You Just Can't Trust The CIA

The Times tells us that CIA is not consistently forthcoming with the truth.

Who woulda guessed?

Water, bridge, I need to move on (or jump off).  The Captain covers the latest outrage.

MORE:  Not that I would necessarily believe them, but can't someone nail down the latest date for which she received credit on her pension for her service abroad?  And the last hashing of this here was Nov 15, and I doubt the battle lines have shifted much.

WHAT DID THEY KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT:  The Muckraker isn't digging the Jay and Jane Show:

But the bottom line here is that at least some Congressional leaders knew something about the tapes and something about their destruction, and didn't say anything about either. [Jane] Harman's silence is especially stunning: she co-chaired a joint Congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks in 2002 that didn't receive that very pertinent information.

And in a post that might have been titled "With Democrats Like These..." Marty Lederman writes:

Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) CIA intelligence activities, and then saying nothing about them publicly until they are leaked to the press, at which point he expresses outrage and incredulity -- but reveals nothing.

...Jane Harman also knew of the intention to destroy the tapes, and she at least "urged" the CIA in writing not to do it. (Where were her colleagues?) But when she found out the CIA had destroyed the tapes, where was Harman's press conference? Where were the congressional hearings?

This ongoing selective outrage by the Congressional overseers is ridiculous.

MAYBE IT IS NOT OBVIOUS: OK, I know sometimes I can be a bit sarcastic, but when I provide a link to Captain Ed and describe it as "the latest outrage" and the Captain appears to be outraged, it is not an absurd leap to think that maybe I am outraged as well; just for starters, I am on the same page as the Captain a lot more than I am off it, and my use of the word "outrage" can even serve as a supplemental clue.   And beyond that, the Captian links to several other irritated righties, so it is not a leap to think that maybe, since righties are irked, I am irked as well.

From the Captain:

Frankly, the timing stinks. The tapes sat unmolested in a vault for at least two years without the CIA worrying about the potential damage from a leak. The Inspector General had long since concluded that the interrogations did not break the law. However, as soon as Congress began debating the specific interrogation technique that the tapes depicted, someone decided that they represented a danger to the agents. It looks a lot more like destroying evidence than tightening security.

Hayden will spend the next few weeks explaining this to Congress. Instead, Congress should be talking with the people in charge of the CIA in 2005 to find out who gave the order to destroy the tapes, and why.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin agrees, as does Rick Moran.  James Joyner says it looks like obstruction of justice.

Clear enough?

Comments

[MayBee]

Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) CIA intelligence activities

I must be really out of it, because I thought a good portion of the CIA's mission was to be legally dubious.

[Neo]

Show we presume that the tape with the material showing the Iranian weapons program was also destroyed ?

The selective love/hate relationship of the Left and the CIA should be enough to spawn a Leftie version of "24".

[clarice]

Let me venture a wild guess here: The CIA regularly destroys interrogation tapes because they reveal the identities and appearance of the interrogators which would put their lives and operations at risk.

What I love is that now the Euros are saying--hold on, Iran is still dangerous. Maybe we should have listened to Eisenhower and not assumed the cost of Euro defense for so long. As instapundit's link says:Maybe with daddy out of the picture, the kids have to step up to the plate more.

[clarice]

OOps--re first graph--scratch it, pls. I should have read the links first.

[SteveMG]

Sorry, but God damnit. Every time it looks like this Administration is starting to get things right, things like this comes up. Time after time after time.

This is absolutely unacceptable. The clowns that approved this should be drawn and quartered.

Figuratively (I think).

Geez.

SMG

[Neo]

Jay Rockefeller, was chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, now and in the fall of 2002, when the Bush Administration managed to lie and cheat their way in the Iraq War, while Jay, who had full access to the same intelligence analysts that Bush had, was completely fooled, and therefore failed to inform his Democratic colleagues. Or at least that's what Jay wants you believe.

Frankly, I think the CIA needs a little blood letting, but I'm not sure this should be the reason for it.

[Neo]

This from TPM:

Update: Whoops! I originally misidentified Jay Rockefeller as a Republican in this post. I regret the Freudian slip.

Even Ackerman must think him too stupid to be a Democrat.

