a somber tone, Bush also said it was paramount that a president rely on honest advice.

"How do you intend to get advice from people you surround yourself with...and what process will you have in place to ensure that you get the unvarnished opinion of advisers?" he asked. "Because whoever sits in that Oval Office is going to find this is a complex world..."

Following the press conference, House Democratic Caucus chair Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) issued the following statement:

“In 2007, Congress brought change to Washington, but President Bush’s veto pen prevented the kind of significant change our country needs. Rather than usher in support for new sources of energy, the President’s veto pen prolonged our addiction to oil. Rather than give 10 million children the health care they deserve, the President’s veto pen left millions of kids uninsured. And rather than hold Iraqis accountable for Iraq, Bush’s veto pen ensured the American military and taxpayers continue to bear the cost of the war. 2008 can be a year of big change if President Bush joins us in preparing for the future, rather than defending the failed policies of the past.”

Gold9472
12-20-2007, 11:00 PM
Subpoena of CIA officials threatened
Justice Dept. action in tape destruction probe angers House panel chairman, who expects testimony from two top intelligence agency officials.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tapes20dec20,1,5221285.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true

By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 20, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, chafing at the Justice Department's handling of a probe into missing CIA interrogation tapes, threatened Wednesday to subpoena two top CIA officials to jump-start the panel's own investigation.

The department, which is conducting a criminal inquiry with the CIA inspector general into revelations that a CIA official destroyed videotapes of two terrorism suspects being interrogated in 2005, asked the panel last week to defer its inquiry.

Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) has called a hearing for Jan. 16. He said he expected testimony from both acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo and Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the agency's operations branch, who authorized destroying the tapes.

Congressional leaders are angry because, they say, the administration did not keep them fully informed about the tapes at a time when they were investigating coercive interrogation techniques used after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Seeking to defuse the growing controversy, the Justice Department said late Wednesday that it had never advised the CIA not to cooperate with the committee, and that it hoped both investigations would proceed through "consultation and coordination," Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.

Meanwhile, the deputy attorney general-designate told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that he would have counseled the CIA to preserve the tapes.

Mark Filip, a U.S. district judge in Chicago who has been nominated by Bush to be the department's second-ranking official, said at his confirmation hearing that he would make sure that the department was complying with any legal orders potentially covering the tapes.

"It might be the better practice to keep those in any event, given the interest in the subject matter that was on the tapes," he said.

A federal judge in Washington has set a Friday hearing to explore whether, in destroying the tapes, the U.S. violated an order he issued in a case concerning a group of alleged terrorists being detained at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison.

AuGmENTor
12-20-2007, 11:31 PM
Doesn't Bush just tell these people to ignore these things?

Gold9472
12-20-2007, 11:35 PM
Doesn't Bush just tell these people to ignore these things?

I believe so. Wasn't there someone recently the Bush White House told not go to testify even though they received a subpoena?

Here's one example...

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15905

Gold9472
12-21-2007, 11:25 AM
White House faces hearing on CIA tapes
Bush Administration Faces Court Hearing Over the Destruction of CIA Videotapes

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/White_House_faces_hearing_on_CIA_ta_12212007.html

MATT APUZZO
Dec 21, 2007 08:03 EST

The Bush administration has made its position clear in legal filings and now gets a chance to say it to a judge in open court: Hold off on inquiring about the destruction of CIA videotapes that showed suspected terrorists being interrogated.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy ordered the hearing Friday over the objection of the Justice Department after lawyers raised questions about the possibility that other evidence also might have been destroyed.

Kennedy, appointed to the trial court by President Clinton, is considering whether to delve into the matter and, if so, how deeply.

The hearing marked the first time that administration lawyers were to speak in public and under oath about the matter since the CIA disclosed this month it destroyed the tapes of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects.

Kennedy is presiding over a lawsuit by Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are challenging their detention. The judge had ordered the government not to destroy any evidence of mistreatment or abuse at the Navy base in Cuba.

Because the two suspects — Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — were being held overseas in secret CIA prisons, however, they are likely not covered by the order.

The tapes could be covered by a more general rule prohibiting the destruction of any evidence that could be relevant to a case. For example, if the tapes showed Zubaydah discussing any of the detainees in Kennedy's case, their destruction could have been prohibited.

Lawyers for both sides have filed classified documents regarding the tapes. That means there is a good chance Kennedy already knows whether the videos are relevant to his case.

If the judge believes the CIA destroyed the tapes to keep them from being used in court, he could side with the detainees' lawyers and order the government to disclose all the evidence it has collected, including any other evidence in addition to the tapes that has been destroyed.

He could order government officials to testify in court about the tapes, which were created in 2002 and destroyed in 2005.

The government has strongly urged against this move, saying it would disrupt a joint Justice Department-CIA investigation into the tapes. In court documents, acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey S. Bucholtz was concerned that Kennedy might order testimony that "could potentially complicate the ongoing efforts to arrive at a full factual understanding of the matter."

A congressional investigation is under way too. The CIA invited Capitol Hill investigators to the agency's Virginia headquarters Thursday to begin reviewing documents and records relating to the videotapes.

Kennedy could side with the Justice Department and agree there is no evidence the government acted improperly and, therefore, no reason to order anything else. Or he could say he lacks the authority to act because the videotapes were not related to his case.

Kennedy was as a federal prosecutor during the Nixon and Ford administrations until he was named a federal magistrate judge in 1976. President Carter appointed him to be a judge in the District of Columbia's courts and Clinton named him to the federal bench.

Gold9472
12-21-2007, 12:05 PM
Congress subpoenas ex-CIA official
Congressional Panel Subpoenas Ex-CIA Official Who Ordered Destruction of Interrogation Tapes

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Congress_subpoenas_ex_CIA_official_12202007.html

PAMELA HESS
Dec 20, 2007 20:19 EST

The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena Thursday for Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who directed that secret interrogation videotapes of two suspected terrorists be destroyed.

The panel ordered Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, to appear for a hearing on Jan. 16. Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Rodriguez "would like to tell his story but his counsel has advised us that a subpoena would be necessary."

The CIA cracked open its files to congressional investigators Thursday, inviting them to the agency's Virginia headquarters to begin reviewing documents and records related to the videotapes.

House Intelligence Committee staff members want to know who authorized the tapes' destruction; who in the CIA, Justice Department and White House knew about it and when, and why Congress was not fully informed. The committee, which had threatened to subpoena the records if they did not get access this week, also wants to know exactly what was shown on the tapes, which document the harsh interrogation of two al-Qaida suspects in 2002. The CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005.

"We learned we have a long way to go, that there are a number of people involved that we need to talk with," said a committee official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation of the tapes' destruction is ongoing. "Many in the executive branch will be called." The committee is still drawing up its list of witnesses to call.

President Bush declined to address the controversy, saying at a White House news conference Thursday he was confident that administration and congressional investigations "will end up enabling us all to find out what exactly happened." He repeated his assertion that his "first recollection" of being told about the tapes and their destruction was when CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed him on it earlier this month.

At the Justice Department, investigators were combing through CIA e-mails and other documents and planning to interview former agency officials. One official familiar with the investigation said the review so far indicates that Alberto Gonzales, who served as White House counsel and then attorney general, advised against destroying the videotapes as one of four senior Bush administration attorneys discussing how to handle them. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger, declined comment.

Another of the administration attorneys, John Bellinger, then a lawyer at the National Security Council, has told colleagues that administration lawyers came to a consensus that the tapes should not be destroyed, said a senior official familiar with Bellinger's account of the 2003 White House discussion. Bellinger could not be reached for comment.

"The clear recommendation of Bellinger and the others was against destruction of the tapes," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "The recommendation in 2003 from the White House was that the tapes should not be destroyed."

Exactly which White House officials and attorneys discussed the tapes' destruction and when, with whom, and what they recommended is still a matter of dispute, and one that Reyes hopes his investigation will settle.

Reyes plans to open his investigation with testimony from Rodriguez and acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo on Jan. 16.

The CIA has consented to allow Rizzo to testify, although it has not committed to a date. Rodriguez is represented by attorney Robert Bennett, who also once represented President Clinton, two former secretaries of defense and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Reyes also wants the CIA to make available CIA attorneys Steve Hermes, Robert Eatinger, Elizabeth Vogt and John McPherson to testify before the committee. Former CIA directors Porter Goss and George Tenet, former deputy director of operations James L. Pavitt and former general counsel Scott Muller are also on the list.

Muller, who headed the CIA's legal office from 2002 to 2004, advised agency officials against destroying the tapes, according to former government officials familiar with the situation who are not authorized to speak on the record.

Among the documents the House Intelligence Committee could see is a May 2004 memo Muller wrote recording details of a meeting with White House officials that occurred as the Bush administration was scrambling to deal with the unfolding Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. According to these officials, the White House raised the issue in that meeting and recommended the tapes be retained intact. Muller did not seek White House input in 2003 because he believed the issue had been decided within the agency, the officials said.

Reyes' panel rejected a Bush administration request that it defer its investigation until a preliminary inquiry being conducted the Justice Department and CIA inspector general is completed.

Reyes and the committee's top Republican, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, asked last week for immediate delivery of all documents, cables and records regarding the taping of detainee interrogations, as well as for testimony from Rizzo and Rodriguez at a planned Dec. 18 hearing. The officials did not come and the documents were not provided immediately.

Reyes said the Justice Department's letter requesting a delay in his investigation had chilled the CIA's willingness to comply with the committee's requests for information and witnesses.

Justice Department officials denied that, saying their letter did not specifically forbid the CIA to testify or provide documents, something the officials said they have no authority to do. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the letter.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, however, has refused to immediately provide details of the Justice Department's investigation to the congressional judiciary committees out of fear that could taint what may become a criminal case.

In a separate tug-of-war over who has jurisdiction to investigate the videotapes matter, a federal judge has summoned Justice Department lawyers to his courtroom Friday to determine whether the destruction of the tapes violated a court order to preserve evidence about detainees.

Gold9472
12-22-2007, 10:22 AM
9/11 Panel Study Finds That C.I.A. Withheld Tapes

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/washington/22intel.html?ex=1355979600&en=0a54e0f8a21e0478&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 22, 2007

WASHINGTON — A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.

The review was conducted earlier this month after the disclosure that in November 2005, the C.I.A. destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Qaeda operatives.

A seven-page memorandum prepared by Philip D. Zelikow, the panel’s former executive director, concluded that “further investigation is needed” to determine whether the C.I.A.’s withholding of the tapes from the commission violated federal law.

In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry.

Mr. Kean said the panel would provide the memorandum to the federal prosecutors and congressional investigators who are trying to determine whether the destruction of the tapes or withholding them from the courts and the commission was improper.

A C.I.A. spokesman said that the agency had been prepared to give the Sept. 11 commission the interrogation videotapes, but that commission staff members never specifically asked for interrogation videos.

The review by Mr. Zelikow does not assert that the commission specifically asked for videotapes, but it quotes from formal requests by the commission to the C.I.A. that sought “documents,” “reports” and “information” related to the interrogations.

Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey, said of the agency’s decision not to disclose the existence of the videotapes, “I don’t know whether that’s illegal or not, but it’s certainly wrong.” Mr. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said that the C.I.A. “clearly obstructed” the commission’s investigation.

A copy of the memorandum, dated Dec. 13, was obtained by The New York Times.

Among the statements that the memorandum suggests were misleading was an assertion made on June 29, 2004, by John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director of central intelligence, that the C.I.A. “has taken and completed all reasonable steps necessary to find the documents in its possession, custody or control responsive” to formal requests by the commission and “has produced or made available for review” all such documents.

Both Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton expressed anger after it was revealed this month that the tapes had been destroyed. However, the report by Mr. Zelikow gives them new evidence to buttress their views about the C.I.A.’s actions and is likely to put new pressure on the Bush administration over its handling of the matter. Mr. Zelikow served as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to the end of 2006.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. McLaughlin said that agency officials had always been candid with the commission, and that information from the C.I.A. proved central to their work.

“We weren’t playing games with them, and we weren’t holding anything back,” he said. The memorandum recounts a December 2003 meeting between Mr. Kean, Mr. Hamilton and George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence. At the meeting, it says, Mr. Hamilton told Mr. Tenet that the C.I.A. should provide all relevant documents “even if the commission had not specifically asked for them.”

According to the memorandum, Mr. Tenet responded by alluding to several documents that he thought would be helpful to the commission, but made no mention of existing videotapes of interrogations.

The memorandum does not draw any conclusions about whether the withholding of the videotapes was unlawful, but it notes that federal law penalizes anyone who “knowingly and willfully” withholds or “covers up” a “material fact” from a federal inquiry or makes “any materially false statement” to investigators.

Mark Mansfield, the C.I.A. spokesman, said that the agency had gone to “great lengths” to meet the commission’s requests, and that commission members had been provided with detailed information obtained from interrogations of agency detainees.

“Because it was thought the commission could ask about the tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active,” Mr. Mansfield said.

Intelligence officials have said the tapes that were destroyed documented hundreds of hours of interrogations during 2002 of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, two Qaeda suspects who were taken into C.I.A. custody that year.

According to the memorandum from Mr. Zelikow, the commission’s interest in obtaining accounts from Qaeda detainees in C.I.A. custody grew out of its attempt to reconstruct the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Its requests for documents from the C.I.A. began in June 2003, when it first sought intelligence reports describing information obtained from prisoner interrogations, the memorandum said. It later made specific requests for documents, reports and information related to the interrogations of specific prisoners, including Abu Zubaydah and Mr. Nashiri.

In December 2003, the commission staff sought permission to interview the prisoners themselves, but was permitted instead to give questions to C.I.A. interrogators, who then posed the questions to the detainees. The commission concluded its work in June 2004, and in its final report, it praised several agencies, including the C.I.A., for their assistance.

Abbe D. Lowell, a veteran Washington lawyer who has defended clients accused of making false statements and of contempt of Congress, said the question of whether the agency had broken the law by omitting mention of the videotapes was “pretty complex,” but said he “wouldn’t rule it out.”

Because the requests were not subpoenas issued by a court or Congress, C.I.A. officials could not be held in contempt for failing to respond fully, Mr. Lowell said. Apart from that, however, it is a crime to make a false statement "in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative or judicial branch."

The Sept. 11 commission received its authority from both the White House and Congress.

On Friday, the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, asking them to preserve and produce to the committee all remaining video and audio recordings of “enhanced interrogations” of detainees in American custody.

Signed by Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, the letter asked for an extensive search of the White House, C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies to determine whether any other recordings existed of interrogation techniques “including but not limited to waterboarding.”

Government officials have said that the videos destroyed in 2005 were the only recordings of interrogations made by C.I.A. operatives, although in September government lawyers notified a federal judge in Virginia that the agency had recently found three audio and video recordings of detainees.

Intelligence officials have said that those tapes were not made by the C.I.A., but by foreign intelligence services.

Gold9472
12-22-2007, 10:25 AM
As I said on 12/6/2007 (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90181&postcount=4), it's "almost as if they were trying to make the CIA the scapegoat."

Gold9472
12-22-2007, 10:31 AM
Or the 9/11 Commission is using this opportunity to make themselves seem "legitimate."

AuGmENTor
12-22-2007, 11:07 AM
Or the 9/11 Commission is using this opportunity to make themselves seem "legitimate."Are they still a commission? I thought when their report was complete that was it for them.

Gold9472
12-22-2007, 11:27 AM
No. They're no longer a Commission.

simuvac
12-22-2007, 12:35 PM
As I said on 12/6/2007 (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90181&postcount=4), it's "almost as if they were trying to make the CIA the scapegoat."

I agree. The CIA is a convenient black hole into which history can disappear and never be unclassified.

Gold9472
12-22-2007, 08:20 PM
CIA obstructed 9/11 investigators: report

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRx3mY9Xe-LTr00K3qhCEZbY9dYA

5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The CIA obstructed an official US commission investigating the September 11 attacks by withholding tapes of interrogations of Al-Qaeda operatives, according to former panel members quoted in a report on Saturday.

A review of documents by former members of the 9/11 commission revealed the panel made repeated, detailed requests to the spy agency in 2003 and 2004 for information about the interrogation of members of the extremist network but were never notified of the tapes, the New York Times reported.

The review of the commission's correspondence with the Central Intelligence Agency came after the agency earlier this month revealed it had destroyed videotapes in 2005 that showed harsh interrogations of two Al-Qaeda members.

The review, written up in a memo prepared by Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the 9/11 commission, said that "further investigation is needed" to resolve whether the CIA's failure to hand over the tapes violated federal law.

The memorandum does not assert that withholding the tapes was illegal but states that federal law penalizes anyone who "knowingly and wilfully" withholds or "covers up" a "material fact" from a federal inquiry, the newspaper said.

The revelation adds to pressure on President George W. Bush's administration, already under fire over the affair by human rights groups and lawmakers who allege it has tried to cover up proof of torture.

The CIA responded that the panel never specifically asked for interrogation videos.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield told AFP the agency had gone to "great lengths" to satisfy the panel's requests, and that commission members had been provided with details from interrogations of detainees.

"The 9/11 Commission certainly had access to, and drew from, detailed information that had been provided by terrorist detainees. That's how they reconstructed the plot in their comprehensive report," he said.

"Because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active."

The two chairs of the commission, former Democratic lawmaker Lee Hamilton and former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, told the newspaper the review showed the CIA had actively tried to obstruct the panel's work.

Kean said the panel would give the memorandum to federal officials and lawmakers in Congress who are investigating the destruction of the tapes. Hamilton said the CIA "clearly obstructed" the panel's probe.

According to the memo posted on the New York Times' website, the commission was interested in interrogations of Al-Qaeda members because it was trying to reconstruct the events leading up to the attacks of September 11, 2001, on New York and Washington.

The commission made initial general requests for intelligence information from interrogations, including the two detainees on the destroyed videotapes, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rashim al-Nashiri, said the memorandum.

It followed up with more requests for "very detailed information" about the context of the interrogations, the credibility of statements from detainees, the quality of language translation and other issues.

"The commission was dissatisfied with the answers it received to these questions," the memorandum said.

None of the officials who communicated with the panel ever revealed the existence of the videotapes, it said.

The CIA spokesman cited public comments about cooperation from the CIA made by the 9/11 Commission, which said "the CIA provided great assistance."

"The CIA has cooperated fully in making available both the documents and interviews that we have needed so far on this topic," it said.

"As Director (CIA Director Michael) Hayden pointed out in his December 6th statement, the tapes were destroyed only when it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries," Mansfield added.

A senior intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that news stories about interrogation techniques had already appeared when the commission made its final report.

"If the commission had wanted to make an issue of how the information was obtained from the detainees as opposed to what was learned from them, they had an opportunity to do so at the time," the official said. "They didn't do that."

Gold9472
12-22-2007, 08:21 PM
CIA spokesman says agency cooperated with 9/11 panel

http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=7534075&nav=menu32_2

Associated Press - December 22, 2007 2:23 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA is responding to suggestions that it hid interrogation videotapes from the 9/11 commission.

An agency spokesman says the CIA cooperated with the panel, and that the agency's assistance was what allowed the panel to reconstruct the 9/11 plot for its report.

A recent memo from a former official on the panel suggests the CIA was less than forthcoming when asked for documents and other information in the 9/11 investigation.

The spokesman says the taped interrogations of terror suspects weren't destroyed while the commission was still active because it was thought that the commission could ask about them at some point.

He says the CIA didn't destroy the tapes until the panel wrapped up its probe into the terror attack.

Gold9472
12-23-2007, 08:57 PM
CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3087293.ece

Sarah Baxter
12/23/2007

THE CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.

Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, is determined not to become the fall guy in the controversy over the CIA’s use of torture, according to intelligence sources.

It has emerged that at least four White House staff were approached for advice about the tapes, including David Addington, a senior aide to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, but none has admitted to recommending their destruction.

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, said it was impossible for Rodriguez to have acted on his own: “If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez – one of the most cautious men I have ever met – have gone ahead and destroyed them?”

The tapes recorded the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two suspected Al-Qaeda leaders, over hundreds of hours while they were held in secret “ghost” prisons. According to testimony from a former CIA officer, Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning, and “broke” after 35 seconds. He is believed to have been interrogated in Thailand. The tapes were destroyed in 2005. Both men are now held in Guantanamo Bay.

The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed Rodriguez to appear for a hearing on January 16. Last week the CIA began opening its files to congressional investigators. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat who is chairing the committee, has said he was “not looking for scapegoats” – a hint to Rodriguez that he would like him to talk.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer, believes the scandal could reach deep into the White House. “The CIA and Jose Rodriguez look bad, but he’s probably the least culpable person in the process. He didn’t wake up one day and decide, ‘I’m going to destroy these tapes.’ He checked with a lot of people and eventually he is going to get his say.”

Johnson says Rodriguez got his fingers burnt during the Iran-contra scandal while working for the CIA in Latin America in the 1980s. Even then he sought authorisation from senior officials. But when summoned to the FBI for questioning, he was told Iran-contra was “political – get your own lawyer”.

He learnt his lesson and recently appointed Robert Bennett, one of Washington’s most skilled lawyers, to handle the case of the destroyed interrogation tapes. “He has been starting to get his story out and was smart to get Bennett,” said Johnson.

The Justice Department has launched its own inquiry into the destruction of the tapes. It emerged yesterday that the CIA had misled members of the 9-11 Commission by not disclosing the existence of the tapes, in potential violation of the law. President George W Bush said last week he could not recall learning about the tapes before being briefed about them on December 6 by Michael Hayden, the CIA director.

“It looks increasingly as though the decision was made by the White House,” said Johnson. He believes it is “highly likely” that Bush saw one of the videos, as he was interested in Zubaydah’s case and received frequent updates on his interrogation from George Tenet, the CIA director at the time.

It has emerged that the CIA did preserve two videotapes and an audiotape of detainee interrogations conducted by a foreign government, which may have been relevant to the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Al-Qaeda conspirator.

The CIA told a federal judge in 2003 that no such recordings existed but has now retracted that testimony. One of the tapes could show the interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, a September 11 conspirator, who was allegedly handed to Jordan for questioning.

Gold9472
12-23-2007, 09:03 PM
http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4224

Gold9472
12-24-2007, 08:36 AM
Wagons circled at CIA over tapes' demise
The clandestine branch has a fierce instinct for protecting the agency's interests and a reputation for undermining directors perceived as hostile.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia24dec24,1,3403545.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&track=crosspromo

By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 24, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Shortly after he arrived as CIA director in 2004, Porter J. Goss met with the agency's top spies and general counsel to discuss a range of issues, including what to do with videotapes showing harsh interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

"Getting rid of tapes in Washington," Goss said, according to an official involved in the discussions, "is an extremely bad idea."

But at the agency's operational levels -- especially within the branch that ran the network of secret prisons -- the idea of holding on to the tapes and hoping their existence would never be leaked to the public seemed even worse.

Citing what CIA veterans regard as a long record of being stranded by politicians in times of scandal, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the decision to destroy the tapes was driven by a determination among senior spies to guard against a repeat of that outcome.

The order to destroy the recordings came from Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then-head of the CIA's clandestine service, which deploys spies overseas and carries out covert operations.

The service has been blamed for botched operations and spy scandals for decades, from the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba through failures leading up to the Iraq war. It is one of the agency's three main divisions; the others are devoted to analysis and to development of espionage science and technology.

But the clandestine service has long been the most influential branch in the agency. It has a reputation for undermining directors perceived as hostile to the service -- including Goss -- and has developed a fierce instinct for protecting the agency's interests.

The clandestine service "is almost tribal in nature," said a former senior CIA official familiar with the discussions on the tapes. "They believe that no one else will look out for them so they have to look out for themselves."

That culture, current and former intelligence officials said, helps to explain why Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed despite cautions against doing so from senior lawmakers, White House attorneys and the agency's director.

It may also account for why Rodriguez was not punished or fired after that decision was disclosed. Rodriguez is now in the CIA's retirement program and is expected to leave the agency in the coming months. His successor at the clandestine service remains undercover.

Current and former officials close to Rodriguez said he issued the order largely out of a sense of obligation to undercover officers whose identities would have been exposed if the tapes were to surface. Like others interviewed for this article, the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of ongoing investigations and the sensitivity of the subject.

Even with the possibility of criminal charges looming, some CIA veterans who worked with Rodriguez said destroying the tapes was the honorable course at an agency that reveres leaders who protect spies and guard agency secrets.

"This boiled down to an issue of who had the responsibility to protect our officers' identities," said a former U.S. intelligence official involved in discussions on the tapes. "That fell to Jose, and he did the right thing."

The tapes were considered explosive because they included footage of CIA interrogators using rough interrogation tactics on Al Qaeda captives. One of the methods videotaped was waterboarding, which simulates the sensation of drowning and has been condemned by human rights organizations and critics in Congress as a form of torture.

The CIA has maintained that all of its interrogation methods were lawful and approved in advance by the Justice Department. The agency has also defended its handling of the tapes.

Tapes 'not relevant'
In a memo to employees this month, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said the recordings were destroyed "only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries."

However, the Sept. 11 commission, which examined U.S. intelligence lapses before the 2001 terrorist attacks, had asked the CIA for all relevant materials related to the plot as part of its inquiry. After news of the tapes became public, 9/11 panel members said they should have been given access to the tapes. Several attorneys representing terrorism suspects also have said they requested similar materials from the CIA.

Even so, the Justice Department and two congressional committees have launched investigations into the matter. The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena last week to compel Rodriguez to testify before the panel next month.

From the outset of the program, CIA officials feared that their role in running the secret prisons would leave them vulnerable if the political climate shifted.

In his memoir published in April, former CIA Director George J. Tenet wrote: "We knew that, like almost everything else in Washington, the program would eventually be leaked, and our agency and its people would be inaccurately portrayed in the worst possible light."

The tapes, which were made in 2002, were kept for three years in overseas vaults where secret CIA detention facilities were located. During that period, there were numerous debates within the agency and with lawmakers and officials at the White House, over whether to destroy them.

The issue became more urgent in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, which inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment abroad and prompted new laws in the United States governing the treatment of detainees. In the CIA, there was growing concern that the interrogation tapes might be leaked to the media or dragged into public view by a court or congressional inquiry.

Fear of leak
There was widespread concern that "something as explosive as this would probably get out," said the former U.S. intelligence official who was involved in discussions on the tapes.

