Posted by Damozel | According to The New York Times, the Justice Department, and senior Congressional officials advised the CIA in 2003 not to destroy "hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday." (NYT via Memeorandum)
In 2003, the agency's general counsel, Scott W. Muller, told "a small group of senior lawmakers" that the CIA wanted to destroy the intelligence tapes because they were "no longer of any intelligence value" and also because "the interrogations they showed put agency operatives who appeared in the tapes at risk." (NYT ) One of the Congressional leaders who told Muller not to do this was Porter J. Goss, who was Director of the CIA at the time the chief of the Directorate of Operations ordered them to be destroyed.(NYT )
Scott Muller then discussed destroying the tapes with the Justice Department. Harriet Miers and Justice Department lawyers also advised against this.(NYT )
Clearly the CIA didn't want those tapes ever to see the light of day.
Several former intelligence officials also said there was great concern that the tapes, which recorded hours of grueling interrogations, could have set off controversies about the legality of the interrogations and generate a backlash in the Middle East..(NYT )
Top CIA officials nevertheless apparently decided to accept the guidance they'd had from Congress and the Justice Department..(NYT ) Jose A. Rodriguez, who "reversed" the decision, was the chief of the clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations. (NYT )
Rodriguez made the decision in November 2005. As The New York Times points out, this was a time "when Congress and the courts were inquiring deeply into the C.I.A.’s interrogation and detention program." (NYT ) Of course---though The New York Times doesn't mention this--- November 2005 was a very bad time for the Bush Administration. Abu Ghraib had shocked the conscience of many Americans in 2004, but it took Hurricane Katrina in September 2005 to strip away his teflon coat and knock the "911 president" halo off his head. Following Hurricane Katrina, the media and a large segment of the population suddenly woke up as if from a trance into some very painful realizations about the Bush Administration. (NYT)
You can see why those who presided over or participated in a "severe interrogation" back in 2003, the year we were all marching in time to the Bush Administration's war drums, might in November 2005 have become extremely nervous.(NYT) A technique which might appear to a zealous operative to be permissible in 2003 might look very different in late 2005. Perhaps this Rodriguez had noticed how responsibility for Abu Ghraib was being allocated and didn't care for the idea of having agents acting under others' instructions scapegoated. Perhaps.
On the other hand, perhaps he really did act out of a concern that if the tapes were made available to investigators participating agents (and their families) would be targeted by enemy operatives. Perhaps he "reversed the decision" because he thought that the top offiicals weren't showing sufficient concern for their safety. Is that really as implausible as Kennedy is arguing? This isn't a rhetorical question; I really don't know. At first I thought it sounded a bit thin, but when I try to put myself in the place of an actual former participant, it seems much more convincing. In terms of danger to oneself and one's family, it seems to me that it would be one thing to be outed as a CIA agent; and quite another to be seen on tape "severely interrogating" an enemy detainee.
UPDATE: Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly thinks we can probably envision what this "severe interrogation" would have looked like.
One of the captured prisoners was an al-Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, and it turns out we have a pretty good idea of what the tape would have shown. First, Spencer Ackerman gives us this from James Risen's State of War:
Risen charges that Tenet caved to Bush entirely on the torture of al-Qaeda detainees. After the 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah, a bin Laden deputy, failed to yield much information due to his drowsiness from medical treatment, Bush allegedly told Tenet, "Who authorized putting him on pain medication?" Not only did Tenet get the message — brutality while questioning an enemy prisoner was no problem — but Tenet also never sought explicit White House approval for permissible interrogation techniques, contributing to what Risen speculates is an effort by senior officials "to insulate Bush and give him deniability" on torture....
[H]ere's what the tapes would have shown: not just that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative, but that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative who was (a) unimportant and low-ranking, (b) mentally unstable, (c) had no useful information, and (d) eventually spewed out an endless series of worthless, fantastical "confessions" under duress. This was all prompted by the president of the United States, implemented by the director of the CIA, and the end result was thousands of wasted man hours by intelligence and and law enforcement personnel. (Read more....)
If so....well.
CIA officials have said that CIA Director Porter Goss and then top general counsel John Rizzo did not greet with joy the news that the destruction of the tapes was a fait accompli. (NYT) Which sort of begs the question of why they did not immediately inform the White House, the Justice Department, or Congress about the destruction of the tapes. (NYT) And that's really the point where the story ceases to make any sense. General Hayden, who wasn't even there at the time, seems to think that the agency probably DID tell someone or other; but if so, why doesn't anyone remember? It's not just Bush. No one seems to recall being told, "About those tapes we mentioned a couple of years ago...."
On Friday, Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from 2004 to 2006, said he had never been told that the tapes were destroyed.
“I think the intelligence committee needs to get all over this,” said Mr. Hoekstra, who has been a strong supporter of the C.I.A. detention and interrogation program. “This raises a red flag that needs to be looked at.” (NYT)
I'm not sure why Mr. Hoekstra (and the Captain!) are so much more worked up over this than over the many other red flags that have been spotted here, there, and everywhere within the Bush Administration during the last seven years, but I'm glad they're on it.
Asked and answered! The Captain explains it all.
Memeorandum has the article posted here.
Military Interrogator: Torture isn't Operationally Effective
Waterboarding: Learn What It's Like & Why It's Good for You in Two Easy Lessons
US Military & Intelligence Officials Weigh in on Torture Issue (Deaf Ears Dept)
Bush Administration Blocked Critic Who Experienced Waterboarding
I say 'Torture'; You Say 'Harsh Interrogation Techniques'.... (Updated)
General Says Rumsfeld Misled Congress re: Abu Ghraib
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LINKED
C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes (NYT)
Sorry. I don't buy that they destroyed the tapes. I just don't. Put them somewhere? sure. Destroyed them? No way.
They just think we're stupid.
Posted by: On a Limb with Claudia | December 08, 2007 at 02:17 PM