The destroyed torture tapes

Larry Johnson has posted an article that describes the timeline of the torture tapes that everyone is currently concerned with. Larry bases his article on interviews with CIA people he knows, with an excerpt from The One Percent Doctrine and his own experience with the CIA.

The tapes were made when Abu Zubaydah, captured in Pakistan in March 2002, was interrogated by the CIA in Thailand. I haven't learned why the tapes were made, nor does Larry address this. But

George Bush is briefed regularly by George Tenet on the details of Zubaydah’s interrogation (see p. 22, State of War by James Risen). Cofer Black is in charge of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and oversees the CIA’s hunt for the terrorists. Zubaydah is interrogated in Thailand, where the sessions were filmed. He was waterboarded sometime in the May-June 2002 time frame. Enhanced interrogation methods were used and approval for them came from Jim Pavitt (see p. 21 of ABC News interview of former CIA case officer, John Kiriakou). Pavitt was the DDO (i.e., Deputy Director of Operations). Stephen Kappes, who currently serves as the Deputy Director of the CIA, was named Assistant Deputy Director of Operations in June 2002. Ron Suskind confirms Risen’s report that the President and his National Security team were regularly briefed on the results of Zubaydah’s torture sessions (see The One Percent Doctrine, pp. 111-115).

What we know for certain is that the CIA was keeping the President and his National Security team fully briefed on the methods and results of interrogating Abu Zubaydah. In fact, it is highly likely that George Tenet showed part of the videotape of the interrogation to the President.

From then until June 2005 there were several times that the CIA was asked about tapes of interrogations and answered that it did not make such tapes. (See Larry's article for details.) But then

late June 2005–An Italian judge issued arrest warrants for 13 U.S. CIA agents accused of kidnapping imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in Italy in 2003, and sending him to Egypt for questioning regarding possible terrorist activities.

14 November 2005–In response to an order of the U.S. District Court for the C.I.A. to confirm or deny that it has video or audio tapes of interrogations of C.I.A. subjects, the C.I.A. the “U.S. Government does not have any video or audio tapes of the interrogations of (two terrorist suspects whose names are blacked out)” (see p. 4 of U.S. Attorney letter)

Larry says that this event apparently triggered the destruction of the tapes. Apparently Jose Rodriguez, then Deputy Director of Operations, checked with both the CIA Inspector General and the Directorate of Operation’s assigned Assistant General Counsel before destroying the DO’s copies of the tapes. Larry emphasizes that Jose is a lawyer and can be expected to have records of who he spoke to.

There's more detail in the article. It's worth a read.

Color me cynical, but I have no doubt at all that Bush and everyone in the chain of command up to him were completely aware of what was being done, both in the torture and in the disposal of the tapes. The history of this administration is that if you believe the very worst of them, then you are still giving them too much credit.

Larry's conclusion:

Jose Rodriguez did not consult beforehand with Kyle “Dusty” Foggo. However, Jose did inform Dusty subsequently of the advice he received from the OGC’s counsel. Jose may not be in as much trouble as some imagined. If he destroyed the tapes before November 14, 2005 then the C.I.A. told the truth to the judge. The May 2003 date puts the onus on Jim Pavitt and George Tenet rather than Jose Rodriguez. They knew about the tapes and the C.I.A. General Counsel lied to a Federal Judge. Who told whom what then? That’s going to be the interesting question.

And last but not least. The top two Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees–the so-called “gang of eight”–were fully briefed in interrogation techniques several times during 2002-3. They concurred unanimously that the interrogation techniques were OK. This means that Democrats as well as Republicans backed this process.

It seems reasonably clear that members of the bush administration, right up to and including Bush himself, committed actions that are criminal under both U.S. law and international law regarding human rights.

Why? That's simple. Because they wanted to since the 90's at least, and they very likely felt that 9/11 freed them to conduct torture. They wanted to, and they felt justified. After a while I'm sure some doubts crept in, and some government officials weren't willing to conduct criminal operations just because the boss said to, so lawyers like John Yoo cranked out what appeared to be legal justifications for their actions. I'd guess they still had relatively little faith in those justifications, because they kept them so tightly hidden under rules of security.

If anyone of any significant rank goes on trial, there will be a combination of PR justification and contributions to the legal fund like "Scooter" Libby has gotten, as well as a decent job on wingnut welfare when it is over. (Scooter is at the Hudson Institute at $168,000 per year while he writes a book that will net even more money. Then he will probably start making speeches after the Bush administration ends. He is too controversial to do so now. My bet is $30,000 to $50,000 per speech.) The final element of protection will be the list of Pardons that Bush will sign sometime between the election in November and the time he leaves office in late January 2009. so although I am certain that crimes were committed, I am a lot less certain that anyone will pay any penalty for committing them.

TPM Muckraker has been kind enough to provide a timeline of the torture tapes incident. It is an excellent complement to the article by Larry Johnson, and both provide links to other sources.