The issue of what to do with the tapes pitted lawmakers and political appointees concerned with potential legal and political fallout against career CIA officers concerned about protecting their subordinates.

In his statement, Hayden said the agency feared that officers on the tapes might have their cover blown and face retaliation by members of Al Qaeda. Other officials said there was also concern that the tapes could put the officers in legal jeopardy.

The CIA's clandestine service is sometimes portrayed as a rogue element within the agency. But current and former officials said it is in many ways a cautious institution that is careful to secure White House authorization and legal cover before accepting potentially controversial assignments.

"If you don't sit in on their meetings, it is hard to appreciate the caution that underlies most of their decisions," said Mark Lowenthal, a former senior aide to Tenet. "The mythology of a bunch of rambunctious cowboys just isn't who they are."

Officials who worked with Rodriguez said that he was never ordered by Goss or any other official to keep the tapes, and that he had obtained advice from agency lawyers saying there was no legal requirement to preserve them.

Former officials said Goss and other CIA leaders were stunned when Rodriguez informed them in November 2005 that the tapes had been destroyed. But Goss did not reprimand or fire Rodriguez, the former officials said, largely because the director, who had previously been bruised by battles with the clandestine service, did not feel he could afford another fight.

Series of resignations
Goss had been sharply critical of the clandestine service while in Congress and came to the agency promising sweeping changes. But within months of his arrival, a series of CIA veterans -- including three top officers in the clandestine service -- resigned in protest of Goss' leadership.

By the time the tapes were destroyed, "they weren't in the business of listening to him," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who observed the friction first-hand.

Rodriguez had been Goss' pick to lead the clandestine service. Pushing him aside after the tapes were destroyed would have meant another embarrassing departure from the agency's senior spy ranks.

"In light of the blood bath that occurred the year before, Porter had no political support on the Hill or the White House to bring this under control," said the former official. "There would have been another blood-letting in the press."

Goss is one of several CIA directors whose tenures were marred if not abbreviated by tangles with the clandestine service. John Deutch, who led the agency in the 1990s and expressed disdain for the spy ranks, was another.

Directors who have cultivated close ties to the clandestine service have tended to hold their jobs longer. Perhaps the most revered director in agency history was Richard Helms, who was convicted of lying to Congress for refusing to disclose secrets about CIA operations in Chile in the 1970s.

Goss was forced out of his job six months after the tapes were destroyed and was succeeded by Hayden, who has made a series of steps to align himself with the clandestine service.

As one of his first moves, Hayden brought back officials who had resigned under Goss to run the service. Hayden also launched an investigation of the CIA's inspector general after spies said they had been unfairly treated by the inspector during internal investigations. That probe has been completed, and, as a result, the agency plans to make changes in the way it conducts internal investigations, intelligence officials said.

Hayden has sought to distance himself from the tapes controversy, stressing in public statements that the decisions to make the tapes and destroy them occurred before he arrived at the agency.

Even so, Hayden has defended the interrogations program as a carefully supervised effort that has saved lives and disrupted terrorist plots. "If the story of these tapes is told fairly," Hayden said in his statement, "it will underscore those facts."

Gold9472
12-24-2007, 11:29 AM
9/11 Commission chair: 'No question' CIA knew we wanted tapes

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/911_commissioner_No_doubt_we_asked_1224.html

David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Monday December 24, 2007

There is "no question" the CIA was aware that its now-destroyed videotapes depicting severe interrogations were among evidence being sought by 9/11 Commission investigators, says the commission's chairman Thomas Kean.

Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, told CNN's John Roberts that the 9/11 Commission had actively sought all of the spy agency's information about detainees with suspected links to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"I'm not a lawyer and I'm not sure if they broke the law or not but what they did do, I think, is try to impede our investigation," said Kean. "Because we asked for...anything to do with those detainees, because they were the ones who knew most about the plot of 9/11 and that was our mandate."

He sharply dismissed the agency's continued insistence that the tapes were not specifically requested by the commission.

"They can parse their words all they want," he continued. "We asked for every single thing that they had, and then my vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, looked the director of the CIA in the face and said, 'look, even if we haven't asked for something, if it's pertinent to our investigation, make it available to us.' And our staff asked again and again of their staff and the tapes were not given to us. So there was no question."

Asked about comments from former acting CIA director John McLaughlin, who previously told CNN that the tapes did not include any information relevant to the 9/11 Commission's inquiry, Kean was skeptical.

"It's hard to tell, because the tapes have been destroyed," he said, "But we should have seen them and made that determination ourselves. I mean no, question that we again and again and again asked for everything, and we needed it, and we weren't given it, and so the only conclusion we can draw is it was withheld from us, and that can only be seen to me as an attempt to impede our investigation."

Kean added that he was prepared to aid investigations into the destroyed tapes in any way he could -- and would testify before Congress if necessary.

"Our staff has gone back to the congressional records and congressional library and looked at all the records," he said. "We can make them available to the congress or any other investigating committee...Anybody who needs me in any way I'm available."

This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast on December 24, 2007.

Video At Source

Gold9472
12-24-2007, 12:39 PM
CIA Says It Cooperated With 9/11 Panel
CIA Rebuts Suggestions It Did Not Cooperate With 9/11 Commission Investigation

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4047491

12/24/2007

The CIA on Saturday rebutted suggestions the spy agency was uncooperative and hid from the Sept. 11 commission the videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists, saying it waited until the panel went out of business before destroying the material now in question.

The destruction in late 2005 of the videotapes of two al-Qaida suspects has upset a federal judge and riled the Democratic-controlled Congress, which has promised an investigation. The Justice Department also is trying to find out what happened and whether any laws were broken.

A recent memo by Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, suggests the CIA was less than forthcoming when asked for documents and other information from the panel, which investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The CIA disputed that characterization and suggested the panel should have requested interrogation videotapes specifically if it wanted them.

"The notion that the CIA wasn't cooperative or forthcoming with the 9/11 commission is just plain wrong. It is utterly without foundation," spokesman Mark Mansfield said Saturday. "The CIA's cooperation and assistance is what enabled the 9/11 commission to reconstruct the plot in their very comprehensive report."

In a statement e-mailed separately Saturday, Mansfield suggested the commission should have been specific about wanting videotapes.

"Because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active," he said. Mansfield, citing similar comments this month by CIA Director Michael Hayden, added that "the tapes were destroyed only when it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries."

Zelikow's seven-page memo, dated Dec. 13, reviews the commission's requests for information from the CIA.

It cites a Jan. 26, 2004, meeting of commission members and administration officials, including then-CIA Director George Tenet, at which the government offered to present written questions to the detainees and relay their answers back to the commission.

"None of the government officials in any of these 2004 meetings alluded to the existence of recordings of interrogations or any further information in the government's possession that was relevant to the commission's requests," Zelikow wrote.

Near the end of the commission's work, and in response to a request by the commission to all agencies, John McLaughlin, then the deputy CIA director, confirmed on June 29, 2004, that the CIA had "taken and completed all reasonable steps necessary to find the documents in its possession, custody or control responsive" to the commission's formal requests and "has produced or made available for review" all such documents, the memo said.

The existence of Zelikow's memo was first reported by The New York Times.

Gold9472
12-25-2007, 11:33 AM
I don't know if anyone's read it, but here's Zelkow's memo (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20071222-INTEL-MEMO.pdf).

He references "Document Request No. 4", and "Document Request No. 37".

As we've heard several times from the 9/11 Families, the "document requests" meant absolutely nothing to the agencies that received them, and more often than not, were ignored (as was the case with the two Zelikow mentioned).

What they should have done was use their power of subpoena that the families fought hard for them to get.

For a Commission that was mandated to give a "full and complete accounting (http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/about/faq.htm#q1)" to make something like document requests "general policy (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01EFDF1031F935A15753C1A9659C8B 63)" (according to Kean) when they had the ability to subpoena is absurd, and shows how "thorough" the investigation really was.

Gold9472
12-25-2007, 11:53 AM
:) Regarding what I just wrote above, apparently I wasn't the only one to notice it. :)

Watch the New York Times in the next couple of days for a letter to be posted.

Gold9472
12-25-2007, 10:01 PM
CIA: rogue or victim in tapes flap?
Republicans step up attacks on agency, while Democrats point to the White House as the culprit.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1226/p03s06-usju.html

By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the December 26, 2007 edition

Washington - The Central Intelligence Agency: rogue agency or fall guy?

That's the question now arising in Washington in regards to the agency's destruction of the videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists.

Some Republicans feel the CIA's actions in recent months have shown that it is acting on its own, perhaps to the point of subverting administration policies. The shredding of the tapes is but one piece of evidence here, they say. Another may be the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, which they believe contained inappropriate policy recommendations about engagement with Tehran.

But others in Washington, including many Democrats, don't believe that Langley's actions are that uncontrolled. White House lawyers consulted with the CIA before the interrogation tapes were destroyed, they point out. At the least, the administration had the opportunity to order the tapes' preservation, they say.

Congress seems set to proceed with its own tape investigations. But the holiday break means it will be weeks before lawmakers get to work.

"Congress is out of the loop now," says Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. "Maybe at this point the first crack at finding out what happened does really fall to the internal investigations of the CIA and Justice Department."

Tension between the nation's largest intelligence agency and the White House are a common occurrence. But the relations between the Bush administration and Langley at times have been particularly strained.

Partly, that is a reflection of the times. The unconventional nature of the worldwide struggle with extremist Islamists puts a high priority on intelligence – yet terrorist networks are particularly hard to penetrate. In the wake of Sept. 11, the CIA signaled it felt unfairly singled out for a failure to predict Al Qaeda's actions.

It is also partly due to the fact that some employees in the CIA feel the administration has politicized some intelligence findings, from pushing for evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, to adopting a bellicose position vis-^-vis Iran.

On the matter of the destruction of the videotapes of the interrogation of CIA detainees, outrage in Washington has been something of a bipartisan affair. But some Republican and Democratic lawmakers do have differing narratives for what they believe may have occurred.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R) of Michigan, the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, for days has complained that CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden has given misleading statements about what happened to the tapes when they were destroyed in 2005. Nor has General Hayden fully explained why the CIA felt it could do what it did, according to Representative Hoekstra.

The GOP lawmaker has charged that the CIA has become incompetent, arrogant, and political. "You've got a systemic problem here," he said in a broadcast interview.

Hoekstra went even further in an interview with columnist Robert Novak published in many papers on Dec. 24. The lawmaker noted that many in the GOP were upset with the recent NIE on Iran, in which the intelligence community reversed course and highlighted its conclusion that Tehran has suspended work on a nuclear weapon.

Intelligence agencies are supposed to be dispassionate dispensers of what they believe to be facts, but the NIE contained language urging talks and other engagement with Iran, Hoekstra noted. Others have also complained that the document did not place Iran's actions in the proper context. Tehran continues to work on uranium enrichment technology, saying it is for civilian power purposes, they point out. Yet learning how to enrich uranium is the most difficult step in assembling a weapons program.

The CIA "is acting as though it is autonomous, not accountable to anyone," Hoekstra told Novak.

But CIA veterans have long felt that the White House – whomever is in power – is prone to use the agency as a convenient scapegoat.

And some Democrats believe that the destruction of the tapes is an effort, not only to protect the interrogators involved, but the officials above them who ordered the use of harsh questioning techniques, including waterboarding, on the suspects in question.

The CIA official who ordered the destruction, former clandestine service chief Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., has not been disciplined or admonished, and remains at the agency, though he is on a retirement track and will leave in several months.

The White House was aware of the tapes' existence and the fact that the CIA was interested in getting rid of them, long before their destruction occurred, some Democrats point out. Among those who reportedly knew where David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief counsel; Alberto Gonzales, who was then White House counsel; and John Bellinger, a lawyer at the National Security Council. What did these administration lawyers tell the agency, and when did they say it? News reports have said the trio urged caution about the handling of the tapes. That wording is open to interpretation, say administration critics.Rep. Jane Harman, former top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has said the whole situation seems like "the coverup of the coverup."

Gold9472
12-26-2007, 08:23 AM
The C.I.A. Tapes: Our Need to Know

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/opinion/l26cia.html?ref=opinion

Published: December 26, 2007

Re “9/11 Panel Study Finds That C.I.A. Withheld Tapes” (front page, Dec. 22):

Our government’s official story regarding the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, tells us that 19 Arab hijackers successfully defeated the United States military by hijacking four commercial airliners within two hours on a budget of approximately $400,000. These men, armed only with small knives, box cutters and Mace, were able to knock down the World Trade Center towers in New York City and strike the Pentagon.

Because our loved ones were murdered on 9/11, we felt that the details of how the hijackers succeeded should be thoroughly investigated, so we fought for an independent 9/11 Commission. It seemed logical that our government would want to know what happened so as to prevent another attack.

When the legislation for the 9/11 Commission was passed, it gave the commissioners full subpoena power. Unfortunately, that subpoena power was rarely used.

You report that “the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda.” But while the panel did make “document requests” to the C.I.A., it did not subpoena the C.I.A. for the documents and tapes.

A subpoena would have meant that the C.I.A. would have had to answer the commission as to whether the documents and tapes existed, and the agency would have had to explain its reasons for not turning these documents and tapes over to the panel. We would have had a paper trail about the evidence.

You also report, “In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry.”

The question is: Are Americans satisfied with this?

The 9/11 Commission did not fulfill its mandate to thoroughly investigate the 9/11 attacks. A real investigation into the events of Sept. 11 that examines all of the evidence has never been done and is still needed.

Lorie Van Auken
Mindy Kleinberg
East Brunswick, N.J., Dec. 22, 2007

dMole
12-26-2007, 02:02 PM
I agree. The CIA is a convenient black hole into which history can disappear and never be unclassified.

Too true. CIA is often the "red-headed stepchild"/MSM whipping boy of the US intelligence octopus IMHO. Ironic that they control the media however, or is it?

Gold9472
12-27-2007, 07:48 AM
CIA Tapes' Destruction Just Like Watergate
Move May Have Violated Judge's Order

http://www.wisn.com/helenthomas/14927212/detail.html

Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 5:01 pm CST December 26, 2007

When a fire broke out in Vice President Dick Cheney's ceremonial office last week, reporters quipped that someone must be burning the videotapes of the CIA interrogation of two al-Qaida detainees.

The joke was an allusion to the administration's admission that the CIA videotapes had been destroyed. The videotapes reportedly showed the harsh interrogations and waterboarding of the prisoners in secret prisons abroad^.

One has to wonder what other forms of torture U.S. agents shamefully adopted as their own in their unfettered drive to question prisoners.

The New York Times had reported that the pros and cons of destroying the tapes had been discussed by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, both former White House counsels; John Bellinger, then a lawyer for the White House's National Security Council; and David Addington, chief of staff to Cheney.

The order to destroy the tapes was authorized by Jose Rodriguez, former chief of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy had ordered the government not to destroy any evidence of mistreatment or abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but there is a question of whether the order applied to other secret CIA prisons overseas.

This whole episode shows why the administration sends suspects to notorious foreign prisons: The American people have no power to see that they are treated decently. Who in this administration approved this disgrace on America?

President George W. Bush told a news conference that he did not know of the existence or destruction of the tapes until he was briefed on Dec. 6 by CIA Director Michael Hayden. Bush seemed to have no concern that he had been kept in the dark about such consequential matters.

Meantime, the Senate and House intelligence committees -- notably lax in their oversight duties -- are now getting in the act. The top members of those committees are reportedly angry that they were not fully informed about the contents of the tapes or about their destruction.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chair of the House panel, has threatened to subpoena Rodriguez and the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo. They did not show up at a scheduled hearing last Tuesday.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said that news of the videotape destruction "was extremely disturbing to me."

Rockefeller said he has pushed for a full investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs for years.

Now he says he wants a complete chronology about the tapes and why they were destroyed, adding: "We must get to the bottom of it."

White House officials have refused to discuss who gave the order to destroy the tapes on grounds that any comment would interfere with the Justice Department investigation. Having the Justice Department investigate this matter is like having the fox guarding the chicken coop.

Last Friday, Judge Kennedy appeared sympathetic to the Justice Department's request for the court to back off until the department has completed its investigation.

Justice Department officials said they could not predict how long their joint inquiry with the CIA would take.

David Remes, a lawyer for the detainees at Guantanamo, said destruction of the tapes may have violated Kennedy's court order.

The case has a whiff of the Watergate scandal that deposed Richard Nixon from the presidency in 1974. For example, the idea that the administration is investigating itself is strange. In Watergate, that strangeness led to the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate.

Newly confirmed Attorney General Michael Mukasey has already demonstrated which side he is on by refusing to turn over requested documents to the congressional panels. He also is on record that the Constitution puts the president above the law -- and that he does not know whether waterboarding constitutes torture.

Where does the administration find such people so lacking in a moral compass or even an understanding of the constitutional powers of the presidency?

Bring back Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., and Rep. Peter Rodino, D-N.J., the late Watergate-era lawmakers who believed in the rule of law and relentlessly dug out the truth.

Gold9472
12-27-2007, 08:45 AM
Confessions of a Terrorist

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

(Gold9472: Just a relevant story.)

Sunday, Aug. 31, 2003 By JOHANNA MCGEARY

By March 2002, the terrorist called Abu Zubaydah was one of the most wanted men on earth. A leading member of Osama bin Laden's brain trust, he is thought to have been in operational control of al-Qaeda's millennium bomb plots as well as the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000. After the spectacular success of the airliner assaults on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, he continued to devise terrorist plans.

Seventeen months ago, the U.S. finally grabbed Zubaydah in Pakistan and has kept him locked up in a secret location ever since. His name has probably faded from most memories. It's about to get back in the news. A new book by Gerald Posner says Zubaydah has made startling revelations about secret connections linking Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and bin Laden.

Details of that terrorism triangle form the explosive final chapter in Posner's examination of who did what wrong before Sept. 11. Most of his new book, Why America Slept (Random House), is a lean, lucid retelling of how the CIA, FBI and U.S. leaders missed a decade's worth of clues and opportunities that if heeded, Posner argues, might have forestalled the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Posner is an old hand at revisiting conspiracy theories. He wrote controversial assessments dismissing those surrounding the J.F.K. and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations. And the Berkeley-educated lawyer is adept at marshaling an unwieldy mass of information—most of his sources are other books and news stories—into a pattern made tidy and linear by hindsight. His indictment of U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies covers well-trodden ground, though sometimes the might-have-beens and could-have-seens are stretched thin. The stuff that is going to spark hot debate is Chapter 19, an account—based on Zubaydah's claims as told to Posner by "two government sources" who are unnamed but "in a position to know"—of what two countries allied to the U.S. did to build up al-Qaeda and what they knew before that September day.

Zubaydah's capture and interrogation, told in a gripping narrative that reads like a techno-thriller, did not just take down one of al-Qaeda's most wanted operatives but also unexpectedly provided what one U.S. investigator told Posner was "the Rosetta stone of 9/11 ... the details of what (Zubaydah) claimed was his 'work' for senior Saudi and Pakistani officials." The tale begins at 2 a.m. on March 28, 2002, when U.S. surveillance pinpointed Zubaydah in a two-story safe house in Pakistan. Commandos rousted out 62 suspects, one of whom was seriously wounded while trying to flee. A Pakistani intelligence officer and hastily made voiceprints quickly identified the injured man as Zubaydah.

Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk. When questioning stalled, according to Posner, cia men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions.

Yet when Zubaydah was confronted by the false Saudis, writes Posner, "his reaction was not fear, but utter relief." Happy to see them, he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's and a publisher better known as a racehorse� owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid. When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle.

Zubaydah, writes Posner, said the Saudi connection ran through Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's longtime intelligence chief. Zubaydah said bin Laden "personally" told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let bin Laden leave Saudi Arabia and to provide him with secret funds as long as al-Qaeda refrained from promoting jihad in the kingdom. The Pakistani contact, high-ranking air force officer Mushaf Ali Mir, entered the equation, Zubaydah said, at a 1996 meeting in Pakistan also attended by Zubaydah. Bin Laden struck a deal with Mir, then in the military but tied closely to Islamists in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (isi), to get protection, arms and supplies for al-Qaeda. Zubaydah told interrogators bin Laden said the arrangement was "blessed by the Saudis."

Zubaydah said he attended a third meeting in Kandahar in 1998 with Turki, senior isi agents and Taliban officials. There Turki promised, writes Posner, that "more Saudi aid would flow to the Taliban, and the Saudis would never ask for bin Laden's extradition, so long as al-Qaeda kept its long-standing promise to direct fundamentalism away from the kingdom." In Posner's stark judgment, the Saudis "effectively had (bin Laden) on their payroll since the start of the decade." Zubaydah told the interrogators that the Saudis regularly sent the funds through three royal-prince intermediaries he named.

The last eight paragraphs of the book set up a final startling development. Those three Saudi princes all perished within days of one another. On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed was felled by a heart attack at age 43. One day later Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, 41, was killed in what was called a high-speed car accident. The last member of the trio, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, officially "died of thirst" while traveling east of Riyadh one week later. And seven months after that, Mushaf Ali Mir, by then Pakistan's Air Marshal, perished in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly North-West Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.

Without charging any skulduggery (Posner told TIME they "may in fact be coincidences"), the author notes that these deaths occurred after cia officials passed along Zubaydah's accusations to Riyadh and Islamabad. Washington, reports Posner, was shocked when Zubaydah claimed that "9/11 changed nothing" about the clandestine marriage of terrorism and Saudi and Pakistani interests, "because both Prince Ahmed and Mir knew that an attack was scheduled for American soil on that day." They couldn't stop it or warn the U.S. in advance, Zubaydah said, because they didn't know what or where the attack would be. And they couldn't turn on bin Laden afterward because he could expose their prior knowledge. Both capitals swiftly assured Washington that "they had thoroughly investigated the claims and they were false and malicious." The Bush Administration, writes Posner, decided that "creating an international incident and straining relations with those regional allies when they were critical to the war in Afghanistan and the buildup for possible war with Iraq, was out of the question."

The book seems certain to kick up a political and diplomatic firestorm. The first question everyone will ask is, Is it true? And many will wonder if these matters were addressed in the 28 pages censored from Washington's official report on 9/11. It has long been suggested that Saudi Arabia probably had some kind of secret arrangement to stave off fundamentalists within the kingdom. But this appears to be the first description of a repeated, explicit quid pro quo between bin Laden and a Saudi official. Posner told TIME he got the details of Zubaydah's interrogation and revelations from a U.S. official outside the cia at a "very senior Executive Branch level" whose name we would probably know if he told it to us. He did not. The second source, Posner said, was from the cia, and he gave what Posner viewed as general confirmation of the story but did not repeat the details. There are top Bush Administration officials who have long taken a hostile view of Saudi behavior regarding terrorism and might want to leak Zubaydah's claims. Prince Turki, now Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain, did not respond to Posner's letters and faxes.

There's another unanswered question. If Turki and Mir were cutting deals with bin Laden, were they acting at the behest of their governments or on their own? Posner avoids any direct statement, but the book implies that they were doing official, if covert, business. In the past, Turki has admitted—to TIME in November 2001, among others—attending meetings in '96 and '98 but insisted they were efforts to persuade Sudan and Afghanistan to hand over bin Laden. The case against Pakistan is cloudier. It is well known that Islamist elements in the isi were assisting the Taliban under the government of Nawaz Sharif. But even if Mir dealt with bin Laden, he could have been operating outside official channels.

Finally, the details of Zubaydah's drug-induced confessions might bring on charges that the U.S. is using torture on terrorism suspects. According to Posner, the Administration decided shortly after 9/11 to permit the use of Sodium Pentothal on prisoners. The Administration, he writes, "privately believes that the Supreme Court has implicitly approved using such drugs in matters where public safety is at risk," citing a 1963 opinion.

For those who still wonder how the attacks two years ago could have happened, Posner's book provides a tidy set of answers. But it opens up more troubling questions about crucial U.S. allies that someone will now have to address.

Gold9472
12-30-2007, 11:05 PM
Details on why CIA tapes were made, destroyed

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004099305_tapes30.html

By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI

The New York Times
12/30/2007

WASHINGTON — If Abu Zubaydah, a senior operative of al-Qaida, died in U.S. hands, CIA officers pursuing the terrorist group knew that much of the world would believe they had killed him.

So in spring 2002, as the intelligence officers flew in a surgeon from Johns Hopkins Hospital to treat Abu Zubaydah, who had been shot three times during his capture in Pakistan, they set up video cameras to record his every moment: asleep in his cell, having his bandages changed, being questioned by interrogators.

Current and former intelligence officials said the agency's action concerning the interrogation videotapes was prompted, in part, by worry about how its conduct might be perceived by Congress, by prosecutors, by the U.S. public and by Muslims worldwide.

What drove decision
This worry drove the decision to begin taping interrogations — and to stop taping just months later, after the treatment of prisoners had escalated to include waterboarding. And it fueled the nearly three-year campaign by the agency's clandestine service for permission to destroy the tapes, culminating in a November 2005 destruction order from the director of the service, Jose Rodriguez Jr.

The Justice Department, the CIA's inspector general and Congress are conducting investigations to determine whether any official lied about the tapes or broke the law by destroying them. Still in dispute is whether any White House official encouraged the destruction of the tapes and whether the CIA hid the tapes from the national Sept. 11 commission.

Interviews with two dozen current and former officials, most of whom would speak about the classified program only on the condition of anonymity, revealed new details about why the tapes were made and then eliminated.

Had there been no political or security considerations, videotaping every interrogation and preserving the tapes would make sense, several intelligence officials said.

"You couldn't have more than one or two analysts in the room," said A.B. Krongard, the CIA's No. 3 official at the time the interrogations were taped. "You want people with spectacular language skills to watch the tapes. You want your top al-Qaida experts to watch the tapes. You want psychologists to watch the tapes. You want interrogators in training to watch the tapes."

Given such advantages, why was the taping stopped by the end of 2002, less than a year after it started? "By that time," Krongard said, "paranoia was setting in."

By several accounts, the decision to begin taping Abu Zubaydah and another detainee suspected of being an al-Qaida operative, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was made in the field, with several goals in mind.

First, there was Abu Zubaydah's condition, one former intelligence official said.

Just as important was that for many years the CIA had rarely conducted standard interrogations, so officials wanted to track the use of interrogation methods.

But months later, the taping was stopped. Some field officers had never liked the idea. "If you're a case officer, the last thing you want is someone in Washington second-guessing everything you did," said one former agency veteran.

