[wvns] Destruction of CIA tapes may have violated a court order
Destruction of CIA tapes may have violated a court order
By Richard B. Schmitt
Los Angeles Times
December 19, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-tapes19dec19,1,6510221.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
STF / AFP / Getty Images
President Bush stands with U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey at
the White House. Above is the U.S. Capitol building. Democrats
demanded a hearing over the destroyed CIA interrogation tapes.
A federal judge will investigate whether the action defied his
instructions to the federal government to preserve evidence in
terrorism detentions.
WASHINGTON -- Over the objections of the Justice Department, a federal
judge said Tuesday he would explore whether the U.S. had violated a
court order to preserve evidence when the CIA destroyed videotaped
interrogations of two terrorism suspects in 2005.
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. set a hearing for Friday in
Washington in response to a request from Yemeni prisoners who are
challenging their detention by the U.S. at the military prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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Much of the evidence against the defendants consists of accusations by
other prisoners, whom the lawyers think may have been coerced.
The issue of coercive interrogations has taken on new primacy after
disclosures this month that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of
interrogations of purported Al Qaeda members Abu Zubaydah and Abd
al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
The tapes were destroyed by a CIA official in November 2005, at a time
of growing congressional and public concern about U.S. tactics in the
war on terrorism, including interrogation techniques.
It was also five months after Kennedy, in the case of the Yemeni
prisoners, issued an order requiring that the U.S. preserve and
maintain "all evidence and information regarding the torture,
mistreatment and abuse of detainees now" at Guantanamo Bay. According
to court papers, government lawyers said at the time that a formal
order was not necessary because they were "well aware of their
obligation not to destroy evidence that may be relevant in pending
litigation."
Destroying evidence relevant to a legislative or judicial proceeding
could constitute obstruction of justice. Kennedy could also sanction
the government in the case of the Yemeni defendants if he found that
the U.S. had violated his order.
In court papers filed last week, the Justice Department argued that
the videos weren't covered by the order because at the time Zubaydah
and al-Nashiri were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas. The men
were later transferred to the Guantanamo Bay prison.
Government lawyers also said that a judicial inquiry would be
"unnecessary and potentially disruptive" in light of a pending Justice
Department inquiry into whether crimes were committed when the tapes
were destroyed. The department's national security division, in
conjunction with the CIA inspector general, is conducting a
preliminary investigation.
Citing that inquiry, the department last week informed senior
congressional leaders that neither it nor the CIA would cooperate with
congressional investigations into the destruction of the tapes.
"Plainly the government wants only foxes guarding this henhouse," the
defense lawyers in the Yemeni cases said in a filing with the court
Monday. Some congressional leaders have said they intend to pursue
their own investigations without the agencies' cooperation.
The decision by Kennedy, a 1997 appointee of President Clinton who
once ruled that the Bush White House had to preserve backup e-mails
sought in a lawsuit about possible violations of federal records laws,
was a setback for the department, which has sought to limit the
escalating furor over the tapes.
"Obviously, if accusations against our clients have been obtained by
torture, their credibility would be seriously undermined," said David
Remes, a Washington lawyer for the Yemeni defendants. "The government
has shown here, with the destruction of the CIA tapes, that it is
prepared to destroy evidence of its own misconduct, and where there is
smoke, there is fire."
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino declined to answer questions
about the order, referring reporters to the Justice Department.
A spokesman for the Justice Department, Erik Albin, declined to comment.
Also on Tuesday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked the FBI to
turn over any copies of recordings it had of the two interrogations.
An FBI spokesman said the bureau would review the request, although a
senior FBI official said the bureau had never received copies of the
tapes.
rick.schmitt @ latimes.com
Times staff writer Josh Meyer contributed to this report.
===
Waterboarding Our Democracy
By Robert Scheer
Truthdig
Wednesday 12 December 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_121207H.shtml
When the CIA destroyed those prisoner interrogation videotapes,
was it also destroying the truth about 9/11? After all, according to
the 9/11 Commission Report, the basic narrative of what happened on
that day-and the definition of the enemy in this war on terror that
George W. Bush launched in response to the tragedy-comes from the
CIA's account of what those prisoners told their torturers. The
commission was never allowed to interview the prisoners, or speak with
those who did, and was instead forced to rely on what the CIA was
willing to relay.
On the matter of the existence of the tapes, we know the CIA lied,
not only to the 9/11 Commission but to Congress as well. Given that
the Bush administration has for six years refused those prisoners any
sort of public legal exposure, why should we believe what we've been
told about what may turn out to be the most important transformative
event in our nation's history? On the basis of what the CIA claimed
the tortured prisoners said, President Bush launched a "Global War on
Terrorism" (GWOT), an endless war that threatens to bankrupt our
society both financially and morally.
How important to the 9/11 Commission Report were those "key
witnesses"? Check out the disclaimer on Page 146 about the
commission's sourcing of the main elements laid out in its narrative:
Chapters 5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al
Qaeda members. ... Assessing the truth of statements by these
witnesses ... is challenging. Our access to them has been limited to
the review of intelligence reports based on communications received
from the locations where the actual interrogation took place. We
submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control
over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be
asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we
could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify
ambiguities in the reporting. We were told that our requests might
disrupt the sensitive interrogation process.
Videos were made of those "sensitive" interrogations, which were
accurately described as "torture" by one of the agents involved, John
Kiriakou, in an interview with ABC News. Yet when the 9/11 Commission
and federal judges specifically asked for such tapes, they were
destroyed by the CIA, which then denied their existence.
Of course our president claims he knew nothing about this
whitewash, and he may be speaking the truth, since plausible
deniability seems to be the defining leadership style of our commander
in chief. But what about those congressional leaders who were briefed
on the torture program as early as 2002? That includes Democrats such
as Nancy Pelosi, who has specialized in heartfelt speeches condemning
torturers in faraway places like China.
Pelosi press aide Brendan Daly told me that The Washington Post
report on her CIA briefing was "overblown" because Pelosi, then the
ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, thought the
techniques described, which the CIA insists included waterboarding,
were merely planned and not yet in use. Pelosi claimed that "several
months later" her successor as the ranking Democrat, Jane Harman,
D-Calif., was advised that the techniques "had in fact been employed."
Harman wrote a classified letter to the CIA in protest, and Pelosi
"concurred." Neither went public with her concerns.
Harman told The Washington Post, "I was briefed, but the
information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free
to disclose anything." The "Gang of Four" is an insider reference to
the top members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and
not to the thugs who ran Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution.
Not only did the congressional Gang of Four fail to inform the
public about the use of torture by our government, but it also kept
the 9/11 Commission in the dark. Pelosi testified before the
commission on May 22, 2003, but uttered not a word of caution about
the methods used. However, more than two years later, on Nov. 16,
2005, Pelosi stated correctly that on the basis of her "many years on
the intelligence committee," she knew that "[t]he quality of
intelligence that is collected by torture is ... uncorroborated and it
is worthless."
Having admired Pelosi for decades, I hope I am missing something
here. If she and the others in the know have another version of these
events it's time to come clean. As matters now stand, they not only
concealed torture but, more significantly, they abetted the
waterboarding of our democracy.
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