= Waterboarding UPDATES Thread = Former Interrogator Enters Fray, CIA approved.

[L. Coyote]

News stories keep breaking. Place news posts on this thread. Here are two, to start:

Does anyone think any of this is anything except completely orchestrated?
===============
Former Interrogator Enters Waterboarding Fray
By Mike Nizza - December 11, 2007 - http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/former-interrogator-enters-waterboarding-fray/

.................

Update, 7:31 p.m. Mr. Kirkiakou sought and received approval from the C.I.A. for his media blitz, but he ended up facing accusations of revealing classified information and also apparently promoted an internal memo on the subject, according to ABC News:

“They were furious at the CIA this morning, but cooler heads have apparently prevailed for the time being,” a senior Justice Department official told the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director, did sent out a classified memo this morning warning all employees “of the importance of protecting classified information,” a CIA spokesperson told ABCNews.com.

================
Destruction of C.I.A. Tapes Cleared by Lawyers
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE - Dec 11, 2007 - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/washington/11intel.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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

[L. Coyote]

1. NPR = Rep. Boehner Explains GOP Strategy on CIA Tapes

Listen Now <4 min 46 sec> - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17142831

All Things Considered, December 11, 2007 · House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) talks with Robert Siegel about the CIA's decision to destroy videos of interrogation suspects, and about Republican strategy as a Congressional recess and deadlines for a variety of spending bills loom.

INCLUDES: Legal Affairs
The CIA Interrogation Tapes: A Primer
by Eric Weiner

......... The case is complicated and, like all things involving the CIA, shrouded in mystery.
Here is a primer on what is known — and not known — about the tapes and their destruction. .......

Related NPR Stories
*
Dec. 7, 2007 - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17021550
Timeline: CIA and Interrogation Videotapes
*
Dec. 7, 2007 - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17024589
Fallout Grows from Destroyed CIA Tapes
*
Dec. 7, 2007 - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16997128
Bush Doesn't Recall Destruction of CIA Tapes
*
Dec. 10, 2007 - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17067186
Senate Panel to Question Hayden on CIA Videotapes
*
Dec. 10, 2007 - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17067190
Justice, CIA Launch Inquiries into Destroyed Tapes

[L. Coyote]

53. Richard B. Cheney, U.S. Vice President, Endorses Torture

U.S.: Vice President Endorses Torture
Cheney Expresses Approval of the CIA’s Use of Waterboarding
Washington, DC, October 26, 2007 – http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/26/usdom14465.htm

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has issued the Bush administration’s first clear endorsement of a form of torture known as waterboarding, or mock drowning, said Human Rights Watch today.

In a radio interview (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061024-7.html) yesterday, Cheney agreed that subjecting prisoners to “a dunk in water” is a “no-brainer” if it could save lives. After being asked about this technique, he said that such interrogations have been a “very important tool” used against high-level al Qaeda detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that they do not, in his view, constitute torture.

Cheney’s comments on the legality of waterboarding contradict the views of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Defense Department, as well as fundamental principles of international law, and could come back to haunt the United States if not corrected by the Bush administration, Human Rights Watch warned.

“If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American’s head under water until he nearly drowns, if that’s what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian lives,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Waterboarding dates at least to the Spanish Inquisition, when it was known as the tormenta de toca. It has been used by some of the most cruel dictatorships in modern times, including the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. ...............

[L. Coyote]

54. slideshow documenting historical uses of waterboarding as torture

Human Rights Watch: View a slideshow documenting historical uses of waterboarding as torture.
http://hrw.org/photos/2006/ct1006/index.html

The United States has long considered waterboarding to be torture and a war crime. As early as 1901, a US court martial convicted Major Edwin Glenn of subjecting a suspected insurgent in the Philippines to the “water cure.” After World War II, U.S. military commissions successfully prosecuted as war criminals several Japanese soldiers who subjected American prisoners to waterboarding. A U.S. army officer was court-martialed in February 1968 for helping to waterboard a prisoner in Vietnam.

..............

To see more of Human Rights Watch’s work on waterboarding and abuse techniques, please visit the following:

Bush Justifies CIA Detainee Abuse - http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/06/usdom14139.htm

CIA Whitewashing Torture - http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/21/usdom12069.htm

Description of Techniques Authorized by the CIA - http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/21/usdom12071.htm


Waterboarding used in the 1980s by Chadian forces under the command of military ruler Hissene Habre,
indicted by a Belgian court for torture and crimes against humanity and faces prosecution in Senegal.

[L. Coyote]

55. Cheney needs to get a better lawyer, someone who will tell him not to endorse criminal activities

“Vice President Cheney needs to get a better lawyer, someone who will tell him
not to endorse criminal activities over the airwaves,” Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch.

Open Letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

April 5, 2006

Attorney General Gonzales:

The 2006 Defense Authorization Act, passed by Congress in January 2006, contains new provisions clarifying that all individuals acting under the color of U.S. law categorically are prohibited from engaging in or authorizing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. These provisions were passed by Congress to rectify lack of clarity in regard to detention and interrogation techniques, and to prevent conduct that is prohibited by international law and illegal under domestic criminal law.

We are now writing to urge you to issue a clear public statement about specific legal standards applicable to detention and interrogation of detainees overseas, under this legislation and other existing laws. Such a statement is necessary because, notwithstanding the 2006 Defense Authorization Act, you and other administration officials have not yet made clear statements about the specific legal standards applicable to the detention and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody overseas. We are concerned that this lack of clarity continues to lead to confusion about the legality of specific interrogation techniques.

We are particularly concerned about your continuing failure to issue clear statements about illegal interrogation techniques, and especially your failure to state that “waterboarding”—a technique that induces the effects of being killed by drowning—constitutes torture, and thus is illegal. We urge you to make such a statement now.

The Convention Against Torture prohibits practices that constitute the intentional infliction of “severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental.” The federal torture statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2340A, similarly prohibits acts outside the United States that are specifically intended to cause “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.”