More significant, interrogations of Abu Zubaydah had gotten rougher, with each new tactic approved by cable from headquarters.

Torture technique
U.S. officials have said Abu Zubaydah was the first al-Qaida prisoner to be waterboarded, a procedure during which water is poured over the prisoner's mouth and nose to simulate drowning. Officials thought they could not risk a leak of film showing Americans giving such treatment to bound prisoners.

By late 2002, interrogators were recycling videotapes, preserving only two days of tapes before recording over them, one CIA officer said. Finally, senior agency officials decided written summaries of prisoners' answers would suffice.

That decision still left hundreds of hours of videotape of the two al-Qaida figures locked in an overseas safe.

Clandestine service officers who had overseen the interrogations began pushing hard to destroy the tapes. But George Tenet, then director of central intelligence, was wary, in part because the agency's top lawyer, Scott Muller, advised against it, current and former officials said.

Yet agency officials decided to float the idea of eliminating the tapes on Capitol Hill. In February 2003, Muller told members of the House and Senate oversight committees about the CIA's interest in destroying the tapes.

Porter Goss, then a Republican congressman from Florida and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and the ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman, of California, thought destroying the tapes would be legally and politically risky. CIA officials did not press the matter.

Scrutiny of the CIA's secret detention program kept building. Later in 2003, the agency's inspector general, John Helgerson, began investigating the program.

He completed his investigation in April 2004, according to one person briefed on the still-secret report, which concluded some of the CIA's techniques appeared to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under the international Convention Against Torture.

A month later, as the administration reeled from the Abu Ghraib revelations, Muller, the agency general counsel, met to discuss the report with three senior lawyers at the White House: Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel; David Addington, legal adviser for Vice President Dick Cheney; and John Bellinger, top lawyer at the National Security Council.

One Bush administration official said that, according to notes of the discussion, Bellinger advised the CIA against destroying the tapes.

After Tenet and Muller left the CIA in mid-2004, Rodriguez and other officials decided again to take up the tapes with the new chief at Langley, Goss, the former congressman.

Rodriguez had taken over the clandestine directorate in late 2004.

At a meeting in Goss' office with Rodriguez, John Rizzo, who had replaced Muller as the agency's top lawyer, told the new CIA director the clandestine branch wanted a decision on the tapes. According to two people close to Goss, he told them he thought the tapes should be preserved.

In November 2005, Rodriguez and his aides decided to destroy the tapes, officials said.

One official said Rodriguez and his aides were concerned about protection of the CIA officers on the tapes.

"We didn't want them to become political scapegoats," he said.

Gold9472
12-31-2007, 02:35 PM
Looking at America

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Published: December 31, 2007

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.

The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.

Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.

In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.

The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners — some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports — to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.

These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.

We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.

Gold9472
01-02-2008, 08:24 AM
9/11 commission leaders blast CIA on interrogation tapes

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkgGt7abB4wH5eoRr7PDl6b9rDVQ

3 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The leaders of a US commission that examined the September 11, 2001 terror attacks accused the CIA Wednesday of having obstructed their investigation by withholding information about videotaped interrogations of terror suspects.

The goal of the blue ribbon 9/11 Commission, wrote chairman Thomas Kean and vice-chairman Lee Hamilton in The New York Times, was "to provide the American people with the fullest possible account" of what led to Al-Qaeda's attacks more than six years ago on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

But Kean and Hamilton wrote that although US President George W. Bush had ordered all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the probe, "recent revelations that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot."

"Those who knew about those videotapes -- and did not tell us about them -- obstructed our investigation."

They continued: "There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the CIA -- or the White House -- of the commission?s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot.

"Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations," Kean and Hamilton wrote.

They said the panel made repeated, detailed requests to the spy agency in 2003 and 2004 for information about the interrogation of members of the Islamic extremist network but were never notified about the existence of the tapes.

The CIA revealed last month that in 2005 it destroyed videotapes that showed harsh interrogations of two Al-Qaeda members.

Gold9472
01-02-2008, 12:33 PM
Stonewalled by the C.I.A.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02kean.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

By THOMAS H. KEAN and LEE H. HAMILTON
1/2/2008

MORE than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

When the press reported that, in 2002 and maybe at other times, the C.I.A. had recorded hundreds of hours of interrogations of at least two Qaeda detainees, we went back to check our records. We found that we did ask, repeatedly, for the kind of information that would have been contained in such videotapes.

The commission did not have a mandate to investigate how detainees were treated; our role was to investigate the history and evolution of Al Qaeda and the 9/11 plot. Beginning in June 2003, we requested all reports of intelligence information on these broad topics that had been gleaned from the interrogations of 118 named individuals, including both Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, two senior Qaeda operatives, portions of whose interrogations were apparently recorded and then destroyed.

The C.I.A. gave us many reports summarizing information gained in the interrogations. But the reports raised almost as many questions as they answered. Agency officials assured us that, if we posed specific questions, they would do all they could to answer them.

So, in October 2003, we sent another wave of questions to the C.I.A.’s general counsel. One set posed dozens of specific questions about the reports, including those about Abu Zubaydah. A second set, even more important in our view, asked for details about the translation process in the interrogations; the background of the interrogators; the way the interrogators handled inconsistencies in the detainees’ stories; the particular questions that had been asked to elicit reported information; the way interrogators had followed up on certain lines of questioning; the context of the interrogations so we could assess the credibility and demeanor of the detainees when they made the reported statements; and the views or assessments of the interrogators themselves.

The general counsel responded in writing with non-specific replies. The agency did not disclose that any interrogations had ever been recorded or that it had held any further relevant information, in any form. Not satisfied with this response, we decided that we needed to question the detainees directly, including Abu Zubaydah and a few other key captives.

In a lunch meeting on Dec. 23, 2003, George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, told us point blank that we would have no such access. During the meeting, we emphasized to him that the C.I.A. should provide any documents responsive to our requests, even if the commission had not specifically asked for them. Mr. Tenet replied by alluding to several documents he thought would be helpful to us, but neither he, nor anyone else in the meeting, mentioned videotapes.

A meeting on Jan. 21, 2004, with Mr. Tenet, the White House counsel, the secretary of defense and a representative from the Justice Department also resulted in the denial of commission access to the detainees. Once again, videotapes were not mentioned.

As a result of this January meeting, the C.I.A. agreed to pose some of our questions to detainees and report back to us. The commission concluded this was all the administration could give us. But the commission never felt that its earlier questions had been satisfactorily answered. So the public would be aware of our concerns, we highlighted our caveats on page 146 in the commission report.

As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton served as chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the 9/11 commission.

Gold9472
01-02-2008, 12:35 PM
"We found that we did ask, repeatedly, for the kind of information that would have been contained in such videotapes."

It's spelled S-U-B-P-O-E-N-A you worthless pieces of crap. YOU DIDN'T USE IT.

dMole
01-02-2008, 01:40 PM
"... our role was to investigate the history and evolution of Al Qaeda and the 9/11 plot."

So does that mean (Al Qaeda) AQ and "the 9/11 plot" are mutually exclusive then? If the Kean-Hamilton Commission (KHC) had actually looked deeper they should have found a common thread in 9/11 and "the evolution of AQ--" it is spelled CIA. That is just one of many players in this macabre geopolitical drama however.

Kean, Hamilton: please give up the act and be real.

Gold9472
01-02-2008, 03:47 PM
Mukasey: Criminal probe begins into CIA tapes
CIA said last month it had destroyed tapes of harsh interrogations

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22474868/

1/2/2008

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department said Wednesday it will launch a criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

The CIA last month disclosed that in 2005 it destroyed hundreds of hours of tapes from the interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects, prompting an outcry from Democrats, human rights activists and some legal experts.

The interrogations, which took place in 2002, were believed to have included a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding, condemned internationally as torture.

President Bush has said the United States does not torture but has declined to be specific about interrogation methods.

The Justice Department launched an initial inquiry last month. The CIA said it had no immediate comment.

dMole
01-02-2008, 05:00 PM
From:

IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century

Staff Study
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
House of Representatives
One Hundred Fourth Congress

IX. Clandestine Service
...
1) Most of the operations of the CS (Clandestine Service) are, by all accounts, the most tricky, politically sensitive, and troublesome of those in the IC (Intelligence Community) and frequently require the DCI's close personal attention. The CS is the only part of the IC, indeed of the government, where hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in counties around the world in the face of frequently sophisticated efforts by foreign governments to catch them. A safe estimate is that several hundred times every day
(easily 100,000 times a year) DO (Directorate of Operations) officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law) that not only risk political embarrassment to the US but also endanger the freedom if not lives of the participating foreign nationals and, more than occasionally, of the clandestine officer himself. In other words, a typical 28 year old, GS-11 case officer has numerous opportunities every week, by poor tradecraft or inattention, to embarrass his country and
President and to get agents imprisoned or executed. Considering
these facts and recent history, which has shown that the DCI,
whether he wants to or not, is held accountable for overseeing the
CS, the DCI must work closely with the Director of the CS and hold
him fully and directly responsible to him.
...
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/intel/ic21/ic21009.html

Also interesting:
"A final note on the use of the term "clandestine service."
When referring specifically to an existing clandestine service,
such as the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) or the
clandestine element of the DoD's Defense HUMINT Service (DHS), this
is done so by name. In discussing an ideal or future organization
performing those missions, we have used the term "Clandestine
Service" or CS as a proper noun."

simuvac
01-02-2008, 05:24 PM
"We found that we did ask, repeatedly, for the kind of information that would have been contained in such videotapes."

It's spelled S-U-B-P-O-E-N-A you worthless pieces of crap. YOU DIDN'T USE IT.

Also, it kinda pisses me off that nobody gave much of a shit when Kean and Hamilton described in their book how the White House was the "chief obstacle" (p.17) to their investigation, but now that there's this flap over the CIA tapes everybody is full of righteous indignation.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon is someone I usually respect, and he has a column (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/02/obstruction/index.html)on the tapes today. That's great, but where were these people three years ago? And why don't they talk about the multiple instances of obstruction of justice for the 9/11 Commission, instead of pretending like the CIA tapes are the only glitch in the entire affair?

Who knows, though, maybe this is the start of something?

Gold9472
01-02-2008, 05:28 PM
Statement By 9/11 Family Member Donna Marsh O'Connor On The CIA Tapes

Kean and Hamilton issued a statement today, January 2, 2008 (only six-plus years since 9/11/2001) that was “just-inned” on CNN. They published an editorial in the New York Times today. Their position: Their work was blocked, the investigation tainted. They repeatedly asked for tapes from the CIA that were never provided. They came just short of calling for a real investigation. They (as they have done since the beginning) left that work to the victims’ families.

Will you now cover 9/11 truth, not as a series of destructive conspiracy theories, but as a movement inhabited by sane citizens from all walks of life (scientists, CIA whistleblowers, theologians, professors, researchers, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and more) as well as family members of the victims who deserve as patriotic Americans the answers to the lingering questions of that day? Will you now take up the call first put together in mainstream media by the four heroic widows from New Jersey?

My daughter, Vanessa Lang Langer was pregnant and pulled from the pile whole and intact on 9/24/2001. She was found ten feet from an alley. Five minutes after the first plane hit Tower I, she was on the phone to the uptown office of Regus Business International, telling a colleague that those in Tower II were told they were safe. That five minutes and the seventeen minutes between those planes (yes, I do believe there were planes) were two lifetimes in my own world. She must have been running for her life, fully conscious of how much she had to protect and how endangered she came to be. If you can’t hear the reasonable request of one family, one mother, you don’t care about family at all. You believe the beginning and end of your moral existence reaches only to what is easy for you to do. You don’t consider those acts necessary to good citizenship, those acts that you leave out, to have any significance.

It is much easier to be a good person than it is to be a good people.

America does not need an investigation. It can easily bury the truth about 9/11 the way it buries and encodes all of its evils. It can easily be like Germany pre Hitler. It can meander its way to more violence, to more war, to growing hate. Or individuals with some powerful means of communication can change this horrible script. For once, for once in our history, can we examine our evil tendencies before they flourish into full example.

Good persons who craft of us a good people speak against established norms.

I am begging you to be more.

We need an investigation into the events of 9/11/2001 in order to be sure that culpability is assigned, that all subpoena powers are used, that all of those who helped to grow the events of that cataclysmic day, or those who were negligent or criminally negligent, or those who perpetrated crimes before during and after that day are prevented from using their powers in such a way ever again. Ever again.

To those who perished on 9/11, justice here on earth is not necessary. You cannot help them.

You can help the remaining citizens of this country and the world. When will you say its time?

Donna Marsh O’Connor
Mother of Vanessa Lang Langer, WTC Tower II, 93rd floor

Gold9472
01-02-2008, 05:28 PM
It's the start of something...

Gold9472
01-02-2008, 08:08 PM
Conyers Demands that DOJ Appoint Real Special Counsel

http://judiciary.house.gov/newscenter.aspx?A=907

For Immediate Release
January 2, 2008

(Washington, DC) - In response to the Attorney General’s announcement that he would be tasking the Assistant United States Attorney from the District of Connecticut to investigate matters involving the destruction of tapes of detainee interrogations, congressman John Conyers, Jr., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement:

While I certainly agree that these matters warrant an immediate criminal investigation, it is disappointing that the Attorney General has stepped outside the Justice Department’s own regulations and declined to appoint a more independent special counsel in this matter. Because of this action, the Congress and the American people will be denied – as they were in the Valerie Plame matter – any final report on the investigation.

Equally disappointing is the limited scope of this investigation, which appears limited to the destruction of two tapes. The government needs to scrutinize what other evidence may have been destroyed beyond the two tapes, as well as the underlying allegations of misconduct associated with the interrogations.

The Justice Department’s record over the past seven years of sweeping the administration’s misconduct under the rug has left the American public with little confidence in the administration’s ability to investigate itself. Nothing less than a special counsel with a full investigative mandate will meet the tests of independence, transparency and completeness. Appointment of a special counsel will allow our nation to begin to restore our credibility and moral standing on these issues.

Gold9472
01-04-2008, 08:24 AM
Harman releases Feb. '03 letter warning CIA not to destroy tapes
Lawmaker's Letter Warned Destroying Tapes Would 'Reflect Badly' on the CIA

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Harman_releases_Feb._03_letter_warning_0103.html

The Associated Press
Published: Thursday January 3, 2008

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee warned in a 2003 letter that destroying videotapes of terrorist interrogations would put the CIA under a cloud of suspicion, according to a newly declassified copy of the letter.

"Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future," Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., wrote in a Feb. 10, 2003 letter to then-CIA general counsel Scott Muller. "The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the agency."

Harman's office released the declassified letter on Thursday, a day after the Justice Department announced it had opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes. The letter notes that a copy also went to then-CIA Director George Tenet.

Last month, the CIA acknowledged destroying videos showing the harsh interrogation of two top al-Qaida suspects — Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said the videos, which were made in 2002, were destroyed in 2005 out of fear the tapes would leak and reveal the identities of interrogators. Hayden said the sessions were videotaped to provide an added layer of legal protection for officers using tough interrogation methods authorized by President Bush to help break down recalcitrant prisoners.

Harman's letter, sent when memories of the 2001 terrorist attacks were still fresh, acknowledges that the CIA was faced with balancing security and liberty while protecting the country from another attack. But in a reference to the harsh interrogations, she asked Muller "whether the most senior levels of the White House have determined that these practices are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States. Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the president?"

In his response to Harman's letter, Muller did not address her concerns about destroying the tapes. Instead, he reassured her that the interrogation techniques used were legal. And he added: "I think it would be fair to assume that policy as well as legal matters have been addressed within the Executive Branch."

The CIA declassified Harman's 2003 letter so that she could speak publicly about her concerns then and now. At the time, Harman was the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel.

Harman was one of several officials who recommended against destroying the tapes. One official familiar with the investigation said Alberto Gonzales, who served as White House counsel and then attorney general, advised against destroying the videotapes. Another administration attorney, John Bellinger, then a lawyer at the National Security Council, has told colleagues that administration lawyers who discussed the matter in 2003 came to a consensus that the tapes should not be destroyed, said a senior official familiar with Bellinger's account of the 2003 White House discussion. "The recommendation in 2003 from the White House was that the tapes should not be destroyed," the official said.

President Bush has said his "first recollection" of being told about the tapes and their destruction was when Hayden briefed him about it last month.

House Intelligence committee Chairman Sylvestre Reyes, D-Texas, has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 16, at which he plans to question Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service who ordered the tapes destroyed, and acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed John Durham, a veteran federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee a full criminal investigation that could further challenge the Bush administration's handling of terrorism suspects.

Durham, a 25-year veteran of the Justice Department, has a reputation as one of the nation's most relentless prosecutors. He was appointed to investigate the FBI's use of mob informants in Boston, a probe that sent former FBI agent John Connolly to prison.

Prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va., had removed themselves from the case. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who worked with the Justice Department on the preliminary inquiry, also removed himself.

"The Justice Department went out and got somebody with complete independence and integrity," said former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy, who worked with Durham. "No politics whatsoever. It's going to be completely by the book and he's going to let the chips fall where they may."

Durham gained national prominence following the 1989 murder of Mafia underboss William Grasso, which led to one of the biggest mob takedowns in U.S history. He then turned to Connecticut street gangs, winning dozens of convictions and putting some gang leaders in jail for life. Former Attorney General Janet Reno hand-picked Durham to lead the investigation into the FBI's use of mob informants in Boston.

Durham, a Republican, has shown no tolerance for corruption in either party. He supervised the corruption investigation that sent former Republican Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and several members of his administration to prison.

Harman's full letter and the CIA's response are available here and reprinted below:

February 10, 2003

Mr. Scott Muller
General Counsel
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505

Dear Mr. Muller:

Last week’s briefing brought home to me the difficult challenges faced by the Central Intelligence Agency in the current threat environment. I realize we are at a time when the balance between security and liberty must be constantly evaluated and recalibrated in order to protect our nation and its people from catastrophic terrorist attack and I thus appreciate the obvious effort that you and your Office have made to address the tough questions. At the briefing you assured us that the [redacted] approved by the Attorney General have been subject to an extensive review by lawyers at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Justice and the National Security Council and found to be within the law.

It is also the case, however, that what was described raises profound policy questions and I am concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions. I would like to know what kind of policy review took place and what questions were examined. In particular, I would like to know whether the most senior levels of the White House have determined that these practices are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States. Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President?

You discussed the fact that there is videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry. I would urge the Agency to reconsider that plan. Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future. The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the Agency.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

JANE HARMAN

Text of CIA General Counsel Muller’s Response to Representative Harman:

28 February 2003

The Honorable Jane Harman

Ranking Democratic Member

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Ms. Harman:

Thank you for your letter of 10 February following up on the briefing we gave you and Congressman Goss on 5 February concerning the Central Intelligence Agency’s limited use of the handful of specially approved interrogation techniques we described. As we informed both you and the leadership of the Intelligence Committees last September, a number of Executive Branch lawyers including lawyers from the Department of Justice participated in the determination that, in the appropriate circumstances, use of these techniques is fully consistent with US law. While I do not think it appropriate for me to comment on issues that are a matter of policy, much less the nature and extent of Executive Branch policy deliberations, I think it would be fair to assume that policy as well as legal matters have been addressed within the Executive Branch.

I enjoyed meeting you, albeit briefly, and I look forward to seeing you again.

Sincerely,

Scott W. Muller

Gold9472
01-04-2008, 08:36 AM
Will Justice Go After Cheney?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/03/BL2008010302043.html

Dan Froomkin
1/4/2008

How high will the newly-launched criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes go? And will it eventually target Vice President Cheney?

Cheney has been the administration's central figure on all things related to torture. It was Cheney who pushed so hard for "flexibility" in interrogations of terrorist suspects. Former secretary of state Colin Powell's chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, has long argued that it is "clear that the Office of the Vice President bears responsibility for creating an environment conducive to the acts of torture and murder committed by U.S. forces in the war on terror."

In the weeks proceeding the November 2005 destruction of the torture tapes, Cheney was pulling out all the stops in a failed lobbying effort to get fellow Republicans on the Hill to exempt the CIA from a proposed torture ban. Cheney's arm-twisting was so unseemly that a Washington Post editorial dubbed him the "Vice President for Torture." (When the law passed, Cheney's office authored a " signing statement" for Bush, in which he reserved the right to ignore it.)

So it should have come as no surprise when the New York Times reported last month that David S. Addington, Cheney's chief of staff and former legal counsel, was among the three White House lawyers who participated in at least one key meeting about the videotapes in 2004.

(For background on Addington, the indomitable and secretive agent of Cheney's will, see this May 2006 profile by Chitra Ragavan in U.S. News; this July 2006 profile by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, and my Sept. 5 column.)

The initial spin from the White House was that only Harriet E. Miers, then a deputy White House chief of staff, had been briefed about the tapes -- and that she had advised against their destruction.

But with anything related to torture, it's pretty clear the CIA took its orders from Cheney -- via Addington. And how plausible is it that, in his exchanges with the CIA, Addington advised against the tapes' destruction? Or that the CIA would have done it if he had told them not to? Isn't it more likely that he supported the idea, either overtly or with a nod and a wink?

So one has to wonder what will happen if Addington is hauled in front of a grand jury to testify not just about his relevant conversations with the CIA, but about his conversations with Cheney.

"Did you, Mr. Addington, indicate in any way to the CIA that destroying the tapes would be acceptable, or even preferable? Did you do so based on instructions from your boss, the vice president?"

Wouldn't it be interesting to hear Addington answer those questions under oath?

Then again, he might just lie.

The last time a federal prosecutor got close to Cheney, of course, was in the CIA leak case. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who investigated the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, indicated during and after the trial of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, that he had been hot on the trail of the vice president himself until Libby obstructed his investigation.

There was considerable evidence that it was Cheney who instructed Libby to out Plame as part of a no-holds-barred crusade against her husband, an administration critic. Libby's own notes showed he first heard about Plame from Cheney. But when the FBI came calling, Libby denied remembering anything about that or any other related conversations with Cheney, choosing instead to make up a fanciful story about having learned of Plame's identity from NBC's Tim Russert.

When Libby was indicted and stepped down as chief of staff, Cheney's choice to replace him was obvious: He chose Addington.

The Coverage
Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick write in The Washington Post: "The Justice Department said yesterday that it has opened a formal criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes, appointing a career prosecutor to examine whether intelligence officials broke the law by destroying videos of exceptionally harsh questioning of terrorism suspects.

"The criminal probe, announced by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, significantly escalates a preliminary inquiry into whether the CIA's actions constituted an obstruction of justice. . . .

"To oversee the probe, Mukasey appointed John Durham, a career federal prosecutor from Connecticut, bypassing the department's Washington headquarters and the local U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, which recused itself from the case. . . .

"Leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees vowed to continue their separate inquiries, including a hearing on Jan. 16 at which they plan to grill Rodriguez. Various committee members have accused the CIA of not properly informing them about how the tapes came to be made and, later, destroyed, despite CIA statements to the contrary."

Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston write in the New York Times: "The announcement is the first indication that investigators have concluded on a preliminary basis that C.I.A. officers, possibly along with other government officials, may have committed criminal acts in their handling of the tapes, which recorded the interrogations in 2002 of two operatives with Al Qaeda and were destroyed in 2005.

"C.I.A. officials have for years feared becoming entangled in a criminal investigation involving alleged improprieties in secret counterterrorism programs. Now, the investigation and a probable grand jury inquiry will scrutinize the actions of some of the highest-ranking current and former officials at the agency. . . .

"The question of whether to destroy the tapes was for nearly three years the subject of deliberations among lawyers at the highest levels of the Bush administration. . . .

"Among White House lawyers who took part in discussions between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy the tapes were Mr. Gonzales, when he was White House counsel; Harriet E. Miers, Mr. Gonzales's successor as counsel; David S. Addington, who was then counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney; and John B. Bellinger III, then the legal adviser to the National Security Council. It is unclear whether anyone outside the C.I.A. endorsed destroying the tapes."

And here's a sobering point from Mazzetti and Johnston: "The new Justice Department investigation is likely to last for months, possibly beyond the end of the Bush administration."

Greg Gordon writes for McClatchy Newspapers that, according to an unnamed U.S. government official, "Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's chief of clandestine services, had ordered the destruction of the tapes after consulting agency lawyers. However, the lawyers had 'an expectation . . . that additional bases would be touched,' the official said.

"It couldn't be learned whether Rodriguez, who's declined to speak publicly, will assert that he was acting on orders from above, but former colleagues say he was a cautious officer."

Evan Perez writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "Some Democrats . . . have pushed for the Justice Department to name an independent special counsel and aren't pleased with the appointment of Mr. Durham, who will report directly to the deputy attorney general. The law governing independent counsels expired in 1999, when Congress didn't renew it. In the case of the investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, overseen by Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, some critics of the Bush administration complained that the probe never answered key questions because he didn't publish a final investigative report, as an independent counsel would do.

"Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said of Mr. Mukasey's move: 'Because of this action, the Congress and the American people will be denied -- as they were in the Valerie Plame matter -- any final report on the investigation.'"

Dafna Linzer writes in The Washington Post: "John H. Durham, who was appointed yesterday to lead a criminal probe into the destruction of the CIA's interrogation tapes, oversaw corruption charges against a Republican governor in Connecticut, put away FBI agents in Boston and prosecuted many of New England's Mafia bosses. . . .

"Former colleagues said the deputy U.S. attorney is known for seeking maximum sentences, shunning plea bargains and avoiding the spotlight. Four friends said they could not recall him losing a case in more than 30 years as a prosecutor, almost all of it spent fighting organized crime and gang violence in Connecticut. . . .

"Several courtroom adversaries compared Durham, a Roman Catholic reared in the Northeast, to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the staid U.S. attorney in Chicago who served as special prosecutor in the investigation of the leaked identity of a CIA officer. 'He's Fitzgerald with a sense of humor,' said Hugh O'Keefe, a Connecticut criminal defense lawyer who has known Durham for 20 years.

"But Durham has had little experience with national security issues and with cases involving executive authority that appear to be less than black-and-white. His probe may require calling lawyers and aides to Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the CIA before a grand jury to testify about their knowledge of the tapes' destruction."

Matt Apuzzo notes for the Associated Press: "Since leaving the White House shortly before Christmas, President Bush has not addressed the tapes' destruction. Before going to Camp David, then his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Bush said he was confident that investigations by Congress and the Justice Department 'will end up enabling us all to find out what exactly happened.'

