Comments (17)

FMArouet wrote on December 12, 2007 11:27 AM:

Is John Kiriakou a key on the Mighty Wurlitzer? Mrs. Panstreppon, where are you?

The flurry of information, disinformation, leaks, and planted stories on the torture issue is becoming disorienting.

I watched Kiriakou perform on Dan Abrams' show on MSNBC last night. It was a carefully scripted performance which conformed perfectly with the White House's fallback narrative, its last line of defense:

(1) The "enhanced" techniques were legally approved and limited.

(2) The techniques produced intelligence that saved many lives. (Of course, no credible support is ever adduced for this claim.)

(3) Even if some critics consider such techniques today to be torture, the harsh techniques need to be understood in the context of fears of further attacks after 9/11. We did what we thought we needed to do to protect the American people.

Now maybe Kiriakou is really an independent player here, but on Dan Abrams' show he stumbled a bit. He initially denied having any current contact with the CIA. But later in the interview with Abrams, Kiriakou said that he had heard that 1/3 of the CIA approved of his going public, 1/3 disapproved, and 1/3 thought he had gone public to promote a book or movie (presumably "The Kite Runner"). In that remark Kiriakou certainly strongly implied that he still had direct links inside the Agency.

Recalling that current DNI McConnell was a former senior official at Beltway contracting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, I googled Kiriakou and Booz Allen Hamilton to look for a link. No luck. Likewise with a few other well known revolving door firms, like SAIC.

But if some intrepid investigator could dredge up a connection between Kiriakou and one of these Intelligence Community auxiliary firms, or perhaps with some private sector players linked to the Office of the Vice President, it would be a very interesting tidbit.

Is TPM's intrepid Mrs. Panstreppon still scouring public databases for such information?

Bill wrote on December 12, 2007 11:40 AM:

I completely agree with your suspicions!

When I was watching those interviews myself, I was thinking the same things;
including, why have we never heard of this guy before today?

His 'testimony' on the public airwaves sure appears to be designed to sway the general public into supporting torture to keep us safe.

It is quite a shame to see the pitiful lack of 'critical thinking' regarding this corrupt administration by both congress and the American people.

Ballerina X wrote on December 12, 2007 11:44 AM:

Check Red winds Kos diary from yesterday,for a little start on Kiriakou.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/11/74145/097

TheraP wrote on December 12, 2007 12:13 PM:

FMArouet wrote: "I watched Kiriakou perform"

Yes... interesting. At a time when Hollywood writers are on strike, the DC writers are like ducks in a row!

Perform. They pick a photogenic guy. They give him is lines. Smooth operator!

And then all our neurons go into knots again, simply trying to parse what's going on, went on, etc.

And that's the game plan! Feed propanganda to the willing recipients. And confuse the unwilling!

danger wrote on December 12, 2007 12:16 PM:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html

If Gerald Posner is to be believed, his story completely contradicts Kiriakou's.

According to the Huffington Post story broken on December 7th, Zubaydah was indeed tortured, waterboarded specifically but not necessarily limited to waterboarding. Where the lie begins, according to Posner's article, is that he broke after 35 seconds of waterboarding. Posner wrote that Zubaydah did not break under American interrogation, but when they brought Saudi interrogators into the room, he started divulging details to his fellow countrymen.

He named 4 names - 3 Saudis, one a Pakistani Air Force general. All were dead within the year.

"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. "

I don't know who to believe, but Kiriakou's assertion that Zubaydah's torture proved necessary and useful because it prevented more attacks and saved lives has been the administration's parroted regurgitation since day one. Posner's book on the matter, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, has been around since 2003.

Ugh. Even though Posner is regarded by some as unreliable, this entire incident is so maddening that I really don't know what to think of it all.

TheraP wrote on December 12, 2007 12:17 PM:

Mrs P seems to have gone "underground." "She" averred to having taken a job. She's not been heard of in some months.

I am hopeful that somewhere, somehow, she is engaged in very important ferreting out of crucial info. but.... who knows? I tried to contact her recently... with no success. Previously, going back to mid-summer, I could at least contact her.

But... anyone can use her methods. Go back and read them and follow.

johnnydoughey wrote on December 12, 2007 12:28 PM:

At least we have the security of knowing (from multitudes of recent past scenarios from Washington DC) that nobody will ever have to pay any penalties from this current travesty... other than, of course, "We the People" and our democracy.

The important lesson to learn is that our Congressmen and Senators are still protecting each other and the other mobster leaders...

Isn't the disintigration of a heritage and a democracy interesting? I wonder how past populations felt as they saw this same scenario fulfilled in THEIR country?

