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CIA Official Destroyed Torture Tapes to Protect Subordinates, Say Buddies
Top-tier intelligence reporter Siobhan Gorman, now at the Wall Street Journal, profiles Jose Rodriguez, the outgoing CIA operations chief who in 2005 reportedly ordered the destruction of the CIA's interrogation videotapes. In doing so, she talked to a number of former intelligence officials familiar with Rodriguez. To raise the curtain for you, dear reader, oftentimes active-duty CIA officials use their retired colleagues on the outside to communicate information to reporters that their active status prevents them from discussing. I obviously can't know if that's at play in this case. But here's how some former officials explained Rodriguez's motivations in destroying the tapes:
Mr. Rodriguez had long been concerned that the CIA lacked a long-term plan for handling interrogations, they say. He also worried, given the response to Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, and an earlier agency scandal involving the shooting-down of a plane that turned out to be carrying Peruvian missionaries, that lower-level officers would take the fall if the videos became public, the former colleagues said.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. He said Mr. Rodriguez was concerned that "they were carrying out the direction from higher-ups in the administration, yet the people who would end up getting in trouble are going to be some GS-12s," referring to a midlevel rank in the federal bureaucracy.
"Jose was concerned about how all this would end," another former senior intelligence official said. "He wasn't getting instructions from anybody."
Note first, as Gorman does, that this explanation conflicts with that of CIA Director Mike Hayden. In disclosing the destruction of the tapes, Hayden said in a statement Thursday, rather implausibly, that the tapes needed to be destroyed because their potential disclosure could leave CIA interrogators open to retribution from al-Qaeda. Hayden will go to the Senate intelligence committee tomorrow to answer (or not) lawmakers' questions on the tapes' destruction. The hearing will be closed to the public.
But more importantly, the former officials quoted here aren't really doing Rodriguez any favors. Let me be explicit: they do not necessarily speak for Rodriguez, and I have no clue whether or not Rodriguez would stand behind the explanation they gave Gorman. But what they're saying is that Rodriguez had the tapes destroyed in order to protect his interrogators from potential prosecution -- prosecution for doing things that the Bush administration ordered them to do and that the Justice Department, the White House counsel, the Vice President's office, and the CIA general counsel had all vetted as legal. It's a very plausible explanation that Rodriguez thought it would be unfair for the administration, faced with the embarrassing disclosure of CIA torture, to throw the interrogators under the bus and claim, Abu Ghraib-style, that a bunch of "bad apples" had taken control.
Again: whether this actually happened I have no idea, but it's plausible. However, if it's true, that means that Rodriguez deliberately destroyed evidence of potential crimes. Perhaps he did so for admirable reasons, opting to absorb the blame if the administration came after his subordinates. After all, as of right now, the Justice Department-CIA probe is investigating the destruction of the tapes, and not whether the activity shown on those tapes is itself criminal, or whether whoever ordered it done should face charges. But as much as the former officials quoted in Gorman's story are trying to defend Rodriguez, on the narrow question of the tapes' destruction they're conceding that he deliberately covered up what happened in those interrogation chambers.
Comments (44)
Speechless wrote on December 10, 2007 11:51 AM:Too scandal weary to even muster a comment. How do we make sense of all of the disinformation/intelligence? And every new revelation is cloaked in grey. "If X then Y is likely." If Z then X is the goal." Tryin to recognize spin while on a moving sphere, has rendered us all speechless, and aimless I'm afraid.
Anonymous wrote on December 10, 2007 12:05 PM:Did Jose Rodriguez have history with Porter Goss? Was Rodriguez part of the Eisenhower-Nixon era Operation 40 when Goss was?
We still do not have a good (or any) explanation for Goss' abrupt departure. Since Goss promoted Rodriguez to the head of DO, I find it hard to believe that Jose would act alone on this one.
Justaguy wrote on December 10, 2007 12:08 PM:So, how convoluted is this?