Waterboarding is torture. It causes severe physical suffering in the form of reflexive choking, gagging, and the feeling of suffocation. It may cause severe pain in some cases. If uninterrupted, waterboarding will cause death by suffocation. It is also foreseeable that waterboarding, by producing an experience of drowning, will cause severe mental pain and suffering. The technique is a form of mock execution by suffocation with water. The process incapacitates the victim from drawing breath, and causes panic, distress, and terror of imminent death. Many victims of waterboarding suffer prolonged mental harm for years and even decades afterward.

Waterboarding, when used against people captured in the context of war, may also amount to a war crime as defined under the federal war crimes statute 18 U.S.C. § 2441, which criminalizes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions (in international armed conflicts), and violations of Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions (in non-international armed conflicts). Waterboarding is also an assault, and thus violates the federal assault statute, 18 U.S.C. § 113, when it occurs in the “special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,” a jurisdictional area which includes government installations overseas. In cases involving the U.S. armed forces, waterboarding also amounts to assault, and cruelty and maltreatment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Under the laws of the land, U.S. personnel who order or take part in waterboading are committing criminal acts—torture, assault, and war crimes—which are punishable as felony offenses. The Department of Justice should clarify this to all U.S. personnel, and prosecute violations of the law.

We have no doubt that if a captured American were subjected to waterboarding, the U.S. government would condemn this as torture and demand or seek prosecution.

We also urge you to clarify the legality of other abusive interrogation techniques, such as subjection to extreme temperatures, forced standing, binding in stress positions, and severe sleep deprivation. These techniques, like waterboarding, cause physical and mental suffering and are illegal under domestic and international law. At minimum, these techniques amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, categorically prohibited under the 2006 Defense Authorization Act; and they violate U.S. obligations under international human rights and humanitarian laws, including the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. Depending on how they are used, these and other abusive techniques can amount to torture, potentially prosecutable under the U.S. torture and war crimes statutes. The U.S. State Department has condemned numerous other countries for utilizing these techniques, in many cases stating that the techniques amount to torture.

As the Attorney General, you have the responsibility to speak clearly on matters of the legal standards for detention and interrogation of prisoners, and as the executive branch's chief legal officer, you are obliged to enforce U.S. laws.

Moreover, you owe it to U.S. military and security personnel, including those who authorize and conduct interrogations, to specify accurately that the techniques described above are not legal. This is vitally important because personnel who rely on advice to the contrary place themselves in legal peril.

We sincerely hope that you will uphold the legal standards discussed above, and make efforts to articulate them clearly and publicly.


Signed,

Richard Abel, UCLA School of Law
Bruce Ackerman, Yale University
Catherine Adcock Admay, Duke University
Madelaine Adelman, Arizona State University
Jose E. Alvarez, Columbia Law School (former attorney-adviser, Department of State)
Paul Amar, University of California-Santa Barbara
Fran Ansley, University of Tennessee College of Law
Michael Avery, Suffolk Law School
Amy Bartholomew, Carleton University
Katherine Beckett, University of Washington
George Bisharat, Hastings College of the Law
Christopher L. Blakesley, William S. Boyd School of Law (UNLV)
Gary Blasi, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
John Charles Boger, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
David Bowker, adjunct, Cardozo Law School (former attorney-adviser, Department of State)
Alice C. Briggs, Franklin Pierce Law Center
John Brigham, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Peter Brooks, University of Virginia
Rosa Brooks, University of Virginia
William T. Burke, University of Washington School of Law
William Burke-White, University of Pennsylvania School of Law
Kitty Calavita, University of California-Irvine
Henry (Chip) Carey, Georgia State University
Anupam Chander, University of California-Davis
Oscar G. Chase, New York University Law School
Kathleen Clark, Washington University
Cornell W. Clayton, Washington State University
Marjorie Cohn, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center
John Comaroff, University of Chicago
Michael Comiskey, Pennsylvania State University
Marianne Constable, University of California- Berkeley
Don Crowley, University of Idaho
Scott Cummings, UCLA School of Law
Eve Darian-Smith, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Benjamin Davis, University of Toledo College of Law
Stephen F. Diamond, Santa Clara University School of Law
Hilal Elver, University of California-Santa Barbara
Richard Falk, Princeton University and University of California-Santa Barbara
Thomas G. Field, Jr. Franklin Pierce Law Center
Gregory H. Fox, Wayne State University Law School
Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanford University
Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law
David R. Ginsburg, UCLA School of Law
Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, University of Washington
Leslie F.Goldstein, University of Delaware
Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., UCLA Law School
David Greenberg, New York University
Lisa Hajjar, University of California-Santa Barbara
Joel F. Handler, UCLA School of Law
Hendrik Hartog, Princeton University
Lynne Henderson, University of Nevada-Las Vegas
William O. Hennessey, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Richard A. Hesse, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Elisabeth Hilbink, University of Minnesota
Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard University
Scott Horton, Adjunct, Columbia Law School
Derek Jinks, University of Texas School of Law
Jerry Kang, UCLA School of Law
Lisa A. Kelly, University of Washington School of Law
Heinz Klug, University of Wisconsin
Itzchak E. Kornfeld, Drexel University
Ariana R. Levinson, UCLA School of Law
Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School
Robert Justin Lipkin, Widener University School of Law
Lynn M. LoPucki, UCLA School of Law
David Luban, Georgetown University Law Center
Deborah Maranville, University of Washington School of Law
Ann Elizabeth Mayer, University of Pennsylvania
Jamie Mayerfeld, University of Washington
Joel Migdal, University of Washington
Martha Minow, Harvard Law School
William W. Monning, Monterrey College of Law
Kathleen M. Moore, University of California-Santa Barbara
Forrest S. Mosten, UCLA School of Law
Ken Mott, Gettysburg College
Stephen R. Munzer, UCLA School of Law
Jyoti Nanda, UCLA School of Law
Smita Narula, New York University School of Law
Julie Novkov, University of Oregon
Frances Olsen, UCLA School of Law
John Orcutt, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Arzoo Osanloo, University of Washington
Jordan J. Paust, University of Houston
William P. Quigley, Loyola University, New Orleans
Christopher J. Peters, Wayne State University Law School
Judith Resnik, Yale Law School
Sandra L. Rierson, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Brad R. Roth, Wayne State University
Gary Rowe, UCLA School of Law
Austin Sarat, Amherst College
Margaret L. Satterthwaite, New York University School of Law
Stuart A. Scheingold, University of Washington
Kim Lane Scheppele, Woodrow Wilson School and Princeton University
Benjamin N. Schiff, Oberlin College
David Schultz, Hamline University
Robert A. Sedler, Wayne State University
Barry Shanks, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Charles Anthony Smith, University of Miami
Eunice Son, UCLA School of Law
Susan Sterett, University of Denver
Jacqueline Stevens, University of California-Santa Barbara
Katherine Stone, UCLA School of Law
Steven Tauber, University of South Florida
Samuel. C. Thompson, Jr, UCLA School of Law
Beth Van Schaack, Santa Clara University School of Law
Andrew Strauss, Widener University School of Law
Stephen I. Vladeck, University of Miami School of Law
Richard Weisberg, Cardozo Law School
Deborah M. Weissman, University of North Carolina School of Law
Burns H. Weston, University of Iowa and Vermont Law School
Adam Winkler, UCLA School of Law
Maryann Zavez, Vermont Law School
Richard O. Zerbe Jr., University of Washington

