CIA Admits It Destroyed Tapes Of Interrogations

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Or the 9/11 Commission is using this opportunity to make themselves seem "legitimate."

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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.

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No. They're no longer a Commission.

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As I said on 12/6/2007, 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.

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CIA obstructed 9/11 investigators: report

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...0K3qhCEZbY9dYA

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."

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CIA spokesman says agency cooperated with 9/11 panel

http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp...5&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.

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CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3087293.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.

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http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4224

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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/nationwo...ack=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."

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9/11 Commission chair: 'No question' CIA knew we wanted tapes

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/911_co...sked_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.

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