{"id":4017,"date":"2010-04-17T11:13:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-17T15:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4017"},"modified":"2010-04-19T05:52:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-19T09:52:43","slug":"a-lot-to-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/17\/a-lot-to-digest\/","title":{"rendered":"a lot to digest&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup><em>But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,<br \/>      In proving foresight may be vain;<br \/>      The best-laid schemes o&#8217; mice an&#8217; men<br \/>      Gang aft agley,<br \/>      And lea&#8217;e us nought but grief an&#8217; pain<br \/>      For promised joy!<\/em><br \/>               &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Robert Burns 1785<\/sup><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"justify\">When <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Abu Zubaydah<\/font><\/strong> was captured in a fire fight in Pakistan on <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">March 28, 2002<\/font><\/strong>, there was a lot of excitement in Washington. Our first &quot;high value&quot; detainee, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi<\/font><\/strong>, had been sent to Egypt and confessed that al Qa&#8217;iada had ties with Saddam Hussein, but our intelligence people didn&#8217;t believe him. They thought he was just trying to avoid being tortured. So, even though he was severely wounded,  <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Abu Zubaydah <\/font><\/strong>was a second chance. On <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">March 31, 2002<\/font><\/strong> he was flown to Thailand and his interrogation by <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Ali Soufan<\/font><\/strong>, a multi-lingual FBI Agent trained in rapport building, began soon after his arrival.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong><em>In proving foresight may be vain;<br \/>         The best-laid schemes o&#8217; mice an&#8217; men<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">But Washington had other ideas. President Bush had already declared that al Qa&#8217;iada and Taliban Detainees did not meet the criteria for the Geneva Conventions, bolstered legally by an Memo from the <strong>Office of Legal Counsel<\/strong> at the <strong>Department of Justice<\/strong>. And two psychologists, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">James Mitchell<\/font><\/strong> and <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Bruce Jessen<\/font><\/strong>, who had been involved in training our soldiers to resist torture [SERE] were proposing that their training techniques could be &quot;reverse engineered&quot; as interrogation techniques. Mitchell flew to Thailand and joined the FBI\/CIA interrogation team. The interrogation sessions of <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Abu Zubaydah <\/font><\/strong>were taped from the start. This email was in the recent <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf\"><strong>ACLU FOIA packet<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=1\" target=\"_self\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=1\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/tapes_1.gif\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p align=\"justify\">Followed by this enjoinder to be sure to preserve an accurate visual record:<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=3\" target=\"_self\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=3\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=30\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/tapes_2.gif\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p align=\"justify\">There were high level meetings in Washington about&nbsp; <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Abu Zubaydah<\/font><\/strong>, and by mid April, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">John Yoo<\/font><\/strong> of the OLC had started to work on the legalities of aggressive interrogation techniques. Clearly, they were already using these techniques on their prisoner. They had gotten <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=113\"><strong>preliminary permission<\/strong><\/a> to use 24-48 hours of sleep deprivation. &quot;Due to a misunderstanding,&quot; they exceeded that limit. And since their prisoner didn&#8217;t hallucinate, they decided longer times were allowed [it became 11 days in the later Memo]. In <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">mid-May 2002<\/font><\/strong>, Ali Soufan balked when he found them constructing a box for a &quot;mock burial.&quot; Since he was unable to stop the use of these techniques, the FBI refused to participate further in this &quot;borderline torture&quot; and Soufan came home.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">On <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">July 13, 2002<\/font><\/strong>, they figured out that Zubaydah was already being aggressively interrogated and John Yoo sent a <a href=\"http:\/\/static1.firedoglake.com\/28\/files\/\/2009\/08\/020713-yoo-rizzo.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>preliminary guideline<\/strong><\/a>, but his definitive <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net\/o10\/clients\/aclu\/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf\"><strong>Memo<\/strong><\/a> didn&#8217;t become official until <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">August 1, 2002<\/font><\/strong>. In preparation for using these &quot;Enhanced Interrogation Techniques&quot; officially, they did a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/files\/torturefoia\/released\/082409\/cia_ig\/oig39.pdf\"><strong>Psychological Evaluation<\/strong><\/a> of Zubaydah on <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">July 24, 2002<\/font><\/strong> that was included in Yoo&#8217;s Memo. By this time, President Bush had &quot;unsigned&quot; our agreement to participate in the <strong>International Criminal Court Treaty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong><em>Gang aft agley,<br \/>         And lea&#8217;e us nought but grief an&#8217; pain<br \/>         For promised joy!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">Abu Zubaydah<\/font><\/strong>&#8216;s &quot;Enhanced&quot; Interrogation began in earnest after the Memo became official.