[defendandprotect]

2. At least a 100 hours apiece of Waterboarding --- !!!!

"...destruction in 2005 of hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting interrogations of two lieutenants from Al Qaeda..."

Love watching Hayden marching around in his military uniform --- !!!!

[defendandprotect]

3. And there is the issue of what these two CONFESSED to . . . ????

[L. Coyote]

7. After he broke 35 seconds into the torture.... RIGHT!

One thing about lying, it just gets too complicated if the liar does not know ALL the facts that WILL yet come to light!!!

[L. Coyote]

4. White House authorised torture, CIA agent claims

White House authorised torture, CIA agent claims
Protestors demonstrate the use of water boarding as a method of torture
Tim Reid in Washington - December 12, 2007 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3037480.ece


The CIA's use of waterboarding to torture terror suspects was approved by the White House, a former agency official claimed yesterday. The accusation comes amid growing uproar over the destruction of videotapes showing the interrogation of al-Qaeda members.

....

The harsh interrogation technique, which critics — and Mr Kiriakou — say is torture, was approved at the highest levels of the US Government, said Mr Kiriakou, who led the team that captured Zubaida. .... Mr Kiriakou told the NBC TV station: “This isn't something done willy-nilly. This isn't something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner.

“This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and the Justice Department.”

Mr Kiriakou's comments came as the head of the CIA was questioned yesterday in closed-door hearings on Capitol Hill over the destruction of the tapes, amid allegations that the agency tried to hide evidence of illegal torture.

............

[defendandprotect]

6. But, damn, what did they think the Geneva Accords were all about --- ????

[L. Coyote]

8. Jan. 9, 2002. DoJ memo declares that the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act don't apply

2002

Jan. 9: Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo's internal Justice Department memo declares that the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act don't apply to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Aug. 1: Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee's DoJ memo narrows the definition of torture to methods that cause "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Defines "severe pain" as involving damage that rises "to the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function."

Spring 2003: Office of Legal Counsel head Jack Goldsmith withdraws Yoo and Bybee torture memos.

April 2004: Abu Ghraib scandal breaks.

June 2004: Yoo and Bybee torture memos leak.

from http://www.slate.com/id/2179607/sidebar/2179658

[defendandprotect]

9. If they are human beings --- did Yoo prove they weren't? --- then they apply ---

[L. Coyote]

26. Newsweek reports video was fed to Langley. There is a cover story for why video.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/76574/output/print

Paper Trail
Who authorized the CIA to destroy interrogation videos?
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball - Newsweek Web Exclusive - Dec 11, 2007

The CIA repeatedly asked White House lawyer Harriet Miers over a two-year period for instructions regarding what to do with "very clinical" videotapes depicting the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques on two top Al Qaeda captives, according to former and current intelligence officials familiar with the communications (who requested anonymity when discussing the controversial issue). The tapes are believed to have included evidence of waterboarding and other interrogation methods that Bush administration critics have described as torture.

Senior officials of the CIA's National Clandestine Service finally decided on their own authority in late 2005 to destroy the tapes—which were kept at a secret location overseas—after failing to elicit clear instructions from the White House or other senior officials on what to do with them, according to one of the former intelligence officials with direct knowledge of the events in question. An extensive paper—or e-mail—trail exists documenting the contacts between Clandestine Service officials and top agency managers and between the CIA and the White House regarding what to do about the tapes, according to two former intelligence officials.

Included in the paper trail is an opinion from a CIA lawyer assigned to the Clandestine Service that advises that there is no explicit legal reason why the Clandestine Service had to preserve the tapes, according to both former and current officials. The document does not, however, directly authorize the tapes' destruction or offer advice on the wisdom or folly of such a course of action, according to a source familiar with its contents, who declined to be identified discussing the controversial topic.

According to one of the former officials, one reason the CIA executives originally decided the interrogations of Al Qaeda captives Abu Zubaidah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri should be videotaped was in order to protect the officers ....

[defendandprotect]

27. Tenet seemed to have been blocking the destruction . . . Gates went for it???

And Auntie Harriet brokered the Gates decision with WH?

Looks like the SC nomination was the reward -- !!

Looks like these were simply two more people used by us ---
evidently also in Chechyna --- !!!

[L. Coyote]

5. Mukasey Undecided on CIA Tapes Questions

Mukasey Undecided on CIA Tapes Questions
By LARA JAKES JORDAN – 8 hours ago - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hAGOTRpWF7FEZrFaoOOhoiUxaJZgD8TFFEC01

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Tuesday to be rushed into deciding whether he considers waterboarding a form of torture, saying simply he understands the "intense interest" in the issue now at the heart of an inquiry into videotaped interrogations of terror suspects that were destroyed by the CIA.

In his news conference, Mukasey relied on his nearly two decades as a federal judge to push back on questions about his thoughts on waterboarding, much as he had done with senators who asked before voting to confirm his nomination on Nov. 8.

Mukasey said he has not yet concluded a review of Justice Department memos to determine whether waterboarding amounts to torture — which would deem it illegal.

..........

[spanone]

31. 'Mukasey Undecided' = mission accomplished

[L. Coyote]

35. Mukasey's conflict of interest = Padilla warrant relied on Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation.