At first I thought it was absurd for the CIA inspector general to be investigating the destruction of the tapes - considering that Hayden said that the IG signed off on it as legal.
If this is true, the IG would be investigating, what exactly? That's not a rhetorical question, I just can't wrap my brain around this one - would they cover Hayden on the lie he told about their involvement in the decision, and absolve themselves of all wrongdoing - even though they weren't involved?
Or would they come out and say that the
IG wasn't involved - which would be true but seem like a cover up?
JimBob wrote on December 10, 2007 12:15 PM:So, the sacrificial lamb has been chosen. Mr. Rodriguez will go down and the stink of scandal will remain away from those in power. 'Twas ever thus.
fedhallofshame_com wrote on December 10, 2007 12:16 PM:That's ridiculous. No one protects GS-12s.
I'd say to look more closely at the phrase, ". . .as were those of more senior officers who happened to be visiting."
Bob's not Right wrote on December 10, 2007 12:22 PM:The defense that I would like to hear from situations like this is “I have come to believe that the President acted against our Constitution regarding torture. I believe that the John Woo analysis and OCL opinions are illegal and I was protecting innocent servicemen carrying out what they believed to be lawful orders.”
Not really a defense but that may be what is happening. As the Bush term closes who is to say all their actions will be considered illegal, and then what happens to the men and women that carried those orders out?
Jack Linthicum wrote on December 10, 2007 12:29 PM:Has anyone thought to ask the photographer or one of the other employees if he or she kept a copy, "for a souvenir"?
The Confidence Man wrote on December 10, 2007 12:31 PM:It has happened in the past
fedhallofshame_com, I agree entirely.
I'd be willing to bet that Cheney shows up on the tapes. Maybe Bush.
OldCoastie wrote on December 10, 2007 12:34 PM:Sounds like exactly the story the administration would want spun...
Hexnut wrote on December 10, 2007 12:36 PM:When Perino say that Bush "has no recollection of...", you can be damn good and sure that he was briefed, he knew, and he approved of the destruction of the tapes. "No recollection" has become the euphemism for "you can't prove it".
Michael Lafferty wrote on December 10, 2007 12:36 PM:And that would be a tidy explanation, were it not completely turned on its head by the claim discovered by intrepid reporter Larisa Alexandrovna and outined here:
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/12/10/what-destroyed-torture-tapes
It seems that two US attorneys viewed the tape or tapes in question on September 19, 2007, about two years after they were 'destroyed.'
Ouch. How inconvenient…
Anonymous wrote on December 10, 2007 12:40 PM:@The Confidence Man
Regarding Cheney on the tapes -- he has refused to divulge most details of his schedule - and has spent extensive amounts of time in "undisclosed locations."
You might not be half wrong.
delicatemonster wrote on December 10, 2007 12:44 PM:This makes no sense, neither the larger explanation--that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of the interrogators from the 'terrorists', nor the explanation that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of the interrogators who might be prosecuted for illegally torturing their suspects.
There's technology that can easily screen a face in video, blur it out so it's unidentifiable. So both explanations above absolutely reek.
I think the tapes were destroyed not because of what the interrogators did or didn't do, but because of what the victims of their interrogations looked like at the end. And maybe because of some of the things they had said....
Gerald Posner has a piece at HuffPo drawing from his 2003 book that is worth a read:
...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.
