CIA Destroyed Tapes of Interrogations

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Again I ask how is this evidence?

Has a crime been investigated? A report made? And after the fact evidence was destroyed?

This seems to me like claiming that everytime someone in authority deletes a computer file they must be guilty of something. Why didn't you save all that e-mail? GUILTY!


I am not defending the destruction of the tapes. I think that was dumb. Now the paranoid left can claim phantom evidence of a crime and the destruction itself a crime. Should have seen that coming a mile away! But explain to me why this was evidence when distroyed?

This wasn't deleting an email or a file on a computer, it was the physical destruction of tapes containing interrogations. If a local police force did this, people would be getting fired left and right. In ATL we have a huge windowless building full of archived evidence. You do NOT destroy this kind of thing for WHATEVER reason.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Again I ask how is this evidence?

Has a crime been investigated? A report made? And after the fact evidence was destroyed?

This seems to me like claiming that everytime someone in authority deletes a computer file they must be guilty of something. Why didn't you save all that e-mail? GUILTY!


I am not defending the destruction of the tapes. I think that was dumb. Now the paranoid left can claim phantom evidence of a crime and the destruction itself a crime. Should have seen that coming a mile away! But explain to me why this was evidence when distroyed?

Using the "logic" many on the right use in the illegal wiretapping program.. If they have nothing to hide, why would they go to such an effort to protect the information on the tapes from being available to review?

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

This wasn't deleting an email or a file on a computer, it was the physical destruction of tapes containing interrogations. If a local police force did this, people would be getting fired left and right. In ATL we have a huge windowless building full of archived evidence. You do NOT destroy this kind of thing for WHATEVER reason.

Did the CIA commit a crime when they did this?

That is all I am asking. I am not in anyway suggesting it was the right and proper thing to do. I only take issue with the suggestion that this act is "evidence" that a crime has been committed. That seems to be the media conclusion at this point. I want to know what happened and what laws were involved? I think that is what is in fact being investigated. I have no problem with that.

[motivez]

Since torture is illegal under treaty obligations with other nations that have been ratified by Congress, as well as by other laws.. If they used tactics that are torture (and make no mistake about it, water boarding is torture, examples of its use throughout history are labeled as such), then of course they committed a crime.

[RMNIXON]

Repeat: I am talking about the claim that they have committed a crime by destroying evidence. That is a job of law enforcment to determine not the media. I am not saying the law does not apply in this case. It might very well be? But people are acting as if this is proof of a cover-up of a crime before the fact. I am simply not there yet.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

Since torture is illegal under treaty obligations with other nations that have been ratified by Congress, as well as by other laws.. If they used tactics that are torture (and make no mistake about it, water boarding is torture, examples of its use throughout history are labeled as such), then of course they committed a crime.

I think that depends. There was serious questioning over waterboarding the rights of these people. Our laws were unclear as to whether or not these people had the right to not be waterboarded and whether it was a criminal act to engage. You would have to be able to prove that whatever those tapes showed (possible waterboarding) was illegal at the time they were filmed. In 2002 it was unchartered territory and later settled. I don't think it was a crime to waterboard at the time the films were taken. At most, destroying the tapes was done to protect themselves from embarrassment and to protect the agents involved.

If this was an illegal act, which I'm not sure it is, they should get to the bottom of this. If it wasn't illegal and was just simply morally wrong, we're back on the Plame fiasco.

The only thing I can find in this thread or elsewhere regarding the possible illegal activity done by this was this line from the OP:

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

Just going by the title here of "false statement statute" I don't think it has much to do with the act of destroying the videos, but rather lying about their contents or involvement in their destruction.

In short, I'm not entirely sure what is accused of being on the videos is illegal or that their destruction was illegal. Perhaps someone can show me where my logic is wrong.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Repeat: I am talking about the claim that they have committed a crime by destroying evidence. That is a job of law enforcment to determine not the media. I am not saying the law does not apply in this case. It might very well be? But people are acting as if this is proof of a cover-up of a crime before the fact. I am simply not there yet.

My personal opinion of this is that they had these tapes which incriminated agents. There was a lot of media hype over waterboarding and they were fearful of the tapes leaking and for the safety (legal and physical) of the agents involved. So someone, most likely acting out of permission, destroyed the tapes.

The Bush administration admitted supporting waterboarding. Why the hell would they get involved in this cover-up that may prove we waterboarded? It doesn't serve them. Harriet Miers was asked about it and she turned them down. I don't see why Harriet Miers and the Director of the CIA would say don't destroy them and Bush/Cheney would say go right ahead. These tapes of CIA agents interrogating terrorists wouldn't need to be destroyed to legally protect the Bush administration in any way. They admitted to waterboarding. There is no legal action taken against them. These tapes wouldn't suddenly make it illegal for them or the people involved that I'm aware of. People are acting as if these tapes are proof of a crime. I disagree, we all know waterboarding took place. If they wanted to fight it in court they could have without the tapes. I believe waterboarding has been done 4 times, and each time has been documented. They don't need the tapes.