MrJJ wrote on December 12, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004888.php#comments

The new and improved DOJ ??? Dont't think so....

MuKasey.."I think the Justice Department is capable of doing whatever it appears needs to be done," Mukasey said. "The question of a special prosecutor is the most hypothetical of hypotheticals, and that isn't going to be faced until it happens. And if it has to be, it will be."

Mukasey may have a conflict of interest problem already, and may have to call upon a Special Prosecutor.

Jose Padilla’s lawyers argued before the Florida Federal Court that Abu Zubaydah was tortured into saying Padilla was an al Qaeda associate. The DOJ dismissed Padilla’s allegations as “meritless,” asserting Padilla’s legal team could not prove that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured. Well, it’s clear now that they certainly COULD have, if the tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah had been made available!

Now here is where Mukasey’s role comes into question. U.S. District Judge Mukasey, now attorney general, was the one who signed the warrant used by the FBI to arrest Padilla in May 2002. Court records show the warrant relied in part on information obtained from Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation. So we have a problem Houston.

The Attorney General can only issue a warrant based upon legally obtained evidence, and confessions under torture are certainly not “legally obtained”. So either Mukasey was misrepresented the evidence, and would be liable to be potentially a party in those who were presented with “perjured evidence”; or he knew that torture was used in obtaining the confession and ignored it.

In either case he is unsuitable to run an investigation, as it will, inevitably, involved himself. Thus a Special Prosecutor is necessary.

[defendandprotect]

10. Up will never be down --- Waterboarding will never NOT be torture ---

despite the attempts to brainwash the public --- !!!

[Disturbed]

11. When the subject of Water Boarding started to heat up the

US Corp Media cast it as "simulated drowning". Now it has been substantiated that it is "actual
drowning". The water does go into the lungs & will drown a person if the action is not stopped in time.
The CIA has admitted to at least three acts of Water Boarding & has stated that it will no longer be used. The tapes were not destroyed to prevent knowledge that Water Boarding was used. They were destroyed because of the information that the detainees revealed after they were Tortured.

The Pres. of the US personally authorized various forms of Torture.

[L. Coyote]

12. Waterboarding is a neologism too, a euphemism for "water torture"

[defendandprotect]

18. You're so right and what I saw of MSM tonight --- they are not posting that part of the story!!!!

We seem to be involved in kind of a circular thing going on --
maybe it is unraveling?

It would have been easy to guess that Bush OK'd all of this but obviously brains behind it has to be Rumsfeld and Cheney --- the press immediately smelled a rat re torture with Rumsfeld!
Kept asking him about the Geneva Accords -- he gave a smart assed answer, as I recall.
That they were obeying the Geneva Accords "for the most part" . . . was that it?


Someone was going to try to get the other half of the story to Keith Olbermann ---
if he doesn't already know ---

We should all try to make sure that this gets out ---
I only knew because of Randi Rhodes ---
and then stuff posted here ---


Oh -- and the illustrations I saw tonight on BBC and KO re what waterboarding actually is
did not make clear that it is water in the lungs ---
they fudge this stuff with the cloth ON the face --- where it is actually down in your mouth
and over your nose and water enters and finally when you breathe, you have water in your lungs
--- and understand they have to have a doctor present!!!

If I were a doctor, they'd have to torture me to stand by with that going on !!!

[L. Coyote]

33. Was a doctor present in the videos? Visible?

[defendandprotect]

39. If a doc was present, I don't recall seeing --- but seems to me that close-up . . .

too close to have seen anyone else there ---

Maybe someone else will have more info on what's being shown???

[deacon]

23. Coincidently, we have a new AG that wouldn't commit to water boarding as torture. n/t

[L. Coyote]

24. This issue was already on the front burner in the classified setting.

It probably has been an issue since Harmon and Pelosi sought the legal opinion regarding "enhanced interrogations" justification. Finally, oversight is having some impact, and we may soon seen the legal rulings.

[NoodleyAppendage]

13. PSY-OPS PEOPLE. Kirkiakou is there to "muddy the waters"

If this guy's revelations really were authentic and "off the reservation," does anyone here doubt that he would be shut down almost immediately? Instead, so far I've seen him give interviews on no less than 8 major media venues.

Kirkiakou is there to lessen the blow of the torture info on the CIA and WH. Nothing more, nothing less.

J

[L. Coyote]

14. Good analysis. The very timing bespeaks propaganda and deception.

Where was he when this debate raged years ago? Not a peep until the evidence points to Bush, Gonzales, Ashcroft, Goss, Tenet, Rumsfeld, and others.

[L. Coyote]

15. NATION: Torture Tapes: Failure at All Levels = "Senator Joe Biden is correct"

Torture Tapes: Failure at All Levels
Aziz Huq - http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/huq


In November 2005 the CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rashim al-Nashiri, two early detainees in the Bush Administration's "war on terror." Two years later, the news breaks and the Administration assures us that the tapes from 2002 had nothing much of interest on them and that their destruction was nothing out of the ordinary.

Don't be so sure.

Even the limited facts at hand make clear that the CIA ran through every legal and procedural red light within the government to prevent criminal conduct or its cover-up. And it seems that the Justice Department and even the White House are sufficiently implicated in both the underlying conduct and the cover-up to require an independent investigation. The manifest corruption of oversight mechanisms means that Senator Joe Biden is correct to call for a Special Counsel to conduct an independent criminal investigation.

[L. Coyote]

16. Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency: Torture Produces Unreliable Information

Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency: Torture Produces Unreliable Information
Dec 11, 2007 - http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/blog/torture/2007/12/former-director-of-defense-intelligence.html


Lieutenant General Harry E. Soyster, USA (Ret.), the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1988 to 1991, weighs in on last night's ABC interview in which former agent John Kiriakou contended that the waterboarding of a detainee produced valuable intelligence. According to Soyster, the effectiveness of torture isn't so clear:

"Experienced military and intelligence professionals know that torture, in addition to being illegal and immoral, is an unreliable means of extracting information from prisoners. Much is being made of former CIA official John Kiriakou's statement that waterboarding "broke" a high-value terrorist involved in the 9/11 plot. There are always those who, whether out of fear or inexperience, rush to push the panic button instead of relying on what we know works best and most reliably in these situations. I would caution those who would rely on this example. It is far from clear that the information obtained from this prisoner through illegal means could not have been obtained through lawful methods. The FBI was getting good intelligence from this prisoner before the CIA took over. ...............

