Are the CIA torture tapes MIA?

I received my No Quarter email last evening that alerted me to a Larisa Alexandrovna question of whether the CIA torture tapes were destroyed in 2005. Larry Johnson responded:

For starters [it] appears that the June 2005 decision of the Italian judge to issue arrest warrants for C.I.A. officers and contractors involved in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in 2003 may have been the precipitating incident convincing Jose Rodriguez that [the] Agency must destroy video tapes of terrorist interrogations. That operation was conducted with the full knowledge and approval of the Italians. If the Italians could flip on us that meant anyone could.

Then Larry laid out an extensive timeline filled with juicy details. A few to note: "Zubaydah is interrogated in Thailand, where the sessions were filmed. He was waterboarded sometime in the May-June 2002 time frame. Enhanced interrogation methods were used and approval for them came from Jim Pavitt... ...Deputy Director of Operations.... ...What we know for certain is that the CIA was keeping the President and his National Security team fully briefed on the methods and results of interrogating Abu Zubaydah. In fact, it is highly likely that George Tenet showed part of the videotape of the interrogation to the President."

That makes WH press secretary Dana Perino another willing shill for the Torturer-in-Chief who said he didn't remember "hearing about the tapes' existence or their destruction before being briefed about it last Thursday." And we can trust him because why?

On May 9, 2003, with regard to United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Larry wrote, "C.I.A. declares in sworn statement to Judge Leonie Brinkema that it was not recording interrogations of terrorist suspects in any format." Oops! Caught in a flat-out lie. If not for Bush, I'd say with certainty that someone's going to jail. After Scooter Libby, I'm not so confident.

On Nov. 14, 2005, the CIA reaffirmed the "U.S. Government does not have any video or audio tapes of the interrogations of (two terrorist suspects whose names are blacked out)” to the US District Court. Another lie.

Now let's fast forward to the 2007 portion of Larry's timeline that raises doubts about torture tapes having been destroyed.

[Keep reading...]

13 September 2007–C.I.A. notifies the U.S. Attorneys in Richmond, Virginia that it had discovered the videotape of the interrogation of terrorists whose names are blacked out in the declassified letter (see. p. 2 of the letter) [PDF].

19 September 2007–The U.S. Attorneys view the video tape. Attorneys direct the C.I.A. to search its files again for relevant material.

18 October 2007–C.I.A. provides the U.S. Attorneys with an additional video tape and an audio tape of an interrogation. The U.S. Attorneys compare the video tapes with the operational cables (i.e., written reports) reporting the results of the interrogations. They determined that the reports accurately reported what was viewed on the video tape.

This is an important point–the substance of what transpired during those interrogations was given to the Moussaoui defense team.

So. Who did what?

Jose Rodriguez has been fingered as acting unilaterally, but that is not true. He did check with both the IG and the DO’s assigned Assistant General Counsel before destroying the DO’s copies of the tapes. Although Jose is a lawyer, he made the mistake of trusting fellow lawyers, and now is likely to get chopped up in the political meat grinder while trying to clear his name and reputation. The only thing that might save him a bit is that he and Congressman Reyes are buddies, which is what Congressman Reyes may have meant when he told the NYT today that he (Reyes) “was not looking for scapegoats.”...

...Jose Rodriguez did not consult beforehand with Kyle “Dusty” Foggo. However, Jose did inform Dusty subsequently of the advice he received from the OGC’s counsel. Jose may not be in as much trouble as some imagined. If he destroyed the tapes before November 14, [2005] then the C.I.A. told the truth to the judge. The May 2003 date puts the onus on Jim Pavitt and George Tenet rather than Jose Rodriguez. They knew about the tapes and the C.I.A. General Counsel lied to a Federal Judge. Who told whom what then? That’s going to be the interesting question.

An interesting question for Michael Hayden as he testifies before the Senate and House intel committees today and tomorrow.

Where are the tapes the U.S. Attorneys reviewed in September and October of this year? Were they copies of edited versions? What about the Moussaoui defense team? What else is missing besides the tapes and the truth. So many questions yet to be answered.

On Thursday, Hayden told CIA employees that “videotaping stopped in 2002”, but another imprisoned detainee, Muhammad Bashmilah, said he saw cameras "both in his cells and in interrogation rooms, some on tripods and some on the wall." His detention began in 2003 into 2005 before his release. Adding more fuel:

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

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

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

Uh oh. I need to amend my order for a case of popcorn on this story.