[IminWonderland]

I was listening to NPR, and an ACLU attorney was talking, and he was saying that when he was trying a case regarding torture, he subpeona'd video, the government said they had none. And a Federal Judge asked for the information, they said it doesn't exist.

There was also someone else on there who was saying the excuse of the identity of the CIA operative was a weak excuse.

The whole thing is weak and disgusting.

If that video got out, the outrage would far cry the Abu Ghraib scandal.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I think that depends. There was serious questioning over waterboarding the rights of these people. Our laws were unclear as to whether or not these people had the right to not be waterboarded and whether it was a criminal act to engage.

No, the laws weren't unclear. Torture is illegal in every circumstance. The Geneva Convention is very clear, and the Supreme Court held that the Geneva Conventions apply to these people as a matter of treaty obligation..

It's always been illegal, and if there was a question as to the legality, the proper way to go about that isn't for your corrupt and insanely politicized Department of "Justice" lackies to give you the go ahead on a policy idea you want to implement.

Originally Posted by JaJae

If this was an illegal act, which I'm not sure it is, they should get to the bottom of this. If it wasn't illegal and was just simply morally wrong, we're back on the Plame fiasco.

Torture is always morally wrong, there's nothing "simply" about it. The idea that you can dismiss the United States of America condoning the practice of torture with a simple "Oh, well it was only morally wrong.." is revolting to me. It was obviously illegal, torture has never been legalized in the United States.

Here's a good article, though you wont like the source (and I don't care, since the information is factually correct) that outlines the various ways that torture is illegal:

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Is Torture Illegal? Let Us Count the Ways.

Today ACLU staff attorney Amrit Singh testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on torture and interrogation practices. Amrit knows a thing or two about torture: she just co-authored a book about it, with National Security Program Director Jameel Jaffer, called Administration of Torture.

As we've pointed out before, torture is illegal many times over. Congress has enacted four statutes and ratified two treaties that prohibit torture of all kinds. For those of you keeping count, torture is illegal under:

1. The federal Anti-Torture Act
2. The federal War Crimes Act which, even as amended by the Military Commissions Act, bans acts such as waterboarding
3. Federal criminal assault laws
4. The McCain Amendment in the Detainee Treatment Act
5. The Senate-ratified Convention Against Torture
6. The Senate-ratified Geneva Conventions (particularly Common Article 3, which prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees)

Aside from the fact that it's illegal, it's always worth repeating that torture doesn't work. Numerous people, most notably former CIA interrogators, have said as much. Victims of torture have invented stories and given false confessions just to make the torture stop. So it's all the more shocking that the efficacy and legality of torture is even an issue.

But it is. Today in Guantánamo Bay is the military commission hearing of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was arrested in 2002, when he was 15 years old. Khadr's been in U.S. custody for five years, and during that time he was tortured, but never charged with a crime. The last time Khadr had a hearing in Guantánamo, the charges were dismissed. Today's hearing will determine whether Kahdr can be tried as an "unlawful enemy combatant."

Jamil Dakwar, Advocacy Director for the ACLU's Human Rights Program, is in Guantánamo now monitoring Khadr's hearing. He'll blog about it here tomorrow.

American Civil Liberties Union : ACLU Blog

[JaJae]

An ACLU blog isn't proof that tortue laws were always clear. Just going through some of these, most of the items listed here were enacted after 2002. Some that came beforehand like the "Senate Ratified Convention Against Torture" were signed with footnotes like this:

"... nothing in this Convention requires or authorizes legislation, or other action, by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the United States."

- Note the ACLU blog obviously didn't want us to know this and is also why it probably isn't the best source.

Anti-torture act is from 2005.
War Crimes Act is from 2006.
McCain amendment 2005.
Convention Against Torture - signed with clause that it's not to be used to give authorization for legal matters.
Whether or not the Geneva Conventions applied was hotly debated. The ruling came after 2002.

It would be very difficult to prove that waterboarding was definitely illegal when these videos were recorded, thus the people involved can't be charged with a crime.

On the other hand, something I thought while reading some responses in this thread. If these tapes were to be used as evidence against these terrorists we've just shot ourselves in the foot.

[motivez]

If the ACLU didn't want us to know, they wouldn't have provided links

Nice try though.

Congress enacted additional legislation because President Bush refused to follow the laws and treaties that were already on the books.. It's a sad and unfortunate pattern in this Presidency. He thinks he's above the law and can do whatever he wants.

It's a shame Congress and the rubber stamp Republicans have allowed him to.

Waterboarding has always been regarded as torture.. and torture is illegal in the United States. Hell, after WWII we tried and convicted some Japanese guy for torturing an American citizen using waterboarding. It's a shame that we're using a tactic used by the Gestapo in Nazi Germany..