[L. Coyote]

17. Arrogant defense of torture = "the administration has flouted these laws"

Arrogant defense of torture
Dec 10, 2007 - http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/10/opinion/edtorture.php


The White House is already complaining about reports that House and Senate conferees have come to an agreement on an intelligence measure mandating that all agencies, including the CIA, comply with the U.S. Army Field Manual's outlawing of torture. The manual properly reflects American law by explicitly proscribing the gamut of torture measures - including waterboarding - that have proved dear to administration zealots.

Waterboarding, in which interrogators subject suspects to simulated drowning, is illegal under both federal laws and international compacts, including the Geneva Conventions. But the administration has flouted these laws.

The administration denies it has stooped to torture in intelligence gathering - despite its record of secret detention programs and rendition kidnappings that outsource interrogations to governments known to use torture. This newspaper reported last week that the CIA destroyed hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives. Congress must find out what was on those tapes and who is responsible for their destruction.

"The CIA program has provided valuable, actionable intelligence," a White House spokesman insisted, dismissing Congress' Army Field Manual initiative as "dangerous and misguided."

...........

[defendandprotect]

19. Hayden -- in uniform! -- is playing the "national security" card --- threatening others?

It looks like someone is trying again to get information out to protect the nation ---

from its INTERNAL enemies!!!

[L. Coyote]

20. Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic

Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic
Former DOJ Official Tested the Method Himself, in Effort to Form Torture Policy
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG and ARIANE de VOGUE
Nov. 2, 2007 - http://abcnews.go.com/WN/DOJ/story?id=3814076&page=1

A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration's legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.

Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning. .................

[L. Coyote]

21. The Man Behind the Torture = David Addington,

The Man Behind the Torture
by David Cole - Dec 11, 2007 - http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=80&ItemID=14475
New York Review of Books

The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration by Jack Goldsmith Norton, 256 pp., $25.95

Perhaps the most powerful lawyer in the Bush administration is also the most reclusive. David Addington, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel from 2001 to 2005, and since then his chief of staff, does not talk to the press. His voice, however, has been enormously influential behind closed doors, where, with Cheney's backing, he has helped shape the administration's strategy in the war on terror, and in particular its aggressively expansive conception of executive power. Sometimes called "Cheney's Cheney," Addington has twenty years of experience in national security matters -- he has been a lawyer for the CIA, the secretary of defense, and two congressional committees concerned with intelligence and foreign affairs. ...........

Addington's combination of public silence and private power makes him an apt symbol for the Bush administration's general approach to national security. Many of the administration's most controversial policies have been adopted in secret, under Addington's direction, often without much input from other parts of the executive branch, much less other branches of government, and without public accountability. Among the measures we know about are disappearances of detainees into secret CIA prisons, the use of torture to gather evidence, rendition of suspects to countries known for torture, and warrantless wiretapping of Americans.

When the public learns of such practices, usually because someone -- presumably not David Addington -- has leaked information about them to the press, the administration continues to invoke secrecy to block efforts to hold it to account. .........

[deacon]

22. Let's see now, hmmm and mukasy was confirmed because he wouldn't call waterboarding

torture. Hmmmmmmm.

[L. Coyote]

25. al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah "The guy is insane, certifiable, split personality,"

December 10, 2007 - http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_12/012675.php

TWO STORIES....After the United States captured al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in the weeks after 9/11, the CIA tortured him in an effort to get him to talk. Here's how Ron Suskind described what happened, starting with what CIA investigators found in Zubaydah's diary:

"The guy is insane, certifiable, split personality," Coleman told a top official at FBI after a few days reviewing the Zubaydah haul....There was almost nothing "operational" in his portfolio. That was handled by the management team. He wasn't one of them...."He was like a travel agent, the guy who booked your flights....He was expendable, you know, the greeter....Joe Louis in the lobby of Caesar's Palace, shaking hands."

....According to CIA sources, he was water-boarded....He was beaten....He was repeatedly threatened....His medication was withheld. He was bombarded with deafening, continuous noise and harsh lights.

....Under this duress, Zubaydah told them that shopping malls were targeted by al Qaeda....Zubaydah said banks — yes, banks — were a priority....And also supermarkets — al Qaeda was planning to blow up crowded supermarkets, several at one time. People would stop shopping. The nation's economy would be crippled. And the water system — a target, too. Nuclear plants, naturally. And apartment buildings.

Thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each flavor of target. Of course, if you multiplied by ten, there still wouldn't be enough public servants in America to surround and secure the supermarkets. Or the banks. But they tried.

Sometime later, Zubaydah finally provided some actionable intelligence: the name of Jose Padilla ..........

[AuntPatsy]

28. I'm glad your not letting this issue die down....we have enough people to ensure all the issues

are not forgotten, again thank you for all the time and energy your putting in hopes that one day justice is served.

[L. Coyote]

29. Torture Tourism?? Who were the "Visitors" shown on the video tapes?

This is just beyond belief. Now it has been revealed that the destroyed video tapes showed the "visitors" too.

What was going on, a tourism racket? We have visitors for torture sessions now? Did the "more senior officers" take photos to show the Family?

VISIBLE in tapes "... more senior officers who happened to be visiting."

"One former official said interrogators' faces were visible on at least one video, as were those of more senior officers who happened to be visiting." Happened? Visiting? Keep in mind that we're talking about CIA officials in a torture chamber, not tourists at a local landmark.