"He repeated his assertion that his 'first recollection' of being told about the tapes and their destruction was when CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed him on it in early December."

Opinion Watch
The New York Times editorial board writes: "It is essential that the truth of what was on those tapes and how they came to be destroyed now comes out and that all of the government officials involved in their destruction be held legally accountable -- whether they are C.I.A. officers or top White House officials who spent three years debating whether to destroy the tapes.

"The tapes, which depicted the interrogations of two Al Qaeda operatives in 2002, may themselves have amounted to evidence of a crime -- torture -- carried out under the president's authority. The decision to destroy them appears to be one more move by the Bush administration to cover up the many abuses it has committed in the name of fighting terrorism."

The Washington Post editorial board writes: "In all likelihood, the Justice Department investigation will focus narrowly on whether the destruction of the tapes constituted a crime; it will probably not delve into whether the tapes depicted a crime, namely torture. Congress should continue to demand answers about the administration's past and current detention and interrogation policies."

Gold9472
01-04-2008, 08:37 AM
No.

simuvac
01-07-2008, 04:18 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/opinion/l06CIA.html?_r=1&oref=login&pagewanted=print

January 6, 2008
Letters
Destruction of More Than C.I.A. Tapes

To the Editor:

Re “The Right Move on the C.I.A. Tapes” (editorial, Jan. 3), about the formal criminal investigation into the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency videotapes, which will be led by John H. Durham, a career federal prosecutor:

You forcefully state many of the reasons the destruction of the interrogation videotapes needs to be investigated. But you mention only in passing that Mr. Durham is not an independent prosecutor, but reports, ultimately, to the same department and man, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, who named him — a department that is answerable to the same administration that may be responsible for actions under investigation. Isn’t this unacceptable?

The intermingling of legal chains of command and reporting procedures makes the Durham nomination one that will require careful scrutiny.

Anthony Pell
Salt Point, N.Y., Jan. 3, 2008



To the Editor:

Is there one compelling reason why anything short of appointing an independent counsel to investigate the destruction of C.I.A. interrogation videotapes is adequate?

It is impossible for a reasonable person to look at the last seven years and conclude that this administration is capable of policing itself.

If the Democrats relent on this point, there is no point in voting for them in November.

Tracy Brooking
Kennesaw, Ga., Jan. 3, 2008



To the Editor:

Re “Stonewalled by the C.I.A.,” by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (Op-Ed, Jan. 2):

It is not surprising that Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton, who led the 9/11 Commission, are surprised and dismayed to find out that the C.I.A. interrogation videotapes were not mentioned by the C.I.A. or the White House. What is surprising is that they thought the commission would receive the information it sought from this administration.

The Bush administration has been couched in secrecy and deceit whether it is discussing Iraq, Iran, the use of torture and rendition, or the violation of the privacy of American citizens. The undermining of our Constitution has been a hallmark of this administration, lent credibility by the likes of Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Kean, Colin L. Powell and many Republican as well as Democratic senators who assume that that the administration acts in good faith.

How can we as citizens expect a responsive government when those who represent us in speaking to power cannot receive an honest response?

The media and the Senate rose up in anger at President Bill Clinton for lying about his personal affairs. What deeds are needed for these voices to rise again against this administration?

Harry Hagendorf
New Rochelle, N.Y., Jan. 2, 2008



To the Editor:

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton make it absolutely clear that the critically important mission of the 9/11 Commission was intentionally obstructed by the Bush administration’s failure to provide the panel with the now-destroyed videotapes. This obstruction was compounded by the administration’s failure to even inform the commission of the existence of the videotapes.

This turn of events cannot, however, be a surprise. The comically absurd refusal of the president and the vice president to be interviewed separately by the commission provided ample evidence of how far the administration would go to avoid revelation of the full truth.

By accepting embarrassing limits on its investigation, the commission left itself a victim of the known and still unknown efforts to conceal the full story of 9/11. Does anyone seriously believe that the destruction, much less the existence, of the videotapes is the last “discovery” of important information kept from the commission?

Ira Belsky
Franklin Lakes, N.J., Jan. 2, 2008



To the Editor:

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton use the word “obstruction” to describe the C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes depicting prisoners being subjected to waterboarding and other barbaric interrogation practices. The word is apt, but a complete characterization of the C.I.A.’s actions should include the word “contempt.”

The A.C.L.U. and other advocacy organizations filed Freedom of Information Act requests in 2003 and 2004 for materials concerning the abuse of prisoners in C.I.A. custody. In August 2004, a federal judge ordered the C.I.A. and other federal agencies to release responsive materials or explain why they should be withheld from the public.

Since then, various federal agencies have released tens of thousands of pages. Virtually nothing, however, has been released by the C.I.A.

In legal papers filed two weeks ago, we argued that by destroying some of the materials it was required to identify, the C.I.A. violated the judge’s order and placed itself in contempt.

The Freedom of Information Act was enacted to ensure an informed public and an accountable government. There is no hope of achieving those ends if federal agencies are permitted to disregard orders issued by federal judges and withhold and even destroy information that is incriminating.

Jameel Jaffer
Amrit Singh
New York, Jan. 2, 2008

The writers are on the staff of the A.C.L.U. and are co-authors of a book about the torture and abuse of prisoners.



To the Editor:

The headline for the Op-Ed article by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton may say “Stonewalled by the C.I.A.,” but I say “Stonewalled by Republicans.”

Victor Kelley
Monroeville, Pa., Jan. 2, 2008

Gold9472
01-09-2008, 09:53 AM
More CIA torture videos

http://www.jamestownsun.com/articles/index.cfm?id=59414&section=Opinion

Nat Hentoff, The Jamestown Sun
Published Wednesday, January 09, 2008

By any basic definition of criminal obstruction of justice, the CIA did just that in 2005 by destroying videotapes made in its secret prisons of what the president approvingly calls “coerced interrogations.” Thereby the CIA defied orders by federal judges and the 9/11 Commission to keep intact all records of interrogations of detainees.

This internationally criticized removal of hard evidence of CIA tortures is supposedly under official investigation by the Justice Department in partnership with the CIA. There is also a second investigation by committees of Congress. But the latter was at first limited by Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s refusal to turn over to Congress records and witnesses of possible Justice Department involvement.

Now that Mukasey has apparently relented, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden is right in calling for a special counsel because both these investigations lack credibility. For instance, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — in its 2002 “torture memos” — allowed the CIA to engage in such practices as waterboarding (shown in these vanished CIA tapes).

Those 2002 permissions were withdrawn the following year but secretly reinstituted by the Justice Department in 2005. And in a classified executive order in July 2006, the president, without objection from the Justice Department, has allowed CIA’s secret prisons to remain open, and we don’t know what’s going on in them.

As for Congress’s investigation, it was that body in 2005 (the Detainees Treatment Act) and in 2006 (the Military Commissions Act) that further expanded the use of “coercive interrogations” by the CIA and other armed services.

Whether an independent special prosecutor will be appointed, with a credibility the CIA and Congress do not have, depends on Mukasey. As of this writing, he says he prefers to wait until the current compromised investigations, as I call them, are concluded. But he is strongly disinclined to bring in a special counsel.

In any case, Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois has opened another important dimension of discovering other documentation of the CIA’s violations of our own antitorture statute and corollary international treaties we have signed. Writing to Mukasey on Dec. 12, Durbin points out that:

“According to (the) Chicago Tribune, the interrogation of a detainee who was allegedly rendered to Egypt by the CIA may have been recorded.” These CIA kidnapping “renditions” to a number of countries known to torture prisoners have been widely documented by human rights organizations and the press (both in this country and abroad).

Therefore, Durbin’s letter to the attorney general continues: “This raises questions whether Egypt or other countries to which the CIA has rendered detainees have made video or audio recordings of these detainees being interrogated — and whether such recordings have been destroyed by or at the request of the CIA.”

Durbin asks Mukasey that the Justice Department’s inquiry into the CIA’s own destruction of such videos in 2005 now “be expanded to cover” visual and/or audio tapes of coercive interrogations in other countries the CIA has depended on to “break” prisoners it is unable to.

A similar letter was sent by Durbin on Dec. 12 to Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, also asking whether other countries to which the CIA has rendered prisoners have recordings of the special interrogation techniques that were used on them.

In that letter to Hayden, Durbin makes several intriguing points. First, “you acknowledge that in 2002 the CIA videotaped interrogations of detainees, but you asserted that ‘videotaping stopped in 2002.’”

However, he adds, “According to The Chicago Tribune, Abu Omar was detained in February 2003, and he believes that his Egyptian interrogators recorded ‘the sounds of my torture and my cries.’”

Durbin then asks Hayden a fair question: “Indeed, if the CIA renders a detainee to a foreign country for the purpose of interrogation, it seems reasonable to expect that the CIA would monitor the interrogation by video or audio recording or other means.”

After all, since the CIA regards itself as a premier intelligence organization, in the process of sending a prisoner it believes has extremely valuable information to be extracted in another country, surely the CIA would want proof from that country of the information it had wrenched from the prisoner.

Durbin also asks Hayden: “Have any such recordings been reviewed to verify compliance with diplomatic assurances by those countries (to the United States) not to torture detainees?”

The letters to Hayden and Mukasey ask for replies no later than Dec. 19. As of this writing, I have no information that answers have been received. A similar letter by Durbin has been sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with the same deadline.

Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of many books, including “The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance” (Seven Stories Press, 2004).

simuvac
01-09-2008, 08:31 PM
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/09/6285/

Published on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 by The Associated Press (http://www.ap.org/)
Judge Won’t Inquire Into CIA Tapes Case

by Matt Apuzzo

A federal judge refused on Wednesday to delve into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos, saying there was no evidence the Bush administration violated a court order and the Justice Department deserved time to conduct its own investigation.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy was a victory for the Bush administration, which had urged the courts not to wade into a politically charged issue already being investigated by the Justice Department, CIA and Congress.

The CIA has acknowledged last month that in 2005 it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. Lawyers for other terrorism suspects quickly asked Kennedy to hold hearings, saying the executive branch had proved itself unreliable and could not be trusted to investigate its own potential wrongdoing.

Kennedy disagreed, ruling that attorneys hadn’t “presented anything to cause this court to question whether the Department of Justice will follow the facts wherever they may lead and live up to the assurances it made to this court.”

Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently appointed a prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation into destruction of the tapes. John Durham, a career public corruption and organized crime prosecutor, has a reputation for being independent.

Kennedy, a former prosecutor who was appointed to the bench by President Clinton, said he had been assured that the Justice Department would report back if it found evidence that a court order had been violated.

“There is no reason to disregard the Department of Justice’s assurances,” Kennedy said.

Attorney David Remes had said a judicial inquiry might involve testimony from senior lawyers at the White House and Justice Department. Government attorneys, appearing in court Dec. 21, said such hearings would disrupt and possibly derail the Justice Department inquiry.

Lawyers for other terrorism suspects have filed similar requests before other judges. While Kennedy’s decision doesn’t require those judges to follow suit, it will help bolster the Justice Department’s argument that they should not wade into the investigation.

Kennedy had ordered the government not to destroy any evidence of mistreatment or abuse of detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the two suspects interrogated on video Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were not held at Guantanamo Bay. They were interrogated in secret CIA prisons overseas.

Kennedy said Wednesday he saw no evidence those tapes were covered by his court order.

Remes, who represents Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, argued that destruction of the tapes may have violated a more general rule prohibiting the government from destroying any evidence that could be relevant in a case, even if not directly noted in a court order.


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press

Gold9472
01-09-2008, 08:55 PM
They couldn't find ANYTHING “to cause this court to question whether the Department of Justice will follow the facts wherever they may lead and live up to the assurances it made to this court?!?!?”

simuvac
01-09-2008, 09:16 PM
They couldn't find ANYTHING “to cause this court to question whether the Department of Justice will follow the facts wherever they may lead and live up to the assurances it made to this court?!?!?”

Like, what about THE LAST SEVEN YEARS?

Gold9472
01-09-2008, 10:00 PM
Exactly.

Gold9472
01-10-2008, 08:42 AM
Ex-C.I.A. Aide Won’t Testify on Tapes Without Immunity

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/washington/10intel.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: January 10, 2008

WASHINGTON — A lawyer for Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former Central Intelligence Agency official who in 2005 ordered the destruction of videotapes of harsh interrogations of prisoners at a secret site overseas, has told Congress that Mr. Rodriguez will not testify about the tapes without a grant of immunity, a person familiar with the discussions said Wednesday.

The House Intelligence Committee has scheduled a closed hearing on the tapes’ destruction for next Wednesday, and John A. Rizzo, the C.I.A.’s acting general counsel, has agreed to testify.

The committee issued a subpoena last month for Mr. Rodriguez’s testimony. Since then, the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the tapes’ destruction. Mr. Rodriguez’s lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, wrote to the committee last week, saying that in light of the investigation he would not allow Mr. Rodriguez to offer testimony that might subsequently be used against him, according to the person familiar with the discussions, who would not speak for attribution because of their confidential nature.

The immunity demand creates a quandary for the House committee, which rejected a request from Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to postpone the Congressional inquiry. An offer of immunity for Mr. Rodriguez’s testimony could make prosecuting him difficult or impossible, legal experts say.

Mr. Rodriguez, who recently retired from the C.I.A., led the agency’s clandestine service in November 2005 when he sent a cable ordering the destruction of the tapes. The decision, which he made after consulting with two agency lawyers, followed a two-year debate inside the Bush administration.

Mr. Bennett declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Representative Silvestre Reyes, the Texas Democrat who is chairman of the committee.

In a related matter, Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., of the Federal District Court in Washington, declined Wednesday to order a hearing on the tapes’ destruction because of the criminal investigation. Lawyers representing 11 Yemeni men held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, argued last month that the tapes’ destruction raised “grave concerns” that the government had defied Judge Kennedy’s 2005 order to preserve evidence in their case.

In his three-page order, Judge Kennedy said the videotapes, recorded at a secret C.I.A. site overseas, had not been recorded at Guantánamo and were therefore not directly relevant to the treatment of prisoners at the detention center in Cuba.

Moreover, the judge wrote, his decision was “influenced by the assurances of the Department of Justice” that its criminal investigation would cover the issue of whether the tapes’ destruction “was inconsistent with or violated any legal obligations,” including his 2005 order.

Marc D. Falkoff, a law professor at Northern Illinois University and one of the lawyers for the Yemeni prisoners, said it was “not surprising that Judge Kennedy would take the Justice Department at its word.”

Lawyers in several other cases in which Guantánamo prisoners are challenging their detention are still seeking hearings on the tapes’ destruction.

Gold9472
01-15-2008, 02:27 PM
No Immunity, No Testimony

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/washington/15intel.html?ref=us

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: January 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former Central Intelligence Agency official who ordered the destruction of interrogation videotapes in 2005, will not be required to appear on Wednesday at a closed Congressional hearing on the matter but may be called to testify later, an official briefed on the inquiry said Monday.

Mr. Rodriguez, who led the agency’s clandestine service in 2005 and recently retired, has demanded immunity before he will agree to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the destruction of the videotapes, which recorded harsh interrogations of two suspected Qaeda figures.

The committee has made no decision on a possible grant of immunity, so it postponed Mr. Rodriguez’s appearance. He remains under subpoena, however, and the committee may call him later.

The only C.I.A. witness currently scheduled to appear Wednesday at the closed hearing is John A. Rizzo, the agency’s acting general counsel, who held that job when the tapes were destroyed.

Committee members want to ask Mr. Rizzo what guidance lawyers inside and outside the agency gave on the possible destruction of the tapes. They also want to question him about why the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were not officially informed of the destruction when it happened, and whether agency officials deliberately concealed the existence of the tapes from the Sept. 11 Commission, as the commission’s leaders have said.

Mr. Rodriguez has told colleagues he consulted two agency lawyers, who told him that he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that it would not be illegal.

Gold9472
01-16-2008, 08:37 AM
Station Chief Made Appeal To Destroy CIA Tapes
Lawyer Says Top Official Had Implicit Approval

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/15/AR2008011504090.html?hpid=topnews%3Cbr%3E

By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers and Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 16, 2008; Page A01

In late 2005, the retiring CIA station chief in Bangkok sent a classified cable to his superiors in Langley asking if he could destroy videotapes recorded at a secret CIA prison in Thailand that in part portrayed intelligence officers using simulated drowning to extract information from suspected al-Qaeda members.

The tapes had been sitting in the station chief's safe, in the U.S. Embassy compound, for nearly three years. Although those involved in the interrogations had pushed for the tapes' destruction in those years and a secret debate about it had twice reached the White House, CIA officials had not acted on those requests. This time was different.

The CIA had a new director and an acting general counsel, neither of whom sought to block the destruction of the tapes, according to agency officials. The station chief was insistent because he was retiring and wanted to resolve the matter before he left, the officials said. And in November 2005, a published report that detailed a secret CIA prison system provoked an international outcry.

Those three circumstances pushed the CIA's then-director of clandestine operations, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., to act against the earlier advice of at least five senior CIA and White House officials, who had counseled the agency since 2003 that the tapes should be preserved. Rodriguez consulted CIA lawyers and officials, who told him that he had the legal right to order the destruction. In his view, he received their implicit support to do so, according to his attorney, Robert S. Bennett.

In a classified response to the station chief, Rodriguez ordered the tapes' destruction, CIA officials say. The Justice Department and the House intelligence committee are now investigating whether that deed constituted a violation of law or an obstruction of justice. John A. Rizzo, the CIA's acting general counsel, is scheduled to discuss the matter in a closed House intelligence committee hearing scheduled for today.

According to interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.S. officials familiar with the debate, the taping was conducted from August to December 2002 to demonstrate that interrogators were following the detailed rules set by lawyers and medical experts in Washington, and were not causing a detainee's death.

The principal motive for the tapes' destruction was the clandestine operations division's worry that the tapes' fate could be snatched out of their hands, the officials said. They feared that the agency could be publicly shamed and that those involved in waterboarding and other extreme interrogation techniques would be hauled before a grand jury or a congressional inquiry -- a circumstance now partly unfolding anyway.

"The professionals said that we must destroy the tapes because they didn't want to see the pictures all over television, and they knew they eventually would leak," said a former agency official who took part in the discussions before the tapes were pulverized. The presence of the tapes in Bangkok and the CIA's communications with the station chief there were described by current and former officials.

Congressional investigators have turned up no evidence that anyone in the Bush administration openly advocated the tapes' destruction, according to officials familiar with a set of classified documents forwarded to Capitol Hill. "It was an agency decision -- you can take it to the bank," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in an interview on Friday. "Other speculations that it may have been made in other compounds, in other parts of the capital region, are simply wrong."

Many of those involved recalled conversations in which senior CIA and White House officials advised against destroying the tapes, but without expressly prohibiting it, leaving an odd vacuum of specific instructions on a such a politically sensitive matter. They said that Rodriguez then interpreted this silence -- the absence of a decision to order the tapes' preservation -- as a tacit approval of their destruction.

"Jose could not get any specific direction out of his leadership" in 2005, one senior official said. Word of the resulting destruction, one former official said, was greeted by widespread relief among clandestine officers, and Rodriguez was neither penalized nor reprimanded, publicly or privately, by then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss, according to two officials briefed on exchanges between the two men.

"Frankly, there were more important issues that needed to be focused on, such as trying to preserve a critical [interrogation] program and salvage relationships that had been damaged because of the leaks" about the existence of the secret prisons, said a former agency official familiar with Goss's position at the time.

Rodriguez, whom the CIA honored with a medal in August for "Extraordinary Fidelity and Essential Service," declined requests for an interview. But his attorney said he acted in the belief that he was carrying out the agency's stated intention for nearly three years. "Since 2002, the CIA wanted to destroy the tapes to protect the identity and lives of its officers and for other counterintelligence reasons," Bennett said in a written response to questions from The Washington Post.

"In 2003 the leadership of intelligence committees were told about the CIA's intent to destroy the tapes. In 2005, CIA lawyers again advised the National Clandestine Service that they had the authority to destroy the tapes and it was legal to do so. It is unfortunate," Bennett continued, "that under the pressure of a Congressional and criminal investigation, history is now being revised, and some people are running for cover."

Recorded on the tapes was the coercive questioning of two senior al-Qaeda suspects: Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, known as Abu Zubaida, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were captured by U.S. forces in 2002. They show Zubaida undergoing waterboarding, which involved strapping him to a board and pouring water over his nose and mouth, creating the sensation of imminent drowning. Nashiri later also underwent the same treatment.

Some CIA officials say the agency's use of waterboarding helped extract information that led to the capture of other key al-Qaeda members and prevented attacks. But others, including former CIA, FBI and military officials, say the practice constitutes torture.

The destruction of the tapes was not the first occasion in which Rodriguez got in trouble for taking a provocative action to help a colleague. While serving as the CIA's Latin America division chief in 1996, he appealed to local Dominican Republic authorities to prevent a childhood friend, and CIA contractor, who had been arrested in a drug investigation, from being beaten up, according to a former CIA official familiar with the episode.

Such an intervention was forbidden by CIA rules, and so Rodriguez was stripped of his management post and reprimanded in an inspector general's report. But shortly after the reprimand, he was named station chief in Mexico City and, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was promoted to deputy director of the fast-expanding counterterrorism center. He served under the center's director then, J. Cofer Black, who had been his subordinate in the Latin America division.

When Black -- who played a key role in setting up the secret prisons and instituting the interrogation policy -- left the CIA in December 2002, Rodriguez took his place. Colleagues recall that even in the deputy's slot, Rodriguez was aware of the videotaping of Zubaida, and that he later told several it was necessary so that experts, such as psychologists not present during interrogations, could view Zubaida's physical reactions to questions.

By December 2002, the taping was no longer needed, according to three former intelligence officials. "Zubaida's health was better, and he was providing information that we could check out," one said.

An internal probe of the interrogations by the CIA's inspector general began in early 2003 for reasons that have not been disclosed. In February of that year, then-CIA General Counsel Scott W. Muller told lawmakers that the agency planned to destroy the tapes after the completion of the investigation. That year, all waterboarding was halted; and at an undisclosed time, several of the inspector general's deputies traveled to Bangkok to view the tapes, officials said.

In May 2004, CIA operatives became concerned when a Washington Post article disclosed that the CIA had conducted its interrogations under a new, looser Bush administration definition of what legally constituted torture, several former CIA officials said. The disclosure sparked an internal Justice Department review of that definition and led to a suspension of the CIA's harsh interrogation program.

The tapes were discussed with White House lawyers twice, according to a senior U.S. official. The first occasion was a meeting convened by Muller and senior lawyers of the White House and the Justice Department specifically to discuss their fate. The other discussion was described by one participant as "fleeting," when the existence of the tapes came up during a spring 2004 meeting to discuss the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the official said.

Those known to have counseled against the tapes' destruction include John B. Bellinger III, while serving as the National Security Council's top legal adviser; Harriet E. Miers, while serving as the top White House counsel; George J. Tenet, while serving as CIA director; Muller, while serving as the CIA's general counsel; and John D. Negroponte, while serving as director of national intelligence.

Hayden, in an interview, said the advice expressed by administration lawyers was consistent. "To the degree this was discussed outside the agency, everyone counseled caution," he said. But he said that, in 2005, it was "the agency's view that there were no legal impediments" to the tapes' destruction. There also was "genuine concern about agency people being identified," were the tapes ever to be made public.

Hayden, who became CIA director last year, acknowledged that the questions raised about the tapes' destruction, then and now, are legitimate. "One can ask if it was a good idea, or if there was a better way to do it," he said. "We are very happy to let the facts take us where they will."

simuvac
01-16-2008, 08:56 PM
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyL3au-RZxEcch2P9ymXaJ9mroogD8U791E01

Tapes Destroyed Over CIA's Objections

By PAMELA HESS – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA official who gave the command to destroy interrogation videotapes apparently acted against the direction of his superiors, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday.

"It appears he hadn't gotten authority from anyone," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., speaking to reporters after the first day of closed testimony in the committee's investigation. "It appears he got direction to make sure the tapes were not destroyed."

Hoekstra said that raises the troubling prospect that there's a thread of unaccountability in the spy culture.

"I believe there are parts of the intelligence community that don't believe they are accountable to Congress and may not be accountable to their own superiors in the intelligence community, and that's why it's a problem," he said.

Hoekstra spoke after the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, testified behind closed doors for nearly four hours as the first witness in what committee officials have said will be a long investigation.

"I told the truth," Rizzo said in a brief appearance before reporters.

The man at the center of the controversy, Jose Rodriguez, had been scheduled to appear Wednesday, but his demand for immunity delayed his testimony. Rodriguez was the head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, the CIA branch that oversees spying operations and interrogations. He gave the order to destroy the tapes in November 2005.

The tapes, made in 2002, showed the harsh interrogation by CIA officers of two alleged al-Qaida terrorists, both of whom are known to have undergone waterboarding, which gives the subject the sensation of drowning.

The White House approved waterboarding and other "enhanced" techniques in 2002 for prisoners deemed resistant to conventional interrogation. The CIA is known to have waterboarded three prisoners and has not used the technique since 2003. CIA Director Michael Hayden prohibited it in 2006.

Gold9472
01-17-2008, 09:48 AM
Lawmaker says CIA official defied instructions to preserve tapes
Republican Pete Hoekstra contradicts accounts that Jose Rodriguez was never told to save the interrogation videos.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-tapes17jan17,1,1062688.story?coll=la-news-politics-national&ctrack=1&cset=true

By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 17, 2008

WASHINGTON -- A senior House Republican said information gathered by the House Intelligence Committee indicated that a high-ranking CIA official ordered the destruction of videotapes depicting agency interrogation sessions even though he was directed not to do so.

The remark by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) contradicts previous accounts that suggested that Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the CIA official who ordered the tapes destroyed, was never instructed to preserve them. Hoekstra's statement was quickly challenged by Rodriguez's lawyer.

"It appears he hadn't gotten authority from anyone" to order the tapes' destruction, Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the panel, said of Rodriguez. "It appears that he got direction to make sure the tapes were not destroyed."

Hoekstra's comments came as the House Intelligence Committee held its second classified hearing on the matter, receiving closed-door testimony from the acting general counsel of the CIA.

Rodriguez, head of the CIA's clandestine service, also had been scheduled to appear at the hearing. But the committee withdrew its request that he testify after his lawyer said he would refuse to answer questions unless given immunity.