[MayBee]

SMG- tell me what you mean by "things like this"?
The creation of the tapes?
The denial of the tapes existence?
The destruction of the tapes?

I don't think this is good, but considering the tapes existed, I think it's the necessary political hit to protect their agents. I don't see how the CIA can start letting tapes like this out of their direct control. I don't trust Rockefeller, I don't trust the NYT, and I don't trust whatever agents talk to the NYT all the time.

[Ann]

The left will love this story.

No tape, no evidence
No facts to get in the way
But a good reason to make hay
Will make Chris Matthew's day

[Appalled Moderate]

OK TM. The Democrats are pathetic. I would agree to that, as a specific and a general matter. (They so remind me of the '93 Democratic Congress that I wonder if there will be an unforseen upset in 2008)

But. What do you think about the underlying CIA policy? Are you glad the story came out? Should there be an investigation? Should heads roll?

[Fisher]

If only the RATS had been this upset when Sandy Berger stuffed classified docs down his pants.

[SteveMG]

Maybee:
SMG- tell me what you mean by "things like this"?

Well, reportedly (always good to cover one's fanny with that qualifier) the CIA told the judge in the Moussaoui case that they had no tapes of interrogations relevant to the case.

That's called perjury? Obstruction of justice?

They also told the 9/11 Commission that they didn't have tapes of the interrogation of Zubaydah.

Now, there may be a legitimate reason for destroying the tapes. I'm willing to entertain them.

But don't tell Judges and don't tell Commissions that you don't have them when you do.

The CIA works for us; we don't work for them. And yes, I think I understand the national security concerns.

SMG

[clarice]

Maybe they put them in a safe and forgot about them as they did with the forgeries Wilson claimed he saw before we got them.

[SlimGuy]

Via AP

The CIA says the tapes were destroyed late in 2005, a year marked by increasing pressure from defense attorneys to obtain videotapes of detainee interrogations. The scandal over harsh treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had focused public attention on interrogation techniques.

Beginning in 2003, attorneys for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui began seeking videotapes of interrogations they believed might help them show their client wasn't a part of the 9/11 attacks. These requests heated up in 2005 as the defense slowly learned the identities of more detainees in U.S. custody.

In May 2005, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the government to disclose whether interrogations were recorded. The government objected to that order, and the judge modified it on Nov. 3, 2005, to ask for confirmation of whether the government "has video or audio tapes of these interrogations" and then named specific ones. Eleven days later, the government denied it had video or audio tapes of those specific interrogations.

Last month, the CIA admitted to Brinkema and a circuit judge that it had failed to hand over tapes of enemy combatant witnesses. Those interrogations were not part of the CIA's detention program and were not conducted or recorded by the agency, the agency said.

[MikeS]

The last time the CIA screwed up, Walter Pincus and Joe Wilson put the blame on President Bush.

I'm wondering if we're now witnessing some new smoke and new mirrors as a new distraction.

[clarice]

Well the storyline has shifted considerably:
Those interrogations were not part of the CIA's detention program and were not conducted or recorded by the agency, the agency said.

This suggests foreign govt involvement..And the govt will when pressed indicate a foreign affairs exception to discovery requests at least re the Brinkema inquiry.

It will be interesting if re the Congressional request, they say they told the Harman and Rockefeller, destroyed the tapes out of fear of leaks which would affect foreign affairs and both of them agreed.

[pagar]

Jay Rockefeller, now where have we heard that name Before

"SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The — I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq — that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11."

While Pres Bush was defending America, Jay Rockefeller, by his own admission, was meeting with friends of Saddam Hussein to pass on what he had learned from his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee. How is that different than what Benedict Arnold did?

[SteveMG]

This suggests foreign govt involvement..And the govt will when pressed indicate a foreign affairs exception to discovery requests at least re the Brinkema inquiry.

The Saudis.

Maybe Pakistan as well.

Certainly Saudi Arabia. Frum's citation of Posner's discovery that Zubaydah mentioned 3 Saudi princes and a Pakistani general is the key. All four later died in strange circumstances.

My guess is that if you pull the thread, it'll show real troubling stuff re murder, infiltration into the Royal Family and into high reaches of the Pakistani military.

SMG

[MayBee]

SMG- Do we know they were relevant to the Moussaoui case?
Anyway, I'm unwilling to blame this on "the Administration".

As for whether the people that approved it should be drawn and quartered, I don't know. It may be that they will be charged with and found guilty of perjury. That seems to me a better option than allowing someone to make a torture prosecution case out of them, or to risk letting them be used as propaganda, or to set a precedent that defendants in terrorism cases can gain access to CIA interrogation tapes in a fishing expedition.

[SlimGuy]

My read is they had a mix of tapes 2 of their own not related to Mr. M. and other mail ins of cooperating agencies they were handed off to us.

[SlimGuy]

The only reason they revealed those to the judge is the donated tapes were related to the specific names on the judge's list

[RoboLobo]

Ah yes, let's blame Harman and Rockefeller for it. Of course, you would have blamed them earlier if they had leaked out info of these torture tapes pre-destruction. Talk about circling the wagons! You know, you can be a conservative, and you can be a republican, and you can still be outraged over the corruption, malfesance and incompetence of this administration. That doesn't mean you have to vote for Hillary. Sheesh.

[SlimGuy]

It may have taken them a while to connect the dots on who the donated tape people were to match them up to the judge lists with all the aka's those guys flipped around

[SlimGuy]

What bothers me is in close time frame we get the dubious NIE, Plame saying Fritz turned testimony of GWB and Dick over to Waxman and the tape destruction in less than a week

Long odds on that all breaking at once

[Sue]

Why would they have to leak the information?

nd you can be a republican, and you can still be outraged over the corruption, malfesance and incompetence of this administration.

We are. When warranted. But, you have to admit, crying foul after the fact when you knew all along is SOP for democrats.

[SlimGuy]

The CIA did not say to the court in its original filing that it had no terrorist tapes at all. It would be wrong to assert that," CIA spokesman George Little said.

The 9/11 Commission referenced the 2002 interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Binalshibh multiple times throughout its report, but cited written documents and audiotapes only.

CIA Spokesman Mark Mansfield told FOX News the tapes were not destroyed while the 9/11 Commission was active so that they would be avilable if ever requested for its report.

"The agency went to great lengths to meet the requests of the 9/11 Commission," Mansfield told FOX News. "As Director Hayden pointed out in his statement, the tapes were destroyed only when it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries."

[SlimGuy]

Disappointed after failing to make their case on Iran and influence the outcome of the United States’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released this week, Military Intelligence will present its hard core evidence on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program on Sunday to the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during a rare visit he will be making to Israel.

Admiral Michael Mullen will land in Israel Sunday morning for a 24-hour visit that will include a one-on-one meeting with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as with Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

…

Mullen’s visit to Israel will be exactly a week after the publication of the NIE report that claimed Iran had frozen its nuclear military program in 2003 and has yet to restart it. During his visit, Military Intelligence plans to present him with Israel’s evidence that Iran is in fact developing nuclear weapons.

“The report clearly shows that we did not succeed in making our case over the past year in the run-up to this report,” a defense official said Thursday. “Mullen’s visit is an opportunity to try and fix that.”

[SlimGuy]

re Valerie

After her hour-long speech and question-and-answer session, Plame dropped one bombshell almost casually.

She said a lawyer had called her just before her talk began and told her that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald had agreed to turn his transcripts of interviews with Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over to U. S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who is known for his relish for investigating wrongdoing by Republicans.

[PMII]

Who/What is the CIA and what are they suppose to do? Do they ever do this?

[SlimGuy]

Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) called for Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the CIA officials who destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of detainees. Durbin said he’s calling on Mukasey “to investigate whether CIA officials who covered up the existence of these videotapes violated the law

[Neo]

What about the alien bodies ? From Roswell ?

[Neo]

Sounds like it's time for another round of lie detector tests at the CIA.

[clarice]

Interesting observation SMG. And if true, it would show good reason why to even say they had the tapes and to claim the statutory exemption would have been to tip everyone off with difficult foreign affairs implications.

[TM]

But. What do you think about the underlying CIA policy? Are you glad the story came out? Should there be an investigation? Should heads roll?

Evidently I should have noted that I share the Captain's outrage; I guess the use of the word "outrage" was not enough of a clue.

I have supported enhanced interrogations, but it is hard to continue doing that when the CIA pulls stunts like this.

If they thought these tapes would kill the program, maybe we ought to oblige them by killing the program. If this is so bad they are afraid to show it to Congress, it must be pretty bad. And,as the Captain said, given the timing it is hard to take seriously their security arguments.

[Topsecretk9]

If they thought these tapes would kill the program, maybe we ought to oblige them by killing the program. they did in 2002, didn't they?

[Topsecretk9]

I keep bringing this up and it's only tangentially related - related to the CIA's pattern of weirdness and secretive withholding relevant information

On the Lebanese FBI - CIA agent

In another development, a federal official familiar with the case said the CIA had access to derogatory information about Prouty before the FBI hired her in 1999, but failed to disclose it when the FBI contacted the CIA during a background check.

Had the information been disclosed, the official said, the FBI might not have hired her. More perplexing, the official said, is why the CIA hired Prouty away from the FBI.

The CIA declined comment.

In a weird way - sounds like the CIA had a mole in the FBI.

[Topsecretk9]

oh, and what she was looking at contained...

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell didn't indicate why Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese immigrant who once lived in Taylor, wanted the information or what she did with it. But he said four of the inquiries involved files containing the names of confidential FBI informants.

Would the CIA be interested in getting the names of the FBI confidential informants? Speculation, of course.

[clarice]

TM, We still don't know enough. Assume Jordan interrogated these guys, not us. Assume forther Steve is right and they named high officials and royals in ostensible allies (Pakistan and S.A., for example, people later bumped off in odd ways),finally assume that Jordan made the tapes and passed them on to the CIA. Can you see a way to respond to the CT which wouldn't open up this door to disclosures which would hurt national security/foreign affairs? If the CIA told the chairs of the two relevant committees and they concurred, it suggests the agreement not to disclose even the minimum was a bipartisan decision that the exceptional case was at hand.

[Arrush]

'20 years of federal service, she does not meet the minimum age requirement'

Plame want to retire early and be payed for twenty for twenty years. The legislation(Plame bill) will be used by all federal employees to retire at twenty years and be payed at the twenty years. The legislation's approval is needed for employees to retire. Congress is too slow and they are not retiring, but staying on after twenty years becase they are not paid immediately. Congress needs to approve the legislation or the federal employees will get rid of all the dems. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is not approving the legislation quickly enough. They will be thrown out along with the dems. The dems are going to blame OPM at the White House. It even says open season(fair game) at the webiste! It covers their kids up to age 22. It would be nice if they approved the legislation now, it could be tagged to the open season program at OPM.

The tapes are destroyed probably because of what is done. Abu Grahb or whatever shows guys screwing guys and other wierd shit. Those thought they were CIA guys. The CIA guys are going to deny they participated in or knew of(yes, they'll call it Navy shit) the drugging of terrorists, the medical work and how that's done and the removal of parts. It's the ultimate torture and the point is the victim doesn't rmember because they've been drugged and probalby talked all day long and woke up with strange memories of nurses and guys screwing guys or something.

Headrush.

[clarice]

TS, I think you're on the wrong foot. I think both agencies were desperate for women (AA) and Arab translators and she was a good one. I think the FBI didn't vet her properly and someone at the agency goofed in not treating her as a new hire subject to that agency's more stringent vetting. I think the FBI files she was nosing aroundin were about her B-I-L and she was telling him what the agency knew about him and who was informing on him.

[clarice]

I say hold your judgement until we know more, TM. It would not be the first time that Capt Ed (whom I love anyway) was the first to show he ws in the "clean toga" club. I can think of reasons why this happened that do not amount to obstruction of justice in any normal meaning.It may be that it was. I just am unwilling to drop the flag until I know more.

[Topsecretk9]

Clarice

Oh, I was just speculating. But "FBI didn't vet her properly and someone at the agency goofed in not treating her as a new hire subject to that agency's more stringent vetting."

Fine. It doesn't explain why the Agency withheld info from the FBI and then ignore the info when they hired her away.

[PeterUK]

"How is that different than what Benedict Arnold did?"

Worse if you think about it,Arnold was born a British subject,what is Rockefeller's excuse?

[clarice]

While the US Intelligrence community can switch estimates at the drop of a dime, the American public isn't buying it:

[quote]Just 18% of American voters believe that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 66% disagree and say Iran has not stopped its nuclear weapons program. Twenty-one percent (21%) of men believe Iran has stopped the weapons development along with 16% of women (see crosstabs). The survey was conducted following release of a government report saying that Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003. The Rasmussen Reports survey also found that 67% of American voters believe that Iran remains a threat to the national security of the United States.... [/quote]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/general_current_events/just_18_believe_iran_has_stopped_nuclear_weapons_development_program

Maybe it's something in the water. Either at Langley or throughout the U.S. You decide.

[SlimGuy]

In my 2003 New York Times bestseller, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, I discussed Abu Zubaydah at length in Chapter 19, "The Interrogation." There I set forth how Zubaydah initially refused to help his American captors. Also, disclosed was how U.S. intelligence established a so-called "fake flag" operation, in which the wounded Zubaydah was transferred to Afghanistan under the ruse that he had actually been turned over to the Saudis. The Saudis had him on a wanted list, and the Americans believed that Zubaydah, fearful of torture and death at the hands of the Saudis, would start talking when confronted by U.S. agents playing the role of Saudi intelligence officers.

Instead, when confronted by his "Saudi" interrogators, Zubaydah showed no fear. Instead, according to the two U.S. intelligence sources that provided me the details, he seemed relieved. The man who had been reluctant to even confirm his identity to his U.S. captors, suddenly talked animatedly. He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would kill him. He then asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi royal family. And Zubaydah provided a private home number and a cell phone number from memory. "He will tell you what to do," Zubaydah assured them

That man was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, one of King Fahd's nephews, and the chairman of the largest Saudi publishing empire. Later, American investigators would determine that Prince Ahmed had been in the U.S. on 9/11.

[James]

The destruction of the tapes raises questions about whether agency officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sept. 11 commission about aspects of the program.

This may or may not be the case, but nothing in the Times story suggests that anything was "withheld".

[SlimGuy]

American interrogators used painkillers to induce Zubaydah to talk -- they gave him the meds when he cooperated, and withdrew them when he was quiet. They also utilized a thiopental sodium drip (a so-called truth serum). Several hours after he first fingered Prince Ahmed, his captors challenged the information, and said that since he had disparaged the Saudi royal family, he would be executed. It was at that point that some of the secrets of 9/11 came pouring out. In a short monologue, that one investigator told me was the "Rosetta Stone" of 9/11, Zubaydah laid out details of how he and the al Qaeda hierarchy had been supported at high levels inside the Saudi and Pakistan governments.

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.

It would be nice to further investigate the men named by Zubaydah, but that is not possible. All four identified by Zubaydah are now dead. As for the three Saudi princes, the King's 43-year-old nephew, Prince Ahmed, died of either a heart attack or blood clot, depending on which report you believe, after having liposuction in Riyadh's top hospital; the second, 41-year-old Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died the following day in a one car accident, on his way to the funeral of Prince Ahmed; and one week later, the third Saudi prince named by Zubaydah, 25-year-old Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, died, according to the Saudi Royal Court, "of thirst." The head of Pakistan's Air Force, Mushaf Ali Mir, was the last to go. He died, together with his wife and fifteen of his top aides, when his plane blew up -- suspected as sabotage -- in February 2003. Pakistan's investigation of the explosion -- if one was even done -- has never been made public.

Via HuffPo Gerald Posner

[James]

It would not be the first time that Capt Ed (whom I love anyway) was the first to show he ws in the "clean toga" club.

He often comes across as being about quarter step to the right of the Democratic Leadership Council. Yeah, he supports the Iraq war, but so does Chris Hitchens and he's no conservative.

[clarice]

Well, he and Malkin and a few others are always first to stand in line and shout they are outraged whenever the left tosses mud at one of theirs--outrage that rests on believing those tossing the mud who have no right to be trusted without verification.

With allies like these...