Then again, for background, Gorman offers this on Rodriguez: He is, she writes, "a product of what one former agency colleague called ‘the rough-and-tumble' Latin American division" of the CIA from the 1980s. "Rough and tumble"? You won't find out what that means from her column, but just keep reading this post. In our period, men like Rodriguez, under the leadership of George W. Bush, have essentially globalized those "rough and tumble" methods of the CIA's Latin American division. As Greg Grandin -- whose superb book, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, nails those "rough-and-tumble" years -- points out, they have turned the "unholy trinity" that the U.S. developed in Latin America into a global operation. Tom

The Unholy Trinity
Death Squads, Disappearances, and Torture -- from Latin America to Iraq
By Greg Grandin

.................. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174873/greg_grandin_on_the_torturable_and_the_untorturable

[L. Coyote]

30. George Waterboard Bush, now that's what I call a legacy!

The ‘W’ stands for Waterboard
By W.L. Floyd - http://thepeacetable.blogspot.com/2005/01/w-stands-for-waterboard_110652146499577897.html

Waterboarding is tying a victim to a board and submerging his/her head under water. The torture continues until the victim believes he/she is drowning. At Abu Ghraib Prison, Guantanamo, Cuba and Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan about 50 have died from torture such as Waterboarding.

Mock burials and other suffocation-type torture methods have been used by US intelligence for over 2 years, according to International Red Cross and Amnesty International.

George Waterboard Bush claims publicly he abhors torture. However Sen. Barbara Boxer revealed a letter from Secretary of State nominee Condoleeza Rice in December 2004 requesting the deletion of a
Congressional bill outlawing torture of all captured combatants.

Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales wrote a legal Memo stating torture is OK for foreigners. ...................

[L. Coyote]

32. House Approves Measure Barring Waterboarding = HARMON "lawmakers ... deliberately misled"

House Approves Measure Barring Use of Waterboarding (Update1)
By Nicholas Johnston - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aA339rI_KEkE&refer=us


Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation to bar CIA agents from using waterboarding during the questioning of suspected terrorists, drawing a veto threat from President George W. Bush.

The House, in a 222-199 vote, passed annual policy legislation for intelligence agencies that included the ban on the use of simulated drowning in interrogations.

"This would mean no more torture and no more questions about what the CIA is allowed to do behind closed doors," said Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat.

U.S. interrogations emerged again as a controversial issue after Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden revealed on Dec. 6 that the agency destroyed videotapes of the questioning of alleged terrorists made in 2002.

Representative Jane Harman of California, the former senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that lawmakers may have been "deliberately misled" about the destruction of the tapes.

"That would be disgraceful," ...............

[L. Coyote]

34. Waterboarding Our Democracy

Waterboarding Our Democracy
by Robert Scheer - Dec 12, 2007 - http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/12/5774/


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

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

How important to the 9/11 Commission Report were those “key witnesses”? Check out the disclaimer on Page 146 about the commission’s sourcing of the main elements laid out in its narrative:

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

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

Of course our president claims he knew nothing about this whitewash ...........

[L. Coyote]

36. Congress wants to question Jose Rodriguez. Just now on NPR.

And this is followed by a justification for the destruction of the video.

Suddenly, obstruction of justice is being sold as a good thing, according to Tony Blackly from the WA Times.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

37. We COULD start with the names and bios of those "lawyers" who approved the destruction.

Yes?

:shrug:

On edit: I am talking about "lawyers", not named, who may not exist. IOW we must begin with WHO said "lawyers" approved the destruction.

[L. Coyote]

38. Torture: Destroying Accountability

Torture: Destroying Accountability
WASHINGTON - December 12 - http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1212-02.htm

......

DESTRUCTION DENIAL: As with the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, top Bush administration officials are denying any knowledge of the acts and pinning the blame on lower-ranking officials. President Bush has repeatedly asserted that he had "no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction," and Vice President Cheney reportedly "learned about the tapes and their destruction at the same time" as Bush. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "I myself don't recollect any knowledge of the tapes." Then-White House counsel Harriet Miers knew about the CIA's plans, but supposedly urged the agency not to destroy the tapes. Even Goss, who was CIA director in 2005, said that he "was not informed in advance." The full blame for the destruction of the tapes has now fallen on Jose Rodriguez, then the CIA's head of the clandestine division. By denying any involvement, all these Bush administration officials are claiming that Rodriguez undertook the destruction of the tapes in a unilateral manner. But several former CIA colleagues describe Jose Rodriguez as "a cautious operator who probably would have ensured that top CIA managers knew of the plan" to destroy the torture tapes. One former official said Rodriguez was concerned that mid-level officers would get in trouble despite the fact "they were carrying out the direction from higher-ups."

TORTURE IS NOT DONE 'WILLY NILLY': Beyond the destruction of the tapes, administration officials are even trying to distance themselves from knowledge about the 2002 interrogations and the fact that they were videotaped. But earlier this week, John Kiriakou -- the CIA official who headed the team that interrogated al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah -- confirmed that Zubaydah was waterboarded. When asked by NBC News whether the White House was "involved" in the decision to waterboard Zubaydah, whose interrogation was captured on one of the videotapes, Kiriakou concurred: "Absolutely." "This isn't something done willy nilly," .............

[L. Coyote]

40. FOX O'Reilly: "president should have the legal authority to order things like waterboarding"

Well folks, the fascists are shamelessly selling torture.
Any bets on how long the sell takes? A day? A week?
While DUers are bashing Dems, the fascists are making a sale!

==============
Would You Waterboard Someone to Save American Lives?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316544,00.html

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The battle lines are drawn between Americans who believe that authorities have a responsibility, a responsibility to use tough interrogation methods on captured terror suspects and those who say rough treatment can never be used.

"Talking Points" believes firm legal boundaries must be set, but the president should have the legal authority to order things like waterboarding. For years, opponents of harsh methods have said they don't lead to reliable information. But that is not true.

..........

[Major Hogwash]

41. CIA: Some mistakes were made by destroying tapes.

Hayden announced on Thursday that "there mistakes made by the CIA".

Yeah, like you assholes got caught!

Where the fuck is George "Medal of Freedom" Tenet now?

Probably still hiding behind his couch in his living room!!

[L. Coyote]

42. NY Times: House Passes Restrictions on Interrogation = Rodriguez has hired Robert S. Bennett

House Passes Restrictions on Interrogation Methods
By SCOTT SHANE - Dec 14, 2007 - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/washington/14intel.html?ref=us

WASHINGTON — Defying a veto threat from President Bush, the House of Representatives voted Thursday to prohibit waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level prisoners from Al Qaeda.

The 222-to-199 vote, largely along party lines .... the White House said the president would veto the bill .....