Rodriguez's lawyer, Robert Bennett, disputed Hoekstra's statements. "He's wrong," Bennett said of the Republican lawmaker.

Rodriguez "never got any direction not to do it," Bennett said. To the contrary, Bennett said, "He was told that as head of the clandestine service, he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that there was no legal impediment to doing it."

Rodriguez is at the center of a criminal obstruction of justice investigation by the Justice Department, as well as inquiries by the House and Senate intelligence committees, into his role in the destruction of videotapes that showed CIA interrogators using harsh methods to question suspected Al Qaeda members in 2002.

The tapes were destroyed in November 2005, at a time when the CIA was coming under intense scrutiny for its secret network of overseas prisons and its use of brutal interrogation tactics. Among the methods recorded on the tapes was waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

Critics have described waterboarding as torture, and accused the agency of disposing of the tapes to destroy evidence of potentially illegal behavior. The agency has denied that, and maintains that its interrogation methods were legal and approved in advance by the Justice Department.

Current and former CIA officials have said that the tapes were destroyed out of concern for the safety of agency operatives who could be identified if the tapes were leaked to the public.

According to accounts by some of the current and former officials, Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed after receiving a request to dispose of the recordings from the CIA's station chief in Bangkok, Thailand, where one of the agency's secret prison facilities was located. Details about that request were first revealed Wednesday in a report by the Washington Post.

Lawmakers declined to discuss details of their hearing Wednesday with John Rizzo, the acting general counsel of the CIA, who was involved in discussions within the agency about whether the tapes should be destroyed. Former CIA officials have said that Rizzo cautioned against doing so but did not instruct Rodriguez to preserve the recordings.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), chairman of the committee, said Rizzo's testimony was "highly detailed," adding that the panel has also received more than 300 pages of internal CIA documents.

Reyes and Hoekstra said they still intended to compel Rodriguez to testify before the committee but indicated that they were considering whether to grant Rodriguez's request for immunity. Rodriguez is in the process of retiring from the agency.

The hearing came on the same day that the nation's top intelligence official, J. Michael McConnell, delivered a speech in Maryland in which he was asked about waterboarding.

McConnell had been quoted in an article in this week's New Yorker magazine saying that for him "it would be torture" to be subjected to waterboarding. Asked about the comment, McConnell defended the CIA's interrogation program, and said information gleaned through interrogations had disrupted potentially deadly terrorist plots.

Gold9472
01-17-2008, 12:29 PM
House Panel Criticizes CIA Tape Destruction

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011604031.html

By Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 17, 2008; Page A03

The CIA's destruction of videotapes containing harsh interrogations of detainees at secret prisons drew bipartisan criticism from House lawmakers who attended a closed hearing yesterday at which the agency's acting general counsel testified about the matter.

Intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.) said afterward that he remained convinced that the CIA did not meet its obligation to fully inform congressional overseers about the tapes and their destruction. He called the failure "unacceptable."

Reyes said that John A. Rizzo, the CIA's acting general counsel, answered all questions, provided "highly detailed" responses and "walked the committee through the entire matter, dating back to 2002."

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), the panel's ranking Republican and former chairman, said Rizzo suggested that Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the CIA's head of clandestine services, acted on his own authority in November 2005 when he ordered that the tapes be destroyed. "It appears from what we have seen to date that Rodriguez may not have been following instructions" when he ordered the destruction, Hoekstra said.

"There was a long debate about what should be done, and all indications are that Rodriguez should have halted when he gave the go-ahead," he added.

Two of those at the hearing said that Rizzo said that after the tapes were made in 2002, lawyers at the CIA discussed the possibility that the FBI and the 9/11 Commission might want to see them. But the agency did not disclose the existence of the tapes to either before destroying them in 2005, a decision that commission members have criticized.

"It smells like a coverup, but the question is whether it was illegal or not," said one of the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because those in attendance were pledged to secrecy about the session. The CIA has said it fulfilled its obligations by disclosing the existence of the tapes to only a few select members of Congress.

Rizzo, who was a deputy CIA counsel when the tapes were made and became the acting counsel in 2005, participated in the agency's three-year debate over what to do with the tapes. The videos contained the interrogations of two senior al-Qaeda leaders at a secret CIA prison in Thailand and included a technique known as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

Some current and former federal officials have described waterboarding as torture. It has been outlawed by the military and prosecuted by the U.S. government as a criminal offense since the 1940s.

The Justice Department has begun a separate investigation of the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the tapes.

Rizzo declined to discuss his testimony after the hearing. "I told the truth," he said.

One of the two sources present said that White House officials did not seem as involved "as they might have or should have been" in 2005 decision making about the tapes. At least five senior U.S. officials had advised the CIA not to destroy them.

The committee deferred Rodriguez's testimony after his lawyer said that Rodriguez would not answer questions. The lawyer, Robert Bennett, has said that his client ordered the destruction after determining from agency lawyers that it was not illegal to do so.

Separately yesterday, a federal judge in Manhattan said he would privately review classified administration documents related to interrogation methods and to the CIA's secret prison system.

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York said he will determine whether the material was properly classified or whether it should be released under a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, said Rachel Myers, an ACLU spokeswoman who attended the hearing.

Among the documents sought by the group are Justice Department memos authorizing harsh interrogation methods, a presidential order establishing the CIA prisons and documents relating to the CIA's internal investigations of prisoner abuse. Hellerstein scheduled a separate hearing for Wednesday, Myers said, to consider an ACLU request to hold the CIA in contempt of court for destroying the tapes.

simuvac
01-18-2008, 03:09 PM
http://www.alternet.org/rights/74033/?page=entire
Who Will Take the Fall for the CIA Torture Tape Scandal?


By Roberto Lovato, AlterNet
Posted on January 18, 2008, Printed on January 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/74033/

As he concluded a closed-door congressional hearing into the CIA torture tape scandal, Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, on Wednesday opened the country to a historic possibility: that the fate of the investigation into the destruction of the tapes will be decided by Latino government officials. Current and former Latino officials may even determine whether the investigation reaches the White House.

Reyes, the powerful chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is charged with overseeing an investigation into the latest controversy. Reyes' fellow Tejano, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was one of four Bush administration officials briefed on the tapes before they were destroyed, may be asked to testify in the investigation. And at the heart of the whole affair is Jose Rodriguez, the Puerto Rican native who was the CIA's former director of clandestine operations. According to the CIA officials, Rodriguez ordered the destruction of the interrogation tapes in 2005.

Rodriguez was subpoenaed to appear before a closed-door hearing of Reyes' intelligence committee on Jan. 16. But after Rodriguez's lawyer informed Reyes and the committee that his client would not testify without a grant of immunity, the congressman decided to postpone the former CIA official's appearance. Some observers believe the postponement signals a willingness on the part of Reyes to negotiate some kind of immunity deal with Rodriguez.

Developments in the case represent a new, more diverse chapter in the history of national security scandals. How these current and former Latino officials proceed -- especially Reyes and Rodriguez -- may well determine whether the investigation reaches as far as the Bush administration. President George W. Bush said last December that he could not recall hearing about the 2005 destruction of the tapes prior to a Dec. 6 briefing by CIA Director Michael Hayden, despite recent revelations that Gonzales was among the four White House lawyers debating between 2003 and 2005 whether to destroy the now infamous tapes. Some experts speculate that Rodriguez's testimony could lead to a wider investigation and that he is trying to avoid becoming a fall guy for the Bush administration.

"If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez -- one of the most cautious men I have ever met -- have gone ahead and destroyed them?" said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counterterrorism during an interview with the Times of London. Cannistraro's sentiments were echoed by Larry Johnson, another former CIA official interviewed by the Times last month. "It looks increasingly as though the decision was made by the White House," said Johnson, who pointed to a likely expansion of the investigation by an eventual Rodriguez testimony. "The CIA and Jose Rodriguez look bad, but he's probably the least culpable person in the process," said Johnson. "He didn't wake up one day and decide, 'I'm going to destroy these tapes.' He checked with a lot of people and eventually he is going to get his say."

Whether or not Rodriguez does, in fact, get his say depends on his fellow Latino government official, Reyes. Unlike Gonzales, whose rise from poverty in Humble, Texas, to the heights of power and controversy became front-page news following his involvement in the Abu Ghraib scandal, Reyes is a much lesser-known Tejano. Called "Silver" by his friends and close associates, Reyes, a very conservative, pro-Pentagon Democrat and Vietnam war veteran from El Paso, rose to the top of the congressional intelligence chain after a 26½-year stint with the Border Patrol.

As the head of the congressional committee responsible for oversight of the CIA and 15 other agencies comprising the U.S. intelligence community, Reyes will play a definitive role in determining the breadth and scope of the tape controversy investigation. Derided by Fox News commentator John Gibson and other conservative pundits for being "unqualified" for the position, Reyes' past statements about Rodriguez may raise questions about his ability to objectively manage the investigation. During a Border Security Conference organized by Reyes at the University of Texas at El Paso in August, he presented an award to Rodriguez, calling him "our good friend and American hero" and speaking glowingly of his claim to fame as the man who inspired the role of Jack Bauer in 24. Rodriguez, he said, was "the genesis -- with a few liberties that Hollywood takes -- the exploits of Jose Rodriguez are documented in the series 24." Rodriguez, he added, "admitted to me that he likes fast cars. I won't tell you about the women, but I will tell you about the fast cars. He is a connoisseur of fine wine."

Before becoming the CIA's director of the National Clandestine Service, Rodriguez was a career CIA operative who worked primarily in Latin America for more than 30 years. His role in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s appear to have prepared him to adopt the current legal posture he's taking before Congress today. When the FBI called Rodriguez in for questioning about his involvement, he was told that Iran-contra was "political -- get your own lawyer." After surviving that affair, he went on to become the agency's chief of Latin America Division before moving on to become, in 2004, director of the National Clandestine Service, the job that embroiled him in the torture tape controversy. His path to the position, Rodriguez says, was paved by both his Latino identity and his experience in Latin America.

"When I took over the National Clandestine Service in November of 2004," said Rodriguez during a speech at the El Paso conference, "I did not realize that my experience, my background, my ethnicity, my diversity would be so important in allowing me to successfully lead service." Appearing to reinforce the position put out by Rodriguez and the CIA -- that he decided to leave the clandestine service because of his interest in what CIA chief Hayden called "speaking publicly on key intelligence issues" like "diversity as an operational imperative" -- Rodriguez's speech focused primarily on the link between ethnicity and national security.

In a speech that sounded like a mix between a counterterrorism lecture and a sermon about affirmative action, he spoke to the racial discrimination that many Latinos and others experience in professional settings. "Our government was not going to put someone in charge of the nation's clandestine, counterterrorism, Humint (Humanintelligence) operations against Al-Qaeda merely to satisfy a 'diversity' requirement. I was put in charge because I brought something unique to the mission." And, as if putting a positive spin on the CIA's controversial role in Iran-Contra, the Central American wars of the 1980s, the bloody drug war in Colombia and other operations, Rodriguez credited his experience in "counterinsurgency and counternarcotics operations in Latin America." This experience, he said, also "provided some of the methodology that was adapted to fighting terrorism." He concluded his brief speech with a slogan popularized by Chicano civil rights activist Cesar Chavez (and, more recently by candidates Clinton and Obama), as he called his CIA experience a "source of inspiration to many minorities who now understand that 'si se puede, si se puede'" (yes we can, yes we can).

Whether or not the tape scandal investigation reaches the White House, the involvement of high-profile Latinos in the controversy has already attracted considerable attention, especially among Latinos. For Antonio Gonzales, the executive director of the William Velasquez Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank, Latino involvement with the CIA has a long history. "The CIA has always used our community," says Gonzalez, who added, "Many Cubans have always done CIA dirty work in Latin America and the entire world. Oliver North's Iran-Contra assets were Latinos." Asked about Reyes' ability to bring vigorous oversight to the investigation, Gonzales said, "Reyes is a heretofore unknown quantity. He's pretty [politically] moderate but is not considered corrupt or unprincipled. This investigation will be a big test of his abilities. I hope he does the right thing."

Roberto Lovato, a frequent Nation contributor, is a New York-based writer with New America Media.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/74033/

Gold9472
01-25-2008, 08:19 AM
Judge wants answers on CIA videotapes
Judge Orders Bush Administration to Explain Evidence Handling in CIA Videotapes Case

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Judge_wants_answers_on_CIA_videotap_01242008.html

MATT APUZZO
Jan 24, 2008 19:23 EST

A federal judge said Thursday that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to his court case, and he gave the Bush administration three weeks to explain why they were destroyed in 2005 and say whether other evidence was destroyed.

Several judges are considering wading into the dispute over the videos, but U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts was the first to order the administration to provide a written report on the matter. The decision is a legal setback for the Bush administration, which has urged courts not to get involved.

The tapes showed harsh interrogation tactics used by CIA officers questioning al-Qaida suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002. The Justice Department and Congress are investigating the destruction of the tapes.

When they were destroyed, the government was under various court orders to retain evidence relevant to terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After it became public in December that the tapes had been destroyed, lawyers for several detainees went to court demanding to know more.

"There's enough there that it's worth asking" whether other videos or documents were also destroyed, said attorney Charles H. Carpenter. "I don't know the answer to that question, but the government does know the answer and now they have to tell Judge Roberts."

The Justice Department has warned that a judicial inquiry could jeopardize the criminal investigation. U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, the first judge to consider the question, held a public hearing before agreeing not to hear evidence in the case.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in New York said destroying the tapes appeared to have violated his order in a case involving the American Civil Liberties Union. But U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has not yet said how he will rule.

Roberts issued a three-page ruling late Thursday siding with Carpenter, who represents Guantanamo Bay detainee Hani Abdullah. The judge said the lawyers had made a preliminary "showing that information obtained from Abu Zubaydah" was relevant to the detainee's lawsuit and should not have been destroyed.

Roberts said he wants a report by Feb. 14 explaining what the government has done to preserve evidence since his July 2005 court order, what it is doing now and whether any other potentially relevant evidence has been destroyed.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd had no comment.

David Remes, an attorney in a similar case who unsuccessfully sought information about the videotapes, praised the ruling.

"It was only a matter of time before a court ordered the government to account for its handling — or mishandling — of evidence in these cases," Remes said.

Gold9472
02-07-2008, 09:23 AM
C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes as Judge Sought Interrogation Data

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/washington/07intel.html?ref=world

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
Published: February 7, 2008

WASHINGTON — At the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a federal judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah, according to court documents made public on Wednesday.

The court documents, filed in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, that when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial.

It was already known that the judge in the case, Leonie M. Brinkema, had not been told about the existence or destruction of the videos. But the newly disclosed court documents, which had been classified as secret, showed the judge had still been actively seeking information about Mr. Zubaydah’s interrogation as late as Nov. 29, 2005.

The destruction of the tapes is under investigation by the Justice Department and Congress.

One of the documents, a motion filed by Mr. Moussaoui’s lawyers to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, cites several instances in 2005, including one after the videotapes were apparently destroyed, when government lawyers produced documents to the court that came from the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.

The document states that on Nov. 29, 2005, government lawyers produced documents, including “intelligence summaries,” about Abu Zubaydah but never told the court about the existence or destruction of the tapes.

A response that was filed to the appeals court by federal prosecutors remains classified, government officials said. Mr. Moussaoui was convicted of terrorism-related charges in 2006, and the government officials said that last month an appellate judge had denied a motion by his lawyers, who argued that the destruction of the C.I.A. tapes meant the Moussaoui case should be sent back to a district court.

The tapes destroyed by the C.I.A. documented the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah and a second Qaeda operative, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, according to current and former intelligence officials.

After The New York Times notified C.I.A. officials in December that it intended to publish an article about the destruction of the tapes, General Hayden issued a statement to employees.

In it, General Hayden said he understood that the tapes were destroyed “only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries — including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.”

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Wednesday: “The rulings in this case are clear, and the director stands by his statement. Nothing has changed.” A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said he could not comment on the unsealed documents.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. notified federal prosecutors in the Moussaoui case about the existence and destruction of the tapes before the matter became public. But one of the documents released Wednesday, a letter from Chuck Rosenberg, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said a prosecutor in the Moussaoui case “may have been told in late February or early March 2006” about the Abu Zubaydah videotapes, but “does not recall being told this information.”

The papers made public on Wednesday were filed in the appeal of Mr. Moussaoui, who was sentenced to life in prison by Judge Brinkema, of the Eastern District of Virginia, in May 2006. The documents were filed in December under seal and made public this week with some redactions.

Mr. Moussaoui attended a flight school in Oklahoma in 2001 but was arrested in Minnesota on immigration charges before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He admitted in 2005 to participating in terrorist plotting with Al Qaeda.

The new documents also raised new questions about a letter sent to Judge Brinkema in October by prosecutors in the Moussaoui case.

In that letter, prosecutors acknowledged that two declarations filed in the case by C.I.A. officials were inaccurate. The C.I.A. officials had denied the existence of video or audiotapes of interviews of certain Qaeda suspects, but the letter said the C.I.A. in fact had two videotapes and one audiotape of interrogations.

Intelligence officials have said the three tapes, which still exist, are separate from the hundreds of hours of videotape of Abu Zubaydah and Mr. Nashiri that were destroyed. It is unclear why the October letter did not mention those tapes or their destruction.

simuvac
02-13-2008, 01:53 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/12/fbi.detainees/index.html

Official: FBI agents interrogated detainees separately from CIA

From Kelli Arena
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI sent agents to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 to independently obtain information the CIA had gotten from "high-value" al Qaeda detainees, but without using harsh interrogation techniques, a government official told CNN Tuesday.

The official asked not to be named because information about the questioning is classified.

FBI Director Robert Mueller had told agents to stay out of the CIA interrogations because of concern that the way the information was being obtained would not hold up in a court of law, the official said.

The CIA (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/central_intelligence_agency) used harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, during its questioning of three top al Qaeda detainees, CIA Director Michael Hayden said last week.

Waterboarding involves strapping a person to a surface, covering his face with cloth and pouring water on the face to imitate the sensation of drowning. Critics have called it torture.

There are questions about whether testimony gathered through waterboarding would be considered as testimony, said Charles Swift, a former U.S. Navy attorney who represented Osama bin Laden's driver.

The last legal precedent he could find for such a move, he said, was the Spanish Inquisition -- more than 500 years ago.

The objective of the FBI agents was to find out about any role the detainees played in the September 11, 2001, attacks and other activities, the government official said.

The FBI (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/federal_bureau_of_investigation) was seeking the same details the CIA had gotten in previous interrogations, the official said.

The captives were read rights similar to Miranda rights by the FBI agents, the official said.

The questioning happened after the detainees had been transferred from CIA custody to a prison facility in Guantanamo Bay (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/guantanamo_bay), Cuba, the official said.

Five of the men the Pentagon announced it intends to bring charges against are among those high-value detainees.

Gold9472
03-02-2009, 12:19 PM
AP Newsbreak: CIA destroyed 92 interrogation tapes

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iASWS1P4bBULp9TwdMDnotGBi5bQD96LV9B80

By DEVLIN BARRETT – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations, far more than has previously been acknowledged.

The revelation Monday comes as a criminal prosecutor is wrapping up his investigation in the matter.

The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York, where the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of terror interrogation programs.

"The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed," said the letter by Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin. "Ninety two videotapes were destroyed."

The tapes became a contentious issue in the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, after prosecutors initially claimed no such recordings existed, then acknowledged two videotapes and one audiotape had been made.

The letter, dated March 2 to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, says the CIA is now gathering more details for the lawsuit, including a list of the destroyed records, any secondary accounts that describe the destroyed contents, and the identities of those who may have viewed or possessed the recordings before they were destroyed.

But the lawyers also note that some of that information may be classified, such as the names of CIA personnel that viewed the tapes.

"The CIA intends to produce all of the information requested to the court and to produce as much information as possible on the public record to the plaintiffs," states the letter.

John Durham, a senior career prosecutor in Connecticut, was appointed to lead the criminal investigation out of Virginia.

He had asked that the requests for information in the civil lawsuit be put on hold until he had completed his criminal investigation. Durham asked that he be given until the end of February to wrap up his work, and has not asked for another extension.

Gold9472
03-02-2009, 07:22 PM
CIA admits it destroyed 92 interrogation tapes

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Breaking_CIA_destroyed_92_interrogation_tapes_0302 .html

3/2/2009

While it has been known for some time that the CIA had destroyed tapes of interrogations with terrorism suspects, Monday's news that 92 videotapes had been destroyed by the agency was still shocking.

The CIA acknowledged the number of tape erasures in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York. The letter was filed in response to an ongoing lawsuit from the the American Civil Liberties Union that is seeking more details of terror interrogation programs.

The ACLU immediately called for the judge to issue a "prompt finding of contempt" against the CIA.

Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU and counsel on the case said to Raw Story, “The large number of video tapes destroyed confirms that this was a systemic attempt to evade court orders.”

Singh added, "It’s about time, now that the court knows 92 tapes have been destroyed, that it hold the CIA accountable for the destruction of the tapes."

The letter was submitted when the court's stay of consideration of the ACLU's contempt motion expired on Feb. 28. John Durham, the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is conducting the criminal investigation into the destruction of any interrogation tapes, did not request an additional stay.

According to the letter, which can be viewed here (http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/lettertohellerstein_ciainterrogationtapes.pdf), the CIA is now gathering information in response to the Court’s order to provide a list identifying and describing each of the destroyed records, as well as transcripts or summaries from any of the destroyed records and the names of any witnesses who may have viewed the videotapes before their destruction. The CIA requested that it be given until March 6 to provide the court with a timeline for its response to the requested information.

In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of videotapes in violation of a court order requiring the agency to produce or identify all the requested records. That motion is still pending, according to a release from the ACLU.

The ACLU contends that the tapes should have been identified and processed in response to its FOIA request for information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody.

The tapes became a contentious issue in the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, after prosecutors initially claimed no such recordings existed, then acknowledged two videotapes and one audiotape had been made.

This latest news of CIA tape erasures dovetails into Senate plans to hold a review of the agency's detention and interrogation program. The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to investigate whether the steps taken by the CIA (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/us/politics/27intel.html?ref=us) to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects were properly authorized.

Gold9472
03-03-2009, 10:22 AM
Feds probably won't charge anyone for destroying CIA tapes
Interrogators, incinerators likely to escape charges

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Feds_unlikely_to_prosecute_anyone_for_0303.html

3/3/2009

Even though he has yet to complete his investigation, a federal prosecutor has already signaled that he is unlikely to indict any CIA employees for incinerating 92 secret interrogation tapes that purportedly show suspects being waterboarded.

Lost in the flood of reports about the CIA admitting the destruction of 92 interrogation tapes in a government legal filing were new and potentially details. Sources close to an ongoing probe told (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030200852.html?sub=AR) The Washington Post that they expect no one at the CIA will be charged.

Obama CIA Director Leon Panetta previously told a confirmation committee that there were no plans to prosecute those involved in former President George W. Bush's interrogation program, which critics -- and Panetta (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-panetta-hearing6-2009feb06,0,126601.story) -- describe as torture. But the new revelation that federal prosecutor John Durham won't charge CIA operations employees with what appears to have been obstruction of justice, raises the stakes even higher.

In fact, the CIA said it destroyed the tapes to protect the identities of agents involved in the interrogation program.

Further, the government knows who ordered the tapes destruction. Then-directorate of operations chief Jose A. Rodriguez gave the order to destroy the tapes in 2005. Since then, the CIA says they've discontinued taping detainees.

Federal prosecutor John "Durham appears unlikely to secure criminal indictments against Rodriguez and other agency operations personnel involved in the conduct," three sources told the Post. "In recent months, the prosecutor has focused special attention on CIA legal advisers who reviewed court directives and on agency lawyers who told Rodriguez that getting rid of the recordings was sloppy and unwise but that it did not amount to a clear violation of the law, the sources said.

The prosecutor has also obtained e-mail messages and internal memoranda that detail the "jarring or unpleasant substance" or the interrogations, the report added -- which purportedly include waterboarding.

"At issue are recordings that chronicle the interrogation of two senior al-Qaeda members... while they underwent a simulated drowning practice known as waterboarding and in less hostile moments as they interacted with agency employees or sat in their prison cells," government officials speaking under the condition of anonymity said.

According to the letter the government filed Monday disclosing the number of tapes destroyed, the agency has asked for an extension until Friday to provide the names of witnesses who might have viewed the tapes before they were destroyed.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/washington/03web-intel.html?_r=1)

Gold9472
03-07-2009, 02:56 AM
CIA destroyed 12 tapes showing 'enhanced interrogation methods'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CIA_destroyed_12_tapes_showing_enhanced_0306.html

3/6/3009

The American Civil Liberties Union has received new information about 92 interrogation videotapes which were previously revealed to have been destroyed by the CIA.

Documents provided on Friday to a federal court in New York indicated that twelve of the 92 tapes depicted "enhanced interrogation methods." Ninety of those tapes showed one detainee and the other two a second detainee. However, the inventory of the tapes was almost entirely redacted.

"The government is needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIA’s use of torture -- including waterboarding -- is no secret," ACLU staff attorney Amrit Singh complained. "This new information only underscores the need for full and immediate disclosure of the CIA’s illegal interrogation methods."

In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion -- which is stil pending -- to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of the tapes in violation of a court order to produce or identify all records that had been requested by the ACLU. The tapes were also withheld from the 9/11 Commission.

The government has now promised to release additional information about the tapes by March 20. According to a letter sent to the court by two assistant US Attorneys, "Point 2 requires the production of a 'list of any summaries, transcripts, or memoranda regarding the records, and of any reconstruction of the records' content. The CIA will complete this list on or before March 20, 2009. On that same date, the CIA will provide a public version of the list to the Court and Plaintiffs and, if necessary to explain fully the records at issue, will make available a classified version for the Court's ex parte, in camera review."

A copy of the government's letter to the court is available at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/030609/hellerstein_letter.pdf (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/030609/hellerstein_letter.pdf)

A copy of the redacted videotape inventory is available at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/030609/videotape_inventory.pdf (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/030609/videotape_inventory.pdf)

A redacted description of the tapes is available at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/030609/paragraph_77.pdf (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/030609/paragraph_77.pdf)

The ACLU's contempt motion and related legal documents are available online at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/www.aclu.org/torturefoia)

Gold9472
03-21-2009, 06:11 PM
CIA reveals it has 3,000 pages of documents relating to destroyed interrogation tapes

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CIA_reveals_it_has_3000_pages_0320.html

3/21/2009

The Central Intelligence Agency disclosed Friday that it has 3,000 summaries, transcripts, reconstructions and memoranda relating to 92 interrogation videotapes that were destroyed by the agency, the American Civil Liberties Union revealed Friday evening.

