C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes<\/a>
The New York Times <\/strong>
By MARK MAZZETTI
April 15, 2010<\/div>\nWASHINGTON — Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.\t Days after the tapes were destroyed at the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, Mr. Goss told Mr. Rodriguez that he “agreed” with the decision, according to the document. He even joked after Mr. Rodriguez offered to “take the heat” for destroying the tapes. “PG laughed and said that actually, it would be he, PG, who would take the heat,” according to one of the document, an internal C.I.A. e-mail message.\t\t<\/p>\n
According to current and former intelligence officials, Mr. Goss did not approve the destruction before it happened, and was displeased that Mr. Rodriguez did not consult him or the C.I.A.’s top lawyer before giving the order for the tapes to be destroyed. It was previously known that Mr. Goss had been told by his aides in November 2005 that the tapes had been destroyed. But a number of documents released Thursday provide the most detailed glimpse yet of the deliberations inside the C.I.A surrounding the destroyed tapes, and of the concern among officials at the spy agency that the decision might put the C.I.A. in legal jeopardy.\t\t<\/p>\n
The documents detailing those deliberations, including two e-mail messages from a C.I.A. official whose name has been excised, were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union<\/span>. The e-mail messages also reveal that top White House officials were angry that the C.I.A had not notified them before the tapes were destroyed. The e-mail messages mention a conversation between Harriet E. Miers<\/span>, the White House counsel, and John A. Rizzo<\/span>, the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, in which Ms. Miers was “livid” about being told after the fact. “Rizzo is clearly upset, because he was on the hook to notify Harriet Miers of the status of the tapes because it was she who had asked to be advised before any action was taken,” according to one of the e-mail messages…<\/p>\nAccording to one of the e-mail messages released Thursday, Mr. Rodriguez told Mr. Goss that the tapes, taken out of context, would make the C.I.A “look terrible; it would be devastating to us.” <\/font><\/strong>The destruction of the tapes is the subject of a Justice Department criminal investigation that has stretched on for more than two years. The investigation is led by John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd exactly what context would those tapes be viewed in that wouldn’t<\/u> make the C.I.A. look terrible, one wonders?<\/strong> <\/font>The document dump isn’t posted yet on the ACLU Site, but if its as advertised, it’s as damning as we’ve always thought. The tapes were destroyed in November 2005 on the orders of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service at the time. We have gotten beyond any fantasy that the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques approved by the highest levels of the Bush Administration were anything but Torture. These emails are apparently going to make it clear that the only reason for destroying the tapes was to eliminate the visual proof that would make that conclusion irrefutable. Seems to me that the tape destruction was obstruction of justice by definition. And as for the context that Jose Rodriguez is talking about, it’s a gratuitous comment. I imagine that there’s a context where the audience of John Yoo, David Addington, and Dick Cheney might not call it torture, but to any other audience, I expect it would "quack like a duck." <\/div>\n <\/p>\n
So in November 2005, Harriet Miers was Bush’s White House Counsel. Recall that Miers had just been nominated as a Supreme Court Justice on October 3, 2005 – withdrawing on October 27, 2005. <\/div>\n
\nThe e-mail messages mention a conversation between
Harriet E. Miers<\/span>, the White House counsel, and John A. Rizzo<\/span>, the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, in which Ms. Miers was “livid” about being told after the fact. “Rizzo is clearly upset, because he was on the hook to notify Harriet Miers of the status of the tapes because it was she who had asked to be advised before any action was taken,” according to one of the e-mail messages.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nI’ll admit to being confused about the point here. If Miers and Rizzo were so upset about not being told, why didn’t they put a stop to the destruction of the tapes? If their legal counsel was so weak as to not be able to say, "That’s against the Law. Don’t do it," what difference does it make whether they were informed or not. And if Porter Goss was Director of the C.I.A., why didn’t he say, "Don’t destroy the tapes"? or for that matter "Destroy the tapes"? And if Harriet Miers was President Bush’s Legal Counsel, what did the President ["the decider"] have to say about all of this business?<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
It’s the story of the Bush Administration lawyers that turns out to be the most tawdry of all – from the White House, the Department of Justice, the C.I.A., the D.O.D. It was an epidemic of lawyers working against upholding the law…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
2005 destruction of interrogation tapes caused concern at CIA, e-mails show Washington Post By Peter Finn and Julie Tate April 16, 2010 The 2005 destruction of 92 videotapes documenting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects at secret CIA prisons immediately prompted concern at agency headquarters that the decision was not adequately cleared and may have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}