The vote took place as the House Intelligence Committee pressed for more information about videotapes of interrogations ......

In a letter to the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the committee’s Democratic chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, and its top Republican, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, demanded by Friday all cables, memorandums and e-mail messages relating to the videotapes and the legal advice given to agency officials before the tapes were destroyed.

The letter also says the panel wants to take testimony on Tuesday from the former chief of the agency’s clandestine service, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who has been described by intelligence officials as having ordered the destruction of the tapes, and John A. Rizzo, the agency’s acting general counsel, who officials have said opposed their destruction.

In an appearance Wednesday at a closed committee meeting, General Hayden offered to make the material available, the letter said.

Mr. Rodriguez has hired Robert S. Bennett, a well-known Washington lawyer, to represent him in Congressional and Justice Department inquiries into his handling of the tapes. .........

[L. Coyote]

43. Who is Jose A. Rodriguez? Was he involved in the Venezuela coup?

FROM an old version of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jose_Rodriguez_%28intelligence%29&diff=56412600&oldid=52394872

For a time between 1996 and 1998, Rodriguez served as the CIA's station chief in Bogota, Colombia. He was able to confirm the complicity of Colombian president Ernesto Samper with the Cali cocaine cartel. This caused problems for Henry Kissinger later, as explained below.

Regarding a 1997 incident, Rodguez has been criticized by Agency officers for helping out a "friend" arrested for drug offenses in Latin America. He could have been acting in the line of duty by protecting a CIA asset (foreign "assets" are persons who constitute the bulk of the CIA's real spies).

In 1999 Rodriguez was the station chief in Mexico City (in charge of about 500 agents).

Jose A. Rodriguez next became the chief of the Latin America Division of the Operations Directorate of the CIA, presumably back at the McLean, VA, headquarters. That division is considered obscure by CIA-watchers, but CIA covert actions for regime change were perfected there (notably in Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Savador in the Iran-contra era http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/ ).

[L. Coyote]

44. Spin-off: Who is Jose A. Rodriguez? CIA Operative has Lawyered Up = Torture Evidence Destroyed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2469227

[L. Coyote]

45. The Inconvenient Truth – America's Gulags

The Inconvenient Truth – America's Gulags
by Chris Gelken - 2 pages - Dec 14, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_chris_ge_071214_the_inconvenient_tru.htm


Washington’s disregard for human rights appalls former president.

“I’m going to speak an inconvenient truth: my own country – the United States – is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali,” announced former Vice President Al Gore to appreciative applause from delegates to a U.N. climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia.

Half a world away, former President Jimmy Carter had another inconvenient truth. He told his audience at the Carter Center that the United States should be “embarrassed” for its appalling disregard for human rights. He said the notorious detention camps in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq would one day have their place in infamy as historic places where human rights were abused – drawing comparisons to Argentina, Chile, Poland, South Africa and the former Soviet Union.

He was speaking as the House of Representatives were preparing to vote on a bill to ban the practice of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, during the interrogation of terrorist suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency. .........

However, in a quite astonishing development, the White House has threatened to veto the measure, saying it would prevent the United States from using lawful methods to conduct interrogations .........

[L. Coyote]

46. MUKASEY: Justice Dept. Blocks House Inquiry into CIA Torture Tapes

Justice Dept. Blocks House Inquiry into CIA Torture Tapes
By Spencer Ackerman - Dec 14, 2007 - http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004919.php

Only two days after the House intelligence committee inaugurated its inquiry into the CIA's torture tapes by hosting CIA Director Mike Hayden on Wednesday, the Justice Department instructed key CIA officials not to cooperate. The panel's leaders, Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) and Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), vowed not to back off in a just-released joint statement:

"Just two days ago, CIA Director Michael Hayden appeared before our Committee to address the CIA's destruction of videotapes. In that hearing, he committed to providing materials relevant to our investigation. Earlier today, our staff was notified that the Department of Justice has advised CIA not cooperate with our investigation.

"We are stunned that the Justice Department would move to block our investigation. .........

............. Michael Mukasey, fresh from pissing off the Senate Judiciary Committee, just threw gasoline on Hoekstra's fire. This might just become a genuinely bipartisan outrage.

DOJ's national security spokesman, Dean Boyd, tells us he'll have a reaction to Reyes and Hoekstra imminently.

[L. Coyote]

47. Mukasey to Leahy, Specter: No

Mukasey to Leahy, Specter: No
By Paul Kiel - Dec 14, 2007 - http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004916.php

Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) sent Attorney General Michael Mukasey a detailed list of questions about the Justice Department's knowledge of the CIA's torture tapes' destruction. What did DoJ officials know about the tapes while they existed? When did they learn they were to be destroyed? What communications did they have with the White House about it?

They were also eager to learn the details of the Justice Department's joint investigation with the CIA.

Today, Mukasey gave his reply: no. The Department "has a long-standing policy of declining to provide non-public information about pending matters," he wrote, in order to avoid "any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence. Accordingly, I will not at this time provide further information in response to your letter, but appreciate the Committee's interests in this matter." You can read that letter here (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/mukasey-leahy-12-14/).

In a statement, Leahy responded that he was "disappointed" by Mukasey's reply (see below) .................

[L. Coyote]

48. MORAN: "I would trust the career prosecutors at Justice to do the job of discovering the truth"

I didn't realize this was a SPOOF until I saw the author's name!

=============
Mukasey rejects Congressional Demands on CIA Recordings
Rick Moran - December 15, 2007 - http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/12/mukasey_rejects_congressional.html


Attorney General Michael Mukasey has turned down a request from Congress that he tell them exactly what was on those destroyed CIA recordings depicting "severe interrogation techniques."

“The department has a long-standing policy of declining to provide nonpublic information about pending matters,” Mr. Mukasey wrote, in letters to Senate and House committee leaders, in which he noted that the Justice Department’s National Security Division and the C.I.A.’s inspector general’s office have already opened an inquiry into the episode.

Taking a position that annoyed a prominent Republican as well as Democrats, the attorney general wrote, “This policy is based in part on our interest in avoiding any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence.” He also rejected suggestions that he appoint a special prosecutor to look into the matter, declaring that he was “aware of no facts at present” that would make such a step necessary.