The agency, however, says they won't make them public or provide them to the civil rights group. The disclosure came as part of a lawsuit.

The CIA says they incinerated the tapes to protect the identities of agents involved in the interrogations. Their destruction came at the same time (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/washington/07intel.html) a federal judge was seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of alleged al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah.

The CIA also refused to publicly disclose any witnesses who may have viewed the destroyed tapes or had custody of them prior to their destruction.

“The government is still needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIA's use of torture is well known,” Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU, said in a release. “Full disclosure of the CIA's illegal interrogation methods is long overdue and the agency must be held accountable for flouting the rule of law.”

The CIA could not be reached for comment.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the information came to light late Friday and was sent out by the ACLU in a release at 6:44PM ET. Organizations and agencies often release unfavorable information on Friday evenings, because American newspapers have the lowest circulation on Saturdays.

More from the ACLU's release issued Friday follows.In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of the tapes in violation of a court order requiring the agency to produce or identify all records requested by the ACLU. That motion is still pending.

The agency’s latest submission came in response to an August 20, 2008 court order issued in the context of the contempt motion. That order required the agency to produce “a list of any summaries, transcripts, or memoranda regarding the [destroyed tapes] and of any reconstruction of the records’ contents” as well as a list of witnesses who may have viewed the videotapes or retained custody of the videotapes before their destruction. The CIA will provide these lists to the court for in camera review on March 26, 2009.

Earlier this month, the CIA acknowledged it destroyed 92 tapes of interrogations. The tapes, some of which show CIA operatives subjecting suspects to extremely harsh interrogation methods, should have been identified and processed for the ACLU in response to its Freedom of Information Act request demanding information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. The tapes were also withheld from the 9/11 Commission, appointed by former President Bush and Congress, which had formally requested that the CIA hand over transcripts and recordings documenting the interrogation of CIA prisoners.

The government’s letter to U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York is available online here (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/39093res20090320.html).

The ACLU's contempt motion and related legal documents are available online here (http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia).

Gold9472
07-07-2009, 07:41 AM
Top CIA officials appear before jury over destruction of al-Qaida tapes

• 92 video tapes may have been illegally destroyed
• London station chief included in inquiry

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/03/cia-al-qaida-guantanamo-interrogation

Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 17.17 BST

Senior Central Intelligence Agency officials, including the London station chief, have been brought before a grand jury in Virginia investigating the potentially illegal destruction of 92 video tapes recording the torture and interrogation of al-Qaida detainees.

A special prosecutor, John Durham, has called the CIA officials as part of an 18-month-long criminal probe in to the destruction of evidence of the agency's interrogators using waterboarding and other forms of torture against Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri who are described by the Americans as "high value" detainees now held at Guantánamo Bay.

Those ordered to testify include the former CIA chief, Porter J. Goss. Another is a woman who is not publicly named who heads the agency's London station. She previously worked as the chief of staff for the head of the CIA's clandestine branch, Jose Rodriguez, who is the focus of the investigation.

The New York Times reports that former CIA officers have identified the woman as having helped carry out Rodriguez's order to destroy the tapes which had been kept in a safe in at the agency's station in Thailand where the torture and interrogations were carried out.

Rodriquez is reported to have been concerned that agents might have been identified and endangered if the tapes leaked.

But the CIA will also have been concerned that some of its agents may have been open to prosecution under domestic and international laws against torture besides the enormous damage to its already battered reputation if video were made public of the extended torture and brutal techniques used against the captives. The impact is likely to have been much greater than the outcry caused by the pictures of abuse by US soldiers at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.

President Obama has since pledged not to prosecute individual agents for their part in torture and interrogations because they were assured by the Bush administration that their actions were legal.

The investigation was launched because the destruction of the tapes may amount to a criminal offense because it was evidence that could have been used in any prosecutions for torture. Robriquez has told colleagues that he received legal guidance from CIA lawyers who told him he had the authority to order the destruction of the tapes.

However it remains open to question whether anyone will be brought to trial for that or other alleged offenses given the Obama administration's desire to reassure CIA agents that they will not be pursued over past crimes.

The existence of the tapes was only made public after they were destroyed.

On Thursday, the Obama administration said it will delay until the end of next month the release of a 2004 CIA report detailing the torture and other abuse of prisoners held in clandestine prisons oversees.

Gold9472
07-16-2010, 07:49 AM
Judge Rules CIA Can Suppress Information About Torture Tapes and Memos
Ruling Allows CIA to Conceal Evidence of Its Own Illegal Conduct, Says ACLU

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/15-19

NEW YORK - July 15 - A federal judge today ruled that the government can withhold information from the public about intelligence sources and methods, even if those sources and methods were illegal. The ruling came in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation filed by the American Civil Liberties Union for Justice Department memos that authorized torture, and for records relating to the contents of destroyed videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of detainees at CIA black sites.

The government continues to withhold key information, such as the names of detainees who were subjected to the abusive interrogation methods as well as information about the application of the interrogation techniques. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today ruled that the government can continue to suppress evidence of its illegal program.

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU:

"We are very dismayed by today's ruling, which invests the CIA with sweeping authority to conceal evidence of its own illegal conduct. There is no question that the CIA has authority under the law to withhold information relating to ‘intelligence sources and methods.' But while this authority is broad, it is not unlimited, and it certainly should not be converted into a license to suppress evidence of criminal activity. Unfortunately, that is precisely what today's ruling threatens to do. The CIA should not be permitted to unilaterally determine whether evidence of its own criminal conduct can be hidden from the public."

Judge Hellerstein's ruling is available online at: www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-dod-district-court-order-allowing-suppression-information-about-intelligenc (http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-dod-district-court-order-allowing-suppression-information-about-intelligenc)

More information about the ACLU's FOIA litigation is available online at: www.aclu.org/accountability/ (http://www.aclu.org/accountability/)

###

The ACLU conserves America's original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Gold9472
07-26-2010, 08:05 AM
Key omission in memo to destroy CIA terror tapes

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0726/key-omission-memo-destroy-cia-terror-tapes/

By The Associated Press
Monday, July 26th, 2010 -- 7:53 am

White House, CIA lawyers in dark before terrorist videos destroyed; evidence of obstruction?

When the CIA sent word in 2005 to destroy scores of videos showing waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, there was an unusual omission in the carefully worded memo: the names of two agency lawyers.

Once a CIA lawyer has weighed in on even a routine matter, officers rarely give an order without copying the lawyer in on the decision. It's standard procedure, a way for managers to cover themselves if a decision goes bad.

But when the CIA's top clandestine officer, Jose Rodriguez, told a colleague at the agency's secret prison in Thailand to destroy interrogation videos, he left the lawyers off the note.

The destruction of the tapes wiped away the most graphic evidence of the CIA's now-shuttered network of overseas prisons, where suspected terrorists were interrogated for information using some of the most aggressive tactics in U.S. history.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Critics of that George W. Bush-era program point to the tapes' destruction and say his administration was trying to cover its tracks.

The reality is not so simple.

Interviews with current and former U.S. officials and others close to the investigation show that Rodriguez's order was at odds with years of directives from CIA lawyers and the White House. Rodriguez knew there would be political fallout for the decision, according to documents and interviews, so he sought a legal opinion in a way to gain needed legal cover to get the tapes destroyed — but not so much that anyone would stop him.

Leaving the lawyers he had consulted off his cabled order to destroy the tapes was so unusual that a top CIA official noted it in an internal e-mail just days later. The omission is now an important part of the Justice Department's 2 1/2-year investigation into whether destroying the tapes was a crime.

Prosecutors have focused on a little-used section of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley accounting law. That makes it illegal to destroy documents, even if no court has ordered them kept and no investigator has asked for them.

Rodriguez, who wasn't disciplined for what some former officials told prosecutors amounted to insubordination, is frequently back at CIA headquarters as a contractor.

The Associated Press has compiled the most complete published account to date of how the tapes were destroyed, a narrative that among other things underlines the challenges prosecutors face in bringing charges.

Most of the people interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. Some of the officials directly involved declined comment or were unavailable.

___

Taping CIA interrogations is unusual, but the 2002 captures of al-Qaida operatives Abu Zubaydah and Rahim al-Nashiri were unusual cases. The CIA wanted to unravel al-Qaida from within and the Bush administration allowed increasingly severe tactics to try to ensure cooperation.

Officers began videotaping to prove that Zubaydah arrived in Thailand wounded and to show they were following Washington's new interrogation rules.

Almost as soon as taping began, officials began discussing whether to destroy the tapes. Dozens of officers and contractors appeared on the tapes. If those videos surfaced, officials feared, nearly all those people could be identified.

In November 2002, CIA lawyer John L. McPherson was assigned to watch the videos and compare them with written summaries. If the reports accurately described the videos, that would bolster the case that the tapes were unnecessary.

Several of the 92 videos had been taped over, so the quality was poor. Others contained gaps. When one tape ran out, documents show, interrogators didn't always immediately insert a new one. Many contained brief interrogation sessions followed by hours of static.

McPherson concluded in January 2003 that the summaries matched what he saw. With that assurance, the CIA planned to destroy the tapes. But lawmakers who were briefed on the plan raised concerns, and the CIA scrapped the idea, agency documents show.

The White House didn't learn about the tapes for a year, and even then, it was somewhat by chance.

___

Near the end of a May 2004 meeting between CIA general counsel Scott Muller and White House lawyers, the conversation turned to the scandal over photos of abuse in the military's Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

National Security Council lawyer John Bellinger's question was almost offhand: Does the CIA have anything that could cause a firestorm like Abu Ghraib?

Yes, Muller said.

David Addington, a former CIA lawyer who was Vice President Dick Cheney's legal counsel, was stunned that videos existed, officials said. But he told Muller not to destroy them, and Bellinger and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales agreed, according to documents and interviews with former officials.

That order stood for more than a year. Muller's successor, John Rizzo, received similar instructions from the next White House counsel, Harriet Miers: Check with the White House before destroying the tapes.

All the while, courts and lawmakers looking into detainee treatment were unknowingly coming close to the tapes:

_A Virginia judge asked whether there were interrogation videos of witnesses relevant to Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. But that didn't cover Zubaydah, who the judge said was immaterial to the Moussaoui case, so the CIA didn't tell the court about his interrogation tape.

_A Washington judge told the CIA to safeguard evidence of mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay. But Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were overseas at the time, so the agency regarded the order as not applicable to the tapes of their interrogations.

_A New York judge told the CIA to search its investigative files for records such as the tapes. But the CIA considered the tapes part of its operational files and therefore exempt from FOIA disclosure and did not reveal their existence to the court.

_The Sept. 11 commission asked for many documents, but never issued a subpoena.

___

Despite the White House orders, momentum for destroying the tapes grew again in late 2005 as the CIA Thailand station chief, Mike Winograd, prepared to retire.

Winograd had the tapes and believed they should be destroyed, officials said. At CIA headquarters, Rodriguez and his chief of staff agreed. Winograd did not return several messages from the AP seeking comment.

On Nov. 4, 2005, Rodriguez asked CIA lawyer Steven Hermes whether Rodriguez had the authority destroy the tapes. Hermes said Rodriguez did, according to documents and interviews. Rodriguez also asked CIA lawyer Robert Eatinger whether there was any legal requirement to keep the tapes. Eatinger said no.

Both Eatinger and Hermes remain with the agency and were unavailable to be interviewed. But both told colleagues they believed Rodriguez was merely restarting the discussion. Because of previous orders not to destroy the tapes, they were unaware Rodriguez planned to move immediately, officials told the AP.

Rodriguez told Winograd to request approval to destroy the tapes. That request arrived Nov. 5. Rodriguez sent his approval three days later.

He and his chief of staff were the only names on the cable. Had he sent a copy also to the CIA lawyers — Rizzo, Hermes or Eatinger — or even to CIA Director Porter Goss, any of them could have intervened.

"Before Jose did what he did, he was confident it was legal, that there was no impediment to him doing it," his lawyer, Robert Bennett told the AP. "And he always acted in the best interest of the U.S. and its people."

It took about 3 1/2 hours to destroy the tapes. On Nov. 9, Winograd informed Rodriguez the job was complete. Goss and Rizzo wouldn't find out until the next day.

___

Rizzo was angry and Miers livid, according to internal CIA e-mails. Goss agreed with Rodriguez's decision, the e-mails said, but predicted he'd get criticized for it. Rodriguez was undeterred.

"As Jose said, the heat from destroying is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain — he said out of context, they would make us look terrible; it would be devastating to us," said an e-mail from an aide to the agency's No. 3 official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo.

Such statements could be used as evidence if prosecutor John Durham seeks charges in the case. Even if Rodriguez genuinely worried about the safety of his officers and wasn't trying to obstruct an investigation, if he feared the tapes might someday be made public, that could be enough to violate the Sarbanes-Oxley obstruction law.

As the case winds down, McPherson, who reviewed the tapes in 2003, again has been thrust into a central role. McPherson has received immunity in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors, an unusual protection for a government lawyer.

CIA spokesman George Little said the agency is cooperating with investigators.

Rodriguez, now an executive with contractor Edge Consulting, a job that regularly gives him access to the national intelligence director's office and CIA headquarters, still hasn't received an official retirement party.

___

Online:

CIA: https://www.cia.gov/

Gold9472
07-27-2010, 07:16 AM
Judge Rules CIA Can Withhold Info about Illegal Methods

http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Judge_Rules_CIA_Can_Withhold_Info_about_Illegal_Me thods_100726

Monday, July 26, 2010

Judge Alvin Hellerstein A federal judge has backed CIA efforts to conceal information about treatment of detainees, even if the suppressed records contain details about illegal activity on the part of the intelligence agency.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that he was unwilling to “second-guess the CIA Director regarding the appropriateness of any particular intelligence source or method,” while rejecting the American Civil Liberties Union’s request to obtain records related to the treatment of detainees, those who died in U.S. custody and the names of anyone kidnapped and sent to secret prisons.

ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said his organization was “dismayed” by Hellerstein’s decision, which could be construed as giving the CIA “a license to suppress evidence of criminal activity.”

Gold9472
08-17-2010, 07:20 AM
Secret terrorist tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh found under CIA desk

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/08/17/2010-08-17_secret_terrorist_tapes_of_911_plotter_ramzi_bin alshibh_found_under_cia_desk.html

BY Aliyah Shahid
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, August 17th 2010, 7:37 AM

Secret's out.

Recordings of a 9/11 plotter being interrogated in a secret overseas prison were discovered under a desk by the CIA— even though the government told the Justice Department twice that such tapes did not exist.

According to The Associated Press, the recordings—two video and one audio—show Ramzi Binalshibh being questioned in a jail in Rabat, Morocco in 2002.

In 2005, the CIA destroyed 92 recordings of Al Qaeda members Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Nashiri when they were being waterboarded, according to U.S. officials who did not want to be identified because the tapes were supposed to remain top secret. They thought all the footage was wiped out.

But in 2007, a CIA staffer found the Binalshibh tapes in a box. And now, a Justice Department prosecutor, who was already probing whether destroying the Zubaydah and al-Nashiri recordings were illegal, is investigating why the latest tapes were never revealed.

The recordings could reveal how foreign governments helped the U.S. interrogate alleged terrorists.

The discovery could also affect Binalshibh's trial if his lawyers argue the 38-year-old alleged terrorist was mentally unstable due to his detention. He is now being treated for schizophrenia.

Binalshibh was jailed on Sept. 11, 2002 and was initially questioned by the CIA in Afghanistan. Two former CIA officials said the suspect showed signs of mental instability that got worse over time. He spent five months in Morocco in late 2002 and early 2003 and is now being held in Guantanamo Bay.

Binalshibh, who was born in Yemen, has been described by U.S. officials as a "key facilitator" in 9/11. According to court documents, he has shown unpredictable behavior, including breaking cameras in his cell and smearing them with feces. He has also been delusional, believing the CIA was shaking his bed and cell. He also thought something was crawling all over his body.

U.S. officials maintain no harsh interrogation methods were used in Morocco. CIA spokesman George Little would not discuss the Moroccan jail—which has a history of human rights violations. Little maintained officials "continue to cooperate with inquiries into past counterterrorism practices."

Military commissions are on hold while the president's administration decides how to handle suspected terrorists. Thomas A Durkin, Binalshibh's lawyer said the tapes could prove extremely valuable since his client has not had a hearing on whether he was mentally capable to stand trial.

"If those tapes exist, they would be extremely relevant," he said.

Gold9472
11-09-2010, 01:13 PM
No Charges in Case of Destroyed CIA Interrogation Tapes, Justice Official Says

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/09/charges-case-destroyed-cia-interrogation-tapes-justice-official-says/

Published November 09, 2010

No one will be charged in the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, a Justice Department official confirmed to Fox News Channel Tuesday.

The tapes reportedly showed the interrogation of two al Qaeda operatives in 2002, according to the New York Times. They were destroyed in 2005.

Gold9472
11-09-2010, 01:35 PM
No charges to be filed in destruction of CIA tapes

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/charges-destruction-cia-interrogation-tapes-report/

By David Edwards
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 -- 1:04 pm

There will be no criminal charges over the destruction of CIA tapes showing interrogation of terrorism detainees, according to a new report.

Federal prosecutors have determined that there is not enough evidence to bring charges, two sources have told NPR.

The statue of limitations expired Monday so no future prosecutions will be possible.

A few of the tapes allegedly contained evidence showing the interrogation of two detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Intelligence officials told NBC News that one of the tapes showed Zubaydah being waterboarded. Other tapes contained innocuous images of other detainees.

The CIA reportedly destroyed the tapes in November 2005. The Senate Intelligence Committee's Democratic chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, learned of their destruction in November 2006.

Then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey named Assistant US Attorney John Durham to lead an investigation in January 2008.

Attorney General Eric Holder expanded Durham's mandate last year and asked him to look into whether the CIA or contractors went beyond legal interrogation methods. That investigation is ongoing, according to NPR's sources.

Gold9472
11-09-2010, 01:40 PM
Justice dept.: no charges in CIA tape case

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_cia_videotapes

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Pete Yost, Associated Press – 12 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The CIA's former top clandestine officer and others won't be charged in the destruction of CIA videotapes of interrogations of suspected terrorists, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Another part of the criminal investigation is continuing into whether CIA interrogators went beyond the legal guidance given them on treatment of the suspects during questioning, a Justice Department official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that part of the probe is still under way.

The CIA destroyed its cache of 92 videos of two al-Qaida operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, being waterboarded in 2005.

Jose Rodriguez, formerly the agency's top clandestine officer, worried the 92 tapes would be devastating to the CIA if they ever surfaced. He approved the destruction of the tapes. Rodriguez's order was at odds with years of directives from CIA lawyers and the White House.

A lawyer for Rodriguez, Robert Bennett, said the Justice Department decision "is the right decision because of the facts and the law."

Bennett called Rodriguez "an American hero, a true patriot who only wanted to protect his people and his country."

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham has been investigating the destruction of the videotapes since January 2008.

A team of prosecutors and FBI agents led by Durham has conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter, said Matthew Miller, director of the Justice Department's office of public affairs.

"As a result of that investigation, Mr. Durham has concluded that he will not pursue criminal charges for the destruction of the interrogation videotapes," Miller said.

Gold9472
01-16-2011, 02:23 PM
Hellerstein Vexed on Remedy for CIA Tape Destruction

http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1202478205888&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1

Mark Hamblett
New York Law Journal
January 18, 2011

The destruction of videotapes in 2005 showing abusive treatment of high-level al-Qaida detainees by CIA agents flouted an order by Southern District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein to preserve the tapes. Five years later, the judge is still looking for a remedy.

On Friday, Judge Hellerstein said he wants some acceptance of responsibility for the incident by the Central Intelligence Agency as well as an indication that corrective action has been taken for violating his 2004 order to preserve the tapes. The 92 tapes cover the interrogation of two top al-Qaida figures through the use of waterboarding and other coercive measures.

"This kind of destruction never should have occurred," the judge said to lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the government at a hearing on Friday. "It tells the court the CIA does not trust the judges to have proper regard for the security interests of the United States."

The case of American Civil Liberties Union v. Department of Defense, 04-cv-04151, was brought under the Freedom of Information Act, with the plaintiffs seeking details on the possible deaths and mistreatment of prisoners at the hands of U.S. personnel and the rendition or transfer of some prisoners to countries that practice torture during interrogations.

Judge Hellerstein issued his order for the tapes' preservation in September 2004, as the CIA inspector general was investigating the treatment of detainees. The 92 tapes, however, were destroyed on Nov. 9, 2005, at the direction of a high-level CIA official.

During a contempt hearing in 2008, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Skinner argued before Judge Hellerstein that his order was not violated because it "required us to review what was collected by the office of the inspector general and [the tapes] were never collected by the office of the inspector general" (NYLJ, Jan. 18, 2008).

Judge Hellerstein did not buy it. He said it "boggles the mind" that there was a whole study completed on how the CIA treats prisoners for interrogation purposes and "now I'm asked to believe that actual moving pictures, videotapes, of the relationships between interrogators and prisoners are of so little value" that they were not retained.

Nonetheless, the judge said at the time that a contempt finding against a government agency would do no more than generate "a newspaper headline."

On Friday, Judge Hellerstein said he still saw little value in holding the government in contempt, in part because civil contempt against an agency is usually used to obtain compliance with an existing order and would therefore accomplish little.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara M. LaMorte told the judge his rulings had already achieved remedial purposes, including his dual order for the government to assemble and produce documents reflecting or commenting on the contents of the videotapes and gather other documents relating to the destruction of the tapes.

"Then how come I don't feel a great sense of accomplishment?" Judge Hellerstein asked.

Ms. LaMorte told the judge the purpose of a contempt finding was to "make the plaintiffs whole" and she reminded Judge Hellerstein that he had said the purpose of civil contempt is not punishment.

Later, Ms. LaMorte added, "The CIA takes this very seriously" but "we can't go back in time and not destroy the videotapes."

She said the government was amenable to asking the CIA for a report for the judge on how it addressed the destruction and how such an action can be prevented in the future. She also said she was open to discussing another way to conclude the litigation with an award of attorney's fees to the plaintiffs.

Speaking for the plaintiffs, Lawrence Lustberg of Gibbons agreed that certain remedial measures had been taken, but he said that there was good reason for the court to explore the notion of contempt or sanctions.

"It gives courts the ability to express the necessity of agencies to obey a court order," Mr. Lustberg said. "There is a sense [of] community outrage [over] an agency not obeying a court order that has not been stated."

Although Judge Hellerstein had earlier expressed concern over the difficulty of holding individual CIA officials to account, particularly since some of their identities are confidential, Mr. Lustberg said there were "some individuals who we can identify, and we can identify publicly, who were instrumental in the destruction of the tapes."

Judge Hellerstein asked for briefs from both sides about the best way to proceed and bring the case to a conclusion.

Ms. LaMorte also volunteered to have the judge hear from John H. Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed in 2008 by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey to supervise a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes.

In November, the Justice Department said Mr. Durham had concluded he would not bring criminal charges against CIA officers.

The judge said he would be happy to hear from Mr. Durham.

Gold9472
08-01-2011, 08:42 PM
NYC judge refuses to cite CIA in 9/11 tape case

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/01/3050583/nyc-judge-refuses-to-cite-cia.html

The Associated Press
8/1/2011

A New York City federal judge says he won't hold the CIA in contempt for destroying videotapes of Sept. 11 detainee interrogations.

At a hearing Monday, Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the American Civil Liberties Union's arguments that the CIA should be held accountable for the destruction of 92 tapes. The ACLU alleges the tapes showed interrogators torturing key al-Qaida (al-KY'-ee-duh) operatives.

The judge says citing the CIA wouldn't accomplish anything. But he agrees the agency should pay the ACLU's legal costs for pursuing the disclosures.

The CIA claims the tapes were destroyed without top officials knowing and it's taken steps to make sure it couldn't happen again.

The judge cited national security concerns when he said he likely would've ruled against making the tapes public if they'd been preserved.

Gold9472
08-01-2011, 08:45 PM
CIA not in contempt over interrogation tapes, judge says

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-cia-idUSTRE77068O20110801

By Basil Katz
NEW YORK | Mon Aug 1, 2011 7:18pm EDT

(Reuters) - A judge on Monday refused to find the CIA acted in contempt when it destroyed videotapes that showed harsh interrogations of two suspects.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein told a Manhattan federal court hearing that efforts by the CIA to improve how it preserves documents was enough restitution, and that it should pay legal fees to the plaintiffs, the American Civil Liberties Union.

"I don't think a citation of contempt will add to anything," Hellerstein said.

In December 2007, the CIA acknowledged destroying dozens of videotapes made under a detention program begun after the September 11 attacks. The interrogations, in 2002, were of alleged al Qaeda members Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

Until 2007, the CIA had publicly denied the tapes ever existed. They were destroyed in 2005.

A probe by a special federal prosecutor last year found that no CIA personnel should face criminal charges for destroying the videotapes.

Monday's decision came after years of legal battles between the CIA and the ACLU, which first sued the agency in 2004 to obtain documents on its treatment of prisoners.

When news of the tapes surfaced, the ACLU said the CIA and its chief spy at the time had acted in contempt of court by trashing tapes that should have been preserved under a court order following the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

By destroying the tapes, the CIA showed disrespect for the court, said Lawrence Lustberg, an attorney for the ACLU.

Although the CIA failed in not disclosing and preserving the tapes, Judge Hellerstein said: "The bottom line is we are in a dangerous world. We need our spies, we need surveillance, but we also need accountability."

As part of that accountability, the judge on Monday asked the CIA to detail the new policies it says it has implemented since the tapes were destroyed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara La Morte, arguing for the CIA, said the CIA's new policies were "above and beyond" what the court required and that the ACLU was "out to exact retribution on the CIA."

"I don't think that's correct," the judge interrupted.