And WE thought WE were different....

jeffgee wrote on December 12, 2007 12:48 PM:

There must be a signing statement somewhere excluding the president from court orders he doesn't agree with.

brian wrote on December 12, 2007 1:18 PM:

Let us use our noggins now. The "tapes were destroyed" means what, exactly ?

Copying files of any kind is absurdly easy nowadays. It is almost impossible that copies of these tapes do not exist. The way to bet : copies exist in some form.

The ACLU and anyone else who was demanding those tapes should continue demanding them.

Someone at the agency decided they would rather take heat for destruction of evidence than for revealing the tapes.

Keep going after the copies, I say.

FMArouet wrote on December 12, 2007 1:38 PM:

TheraP:

Thanks for the note on Mrs. P.

We certainly miss the dogged work she did during the early stages of the scandal on the firings of U.S. attorneys. She seemed to have access to the subscription service for LexisNexis, the likely source for many of her unearthed nuggets.

Hope that the neoconderthal thugs haven't knocked on her door and intimidated her into silence.

tin foil wrote on December 12, 2007 1:39 PM:

Well does anyone know if they also destroyed the tape of bush watching the torture tape?

Coltergeist wrote on December 12, 2007 2:05 PM:

I disagree with your reading.

The judges order was to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Whether your reading is that it only applies to torture of detainees who were tortured AT Gitmo, which Zubaydah was not, or that it only applies to the torture of detainees whether they were tortured anywhere in the world but only those that were kept at Gitmo at the time of the order, it doesn't matter.

The order was given with the judge under the misapprehension that all of the alleged torture was going on at Gitmo because he did not know about any other black sites at which torture might be taking place, because the US Govt did not tell him, or Judge Kessler.

I don't know the subject matter of the case in which the order came into existence, but if the case had anything to do with protecting detainees from torture or defending them against charges that developed from information gained from torture, then the government perpetrated a fraud on the court.

If I say my client is not guilty of being a terrorist because the evidence against him was obtained via torture (of another suspected terrorist) and the Court demands all evidence of interrogation be preserved at the only place anyone knew at the time was being used to interrogate suspected terrorists, but the prosecution knows that other sites exist, then it is duty bound to reveal those sites to the Court as potential exculpatory evidence. Just like the NC prosecutor knowing DNA proved the Duke students were innocent and not revealing it. Ah, but maybe the prosecutors didn't know either. Fat chance. But even still, the defendants attorneys can move the court to reconsider its order in light of new evidence and the apparent fraud on the Court or the Court could do it sua sponte. It is like saying there are no plans to invade Iraq on the secretary of defense's desk. That is because they are in a drawer IN the desk, not ON the desk. The spirit of the order was violated and neither of the judges should stand for it. It also may be prosecutorial misconduct which must be investigated.

Aurelius wrote on December 12, 2007 2:11 PM:

There is no such thing as an "ex" CIA agent. Kiriakou is the face the CIA wants to present to the public. He is the means the agency has chosen to explain, justify, excuse, and apologize for using torture.

synykyl wrote on December 12, 2007 2:12 PM:

"CIA director Michael Hayden told the agency in an e-mail this week that internal reviewers found the tapes were not relevant to any court case."

Yeah right.

On another note, I would be surprised if the CIA did not routinely tape *all* interrogations. I know I would. I suspect there are, or were, plenty of other tapes.

danger wrote on December 12, 2007 3:03 PM:

synykyl wrote on December 12, 2007 2:12 PM:
"CIA director Michael Hayden told the agency in an e-mail this week that internal reviewers found the tapes were not relevant to any court case."

That's exactly like when the 9/11 commission said that where the money the hijackers was wired came from was irrelevant.

Aurelius wrote on December 13, 2007 12:49 AM:

Among other things, CIA didn't want us to see all the crazy stuff that Zubaydah confessed to, including plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty.

This might give some people the impression that torture doesn't get reliable information.

Al in Austex wrote on December 13, 2007 5:11 AM:

Kirakou sure looks like he is still on Langley's pay roll . Torture is criminal activity whomever does it & the intel thus obtained is always unrealiable.
We also must remember that we have seen these neocon cons before- think Negroponte and the Guatemela & Honduras death squads in the Contra Wars..There was a huge disinformation operation employed by our government then to go after the "communist " in Central America.
Otto Reich amongst others are still walking the halls of power- we tortured then, we are torturing now. Torture is criminal behavior -and never gives actionable , reliable intel to any operators in the field .
Its time for Jay Rockerfeller to say either he's with us or against us-- period.