Seriously, unless Congress appoints a Special Counsel to investigate the destruction of evidence, including millions of missing WH emails -- so much to probe -- I doubt we'll ever know the unvarnished truth and see justice served to a WH much, much worse than Watergate. Maybe that's the way they like it.

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CIA destroys possible waterboarding tapes; where was Congress? Where will Congress be?

The story about how the CIA destroyed videotapes of two al-Qaeda suspects being waterboarded is of course a huge hot potato.

There’s plenty of people commenting on the possible obstruction of justice angle.

What I want to know is, how much did Members of Congress know or not know about these tapes before they were destroyed, and what Congress is going to do now?

As for the first question:

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

OK, how sharp of a difference do we have between “fully briefed” and “not adequate,” at least for chairpersons and ranking minority members of House and Senate intelligence committees?

Related to that, how much of a public hashing out of this are we going to get?

If the two top Democrats on the committees had something close to full briefing, where were Jane Harman and Jay Rockefeller? Can’t a Democratic Congressman or Senator leak?

Well, I guess this is, what, chance No. 172 for Congress to actually grow a pair?

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Cheney Torture Toady, And CIA Director, General Michael Hayden Puts A Horse's Head In The Bed Of The CIA Inspector General

From today's New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 — The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agency’s inspector general, whose aggressive investigations of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives.

A small team working for General Hayden is looking into the conduct of the agency’s watchdog office, which is led by Inspector General John L. Helgerson. Current and former government officials said the review had caused anxiety and anger in Mr. Helgerson’s office and aroused concern on Capitol Hill that it posed a conflict of interest.

The review is particularly focused on complaints that Mr. Helgerson’s office has not acted as a fair and impartial judge of agency operations but instead has begun a crusade against those who have participated in controversial detention programs.

Any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would be unusual, if not unprecedented, and would threaten to undermine the independence of the office, some current and former officials say.

Frederick P. Hitz, who served as C.I.A. inspector general from 1990 to 1998, said he had no first-hand information about current conflicts inside the agency. But Mr. Hitz said any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would “not be proper.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Mr. Hitz, who now teaches at the University of Virginia. “Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the IG?” ...

Ok, lets start off with the admission that I can actually envision a situation where CIA Director Michael Hayden's argument could have some validity. I would think covert foreign intel operations are a very difficult thing to apply standard Inspector General protocols to. But I don't see any validity whatsoever in the situation described here. In the first place, the detention and interrogation (torture) programs are not transitory spy v. spy James Bond deals. They are static programs and locations, really no different than military prisons and interrogations, or FBI work and Federal Prisons, in general character. Tailor made for an independent Inspector General. Secondly, who in the world doesn't believe that seriously malevolent and criminal activity hasn't been the rule, not the exception, in the detention and interrogation programs. The United States Supreme Court has even said so on several aspects; not to mention every monitoring body in the world.

The crux of the issue here though is, even if there was a legitimate argument (again, that just doesn't hold water here), this is an outrageously wrong, improper, unethical, immoral and illegal way to go about addressing it. There are no provisions that permit a subject agency to investigate it's own Inspector General; moreover, the very concept is completely antithetical to the nature and purpose of an IG. The Times article says it is unprecedented; that is probably an understatement. This action by Hayden, undoubtedly undertaken under the direct authority of Vice-President Dick Cheney, is malicious and beyond the pale. With no attempt to use the designated avenues of recourse provided for agencies against their IGs, it is nothing short of putting a severed horse's head in Inspector General Helgerson's bed to let him know the score. A pure attempt to chill, obstruct and threaten the IG's work at the behest and direction of the subjects being investigated.

General Michael Hayden self servingly says not to worry, this is perfectly proper and above board, “His only goal is to help this office, like any office at the agency, do its vital work even better,” For the foregoing reasons, that is a laughable pile of horse manure. One other thought; since when did the jurisdiction of the CIA get expanded to investigation of domestic governmental agencies and officers? Is that part of another secret Bush/Cheney executive order we don't know about? It seems like a new concept, and a pretty malevolent one at that. There is simply no limit to the outrageous, unprecedented and unethical extremes the Bush/Cheney Administration will go to to obstruct and avoid accountability and responsibility for their immoral and illegal conduct. It is time for this to stop.

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