Gold9472
10-06-2011, 04:37 PM
Manhattan Judge Spares the CIA

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/10/06/manhattan-judge-spares-the-cia/?mod=WSJBlog

By Terin Tashi Miller
10/6/2011

The Central Intelligence Agency has avoided a potential showdown with a Manhattan federal judge.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein (pictured) yesterday declined to find the CIA in contempt for destroying videotapes of its interrogations of Sept. 11 detainees, concluding that it would serve no beneficial purpose to penalize the agency, according to this AP report.

Hellerstein also noted in his ruling that the CIA has put in place new procedures to prevent such destruction from happening again.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the ACLU against the Defense Department, the CIA, and several other government entities engaged in the arrest, detention, interrogation and rendition to other countries of prisoners caught up in the events following the 9/11 attacks. Filed under the Freedom of Information Act, the suit seeks the release of a range of governmental records.

The government, AP reports, has acknowledged that in 2005 it destroyed 92 videotapes, including those containing interrogations of a high-level al-Qaeda lieutenant who claimed he suffered physical and mental torture at the hands of the CIA.

The ACLU had requested that Hellerstein hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of tapes. “We moved for contempt, or in the alternative for sanctions, because the CIA destroyed these tapes at a time when there was in place a Court Order to process them as a result of this Freedom of Information Act case,” Lawrence S. Lustberg, an attorney for the ACLU, told the Law Blog earlier this week.

The judge concluded that the CIA’s new rules would have a “deterrent effect should a CIA official think to destroy documents,” AP reports. The new rules, Hellerstein wrote in his ruling, “should lead to greater accountability within the agency and prevent another episode like the videotapes’ destruction.”

To bolster its contempt request, the ACLU recently sent a letter to the judge, addressing the CIA’s new policies regarding document preservation.

“These new policies … are not responsive as to why and how the CIA destroyed hundreds of hours of videotape depicting hash interrogations, in violation of this court’s orders,” the ACLU letter said. “It is now even clearer that the tapes were destroyed not because of inadequate document preservation policies, but because high-level officials flouted agency policy to protect themselves and the agency from public scrutiny.”

Alexander Abdo, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said in a statement that the ACLU was “profoundly disappointed by the court’s unwillingness to label as contempt what it describes as the CIA’s ‘dereliction.’”

“The truth is that the CIA destroyed evidence of torture, and the destruction of this evidence has made it harder to hold high-level officials accountable for the abuse that they authorized,” Abdo said.

Gold9472
10-06-2011, 04:38 PM
NY judge declines to find CIA in contempt over destruction of detainee interrogation tapes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ny-judge-declines-to-find-cia-in-contempt-over-destruction-of-detainee-interrogation-tapes/2011/10/05/gIQAot1bOL_story.html

By Associated Press, Published: October 5

NEW YORK — A federal judge declined Wednesday to find the CIA in contempt for destroying videotapes of Sept. 11 detainee interrogations, saying to do so would serve no beneficial purpose and the CIA had put in place new procedures to prevent such destruction from happening again.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a written ruling that the CIA has since remedied its failure to produce videotapes in response to requests by the American Civil Liberties Union. He wrote that the people processing the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act request may not have been aware of the videotapes’ existence before they were destroyed.

The government has acknowledged destroying 92 videotapes, including those containing interrogations of a high-level al-Qaida lieutenant who claimed he suffered physical and mental torture at the hands of the CIA. The tapes were destroyed in 2005.

In January, the judge said a contempt finding would be impractical and told the CIA to investigate itself and report how it will prevent employees from destroying information in the future. On Wednesday, he noted that the CIA adopted two new policies in August regarding document preservation to ensure that destruction of any documents outside of routine management of CIA materials will not occur without a review by lawyers to ensure they are preserved for legal proceedings or congressional oversight activity.

The judge said the CIA’s new protocols would have “a remedial and deterrent effect should a CIA official think to destroy documents.”

“The protocols should lead to better communication and more complete written records within the agency and across the government when an issue of document destruction or retention arises within the agency,” he said. “The CIA’s new protocols should lead to greater accountability within the agency and prevent another episode like the videotapes’ destruction.”

Alexander Abdo, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, wrote the ACLU was “profoundly disappointed by the court’s unwillingness to label as contempt what it describes as the CIA’s ‘dereliction.’”

“We also strongly disagree with the court’s finding that the CIA has ‘remedied’ the destruction,” Abdo wrote. “The truth is that the CIA destroyed evidence of torture, and the destruction of this evidence has made it harder to hold high-level officials accountable for the abuse that they authorized.”

Carly Sullivan, a spokeswoman for federal lawyers who argued the case, said the government had no comment on the ruling.

In his ruling, the judge noted that the ACLU had cited a recently published article by a former general counsel for the CIA that accused the CIA’s former deputy director of operations of defying orders and going behind the top CIA lawyer’s back to destroy the videotapes.

He said the argument premised on the belief that one high-ranking official defied orders and destroyed the tapes undermines the ACLU’s contention that the CIA as an agency should be held in contempt for the conduct.

Still, the judge wrote, “the lapses of individuals cannot excuse the failures of the agency.” He said the CIA had an obligation to identify or produce the videotapes and “cannot be excused in its dereliction because of particular individuals’ lapses.”

The administration of President George W. Bush had said some tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of the government questioners while the Department of Justice was debating whether the interrogation tactics were legal.

In September 2009, the judge cited national security concerns in ruling that the CIA did not have to release hundreds of documents related to the destruction of the videotapes. He has said he likely would have ruled against public disclosure of videotapes documenting new harsh questioning techniques if the CIA had not destroyed them.

An ACLU lawsuit already has forced the release of legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, and slamming suspects into walls, techniques described by critics as torture.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Gold9472
10-08-2011, 09:22 AM
The CIA's impunity on 'torture tapes'
That the CIA could destroy its videotapes of 9/11 conspirator interrogations without penalty is a shocking abuse of democracy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/07/cia-impunity-torture-tapes?newsfeed=true

10/8/2011

Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean – the co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission – are the prototypical Wise Old Men of Washington. These are the types chosen to head blue-ribbon panels whenever the US government needs a respectable, trans-partisan, serious face to show the public in the wake of a mammoth political failure. Wise Old Men of Washington are entrusted with this mission because, by definition, they are loyal, devoted members of the political establishment and will criticise political institutions and leaders only in the most respectful and restrained manner.

That is why it was so remarkable when Hamilton and Kean, on 2 January 2008, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times repeatedly accusing the CIA and the Bush White House of knowingly "obstructing" their commission's investigation into the 9/11 attack. As many imprisoned felons can attest, the word "obstruction" packs a powerful punch as a legal term of art signifying the crime of "obstruction of justice", and yet, here were these two mild-mannered, establishment-protecting civil servants accusing CIA and Bush officials of that crime in the most public and unambiguous manner possible.

What triggered this duo's uncharacteristic accusatory outburst was the revelation that the CIA had purposely destroyed numerous videos of interrogation sessions it had conducted with al-Qaida operatives (destroyed were 92 videos, showing hundreds of hours of interrogations). The 9/11 Commission had repeatedly demanded, with the force of law behind it, that all such interrogation materials be provided to it. Numerous courts presiding over lawsuits relating to torture allegations against the CIA had also ordered that any such videos be produced.

But with those orders pending, the CIA destroyed the very evidence it was legally compelled to preserve. With at least the knowledge, if not direction, of White House officials, they did so almost certainly with the intent of preventing the world from seeing how they treated detainees in their custody – with torture – but the effect was to prevent the 9/11 Commission and multiple courts from learning what al-Qaida operatives said (or did not say) about 9/11 and other matters under investigation.

That is why the CIA's actions were so clearly criminal: destroying evidence one knows is relevant to a lawful investigation or a judicial proceeding is the very essence of "obstruction of justice". Individuals are routinely prosecuted and imprisoned in the US for such acts in far less serious cases. So egregious and deliberate was the CIA's criminality – purposely destroying evidence relevant to the most significant terrorist attack in history on US soil – that not even Hamilton and Kean were willing to paper over it.

Despite all that, there have been no legal consequences whatsoever for the crimes of these CIA officials. Last November, the Obama justice department – following the administration's all-too-familiar pattern of shielding Bush-era crimes from acountability – announced it was closing its criminal investigation into the matter with no charges filed. And this week, a federal judge, whose own order to produce these videos had been violated by the CIA, decided that he would not even impose civil sanctions or issue a finding of contempt because, as he put it, new rules issued by the CIA "should lead to greater accountability within the agency and prevent another episode like the videotapes' destruction".

In other words, the CIA has promised not to do this again, so they shouldn't be punished for the crimes they committed. Aside from how difficult it is, given the agency's history, to make that claim without triggering a global laughing fit, it is also grounded in a principle of leniency rarely applied to ordinary citizens. After all, most criminal defendants caught up in the life-destroying hell of a federal prosecution are quite unlikely to repeat their crimes in the future, yet that fact is no bar to punishing them for the illegal acts they already committed.

What actually produced this astounding outcome is the two-tiered system of justice that is now fully entrenched in the US: one in which ordinary Americans are subjected to a brutally harsh and unforgiving system of punishment, while political and financial elites are vested with virtually full-scale immunity for even the most egregious of crimes. It is that warped "justice" system that has caused Americans to witness the construction of the world's largest penal state for ordinary citizens at the very same time that the most destructive elite crimes – a worldwide torture regime, Wall Street plundering on a massive scale, illegal domestic eavesdropping, an aggressive war in Iraq that killed at least tens of thousands of innocents – have gone completely unpunished.

As I spent the last 18 months writing my forthcoming book on this two-tiered justice system, I genuinely expected, as I recount there, that there would be indictments in the CIA video case, thus providing a counter-example to the book's argument that elites are now immune from the rule of law. "Even our political class," I wrote, "couldn't allow lawbreaking this brazen to go entirely unpunished." Alas, as Wednesday's court ruling (pdf) demonstrated, I was wrong: there is no elite criminality too egregious to enjoy this shield of immunity. Thus can the CIA purposely destroy evidence it has been ordered to produce both by a congressionally-created investigative commission and multiple courts – and do so with total impunity.

Gold9472
04-24-2012, 07:19 PM
Top ex-CIA officer on waterboarding tape destruction: ‘Just getting rid of some ugly visuals’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/top-ex-cia-officer-on-waterboarding-tape-destruction-just-getting-rid-of-some-ugly-visuals/2012/04/24/gIQAZamEfT_story.html

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, April 24, 6:18 PM

WASHINGTON — The retired top CIA officer who ordered the destruction of videos showing waterboarding says in a new book that he was tired of waiting for Washington’s bureaucracy to make a decision that protected American lives.

Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw the CIA’s once-secret interrogation and detention program, also lashes out at President Barack Obama’s administration for calling waterboarding torture and criticizing its use.

“I cannot tell you how disgusted my former colleagues and I felt to hear ourselves labeled ‘torturers’ by the president of the United States,” Rodriguez writes in his book, “Hard Measures.”

The book is due out April 30. The Associated Press purchased a copy Tuesday.

The chapter about the interrogation videos adds few new details to a narrative that has been explored for years by journalists, investigators and civil rights groups. But the book represents Rodriguez’s first public comment on the matter since the tape destruction was revealed in 2007.

That revelation touched off a political debate and ignited a Justice Department investigation that ultimately produced no charges. Critics accused Rodriguez of covering up torture and preventing the public from ever seeing the brutality of the CIA’s interrogations. Supporters hailed him as a hero who acted in the best interest of the country in the face of years of bureaucratic hand-wringing.

The tapes, filmed in a secret CIA prison in Thailand, showed the waterboarding of terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri.

Especially after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Rodriguez writes, if the CIA’s videos were to leak out, officers worldwide would be in danger.

“I wasn’t going to sit around another three years waiting for people to get up the courage,” to do what CIA lawyers said he had the authority to do himself, Rodriguez writes. He describes sending the order in November 2005 as “just getting rid of some ugly visuals.”

Rodriguez writes critically of Obama’s counterterrorism policies today. With no way to capture and interrogate terrorists, Rodriguez says, the CIA relies far too much on drones. Unmanned aerial attacks alienate America’s foreign partners and make it impossible to question people in the know, he says.

These points could foreshadow Republican attack lines in the presidential race because other former senior CIA officers are advising presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

The killing of Osama bin Laden is Obama’s signature national security accomplishment, but Rodriguez writes that valuable intelligence from the CIA’s “black sites” helped lead the U.S. to bin Laden.

The book is published by Threshold, a conservative imprint of Simon and Schuster that also published former Vice President Dick Cheney’s memoir.

Gold9472
04-25-2012, 08:27 AM
Former CIA spy boss made an unhesitating call to destroy interrogation tapes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/former-cia-spy-boss-made-an-unhesitating-call-to-destroy-interrogation-tapes/2012/04/24/gIQAkdTXfT_story.html

By Dana Priest, Published: April 24

The first and only time I met Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., he was still undercover and in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency’s all-powerful operations directorate. The agency had summoned me to its Langley headquarters and his mission was to talk me out of running an article I had just finished reporting about CIA secret prisons — the “black sites” abroad where the agency put al-Qaeda terrorists so they could be interrogated in isolation, beyond the reach and protections of U.S. law.

The scene I walked into in November 2005 struck me as incongruous. The man sitting in the middle of the navy blue colonial-style sofa looked like a big-city police detective stuffed uncomfortably into a tailored suit. His face was pockmarked, his dark mustache too big to be stylish. He was not one of the polished career bureaucrats who populate the halls of power in Washington.

In fact, he fit perfectly the description given by my sources: hardworking but not smooth, loyal to the institution and now, probably, beyond his depth. He was as surprised as anyone that he had risen so quickly to the senior ranks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the account of his decades-long spy career in “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives.” The book is due out Monday, after an exclusive interview Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” The Washington Post obtained a copy this week.

Shortly after the 2001 attacks, the CIA set up the secret prisons in Afghanistan, Thailand and several Eastern European countries for the explicit purpose of keeping detainees picked up on the battlefield or in other countries away from the U.S. justice system, which would grant them some protections against, among other things, torture or otherwise harsh treatment. In an effort to force these detainees to give their handlers information about terrorist plots, CIA interrogators subjected some of them to sleep and food deprivation, incessant loud noise and waterboarding.

By the time we met, those techniques were no longer in use. Rodriguez had not dealt with American reporters, he writes, but then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss had asked him to meet with me “to see if I could convince her that such a story would harm U.S. national security, put some of our allies around the world in a very difficult position, and potentially disrupt a program that was providing intelligence that was producing real results and helping to keep the country safe.”

What Rodriguez remembers from our conversation, according to his book, is that I brought him a copy of a book I had written about the U.S. military in an effort to butter him up. “That failed to soften my stance on the lack of wisdom of her proceeding with her article as planned,” he wrote, and “I could see I was not winning her over.” I remember bringing the book because I figured he didn’t know one reporter from the next, and I wanted him to know that I did in-depth work and didn’t want to just hear the talking points.

A blunt explanation
It became clear immediately that Rodriguez never even got the talking points, which was refreshing and surprising. Right away he began divulging awkward truths that other senior officers had tried to obfuscate in our conversations about the secret prisons: “In many cases they are violating their own laws by helping us,” he offered, according to notes I took at the time.

Why not bring the detainees to trial?

“Because they would get lawyered up, and our job, first and foremost, is to obtain information.”

(Shortly after our conversation, The Post’s senior editors were called to the White House to discuss the article with President George W. Bush and his national security team. Days later, the newspaper published the story, without naming the countries where the prisons were located.)

Rodriguez may have never felt the need to even reveal himself publicly or to write a book, complete with family photos, giving his version of many of the unconventional — and eventually repudiated — practices that the CIA engaged in after Sept. 11 had it not been for what happened shortly after our conversation.

Concerned that the location of one of the prisons was about to be revealed, Rodriguez writes that he ordered the facility closed immediately and the detainees moved to a new site. While dismantling the site, the base chief asked Rodriguez if she could throw a pile of old videotapes, made during the early days of terrorist Abu Zubaida’s interrogation and waterboarding, and now a couple of years old, onto a nearby bonfire that was set to destroy papers and other evidence of the agency’s presence.

Just at that moment, according to his account, a cable from headquarters came in saying: “Hold up on the tapes. We think they should be retained for a little while longer.”

“Had that message been delayed by even a few minutes,” Rodriguez writes, “my life in the years following would have been considerably easier.”

Those actions led to a lengthy and still ongoing investigation of the agency that produced no charges. Rodriguez retired in January 2008 and now works in the private sector.

A tough CIA veteran
Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico, the son of two teachers. He was educated at the University of Florida, where he also received a law degree before being recruited by the CIA. He once gained the confidence of a dictator in a Latin American country because of his gutsy horseback riding skills. He worked as the chief of station in several countries he does not name, and was sent to El Salvador during its bloody civil war (which he glosses over completely) and to Panama, where he pitched the idea of recruiting Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega’s witch doctor and putting him on the CIA payroll to persuade the dictator to retire to Spain. The CIA director at the time wasn’t impressed and instead, in 1989, “the United States followed a more traditional path: a military invasion.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, he did what legions of CIA officers not at work that day did: He rushed into headquarters, even as people were being evacuated, and pitched in. Rodriguez ended up in the Counterterrorism Center, which quickly went from a backwater posting to the center of the universe at the agency.

As CIA operations officers and analysts scrambled to figure out more about al-Qaeda and to plan a counterattack, Rodriguez was in the eye of the storm. “Hard Measures” takes readers through a highly sanitized — censored by the CIA, actually — version of events.

Although many details are left out and most of the outlines of what Rodriguez writes will not come as news to close readers of newspapers, he does not shy away from addressing the most controversial parts of what became the largest covert action program in U.S. history: the secret decisions to capture suspected terrorists on the battlefield or on the streets and make them disappear from the face of the Earth. Using a fleet of airplanes, the CIA bundled its captives into a netherworld no one else had access to, flew them around the world, deposited them in secret underground prisons where it could control their every move and use especially harsh interrogation methods on some of the most senior prisoners.

Many CIA officers had misgivings about these practices and what they might mean for America’s reputation around the world. Not Rodriguez. He is unabashedly confident that he and the agency did the right thing and saved lives in the process.

“I am certain, beyond any doubt, that these techniques, approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government, certified by the Department of Justice, and briefed to and supported by bipartisan leadership of congressional intelligence oversight committees, shielded the people of the United States from harm and led to the capture of killing of Usama bin Ladin.”

Of course, it is impossible to know this for certain, and many people inside and outside government — some of them involved in interrogations — have argued that with better-trained interrogators and more patience, the same information could have been obtained without such harsh methods.

The most newsworthy part of the book is a chapter in which Rodriguez explains how he came to order the destruction of 92 videotapes of the interrogation of Abu Zubaida.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has nearly completed a four-year-long review of the CIA’s post-Sept. 11 detention and interrogation practices.

Shredding the tapes
Rodriguez writes that he ordered the tapes’ destruction because he got tired of waiting for his superiors to make a decision. They had at least twice given him the go-ahead, then backed off. In the meantime, a senior agency attorney cited “grave national security reasons” for destroying the material and said the tapes presented ‘“grave risk” to the personal safety of our officers” whose identities could be seen on the recordings.

In late April 2004, another event forced his hand, he writes. Photos of the abuse of prisoners by Army soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ignited the Arab world and risked being confused with the CIA’s program, which was run very differently.

“We knew that if the photos of CIA officers conducting authorized EIT [enhanced interrogation techniques] ever got out, the difference between a legal, authorized, necessary, and safe program and the mindless actions of some MPs [military police] would be buried by the impact of the images.

“The propaganda damage to the image of America would be immense. But the main concern then, and always, was for the safety of my officers.”

Readers may disagree with much of what Rodriguez writes and with the importance of some of the facts he omits from his book, but the above sentence speaks volumes about why this book is important. In this case, a loyal civil servant — and the decision-makers above him who blessed these programs — were not thinking about the larger, longer-lasting damage to the core values of the United States that disclosure of these secrets might cause. They were thinking about the near term. About efficiency. About the safety of friends and colleagues. In their minds, they were thinking, too, about the safety of the country.

And after some back-and-forth with agency lawyers for what seemed to him the umpteenth time, he writes, Rodriguez scrutinized a cable to the field drafted by his chief of staff, ordering that the tapes be shredded in an industrial-strength machine. The tapes had already been reviewed, and copious written notes on their content had been taken.

“I was not depriving anyone of information about what was done or what was said,” he writes. “I was just getting rid of some ugly visuals that could put the lives of my people at risk.

“I took a deep breath of weary satisfaction and hit Send.”

Gold9472
04-25-2012, 12:26 PM
Crime boasting for profit
Shielded from all forms of accountability, a CIA official is able to publish a book glorifying his illegal acts

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/25/crime_boasting_for_profit/singleton/

By Glenn Greenwald
4/25/2012

On December 7, 2007, The New York Times reported that the CIA “in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program.” Documents obtained when the ACLU asked a federal judge to hold the CIA in contempt of court — for destruction of evidence which that judge had ordered be produced — subsequently revealed that the agency had actually “destroyed 92 videotapes of terror-suspect interrogations.” The videotapes recorded interrogations of detainees who were waterboarded and otherwise tortured. The original NYT article, by Mark Mazzetti, reported that “the decision to destroy the tapes was made by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who was the head of the Directorate of Operations, the agency’s clandestine service” (the NYT later reported that some White House officials had participated in the deliberations and even advocated the tapes’ destruction).

Destruction of these tapes was so controversial because it seemed so obviously illegal. At the time the destruction order was issued, numerous federal courts — as well as the 9/11 Commission — had ordered the U.S. Government to preserve and disclose all evidence relating to interrogations of Al Qaeda and 9/11 suspects. Purposely destroying evidence relevant to legal proceedings is called “obstruction of justice.” Destroying evidence which courts and binding tribunals (such as the 9/11 Commission) have ordered to be preserved is called “contempt of court.” There are many people who have been harshly punished, including some sitting right now in prison, for committing those crimes in far less flagrant ways than was done here. In fact, so glaring was the lawbreaking that the co-Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission — the mild-mannered, consummate establishmentarians Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean — wrote a New York Times Op-Ed pointedly accusing the CIA of “obstruction” (“Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation”).

In 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a Special Prosecutor to determine if criminal charges should be filed. When I was writing my last book about the legal immunity bestowed on political elites even for egregious crimes, I actually expected that Rodriguez would be indicted and that his indictment would be an exception to the rule of elite immunity which I was documenting. As I wrote in my book, “even our political class, I thought, couldn’t allow lawbreaking this brazen to go entirely unpunished.” But I was quite wrong about that.

In November, 2010, the Obama DOJ — consistent with its steadfast shielding of Bush-era criminals from all forms of accountability — announced that the investigation would be closed without any charges being filed. Needless to say — given how subservient federal judges are to the Executive Branch in the post-9/11 era — the federal judge who had ordered the CIA to preserve and produce any such videotapes, Alvin Hellerstein, refused even to hold the CIA in contempt for deliberately disregarding his own order. Instead, Hellerstein — who, like so many federal judges, spent his whole career before joining the bench as a partner for decades in a large corporate law firm serving institutional power — reasoned that punishment for the CIA was unnecessary because, as he put it, new rules issued by the CIA “should lead to greater accountability within the agency and prevent another episode like the videotapes’ destruction.”

In other words, as I put it in a Guardian Op-Ed about Hellerstein’s CIA-protecting decision: the CIA has promised not to do this again, so they shouldn’t be punished for the crimes they committed. Aside from how difficult it is, given the agency’s history, to make that claim without triggering a global laughing fit, it is also grounded in a principle of leniency rarely applied to ordinary citizens. After all, most criminal defendants caught up in the life-destroying hell of a federal prosecution are quite unlikely to repeat their crimes in the future, yet that fact is no bar to punishing them for the illegal acts they already committed. But the CIA, of course, operates under a different justice system: one in which they are free to deliberately break laws and violate court orders with impunity.

Protected by the DOJ and Judge Hellerstein from any and all accountability for what he did, the CIA official who ordered the videotapes’ destruction, Jose Rodriguez, is now enjoying the fruits of his crimes. He just published a new book in which he aggressively defends his decision to destroy those tapes (“The propaganda damage to the image of America would be immense. But the main concern then, and always, was for the safety of my officers . . .I was just getting rid of some ugly visuals that could put the lives of my people at risk”). He also categorically justifies the CIA’s use of torture (“I am certain, beyond any doubt, that these techniques … shielded the people of the United States from harm and led to the capture of killing of Usama bin Ladin”) as well as the agency’s network of black sites (“Why not bring the detainees to trial?,” asks The Washington Post‘s Dana Priest in a review today of the book; Rodriguez’ answer in the book: “because they would get lawyered up, and our job, first and foremost, is to obtain information”). The title of the book: “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives.”

Rodriguez thus joins a long line of Bush officials — Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, et. al — who not only paid no price for the crimes they committed, but are free to run around boasting of those crimes for profit. That’s what happens when the most politically powerful officials are vested with immunity for their illegal acts. Both the criminals and their crimes become normalized. They feel free not only to admit their crimes openly but to justify and glorify them, because they know they will never be held accountable for them. Instead of having to explain himself as a criminal defendant, Rodriguez is instead permitted to wrap his conduct in the banner of heroism as a highly-paid Simon & Schuster author.

This will be one of the most enduring and consequential aspects of the Obama legacy: by working so hard, in so many ways, to shield Bush-era crimes from all forms of accountability, the Democratic President has ensured that they are not viewed as crimes at all, but at worst, run-of-the-mill political controversies. Given all this, why would any government officials tempted to commit these same crimes in the future possibly decide that they should not?

* * * * *

As I wrote about earlier this week, the Obama DOJ is attempting to resist the ACLU’s lawsuit to obtain basic information about the CIA’s drone program by insisting that it cannot even confirm or deny the existence of the program without damaging national security. It makes this claim even though top-level Obama officials routinely boast in the media about this program. Incredibly, Rodriguez’s book — which was reviewed and cleared for publication by the CIA — explicitly discusses the CIA’s use of drones. So here we have, yet again, the U.S. Government permitting public discussions of what it does when it benefits top officials, while simultaneously shielding its conduct from the rule of law by telling courts that what it does is so secret that it cannot even confirm or deny its existence.