Here's some links detailing the history of it if you're interested in answering whatever lingering questions you might have about waterboarding being torture.

NPR : Waterboarding: A Tortured History
Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime - washingtonpost.com
Waterboarding is Torture... Period (Links Updated # 9) (SWJ Blog)

[JaJae]

The links they provided were given to show that waterboarding is illegal. They linked to things we signed, but didn't mention the signing clauses that completely negates their argument. They're not being forthright and honest.

The Japanese waterboarded uniform soldiers which was a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It may be hypocritical, but it is the reality. Waterboarding is not something that is new to the Bush administration. While morally it's the same, legally there is a difference.

And CIA waterboarding is not something new and a product of only the Bush administration. Through all the links of the ACLU blog, I still haven't been pointed to a law the CIA officers broke. I believe the only thing that could be considered is the Geneva Conventions which again were hotly debated and was ruled on after this incident.

[JaJae]

The story is being confirmed so far by two sources:

The man now at the center of the storm is Jose Rodriguez, who retired as head of the CIA's clandestine directorate of operations in August 2007, but will leave the agency at the end of the year. Rodriguez decided the tapes should be destroyed, one former and one current intelligence official told The Associated Press. A career spy, Rodriguez was promoted to the job by then-CIA Director Porter Goss.

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

Goss was upset by the tapes' destruction but did not take any action because the decision was within Rodriguez's authority, a former intelligence official told the AP. The CIA's spy service has broad latitude to take actions to protect operational security.

"Though Goss believed this was a bad judgment it falls within prerogatives of the directorate of operations," said the former official, who like other current and former officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

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

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

CIA, Justice review tapes' destruction - Yahoo! News

It doesn't seem that Bush was involved in the decision making of the destruction of these tapes.

[Scrum]

Wow, more people on their way out the door throwing themselves on their swords for this administration.

[thatguyoverthere]

I am no way a fan of this following author. I would take anything he said with a huge grain of salt. But,... when this particular fellow puts on a tin foil hat and accuses the American government of a cover up, I find it worthwhile of at least a little attention.

Gerald Posner: The CIA's Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 9/11 Connection - Politics on The Huffington Post

Originally Posted by Gerald Posner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Died of thirst." Riiiiiiiiiiiiight...

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by JaJae

My personal opinion of this is that they had these tapes which incriminated agents. There was a lot of media hype over waterboarding and they were fearful of the tapes leaking and for the safety (legal and physical) of the agents involved. So someone, most likely acting out of permission, destroyed the tapes.

I wonder why they might be so concerned with leaks for the political benefit of administration critics..................

[David Octavius]

I just wanted to update this thread since this is a big issue:

BBC NEWS | Americas | Criminal inquiry over CIA tapes

The US justice department is to launch a criminal investigation into the CIA's erasing of videotapes of interrogations of two al-Qaeda suspects.

It follows last month's preliminary joint inquiry with the CIA into whether a full investigation was necessary.

Critics have accused the CIA of a cover-up to hide evidence of possible torture and abuse of detainees.


The CIA says it destroyed the tapes as they no longer had "intelligence value" and were a security risk to its agents.


US Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced the move, appointing federal prosecutor John Durham to oversee the case.


In a statement he said: "The department's national security division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter."


There has been no immediate comment by the CIA.


Interrogation methods


The hundreds of hours of footage, recorded in 2002, reportedly contained images of interrogation techniques including water-boarding, which simulates drowning.

President George W Bush has said that the US does not use torture but has not been specific about interrogation methods.

Congress are also examining exactly how and why the tapes came to be destroyed in 2005, and the CIA itself is looking into the issue.
The Bush administration has so far refused to co-operate with the congressional investigation.

If this was strictly about protecting agents identity I understand but since when did a government - any government - care about the pawns in their game of chess? If this investigation is done in earnest, we could be witnessing a watershed moment in this war on "terror".

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by David Octavius

If this was strictly about protecting agents identity I understand but since when did a government - any government - care about the pawns in their game of chess?

Rather cynical don't you think? Word would get around!

And if this is a political cover-up then why is there some record of this tape destruction? Otherwise we would know nothing about it. Another CIA blunder?

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by David Octavius

I just wanted to update this thread since this is a big issue:

BBC NEWS | Americas | Criminal inquiry over CIA tapes



If this was strictly about protecting agents identity I understand but since when did a government - any government - care about the pawns in their game of chess? If this investigation is done in earnest, we could be witnessing a watershed moment in this war on "terror".

Whenever we were handling detainees in Iraq we used first names so the guy wouldn't learn our last name. Protecting identities is something that definitely happens.

[bheld]

Oh boy, now we've got charges of obstruction of the 9/11 investigation. Hopefully this stays on the front-burner.