&nbsp; We know that he was waterboarded <em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/2010\/04\/17\/abu-zubaydah-may-have-been-waterboarded-more-than-83-times\/\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">at least<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/em> 83 times. I don&#8217;t think we have any real idea of how long it went on, or whether it produced what they call &quot;actionable intelligence.&quot; What we do know it that there were a total of 92 videotapes recorded of his interrogation. By <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">September 5, 2002<\/font><\/strong>, the C.I.A. had lost its enthusiasm for holding onto these tapes to &quot;offer evidence of AZ&#8217;s condition\/treatment&quot;:<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=3\" target=\"_self\"><\/a><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=3\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/tapes_3.gif\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p align=\"justify\">But by <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">December 3, 2002<\/font><\/strong>, they&#8217;d changed their minds about destroying the tapes [<a href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/2010\/04\/16\/how-abu-zubaydahs-sleep-deprivation-got-out-of-control\/#comment-230464\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s <strong><font color=\"#006699\">emptywheel<\/font><\/strong>&#8216;s comment about why]: <\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=11\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/tapes_4.gif\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p align=\"justify\">What was the &quot;mistake?&quot; Where did they &quot;move&quot; the tapes? There&#8217;s a lot of speculation about that [see comments <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/2010\/04\/16\/how-abu-zubaydahs-sleep-deprivation-got-out-of-control\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a><\/strong>], but the consensus seems to be that they were moved somewhere and cataloged, thus becoming a part of some government record &#8211; <u>that<\/u> was the mistake because they officially existed. In any case, on <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">January 9, 2003<\/font><\/strong>, CIA Attorney <strong><font color=\"#200020\">John McPherson<\/font><\/strong> reported on his <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">December 2002<\/font><\/strong> on-site review of the tapes &#8211;&nbsp; &quot;Nothing out of the ordinary.&quot; That review was reviewed along with the tapes by the CIA Inspector General in <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">June 2003<\/font><\/strong> at which time tape erasures\/deletions were noted. It&#8217;s unclear if they had been there when McPherson looked at them. Time passed, and on <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">November 9, 2005<\/font><\/strong>, the tapes were destroyed by order of <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Jose A. Rodriguez<\/font><\/strong>, the head of the CIA&#8217;s  clandestine service. I&#8217;ve left the sequence that lead up to that action out because it&#8217;s hard to really know how it came to happen and who was really involved. Here&#8217;s an overview of those cables from the recent release:<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><a target=\"_self\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=69\"><\/a><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=69\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/tapes_6.gif\" \/><\/a><!--\/td--><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p align=\"justify\">But here&#8217;s the punch line, the day after the tapes were destroyed, there were two emails to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kyle_Foggo\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Dusty Foggo<\/strong><\/a>, then the <strong>Executive Director of the CIA<\/strong> under <strong>Director<\/strong> <strong>Porter Goss <\/strong>[Dusty Foggo is currently imprisoned in Pine Knot Kentucky, convicted of taking bribes on CIA contracts]:<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/pdfs\/natsec\/20100415_CIArelease_destructionoftapes.pdf#page=81\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/tapes_5.gif\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p align=\"justify\">So it wasn&#8217;t even clear to them who authorized what. The New York Times had revealed the &quot;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/03\/06\/politics\/06intel.html?scp=5&#038;sq=detainee&#038;st=nyt\"><strong>extrordinary renditions<\/strong><\/a>&quot; on <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">March 6, 2005<\/font><\/strong> and the Washington Post had broken the story about the CIA&#8217;s &quot;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2005\/11\/01\/AR2005110101644.html\"><strong>black sites<\/strong><\/a>&quot; on <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">November 1, 2005<\/font><\/strong> [probably instigating the push to destroy the tapes]. But it wasn&#8217;t until&nbsp; <strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">December 6, 2007<\/font><\/strong> that the New York Times reported that <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/12\/06\/washington\/06cnd-intel.html?hp\"><strong>the CIA had destroyed the tapes<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">All of these dates and times come from <strong><font color=\"#006699\">emptywheel<\/font><\/strong>&#8216;s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/timeline-collection\/torture-tape-timeline\/\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">Torture Timeline<\/font><\/strong><\/a>, an invaluable resource for anything that has to do with our Torture Program. I&#8217;m going to let this all sit in my head for a while before commenting. It&#8217;s just a lot to digest [other than the obvious covering up]. Meanwhile, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Abu Zubaydah <\/font><\/strong>begins his eighth year in our custody, now at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba&#8230;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o&#8217; mice an&#8217; men Gang aft agley, And lea&#8217;e us nought but grief an&#8217; pain For promised joy! &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Robert Burns 1785 When Abu Zubaydah was captured in a fire fight in Pakistan on March 28, 2002, there was [&hellip;]<\/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-4017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017","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=4017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}