Gold9472
04-26-2012, 06:52 PM
Ex-CIA chief defends waterboarding of al Qaeda leader

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57422476/ex-cia-chief-defends-waterboarding-of-al-qaeda-leader/

Jose Rodriguez has no regrets about using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" - methods that some consider torture -- on al Qaeda detainees questioned after 9/11 and denies charges they didn't work. The former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service talks to Lesley Stahl about those methods, including waterboarding, for the first time and defends their use - even comparing them to the current policy of killing al Qaeda leaders with drone strikes. The Rodriguez interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, April 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Rodriguez says everything his interrogators did to top-level terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah was legal and effective. "We made some al Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days," he tells Stahl. "I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives," says Rodriguez, who has written a book on the subject called "Hard Measures."

Pressed by Stahl about charges that Zubaydah, who was waterboarded and sleep deprived, gave false information that wasted U.S. resources, Rodriguez replies, "Bull****!, He gave us a roadmap that allowed us to capture a bunch of al Qaeda senior leaders," says the ex-spy.

Rodriguez says the interrogation program, which also included stress positions, nudity and "insult slaps," was "about instilling a sense of hopelessness...despair...so that he [the detainee] would conclude on his own that he was better off cooperating with us." He says that even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, whom he termed "the toughest detainee we had," eventually gave up information.

KSM, as the mastermind of 9/11 was known, would not cooperate at first. "He eventually told us, 'I will talk once I get to New York and I get my lawyer,'" Rodriguez recalls. But KSM was subjected to the enhanced techniques, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation, and Rodriguez believes, "it was the cumulative effect of waterboarding and sleep deprivation and everything else that was done that eventually got to him."

Rodriguez maintains he got information from the interrogations of KSM and others that enabled the CIA to disrupt at least 10 large-scale terrorist plots. But when Stahl reminds him the CIA's own inspector general said that his enhanced interrogation program did not stop any imminent attack, Rodriguez says, "We don't know. ...if, for example, al Qaeda would have been able to continue on with their anthrax program or nuclear program...or sleeper agents ...working with Khalid Sheik Mohammed to take down the Brooklyn Bridge, for example."

Stahl then suggests that KSM was never really broken, because he never gave up Osama bin Laden. "There is a limit...to what they will tell us," replies Rodriguez.

Rodriguez regrets the cancellation of his enhanced interrogation program by the current administration, accusing the White House of tying America's hands in the war on terror. "We don't capture anyone anymore Lesley...the default option of this administration has been to kill all prisoners. Take no prisoners," he tells Stahl. "The drones. How could it be more ethical to kill people rather than capture them?"

Gold9472
04-26-2012, 06:52 PM
US to show Guantanamo arraignment at 5 sites for families of 9/11 victims, 3 spots for public

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/families-of-911-victims-can-watch-guantanamo-arraignment-at-us-sites/2012/04/26/gIQA2EwdjT_story.html

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, April 26, 5:40 PM

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The arraignment for the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four other Guantanamo Bay prisoners will be broadcast by closed-circuit television to eight sites in the eastern United States, a military judge ruled Thursday.

Army Col. James Pohl said in his ruling that remote viewing locations are necessary because of the significant public interest in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants.

Dozens of journalists as well as relatives of Sept. 11 victims are expected to attend the hearing at the U.S. base in Cuba on May 5 when Mohammed and the others are to be arraigned on charges that include murder and terrorism.

The government began showing closed-circuit TV coverage of Guantanamo proceedings in Fort Meade, Maryland, last year but has never before broadcast tribunal proceedings so widely from the base.

Pohl’s order sets aside five viewing sites for families of Sept. 11 victims, survivors and emergency personnel who responded to the attack. Those will be at Fort Meade; Fort Hamilton and another site to be announced in New York City; Joint Base McGuire Dix in Lakehurst, New Jersey; and Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

There will be three other viewing sites for the public, journalists and government officials, two at Fort Meade and one in Washington.

Lawyers for some defendants opposed the closed-circuit broadcast on the grounds that the proceedings should be open to anyone to see, not just broadcast by closed-circuit TV at certain locations.

“We want it more transparent and more open,” said Cheryl Bormann, a lawyer for defendant Waleed bin Attash. “We believe that the world needs to see what’s happening.”

This is the second time that the U.S. is attempting to prosecute the five prisoners at Guantanamo.

President Barack Obama’s administration withdrew the charges and sought to move the case to a civilian court in the U.S. as part of an effort to close the prison on the base in Cuba. But the administration was forced to reverse course because of opposition in Congress and by New York City officials who said the case posed too great of a security threat.

The five men could get the death penalty if convicted at the military trial.

Gold9472
04-26-2012, 06:52 PM
9/11 Suspects' Arraignment to Be Broadcast for Victims' Families
The five plotters are set to be arraigned May 5 for the attacks more than 10 years ago

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/911-Suspects-Guantanamo-Broadcast-Arraignment-149114705.html

Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 | Updated 3:56 PM EDT

The upcoming Guantanamo Bay arraignment of five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks will be broadcast to eight locations in the eastern United States so that families and others can view the proceedings.

A military judge has authorized the May 5 broadcast by closed-circuit television so that surviving victims of the attacks, family members, first-responders and others can watch without have to travel to the U.S. base in Cuba.

Army Col. James Pohl issued a ruling Thursday for what would be the most widespread broadcast of a Guantanamo military commission hearing.

The arraignment of the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four other men will be shown in the Washington area as well as at military bases in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi are charged with planning and executing the disaster that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Gold9472
05-10-2012, 07:43 AM
'Vomiting and screaming' in destroyed waterboarding tapes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17990955

By Peter Taylor BBC Newsnight

Secret CIA video tapes of the waterboarding of Osama Bin Laden's suspected jihadist travel arranger Abu Zubaydah show him vomiting and screaming, the BBC has learned.

The tapes were destroyed by the head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Jose Rodriguez.

In an exclusive interview for Newsnight, Rodriguez has defended the destruction of the tapes and denied waterboarding and other interrogation techniques amount to torture.

The CIA tapes are likely to become central to the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, at Guantanamo Bay.

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared before a special military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay last Saturday, he refused to put on the headphones that would enable him to hear the translator.

His civilian attorney, David Nevin, said he could not wear them because of the torture he had suffered during his interrogation.
Demonstration of waterboarding Waterboarding, which simulates drowning, was used in the interrogation of three al-Qaeda suspects

His "torture" at the hands of his CIA interrogators at a secret "black site" to which he had been rendered, included being deprived of sleep for over a week, standing naked, wearing only a nappy, and being waterboarded 183 times.

The CIA and the US Department of Justice that authorised the secret interrogation programme in the wake of 9/11, euphemistically referred to its content as "enhanced interrogation techniques".

Most people would probably call them "torture", but Jose Rodriguez disputes this term.

He has written a book, "Hard Measures" in which he defends the use of such techniques, and he told me there is no doubt they were effective.

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was probably the toughest detainee that we ever had and he was going to resist to the end of his strengths," he told me.

Waterboarding is simulated drowning. The detainee is stripped naked and strapped onto a board in a horizontal position with feet higher than his head.

Water is then dripped onto a cloth covering the nose and mouth which makes the detainee choke and temporarily stop breathing.

"It's not a pretty sight when you are waterboarding anybody or using any of these techniques, let's be perfectly honest," Rodriguez admitted.

Only three of the CIA's "high value targets" were waterboarded.
Courtroom sketch of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is currently on trial at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged architect of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in which 17 sailors died, was waterboarded twice, and Abu Zubaydah, Osama Bin Laden's suspected travel agent for jihadis, 83 times.

And it is the waterboarding of Zubaydah that has now become the centre of fresh controversy triggered by Newsnight's investigation.

The CIA recorded Zubaydah's detention and interrogation - and that of other detainees - on 92 video tapes.

Twelve of them covered the application of the "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding.

On one or more of them, I understand Zubaydah is shown vomiting and screaming.

John Rizzo, the CIA's top legal counsel who oversaw the legalisation of the techniques in an exchange of memoranda with the Department of Justice, wanted to be certain that what was happening at the black site was in accordance with what had been legally agreed.

He had not anticipated that waterboarding would be used as often as it was. And he sent one of his most experienced colleagues to the black site, believed to be in Thailand, to find out.

Rizzo's colleague viewed all the 92 hours of video and concluded that the techniques were being legally applied, but he was uncomfortable about what he saw.

"He did say that portions of the tapes, particularly those of Zubaydah being waterboarded, were extraordinarily hard to watch," Rizzo told me.

"He [Zubaydah] was reacting visibly in a very disturbing way."

So was he being sick?

"He was experiencing some physical difficulties, I'll just leave it at that... 'tough to watch in places' was his term."

I asked Jose Rodriguez if he had seen the tapes. He said he had not. Was he aware that they showed Abu Zubaydah vomiting and screaming? He said he was not. He checked with his interrogators at the black site who said there was no vomiting or screaming.

"I don't know where you got that from", he said. "I don't know about screaming and vomiting but it's not a pretty sight."

Rodriguez knew the tapes were potentially a ticking time bomb and wanted to destroy them. He waited for three years with increasing exasperation at the apparent unwillingness of anybody on high to take responsibility for authorising their destruction.

Then when news of the CIA's secret black sites leaked, Rodriguez's patience ran out.

Believing he had the authority to do so, he ordered the 92 tapes to be minced in an industrial shredder.

"Our lawyers said it was legal," he said.

But Rizzo was not happy.

"I was stunned and angry and honestly a bit hurt. I made it clear to him, as did two CIA directors, that he did not have the authority to make a decision to destroy those tapes."

So I asked, "He disobeyed orders?"

"He did."

But Rodriguez is adamant that he acted legally and says his motive in ordering their destruction was to protect the identities of his CIA interrogators lest they suffer reprisals.

But there was more to it than that. Three days after the tapes had been shredded, a CIA memorandum, since released under America's Freedom of Information Act, reported comments by Jose Rodriguez:

"As Jose said, the heat from destroying [the tapes] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes got into the public domain - he said that out of context they would make us look terrible - it would be devastating to us. All in the room agreed."

I put this to Rodriguez and he was typically upfront about it.

"I said that, yes. If you're waterboarding somebody and they're naked, of course that was a concern of mine."

Despite all the controversies around the CIA's black sites and its interrogation programme, Jose Rodriguez stands by all that he did.

"I was honoured to serve my country after the 9/11 attacks. I am proud of the decisions that I took including the destruction of the tapes to protect the people who worked for me. I have no regrets."

No doubt defence lawyers at Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial will try and get access to the written records that exist of what was on the tapes and seek to question the CIA lawyer who viewed them.

But under the rules of the military tribunal that restrict any discussion of torture, they are unlikely to succeed.

Gold9472
05-18-2012, 07:34 PM
Q. & A.: Ali Soufan

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/q-a-ali-soufan.html

Posted by Amy Davidson
5/17/2012

In the past couple of weeks, Ali Soufan, the former F.B.I. agent who led the investigation into the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and into events surrounding 9/11—and was the subject of a 2006 New Yorker piece by Lawrence Wright and is the author of “The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al Qaeda”—has been drawn back into the debate about torture and the war on terror by the publication of “Hard Measures: How Aggressive C.I.A. Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,” by Jose Rodriguez, Jr. Rodriguez, in his book and in a “60 Minutes” interview, argued that techniques like waterboarding are necessary tools; Soufan has a different view. Below, he answers questions about post-9/11 interrogations, the roles of the C.I.A. and F.B.I., and whether torture works.

Who is Jose Rodriguez? What does he know about the waterboarding of detainees after 9/11, and what we did or didn’t learn from it?

Jose was a C.I.A. officer whose area of expertise was in Latin America, but after September 11, 2001, he was put in charge of the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, and now he’s claiming responsibility for introducing the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (E.I.T.s). In 2005, he ordered the destruction of tapes that showed the harsh techniques being used, apparently contrary to orders. He was later reprimanded by the C.I.A.’s inspector general’s office.

The claims he’s recently been making about the success of the harsh techniques are the same false claims that have appeared in now declassified C.I.A. memos, and which have been thoroughly discredited by the likes of the Department of Justice, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the C.I.A.’s Inspector General.

The person making those claims isn’t the same Jose that I knew. I don’t know what he really knows, whether he was fed false information, or if he’s trying to defend his legacy, but what he says is at odds with the facts.

You were involved in the same sequence of events—the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. How does your memory of them differ from the story Rodriguez is telling?

In this area it’s not a question of memory but of factual record. There are now thousands of pages of declassified memos and reports that thoroughly rebut what Mr. Rodriguez and others are now claiming. For example, one of the successes of the E.I.T.s claimed in the now declassified memos is that after the program began in August, 2002, Abu Zubaydah provided intelligence that prevented José Padilla from detonating a dirty bomb on U.S. soil, and identified Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mr. Rodriguez has been repeating this claims.

The reality is that both of those pieces of intelligence were gained by my partner and me, with C.I.A. colleagues, in early April, 2002—months before the August, 2002, start of the E.I.T. program. But in the memos they were able to promote false facts, even altering dates, to make their claims work. In the so-called C.I.A. Effectiveness Memo, for example, it states that Mr. Padilla was arrested in May, 2003. In reality, he was arrested in May, 2002. But saying 2003 fits with the waterboarding narrative. When the Department of Justice asked Steven Bradbury, acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and the author of the 2005 O.L.C. memo to reinstate E.I.T.s, why he didn’t check the facts, he replied, “It’s not my role, really, to do a factual investigation of that.”

What about the identification of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

The claim about waterboarding leading to unmasking of K.S.M. as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks is similarly false. We got that information in April, 2002, before the contractors hired by the C.I.A. Counterterrorism Center even arrived at the site. One by one, the successes claimed by E.I.T. proponents have been shown to be false.

I went before the Senate Judiciary Committee and under oath recounted what happened. And, as I note in “The Black Banners,” I sent daily reports from the secret interrogation location, to Washington, recording what happened, which the U.S. Government has in its possession. After I left the location in 2002, I wondered if they got anything of value. Until 2005, I was still in the government, and I know that nothing of value from E.I.T.s reached us. I thought perhaps the information was only shared with others. But with the declassification of previously secret memos, it became clear that every example given of claimed successes was factually incorrect—and I know this from firsthand experience of how those pieces of intelligence were really gained. It’s because of all this that I spoke out in 2009 to correct the false claims the American people were being told.

“60 Minutes,” in a Web piece that accompanied its interview with Rodriguez called “Interrogations: The FBI’s side of the Story,” presented this as a he-said, he-said, or Agency-said, Bureau-said: “What really happened in the interrogation of high-level detainees like Abu Zubaydah? Depends on who you ask: the FBI or the CIA.” Is that what it comes down to?

It was a factual mistake for “60 Minutes” and others to present it as an F.B.I. versus C.I.A. issue. They had in their possession the C.I.A. Inspector General’s report, the Department of Justice report, and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s information, all of which make this clear.

The more accurate way to portray it is that it’s the professionals from the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. versus bureaucrats in Washington. The C.I.A. professionals in the field weren’t happy that outside contractors with no Al Qaeda or terrorism experience were put in charge and they were pushed out. One C.I.A. colleague even left the secret location where we questioning Abu Zubaydah before I did—in protest of what was happening. Mr. Rodriguez, too, was not an Al Qaeda or terrorism expert, as he himself writes.

Because these C.I.A. professionals were unhappy with what bureaucrats in Washington were doing, they complained to their inspector general, John Helgerson. He looked into the program and issued a damning report about its lack of verifiable successes, among other things. This is why, back in 2005, still under the Bush Administration, the program was shelved.

Today, those responsible for the program, who made a decision that was terrible for our national security—both in the short term and the long term—are doing their best to try to salvage their reputation. And part of their tactic is to portray this as F.B.I. versus C.I.A., but that’s dishonest.

You mentioned the videotapes Rodriguez says he destroyed—ninety-two of them. Why would he do that?

On “60 Minutes,” Jose said he destroyed the evidence of the interrogations “to protect the people” who worked for him, from Al Qaeda going “after them and their families.” But that’s not the reason Mr. Rodriguez gave at the time, and it’s a shame he wasn’t challenged on it.

One declassified C.I.A. e-mail, dated November 10, 2005, and written by the deputy to Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, then executive director of the C.I.A., notes that Rodriguez thought that “if the tapes ever got into [the] public domain… they would make us look terrible.” It was about their reputation, not safety.

The tapes also contained our interrogations, done with traditional techniques. The tapes would have shown under which circumstances Abu Zubaydah coöperated and when he stopped coöperating. But while the tapes were destroyed, our daily reports from the location are luckily safe and still in the government’s possession.

And while Rodriguez claims he had approval to destroy the tapes, a second declassified e-mail from Foggo’s deputy shows that someone either “lied” to Rodriguez about approval, or Rodriguez “misstated the facts.” The C.I.A.’s then general counsel, John Rizzo, is recorded in the same e-mail as being “clearly upset” about the destruction.

Is there a cultural difference between the F.B.I. and C.I.A. that played into decisions about torture and civil liberties? As Lawrence Wright wrote in The New Yorker, you also learned, after 9/11, that failures in intelligence—particularly in the investigation of the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole, which you led—may have cost us a chance to stop the attacks. Is the situation better?

As we discussed, there’s no difference between the views of the C.I.A. and F.B.I. professionals in the field, who know what works and what doesn’t. My colleagues and I in the F.B.I., however, were fortunate to have leadership that shared our views, with the Assistant Director of the F.B.I., Pat D’Amuro, saying to Director Robert Mueller, “We don’t do that,” and Mueller agreeing. Many of my colleagues in the C.I.A. turned to their C.I.A. Inspector General to complain about what was happening—which led to the eventual shelving of the program, in 2005.

Regarding 9/11, I outline that sequence of events in “The Black Banners,” and it’s tragic. The 9/11 Commission listed that investigation as one of the best chances to stop 9/11. I often wonder how different the last decade would have been if we had been given the information we requested.

I’m out of the government now, but I sincerely hope the situation is better today.

I have to ask you about a small revelation in the military-tribunal arraignment of K.S.M. and other 9/11 suspects last week: the judge said that he had recently read your book, “The Black Banners.” Were you surprised?

I was honored that Judge Pohl singled out “The Black Banners.” The book, as you know, covers the history of Al Qaeda, from its roots in 1979 through to the death of Osama bin Laden. (Harsh interrogation issues only make up a few pages.) The book, based on my personal experiences and information given to me and colleagues by Al Qaeda operatives, outlines how many of the people—who became the group’s leaders, and today are facing trial for the attacks of 9/11—like Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Khallad bin Attash were recruited to the group, how they rose through the ranks, and how they planned and carried out their operations. My aim with the book was to create a manual for anyone really wishing to understand Al Qaeda and our efforts against the group.

I only hope that Judge Pohl will soon have the opportunity to read it unredacted.

Your book was heavily redacted; why? And did Rodriguez’s book get the same treatment?

The F.B.I. sent my manuscript to various departments in the Bureau, and after a three-month review process there was not a single redaction. Of course I had been careful not to put in any information that compromised national security, or sources and methods, and the F.B.I. recognized this.

Right before publication certain people in the C.I.A. claimed authority over the entire manuscript—putting the book through “double jeopardy” of an unheard-of second full review. They issued redactions clearly aimed at controlling the narrative over key moments, like the events leading to 9/11 and what happened with the harsh techniques.

Their redactions are a violation of the classification guidelines, which are designed to protect the public from agencies illegally classifying information for non-national-security reasons, such as trying to censor embarrassment or cover up mistakes.

Some of the redactions are blatantly ridiculous even without knowing what’s underneath, such as censoring a portion of a public exchange between myself and U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham that was broadcast live on national television and that is still available on a government Web site. The redactions also expose double standards: while I’m prevented from talking about certain things, they allow others to talk about the same things, even to talk about me, as long as it fits their narrative.

I’m requesting that these abuses of authority be reviewed by the F.B.I. and the government, and that the redactions on my book be lifted.

The one piece of good news, through this effort to restrict the public from knowing that they deserve to know, is that while those trying to hide the truth may think they scored a success by redacting “The Black Banners,” ironically, in the long run, they’ve done a great service to the truth: Because you only redact what is true, when people eventually get to read the book unredacted, they’ll know it contains the truth. Also, despite the redactions, it’s pretty obvious what happened and what people are trying to cover up—so the thinking public can work it out.

Incidentally, books defending E.I.T.s, like Mr. Rodriguez’s, don’t appear to have such redactions. After all, you can only redact the truth, you cannot redact fiction.

What is your take on the military tribunals? How has the judicial handling of the 9/11 suspects been shaped, or warped, by their interrogation?

I’m a believer in both federal and military courts. I think the focus should be on which venue would be most effective in insuring that the terrorist is locked up for as long as possible. I’ve been a witness in terrorism trials in both venues, and I know that federal courts are more effective, but sometimes military commissions are better.

The use of E.I.T.s have made prosecutions more difficult, that’s one of the reasons why it’s taken so long to begin the trials—those behind the techniques never thought about the end game. Information from E.I.T.s is considered unreliable, it’s inadmissible in court, and is considered “fruit of the poisonous tree,” and so naturally it makes the process more difficult. Thankfully, in regard to those suspects, we have a considerable amount of evidence from pre-E.I.T.s to convict them.

What do you say to Jose Rodriguez’s basic message: that in order to protect our country, we have to be willing to use torture?

That’s not true. On the contrary, using torture only makes us less safe. Not only does it generate false leads and unreliable information, passing up chances to get actionable intelligence, it also helps terrorists recruit—as we saw with Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Under torture, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi gave the information they wanted to hear, which turned out to be false, and that information was used to justify the Iraq War—it even made it to Colin Powell’s speech at the U.N. When Ibn Shaykh was asked why he lied, to paraphrase, he said because you were torturing me and I wanted it to stop. How did that make us safe?

We’re at our best and most effective when our laws and strategies are in sync.

Does torture—our willingness to use it, our opposition to it—have an effect on things like the recruitment of sources, or the willingness of people in other countries to coöperate with us?

It makes it very difficult. The top intelligence and law-enforcement agencies around the world don’t use torture, because it’s unreliable and ineffective. Those who do use it are looked down upon, and the information they provide isn’t trusted and can’t be used in their courts. And allied countries won’t hand over suspects to a country that tortures people—and the U.S. won’t, either.

Do you think that we have put the darkest moments of the global war on terror—the black sites, the torture—behind us?

I hope so. Given the conclusive evidence that damns the use of E.I.T.s, one would think no leader in their right mind would ever authorize it again. However, many of those behind E.I.T.s are still in influential positions, or are given free passes to spout their falsehoods, so it does worry me.[/I]

Gold9472
05-22-2012, 11:39 AM
Court blocks release of CIA interrogation methods

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/21/us/scotus-cia-interrogations/index.html

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer
updated 4:50 PM EDT, Mon May 21, 2012

(CNN) -- CIA secret interrogation methods -- including detention and harsh questioning of suspected terrorists -- remain off limits to public release, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The agency was sued eight years ago to provide details of certain communications describing the use of waterboarding and other direct intelligence-gathering methods of foreign terror suspects. A three-judge panel from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled "intelligence methods" are not subject to a Freedom of Information Act request from the lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"We give substantial weight to the government's declarations, which establish that disclosing the redacted portions of the (secret memos) would reveal the existence and scope of a highly classified, active intelligence activity," said the judges.

The CIA has admitted as part of the lawsuit it destroyed videotaped interrogations of "high-value" terror suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The alleged members of the al Qaeda terror network are being held overseas, including most recently at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

The ACLU wanted transcripts of those tapes and a Zubaydah photograph, written summaries, or other information relating to the so-called "waterboarding" of suspected terrorists in U.S. custody. Some civil liberties groups have equated the methods to torture, and have argued that government and military officials should be held publicly accountable.

"Public disclosure of certain government records may not always be in the public interest," Judge Richard Wesley wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel. He said it was both "logical and plausible" for the CIA to control how it conducts intelligence operations, and how it works with foreign intelligence liaison partners.

The judges also dismissed a lower federal court order to release two classified memos from White House attorneys, which discuss the legality of "enhanced interrogation techniques." The issue was whether the material was classified since the memos reportedly dealt not with specific methods, only their legality. The court said it was not its job to conduct a "complex inquiry" into government discussions of its intelligence-gathering.

President Barack Obama has since disavowed the future use of waterboarding, where simulated drowning of immobile prisoners was conducted.

The ACLU, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights and Veterans for Peace -- among other groups suing -- now have the option of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. The justices earlier Monday agreed to hear a case from the ACLU over whether a coalition of Americans can go to court and challenge a federal law allowing broad electronic surveillance of suspected foreign terrorists and spies.

Gold9472
12-12-2012, 07:28 AM
US Senate panel to vote on CIA interrogations report

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hlKdWUbqyvUpFAjnZXz0Co33pQJg?docId=CNG.0a730 35c2b14ded04eb6227eff166a5f.441

(AFP) – 12 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A Senate intelligence panel votes this week on findings of a three-year review of CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on terror suspects and condemned by some US politicians as torture.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Tuesday the 6,000-page report looking into Bush-era counter-terrorism practices will not be released to the public this week, saying such a decision would be made at a later date.

"The committee is, however, scheduled to vote to approve the report," she said in a statement emailed to AFP before convening a closed-door hearing of the committee scheduled for later Tuesday.

"It is comprehensive, it is strictly factual, and it is the most definitive review of this CIA program to be conducted," she added.

"Any decision on declassification and release of any portion of the report will be decided by committee members at a later time."

It remains unclear whether the sensitive report will ever be made public, as several Republicans on the committee boycotted the investigation from the start, leaving it unclear whether the findings will be approved.

Investigators analyzed millions of pages of intelligence records detailing the treatment of detainees.

Top lawmakers said in April that the report will show that enhanced interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency were not effective in helping find terror suspects.

The senators also probed the effects of "waterboarding," the simulated drowning technique which President Barack Obama and other US politicians have deemed to be torture.

Earlier this year, an in-depth account of CIA interrogation operations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks was published by Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA deputy director for operations, who defended waterboarding.

He argued that top terror suspect and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the CIA says was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, spilled key information as a result of the methods.

But Feinstein and Senator Carl Levin said in April that statements by Rodriguez and others about the CIA interrogation program's role in locating Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a US military raid in Pakistan last year, were "inconsistent with CIA records."

The CIA used coercive interrogation methods on dozens of detainees at so-called black sites around the world.

Rodriguez and others have said that information obtained from those interrogations led to bin Laden's courier, which in turn led eventually to the Al-Qaeda leader himself.

Feinstein and Levin said the original information had no connection to CIA detainees, data which they said would be detailed in the report.