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.
jimijazz wrote on December 10, 2007 12:44 PM:Good, though admittedly speculative essay on this here
I don't believe these tapes have been "destroyed". That's just the Bush administrations way of not letting them be released. Bush is a lot like like Nixon that way - holding on to incriminating evidence.
oleeb wrote on December 10, 2007 12:45 PM:Of course they destroyed the tapes to prevent any future prosecutions. It doesn't take a genuius to figure that out does it? Now, who was genuinely being protected it is hard to say. Yes, the actual torturers would be protected to some degree once this evidence was destroyed, but also those higher up would be protected from people seeing the evidence of people carrying out their direct orders and the policies used to justify the illegal torturing of human beings.
linda wrote on December 10, 2007 12:51 PM:read a little about jose rodriguez's previous postings with the cia -- in argentina, mexico and colombia during the 90s. mr rodriguez knows a whole hell of a lot about extreme interrogation techniques. i bet he knows alot about drug running too.
jimijazz wrote on December 10, 2007 12:53 PM:Anytime the Bush administration is expected to retrieve crucial evidence it's always "We lost the e-mails" or "We can't find the proper documents" or "The tapes, documents, or e-mails have been destroyed, lost or deleted. It's too easy..... ,and yet this democratic controlled congress has not done anything. These are definitely obstruction of justice offenses.
unpoetaloco wrote on December 10, 2007 12:59 PM:Just one question: was the sword he fell on Japanese or Spanish steel?
Dennis wrote on December 10, 2007 1:01 PM:Let's keep on repeating, Sen. Nancy Pelosi and some supporting Democrats knew of the tapes and the torture, yet she and they supported Judge Michael Mukasey's evasive answer to his opinions of waterboarding because she and they knew one day that they might have to cover their own butts and would need him to do it for them.
Outward appearances deceiving, they are all dancing in their joy.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
jeffgee wrote on December 10, 2007 1:01 PM:Let's call this guy Rosemary W. Rodriguez, after the unforgettable Rosemary Woods, contortionist, receptionist and tape eraser for Richard Nixon.
Tim wrote on December 10, 2007 1:02 PM:As the existence of the tapes can be documented as public record to September of this year (link on my name), it seems rather obvious that this story is a fabricated distraction so that the people and press forget that they've been lied to about Iran and their WMDs like they were regarding Iraq and THEIR WMDs.
parrot wrote on December 10, 2007 1:16 PM:The tapes were destroyed because the Courts and the Congress might want to look at them. But that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that whether a tape exists or not is not the only reason to prosecute illegal conduct. If someone has been tortured, claiming that "but there is no tape!" is not a reason to neglect enforcement of the law.
jimijazz wrote on December 10, 2007 1:21 PM:That's exactly what I've been saying - using destruction of evidence as a convenient out for them not to be prosecuted.
TheraP wrote on December 10, 2007 1:24 PM:This is getting really strange. We're used to people in this administration "forgetting" - but not people claiming they destroyed something (OF THEIR OWN VOLITION), when Larry Johnson has now posted this:
"Leave it to the intrepid Larisa Alexandrovna to ferret out a key piece of information–the torture tapes were not destroyed in 2005. Just take time to read the letter U.S. Attorneys, Novak and Raskin, sent to the Federal Court on 23 October 2007.
Especially check out page 2, paragraph2 of the letter. The U.S. Attorneys “viewed the video tape and transcript . . . of the interview” in September 2007.
Sure would appear that Jose A. Rodriguez did not destroy anything. How can you watch a destroyed tape? Way to go Larisa."
Top post at the Cafe. Just click Cafe above. And he has the links to who found the letter
TheraP wrote on December 10, 2007 1:27 PM:didn't get to finish...
Larry also has a link to the letter itself.
So go read the letter.
Then:
1. If this guy Rodriguez is claiming to have destroyed tapes in 2005, what did he destroy then?
2. If he's pretending to have destroyed them... that leads to many other questions, including would any person do this without someone higher up ordering him to make up this story?
3. Where are all the paper trails?
4. Isn't it against Geneva to film prisoners?
TheraP wrote on December 10, 2007 1:31 PM:Sorry folks. Larry's Post is already flowing down the left hand column. You'll see it (hopefully... unless sabotage occurs).
John Forde wrote on December 10, 2007 1:31 PM:CHENEY MADE HIM DO IT!
jimijazz wrote on December 10, 2007 1:32 PM:It's another cover-up of some sort - but what exactly.
