CIA Admits It Destroyed Tapes Of Interrogations

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.
 
Station Chief Made Appeal To Destroy CIA Tapes
Lawyer Says Top Official Had Implicit Approval

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...8/01/15/AR2008011504090.html?hpid=topnews<br>

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."
 
Tapes Destroyed Over CIA's Objections

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Who Will Take the Fall for the CIA Torture Tape Scandal?

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/
 
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.
 
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.
 
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 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 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, Cuba, the official said.

Five of the men the Pentagon announced it intends to bring charges against are among those high-value detainees.
 
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.
 
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, 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 to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects were properly authorized.
 
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 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 -- 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.
 
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

A copy of the redacted videotape inventory is available at: 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

The ACLU's contempt motion and related legal documents are available online at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia
 
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 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.

The ACLU's contempt motion and related legal documents are available online here.
 
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.
 
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

More information about the ACLU's FOIA litigation is available online at: 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.
 
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/
 
Judge Rules CIA Can Withhold Info about Illegal Methods

http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Judge_Rules_CIA_Can_Withhold_Info_about_Illegal_Methods_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.”
 
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_binalshibh_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.
 
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.
 
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