The recent disclosure that the videotapes showing the questioning of Al Qaeda suspects were destroyed within the C.I.A. is the latest flare-up in the long-running controversy over what methods have been used in interrogations, and in particular whether any should be considered torture.

It is typical of the Democrats that they complain .....

There's no doubt we need to get to the bottom of this incident. But I would trust the career prosecutors at Justice to do the job of discovering the truth over Congressional investigators any day.

[L. Coyote]

49. Judge Kennedy Urged Not to Ask ..CIA Tapes "would interfere with current investigations by Congress

Let me see if I have this anywhere near correct. Judge Kennedy cannot seek info because "demanding information about the tapes would interfere with current investigations by Congress" and Congress cannot demanding information about the tapes because that would interfere with current investigations by Justice. Of course, Judge Kennedy is part of the Justice system. I guess there are two justice systems in America, one just for George's junta, that's the one with the capital "J", and the one for everyone else.

======================================
Judge Urged Not to Ask About CIA Tapes
By MATT APUZZO – 5 hours ago - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyL3au-RZxEcch2P9ymXaJ9mroogD8THULS00

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration told a federal judge it was not obligated to preserve videotapes of CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists and urged the court not to look into the tapes' destruction.

In court documents filed Friday night, government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about the tapes would interfere with current investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.

It was the first time the government had addressed the issue of the videotapes in court.

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

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

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

In court documents, ............

[L. Coyote]

50. Congress, Bush in clash over CIA interrogation tapes = "headed for confrontation"

Congress, Bush in clash over CIA interrogation tapes
3 hours ago - http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j-p4MxDaedkHQctVz0i01iieZfZg

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Congress and President George W. Bush were headed for confrontation Saturday as US lawmakers accused the Justice Department of blocking their probe into whether the CIA tried to cover up torture by destroying interrogation tapes.

Lawmakers from both parties expressed outrage after Bush's Attorney General Michael Mukasey asked a congressional panel to postpone its investigation of the destroyed videotapes on grounds it could jeopardize the Justice Department's own inquiry into the affair.

"Earlier today, our staff was notified that the Department of Justice has advised CIA not cooperate with our investigation," said a statement Friday from the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, Silvestre Reyes, and the ranking Republican, Pete Hoekstra.

"We are stunned that the Justice Department would move to block our investigation. Parallel investigations occur all the time, and there is no basis upon which the attorney general can stand in the way of our work," the statement said.

"It is clear that there's more to this story than we have been told, ............

[L. Coyote]

51. NEWSWEEK: "top intelligence official warned the CIA not to destroy its interrogation tapes"

Tracking a Paper Trail
A memo from a top intelligence official warned the CIA not to destroy its interrogation tapes
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball | NEWSWEEK
Dec 24, 2007 Issue http://www.newsweek.com/id/78065

In the summer of 2005, then CIA director Porter Goss met with then national intelligence director John Negroponte to discuss a highly sensitive matter: what to do about the existence of videotapes documenting the use of controversial interrogation methods, apparently includ­ing waterboarding, on two key Al Qaeda suspects. The tapes were eventually de­stroyed, and congressional investigators are now trying to piece together an extensive paper trail documenting how and why it happened.

One crucial document they'll surely want to examine: a memo written after the meeting between Goss and Negroponte, which records that Negroponte strongly advised against destroying the tapes, according to two people close to the investigation, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter. The memo is so far the only known documentation that a senior intel official warned that the tapes should not be destroyed. Spokespeople for the CIA and the intel czar's office declined to comment, citing ongoing investigations.

Current and former U.S. officials familiar with the history of the tapes, who also asked for anonymity, told newsweek that Jose Rodriguez Jr., then chief of the CIA's espionage branch, the National Clandes­tine Service, decided on his own authority in late 2005 to destroy the tapes in order to protect the identity of under­cover CIA officers. The officials said that Rodriguez and his close aides had been asking top agency managers for more than two years about what to do with the tapes, but felt they never got a straight answer.

.............

[L. Coyote]

52. Bush Administration Rebukes Congress and Courts, Stymieing Investigations

Bush Administration Rebukes Congress and Courts, Stymieing Investigations of Destroyed CIA Videotapes (12/15/2007)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Updated 12/15/2007 - http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/33228prs20071215.html

ACLU Calls it a Threat to Constitutional Checks and Balances

NEW YORK -- In a stunning rebuke of the constitutional system of checks and balances, the Justice Department — in a single 24-hour period — has warned a federal judge to back off of his inquiry into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, has told Congress to delay its own investigation into the matter, and has refused to cooperate with congressional inquiries into its own role in the elimination of the videotaped evidence.

In court documents filed late Friday night, administration lawyers warned U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about the destroyed tapes would interfere with Justice Department and congressional investigations. In 2005, Justice Kennedy ordered the government to preserve all evidence regarding the torture, abuse and mistreatment of Guantánamo Bay detainees. Five months later, the CIA destroyed two interrogation tapes of "high-value" detainees who would eventually be transferred to Guantánamo.

In a lawsuit concerning The American Civil Liberties Union's Freedom of Information Act request, federal Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein also ordered the government to produce evidence of detainee treatment and abuse overseas — evidence that would include the destroyed tapes. After learning of the tapes' destruction in violation of the judge's order, the ACLU requested that Judge Hellerstein hold the government in contempt. That request is now pending.

Additionally, the Department of Justice — led by new Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey — has asked congressional committees to back off of their own investigations into the destruction of the videotapes, which will most likely result in the postponement of a planned hearing next week at which two CIA officials were summoned to testify. The Justice Department has also refused to provide information to Congress about its own role in destroying the tapes.

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

"The administration's attempt to obstruct legitimate and critical investigations into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes is stunning. It is a bold and shameless frontal assault on the oversight roles of both Congress and the courts, which are co-equal branches of government. Our democracy cannot function without separation of powers, meant to provide a system of checks and balances so that no branch of government can dominate the other two. The Bush administration's view of a unitary executive threatens that balance and Americans of all political stripes should be very concerned. Congress must finally take a stand and put an end to executive overreaching.

"The ACLU will continue to do its part through its contempt motion and other litigation to restore Constitutional integrity to this broken government."