None wrote on December 10, 2007 1:43 PM:It's a fact there were more than 2 interrogations, and it would make little sense that only 2 of them were taped, yet only specifically two were "destroyed". (Or hidden, or otherwise unavailable.) Giving in to pure speculation, couldn't the reason for destruction be that THOSE tapes show SOMEONE there who would lose his/her plausible deniability of what was unfolding if they were shown? Maybe someone high up in the ladder... in Congress or in the Administration... or both?
Rocker5150 wrote on December 10, 2007 1:54 PM:"if it's true, that means that Rodriguez deliberately destroyed evidence of potential crimes"
jimijazz wrote on December 10, 2007 1:55 PM:I guess it wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened. Didn't Helms destroy damaging materials back in 1972 despite a Congressional investigation?
very plausible...
DallasNE wrote on December 10, 2007 2:03 PM:Whitehouse counsel has advised Dana Perino to only say "no comment" to questions related to this subject, citing hearings that are under way. Those hearings, you can be sure, will be stonewalled by that same Whitehouse counsel, throwing this into Catch-22 status (just like everything else).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071210/pl_afp/usintelligenceattackstorturewhouse_071210172821
I don't find it plausable that Rodriguez would act on his own, just as I don't find Haden plausable when he says they had to be destroyed to protect the CIA agents involved in the torture. The CIA has secure vaults for sensitive items like this. Most telling is a report that Harriet Meirs was involved. She was Bush's eyes and ears at that time and she was said to have been against their destruction. This points squarely towards Dick Cheney and his staff. I haven't heard anyone over there speak up and say "don't destroy".
jimijazz wrote on December 10, 2007 2:18 PM:Yes. I meant plausible in the sense that higher-ups in the administration or congress are involved, As we've seen before,nobody does anything scrupulous without Cheney or Bush's approval. A good observation about Cheney as well.
barely alaska wrote on December 10, 2007 2:31 PM:and just how embarasing is it going to be to the GOP when they are facing world war two style......war crimes trials?
Fractal wrote on December 10, 2007 2:43 PM:Parrot at 1:16 -- What is relevant is that whether a tape exists or not is not the only reason to prosecute illegal conduct. If someone has been tortured, claiming that "but there is no tape!" is not a reason to neglect enforcement of the law.
None at 1:43 -- THOSE tapes show SOMEONE there who would lose his/her plausible deniability of what was unfolding if they were shown [ ].
I think we are approaching a key point: given that torture was and is a war crime and is punishable by criminal prosecution in U.S. courts (whether or not it was waterboarding or any other specific technique), the fact that torture occurred is proveable by videotapes. But it is ALSO proveable by several other means, including the PERSONAL TESTIMONY OF PERSONS WHO ATTENDED AND 'WITNESSED' THE TORTURE.
In other words, the videotapes identified WITNESSES. But those witnesses are not unknown persons even if the videotapes were destroyed. Rodriguez saw the tapes, he is still alive, he knows who was there. The interrogation reports would name persons who attended. Rodriguez, his DDO interrogators who did the torturing, the other witnesses who attended, are all identificable. Those persons have personal knowledge and can be forced to testify.
Destruction of the tapes is besides the point, the U.S. is not limited this time to prosecuting the cover-up (as in Libby case), the U.S. can prosecute the WAR CRIMES. Rodriguez admitted his interrogators committed war crimes, as other posters have clarified. Time for a grand jury.
Robert wrote on December 10, 2007 4:35 PM:All of these postings are simply naive.
Bush is your president.
He is protecting you -
why else would he do this.
Do not be unpatriotic.
Haven't you all ever heard of the phrase "In God we trust"
And he is a man of god.
Anonymous wrote on December 10, 2007 5:46 PM:So logically we have to trust him.
Open your eyes and hearts and see the logic.
jimijazz wrote on December 10, 2007 12:44 PM:
I don't believe these tapes have been "destroyed". That's just the Bush administration's way of not letting them be released. Bush is a lot like like Nixon that way - holding on to incriminating evidence.
I totally agree! The story of the tapes being destroyed sounds a little TOO SIMILAR to Karl Rove's "accidentally deleted" e-mails that were subpoenaed during Attorneygate. How many more blatant insults to our intelligence are we willing to put up with?
Anonymous wrote on December 10, 2007 6:10 PM:Bob'snotright wrote: "As the Bush term closes who is to say all their actions will be considered illegal, and then what happens to the men and women that carried those orders out?"
They get prosecuted for being good little Eichmanns. "Just following orders" is not a defense to war crimes charges.
Dee Illuminati wrote on December 10, 2007 8:23 PM:IPSO FACTO:
The act of destroying the tape is a tacit actualized admission that the contents were in fact illegal.
This act was a destruction of evidence and that evidence was instrumental to the case that John Kiriakou might need to make.
John Kiriakou has a "RIGHT" as a US CITIZEN to a trial by his peers (JURY) and it is a damn shame that somebody took it upon themselves to destroy the prosecution and defense's evidence.
But to repeat:
IPSO FACTO:
The act of destroying the tape is a tacit actualized admission that the contents were in fact illegal.
wildcat87 wrote on December 10, 2007 10:12 PM:Plausible deniability? Maybe the reason everyone except CIA (Congress, the White House, Rice, Justice etc) is adamant they weren't aware/notified the tapes were destroyed is because the tapes WEREN'T.
That way if forced to testify they couldn't perjure themselves; they really weren't notified because it didn't happen. That would work fine if the press and investigators were convinced all the tapes really HAD been destroyed. Everyone would be outraged at the destruction and wouldn't think to ask. But now that the possibility of questions being asked about the existence of existing tapes is there, it seems a little harder. It seems to jibe with the White House shutting down the questioning on this topic today.
Curious.
wildcat87 wrote on December 10, 2007 10:13 PM:Plausible deniability? Maybe the reason everyone except CIA (Congress, the White House, Rice, Justice etc) is adamant they weren't aware/notified the tapes were destroyed is because the tapes WEREN'T.
That way if forced to testify they couldn't perjure themselves; they really weren't notified because it didn't happen. That would work fine if the press and investigators were convinced all the tapes really HAD been destroyed. Everyone would be outraged at the destruction and wouldn't think to ask. But now that the possibility of questions being asked about the existence of existing tapes is there, it seems a little harder. It seems to jibe with the White House shutting down the questioning on this topic today.
Curious.
SacrAmerican wrote on December 11, 2007 9:23 AM:If no prosecutions are made in regard to either the torture or the willful destruction of evidence then I guess the laws of this nation simply do not apply to anyone in the Bush mafia, period. I say we all join in the fun and tell Washington we reject all their laws until they start applying them to the administration as well as the general population.
cjj82 wrote on December 13, 2007 6:26 PM:Isn't this just more of the same story coming out of Iraq.the determination of either Enemy Combantants or POWS. If we...US is at war with Al Queda, then the Geneva Convention should apply. What is to say that any government out there can change what ever rules they want to justify the end. Why not have American Marines/Soldiers waterboarded? Is this right? But, what is the real story, two tapes. I can almost promise you my Marine ass that the CIA/Pentagon has hundreds of tapes if not thousands stached away. I would even go as far as saying the Justice Dept. required it for later use. The FEDS never, never ever wipes it's big bloated butt without videotaping it. So what's to say that this is an isolated incident? You can bet Rumsfeld and Wolffe had their hands or water buckets standing by.
Zhu Bajie wrote on December 28, 2007 7:51 AM:The actual torturers SHOULD be punished. Those who ordered them to torture as well, of course. But the Pol Pots of the world could do little harm without lots of help from lots of subordinates.
Zhu Bajie