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State Dept Lawyer: White House Tried To Destroy My Alternative Memo On Torture
As David noted over at TPM, there was some potentially big news in a blog post that was written this morning over at Foreign Policy by Philip Zelikow, a top State Department lawyer under Condoleezza Rice.
Zelikow wrote that, in 2005, he had written a memo on the legality of harsh interrogation techniques that expressed an "alternative view" to the OLC memos. He continued:
My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo. I expect that one or two are still at least in the State Department's archives.
Trying to get a copy of the memo, we contacted Zelikow. He declined to add much to his blog post, but did say, via email:
The memo I mentioned was highly classified at the time. So any extant copies, or drafts, would only be in an appropriate government safe. Any extant copies at State would be in their archival facilities for top secret papers from my files, or possibly Bellinger's files, or Secretary Rice's files.
We've contacted the State Department, as well as John Bellinger, who served as Rice's chief legal adviser at the department, and is now at the Washington law firm Arnold & Porter. We'll keep you posted...
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Josh
Zachary
An interesting blog post.
Yeah, I don't believe many judges would go for that either. Therefore the whole teetering house of cards logic collapses in a noisome pile of it's own absurdities."We live in a policy world too inclined to turn lawyers into surrogate priests granting a form of absolution." Sad but true.
I especially found weighty Zelikow's analysis towards the end:
When the indefinite detentions without trial or POW status began, I thought it was an appalling precedent that could eventually be used against many US citizens. Now we see that even torture is fine with the former administration for US citizens.
April 21, 2009 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh and this:
is appalling, but at this point, pitifully, it would be shocking if the former administration hadn't tried to disappear Zelikow's memo like a 1984-esque reality re-write.April 21, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every day yet another example of what these degenerates have done to our standing in the world and to human rights in general.
I mourn for our country.
April 21, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Moral courage in (non)action.
Go suck and egg, Zelikow. You and Colin Powell can do it together.
April 21, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if he is asking for somebody to sue for its release by making the world aware of its existence.
April 21, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zelikow is worried that he's going to be left swinging in the breeze. Information extracted by torture formed the cornerstone of his 911 Commission findings.
NBC analysis showed that more than a quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Commission Report refer to controversial interrogation techniques.
Zelikow said that Gonzales, Tenet and Rumsfeld flatly refused to let the Commission talk with prisoners, but promised to get specific answers to specific questions if needed. He never let that stand in the way of his monumental coverup.
For Zelikow to now pretend to care is just ridiculous. He told the Annual Lecture, Houston Journal of International Law, on April 26, 2007, that "good intelligence can be gained by physically tormenting captives".
He said improved interrogation methods have been developed through "a process of painful trial and error"! He said it was " tempting for some local governments to let the Americans do the distasteful things that protect their people too." He called for such governments to abandon the rule of "traditional" law. And he argued in favour of "the quite defensible policy of renditions".
I blogged about this ages ago and nobody cared:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/02/zelikow-goes-into-damage-contr.php
DoJ should have a big fat file with Zelikow's name on it.
April 21, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
On July 10, 2001 there was a meeting between Rice, Tenet and Cofer Black (who later became a Blackwater executive). Tenet said he " couldn't rule out a domestic attack but thought it more likely that al-Qaeda would strike overseas." Zelikow was the guy who ensured that there was no reference to this meeting in his 911 Commission report, which allowed his old friend Condi to publicly profess that she had no warning of the 911 attack (well, until that NIE surfaced anyway).
Much later, we learned that Zelikow had secret meetings with Rove while he was working on the 911 Commission, although he swears (believe him?!?) that they never discussed his 911 Commission work.
The guy has about as much credibility as Dick Cheney. I suspect Zelikow is the Bush administration's golden thread - keep pulling, and the whole thing will unravel.
April 21, 2009 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
So this may be an attempt by him to have something released that he could use to save himself. I would really like however to see the memo.
April 21, 2009 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think he's a bit panicked, otherwise why wouldn't he just keep his head down? Maybe he's trying to settle an old score?
Or reinvent himself in rightwing eyes as a champion of truth, justice and the American Way?
April 21, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zelikow? The peon?
I seriously doubt this.
How in heck did Zelikow get his hands on the OLC torture memos?
After all, Zelikow was no more than Condi's butt boy when she was the National Security advisor. The Rumsfeld-Cheney cabal controlled the memos. There's no way Phil ever saw these memos -- so there would be no way he could object.
This whole "classifed" dissent is a canard, just like Dick Cheney's claims... "I can't show you the evidence because it was classified." Zelikow never wrote a memo.
So why the need to stoke the ego, from a Junior Varsity player from the Bush years... a guy who couldn't even get a damn job on the NSC.
Phil, pray tell, why are you so needy?
April 21, 2009 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Phil, are you protecting Condi? Was your "memo" her "voice" against all the bad bullies in the room?
Your memo smells more like Jay Rockefeller's weak-as-water letter he wrote to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld but then had to put in his safe... If there is a memo at all, and I doubt it.
Isn't studying past Presidents enough for you, dude? Redlands University ain't no Yale or Stanford.
April 21, 2009 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey -- don't be dissin' the University of Redlands! It's a nice school and has produced lots of intelligent people, even though Bob Haldeman was an alumnus as well.
May 4, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, such angst. I had never heard of Zelikow before today, thanks for the backstory. I'll have to judge for myself if he's worthy of such contempt.
Zelikow was on Rachel Maddows tonight discussing this. Vid and transcript at Crooks and Liars.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/27570
April 22, 2009 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink