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Some Destroyed CIA Tapes Showed "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"
In new court documents filed today, the Justice Department acknowledged that twelve of the destroyed CIA interrogation tapes depict "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- what most people call torture -- the ACLU announced in a press release.
The government also said it would provide a list of summaries, transcripts, and memoranda related to the destroyed tapes, though the ACLU noted that a previous list was almost entirely redacted.
The CIA admitted earlier this week that it had destroyed 92 interrogation tapes. The destruction was ordered by then operations chief Jose Rodriguez.
In an earlier Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU asked for information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. It filed a motion in December 2007 to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of the tapes, which it argued violated a court order requiring the agency to produce or identify all the records it was asking for.
Josh
Zachary
Oh good. This puts my mind at ease.
March 6, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side." It's all laid out, a road map for the Truth Commission.
The puppeteers pulling Bush's strings were Cheney and Addington.
March 6, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"
You mean torture.
March 6, 2009 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Bush administration actually set out to carve out a legal space for "enhanced interrogation techniques" that was just below the legal definition of torture in the US Code. Their legal reasoning (justifiably or not) and discussion of use of the term can be found at http://thedcshuffle.com/political-euphemism-glossary/enhanced-interrogation-techniques/
Bear in mind that what is legal and what is right are two different questions.
March 7, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
not torture, conversation starters.
March 7, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
America will be living with this shameful time for centuries. These are events that will not be forgotten in the Arab World.
March 6, 2009 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It (the ACLU) filed a motion in December 2007 to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of the (torture) tapes,"
When will the ACLU and people, in general, learn that holding an organization in contempt has no useful purpose. Those tapes were destroyed by a person, not an organization.
Name the person responsible and hold them in contempt.
March 7, 2009 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's some tendency even among intelligent progressives that "the little guys" (i.e. the ones who actually did the torturing, as opposed to ordering it) should not be used as whipping boys for those who ordered and enabled it (Cheney, Bush, Addington, Rusmfeld, Tenet, etc.).
While of course the higher-ups should be held more responsible and punished more severely, "just taking orders" is no defense. They could and should have resigned, instead. They could have requested written clarification of their orders, and let it be known they could not perform them because they are illegal. I doubt anyone would have actually been fired for refusing to torture -- and if they were, they would be in a far stronger legal and moral position today.
March 7, 2009 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a CIA operative, deep enough into things that I've been flown to a black site in Afghanistan. I've been told that the DoJ has determined that the interrogation techniques were are going to use are legal. I cannot refuse to do this because it is illegal; I can only refuse to do it because it is immoral. However, given the fact that I'm a CIA operative deep enough into things to be at a black site in Afghanistan, my job naturally entails quite a bit of work that many people would find "immoral", ergo that's a bit of silly argument. Or am I supposed to say "you know what, I don't care what the DoJ says, all you really scary people are going to jail and I'm not going to join you. Get me out of this black site and take me home so I can report you all (else be charged as an accomplice)."
For all we know a number of people tried that game and wound up on the wrong end of waterboard...
March 7, 2009 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sabrina Harman, an Army Reserve MP, gives a thumb up to the corpse of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner tortured to death (likely by the CIA) in U.S. custody in 2003 in Abu Ghraib.
http://gallery.marihemp.com/prisons/1106115_sabrina_harman.jpg
For her part in the abuse of prisoners there she was sentenced to six months in prison with credit for 51 days already served and a bad conduct discharge.
Rummy, Cheney, Addington, Scooter, Gonzo and Sonny Bush are still walking free.
March 7, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
The tapes were not destroyed.
.
March 7, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have them?
March 7, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who authorized the destruction of the tapes? Is that not the same thing as destruction of evidence?
Are we a nation of laws?
Oh. I guess not. Then what are we, exactly?
March 7, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
A play in 3 acts. You just wrote it!
March 7, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
It needs a scene where the protagonist cries out for a horse.
March 7, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
here is no reason for us commoners to worry ourselves over things which are best taken care of by the important people who have decided to take care of us. After all, if we were REALLY better able to take care of us, WE would be in charge.
What we need to do is just accept the fact that those in charge will always do what is best for us... our job is to just keep doing our menial, unimportant things and when we ar home, doing nothing... eat cake...
Someone remind me how our nation differs from other dictatorships, oligarchies, etc. ? I seem to have forgotten...
March 7, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to know WHO wanted the torture, oops, enhanced interogation tactics instituted. Rummy, Shrub, Rove, Cheney? All of the aforementioned? I can't see it coming from Powell.
As an aside, when I was in the service, I doubt that there was much we did that our Commanders didn't know.
March 7, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a CIA operative, deep enough into things that I've been flown to a black site in Afghanistan. I've been told that the DoJ has determined that the interrogation techniques were are going to use are legal. I cannot refuse to do this because it is illegal; I can only refuse to do it because it is immoral. However, given the fact that I'm a CIA operative deep enough into things to be at a black site in Afghanistan, my job naturally entails quite a bit of work that many people would find "immoral", ergo that's a bit of silly argument. Or am I supposed to say "you know what, I don't care what the DoJ says, all you really scary people are going to jail and I'm not going to join you. Get me out of this black site and take me home so I can report you all (else be charged as an accomplice)."
This is so desparately wrong. An attempt to make up out, of whole cloth a scenario where a law abiding US citizen would almost be inescapably forced to commit crimes against humanity. It's quite clear to me that anyone who allowed themselves to get into the position you describe would have had ample opportunity to get out long before being "forced" to commit a crime.
As soon as you begin assuming there is a plausible explanation for a low level agent commiting a heinous crime without guilt or blame, you yourself become part of a criminal conspiracy.
Someone wants to break the law and commit violence against a suspect. Before they even speak of that to a single other person, they have become an unfit agent. At this point, we all seem happy to proceed the way it is, knowing there are hundreds, possibly thousands of agents who not only can see the logic in breaking the law and keeping it secret, but they can actually keep the secret forever with all of these unfit agents all around them.
March 8, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Follow Cheney's and Addington's gambit, folks.
The CIA only ever had 'copies' of the tapes. The tapes themselves are 'owned' by one of the 'private' contractors. The tapes are now stashed away by the 'private contractor' but held by a now trusted source. My guess is David Addington or Cheney Staffer James Steen.
March 8, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone who believes the tapes are gone is a fool.
March 9, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
March 9, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
oops.
March 9, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink