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Today's Must Read
Maybe it was all a big misunderstanding.
Yesterday, The New York Times reported that the White House and Justice Department had advised against destroying the interrogation videotapes of -- but CIA officials said that advice was less than direct (of the "probably wouldn't be a good idea" variety). As Newsweek reports, that seems to have been the pattern for CIA, White House, and Justice Department officials who failed to unequivocally direct that the tapes be preserved. (For those who haven't already, check out our monster timeline telling the tale of the tapes.)
Thankfully for investigators, "an extensive paper—or e-mail—trail exists documenting the contacts between [the CIA's] Clandestine Service officials and top agency managers and between the CIA and the White House regarding what to do about the tapes." Both directors of the CIA during that time, George Tenet and Porter Goss, were no more explicit, only indicating "that they believed it would be unwise to destroy the tapes." The CIA's general counsel is characterized as "never comfortable with the idea of the tapes being destroyed."
The discussions about the comfortability and wisdom of destroying the tapes unfolded in "fits and starts" between 2003 and late 2005, the mag reports, when Jose Rodriguez of the Clandestine Service made the clear and irrevocable decision that the tapes should be destroyed. That move came after a lawyer in the Clandestine Service advised that "there is no explicit legal reason why the Clandestine Service had to preserve the tapes." But a source whispers to Newsweek that the advice did not "directly authorize the tapes' destruction or offer advice on the wisdom or folly of such a course of action." I guess the joke's on Rodriguez.
Newsweek provides a little more detail about the tapes. For the entirety of their existence, they were kept in a secret location overseas, where they were eventually destroyed. At one point "portions... were electronically transmitted to CIA headquarters," but those traces have likely been rubbed out. Finally, there's a "detailed written transcript of the tapes' contents," which apparently still exists.
All of this, of course, doesn't do anything to explain why the tapes -- or their descriptions -- were kept from those seeking them, including the 9/11 commission and a federal judge.
Comments (33)
Castor Troy wrote on December 12, 2007 9:51 AM:a Secret Location, Overseas???
Boy, sounds like Someone was really scared of getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar...
Matthew wrote on December 12, 2007 9:57 AM:Does anyone seriously believe that there were only two people taped (especially as it is reported to have spanned hundreds of hours)?! Anyone have an office pool on when the first tape will show up on the Internet?
Lester wrote on December 12, 2007 10:41 AM:There are copies. When the time is right, they'll be released.
jalbert wrote on December 12, 2007 10:44 AM:So it's not just prisoners being kept overseas and out of reach of US jurisdiction, it's evidence as well. Makes one ponder what else is now being sent overseas to avoid the long arm of the US constitution.
Anonymous wrote on December 12, 2007 11:15 AM:Indirect answers from the Administration?
Kinda like when Mike Chertoff said he'd get back to the Chiquita CEO when asked if US payments to a terrorist linked paramilitary in Colombia would get the Chiquita company in trouble (even though the practice was necessary for them to do business there).
And Chertoff never got back to that CEO?
Kinda like that, huh?
Tom wrote on December 12, 2007 11:15 AM:LIke the interrogations themselves, the handling of evidence has been outsourced. How much you wanna bet that that "written transcript" is in some hole-in-the-ground prison in Romania?
This is worse than the Hostel movies. Really.
For Truth wrote on December 12, 2007 11:15 AM:but ... but ... but ... we're all so SAFER ("not yet safe, but safer") now.
How could we possibly complain about pesky tactics when we're all SAFER?
Anonymous wrote on December 12, 2007 11:17 AM:"..Chiquita board member Roderick M. Hills four years ago disclosed to his former law school colleague Michael Chertoff his company was paying off a Colombian paramilitary group, thereby breaking U.S. anti-terrorism laws..."
and
"...But sources close to Chiquita said Chertoff never got back to the company or its lawyers, nor did his successor, Larry D. Thompson.
As a result, Chiquita kept making payments for nearly another year.
Federal prosecutors, however, are now weighing whether to charge Hills; Robert Olson, who was then Chiquita's general counsel; former Chiquita CEO Cyrus Friedheim, and other former company officials for approving the illegal payments, the Post said..."
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/08/02/chiquita_top_bananas_in_payment_probe/6821/
They're not governing. They're sinking.
slideguy wrote on December 12, 2007 11:20 AM:We need to keep reminding people every chance we get that the US prosecuted the Japanese for waterboarding our troops. EVERYBODY knows it's torture.
vox clamantis in red state wrote on December 12, 2007 11:23 AM:All disappears thru the maw of the media and down the big rathole sewer of the w's maladministration by fiat and innuendo-courts and courts decisions(witness the scooter trial and pardon), congresses and those who elect them,(refuse to cooperate or listen in every area of govt.), countries and their leaders from Saddam in Iraq, to Spain, Italy, Hungary, Poland England, now Austrailia...regime change needed HERE-NOW!
thomas wrote on December 12, 2007 11:28 AM:am I goofy here? isn't anything under the control of the US government subject to US law, no matter where it is located?
I'm not an attorney and I don't play one on teevee but something is rotten in Denmark (Romania, Poland, Jordan, I really don't care where - but I really don't think it's Denmark)
Phill wrote on December 12, 2007 11:30 AM:While the White House "failed to unequivocally direct that the tapes be preserved", the informal or back-channel commands from the White House were probably very clear, and something like... "destroy the f*cking tapes!"
You know the drill. Cheney complained to Libby, who in turn complained to someone in the CIA, who in turn got the tapes destroyed.
Rumsfeld probably OK'd it as well, saying "You go to torture trial with the tapes you have, not the tapes you had".
Anonymous wrote on December 12, 2007 11:32 AM:Speaking of Cheney, we've got Harriet Miers involved here, but what of David Addington?
Surely he had an opinion?
lambert strether wrote on December 12, 2007 11:42 AM:Of course everything was done through nods and winks. That's how they subverted the chain of command to get Abu Ghraib done. But this is typical of authoritarian regimes. The Nazis called this process "working toward the Fuhrer" (NO invocation of Godwin's Law when historical references are made, please!)
patrick wrote on December 12, 2007 11:43 AM:The disparity between the confidence the administration and congressional republican position on torture and the historic branding of waterboarding as torture is curious. Could the CIA have had a MD present at the waterboarding to assuage the troubled conscience of repub congresspersons? And if they had an MD at the torture site, could that MD lose his/her medical license for supervising?
anon wrote on December 12, 2007 11:48 AM:We know Bush supports OBGYNS so they can "practice their love" with their patients.
...the Hostel movies...
MrJJ wrote on December 12, 2007 11:48 AM:Yeah, I guess those were misunderstood as fiction and really should have been seen as documentaries.
Post from another site... Special Prosecutor Needed
Mukasey may have a conflict of interest problem already, and may have to call upon a Special Prosecutor.
Jose Padilla’s lawyers argued before the Florida Federal Court that Abu Zubaydah was tortured into saying Padilla was an al Qaeda associate. The DOJ dismissed Padilla’s allegations as “meritless,” asserting Padilla’s legal team could not prove that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured. Well, it’s clear now that they certainly COULD have, if the tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah had been made available!
Now here is where Mukasey’s role comes into question. U.S. District Judge Mukasey, now attorney general, was the one who signed the warrant used by the FBI to arrest Padilla in May 2002. Court records show the warrant relied in part on information obtained from Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation. So we have a problem Houston.
The Attorney General can only issue a warrant based upon legally obtained evidence, and confessions under torture are certainly not “legally obtained”. So either Mukasey was misrepresented the evidence, and would be liable to be potentially a party in those who were presented with “perjured evidence”; or he knew that torture was used in obtaining the confession and ignored it.
In either case he is unsuitable to run an investigation, as it will, inevitably, involved himself. Thus a Special Prosecutor is necessary.
jolly ranchero wrote on December 12, 2007 11:51 AM:Simply moving stuff overseas suddenly innoculates it from judicial oversight?
Are we saying that anything the CIA produces in Eastern Europe is immune from scrutiny? How else am I supposed to read this?
jimijazz wrote on December 12, 2007 11:57 AM:Don't expect Mukasey to do anything about this. He's just biding his time until the new administration gets in - whoever that may be.
Rick B wrote on December 12, 2007 12:14 PM:I still want to know why the tapes were made in the first place.
Knowing that will tell what was taped, who did it, and where the tapes have been and probably where they are today - because it will tell us about copies, too.
johnnydoughey wrote on December 12, 2007 12:41 PM:Okay... for you high school sophomores...
A. In democracies, there is one rule of law for all.
B. In dictatorships, the laws are entirely different for those in power and the common people.
Question: We live in which? A or B
RWN wrote on December 12, 2007 1:12 PM:This is going to be merely one of the many pieces of action cited that will elevate to War Crimes and the World Court putting the US in huge situation.
Question: With a World Court indictment of the Bush Administration (since this and other crimes against humanity) all end up in the WH Situation Room, will the US then seek to take the Bush Administration to US courts or will the US politically seek to avoid and resist the World Court then forcing a huge international incident where eventually the US will have to chose to give up their war criminals?
This is not going to go away politically. Domestic politics does not make immune war crimes. Torture, unilateral invasion and war, subjucation are all war crimes and the US being put in the box of its own doing.
Question: What happens if provides blanket pardon pre-emptively the entire cabal including Cheney et cetera. Then resigns and Cheney pardons him?
Anonymous wrote on December 12, 2007 1:23 PM:Domestic pardons by a US President do not immunize war crime claims from the international community.
SPENCER wrote on December 12, 2007 1:32 PM:When you guys see the doc, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, you'll see that Bush will keep this in court til he leaves. That's the strategy, unless we put pressure on Congress for a Special Prosecutor.
and MrJJ, you should send that post to the Intel Committee. Mukasey definitely has a conflict of interest here.
danger wrote on December 12, 2007 3:00 PM:This guy looks like he belongs on those late night 1-800-LAWYERS adverts.
Anonymous wrote on December 12, 2007 1:23 PM:
Domestic pardons by a US President do not immunize war crime claims from the international community.
Henry wrote on December 12, 2007 3:43 PM:No, but not being a signatory to the Geneva Convention does... unfortunately.
Several years ago there were reports in the media that the DoD had tapes which showed some rough handling of detainees at Guantanamo by their guards. If I remember correctly, the tapes were supposedly made for training purposes.
I haven't seen any reference to them since then. Where's Alexander Butterfield when you need him?
lise wrote on December 12, 2007 4:00 PM:If "portions... were electronically transmitted to CIA headquarters", shouldn't they exist on a back-up tape somewhere???
AttGenOffice wrote on December 12, 2007 4:14 PM:A. In democracies, there is one rule of law for all.
B. In dictatorships, the laws are entirely different for those in power and the common people.
Question: We live in which? A or B
(johnnydoughey wrote)
...Hillary(was) demanding the need for a White House database of friends and enemies. The Clinton White House was found to be in possession of over 1,000 FBI files of Republican White House employees. At the center of the controversy again: Craig Livingstone, who told friends he was Hillary’s hire. Why were they there? How were they used?
Why did so many of Hillary's cronies go to Jail?
Anonymous wrote on December 12, 2007 5:19 PM:@AttGenOffice:
Over 1,000 files? Other than the rightwing press, that number has never been anything more than heresay.
And that's back when files were paper.
Anyone care to wonder how many millions of FBI and other restricted government files Karl Rove and his minions plied through between 2001-2007?
BrewhouseBob wrote on December 12, 2007 9:47 PM:The truth will come out. Sooner or later it always does. These criminals are too incompetent to cover all of their tracks... just too many people involved. We will vote this Congress out of office and thier replacements will have a mandate to bring them all to justice. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Gonzales, Pelosi, Rockefeller and all the rest. Those who did it, and those who stood by and let it happen. This evil will not go unpunished.
johnnydoughey wrote on December 13, 2007 1:32 AM:"The truth will come out. Sooner or later it always does. These criminals are too incompetent to cover all of their tracks..."
Didn't the FIA (Freedom of Information Act) disclose... about 18 months ago... that there was actually no Gulf of Tonkin incident, which gave our leaders the opportunity to attack Vietnam? Wasn't it shown that the Johnson administration had written the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 8 or 9 months prior to its introducion to Congress?
Please tell me who (other than tens of thousands of dead and wounded American soldiers and about a million Vietnamese) has paid any consequences for this travesty.
dominic wrote on December 13, 2007 6:33 AM:Like water seeking its own level (indisputable physics principle) the truth will come out, but I regret it won't happen in my lifetime. These multiple issues are without defense and are war crimes. Check out villagevoice.com; report Runnin' Scared; "Chasin' Rummy", on international legal moves to box in at least one of these thugs even without the World Court in the Hague.
For those old enough to remember...war crimes of Henry Kissinger.
Another blast-from-the-past...
Evan wrote on December 13, 2007 11:53 AM:Alexander "I'm in charge here" Haig.
Yeah, right. Kind of like "It would be really bad if those tapes were somehow destroyed -- nudge nudge wink wink".