More on Torture Tapes

Bets on when we’ll see the influence of Gonzales emerge?

I have to agree with you that this story is not going to go away.

This is another black eye that the CIA as an institution does not need. The big questions I have: will the press recognize that it a handful of individuals, not “the CIA,” is responsible for the torture and subsequent destruction of these tapes — and will the press see this as a criminal act in both a moral and legal sense?

So far, the coverage has done little to persuade me that the press is going to give this story either the attention or analysis for which it begs.

We’ve been hearing:

A) This was done to protect the identities of the interrogators or B) this was done to protect the interrogatars from prosecution.

While both are possible, there is also the matter of the necons trying to destroy CIA in order to prevent things like facts coming out that do not support their policies and to give more, large no-bid contracts to their pals in the private sector (who, of course, in turn keep the GOP filled with political campaign cash and who have no oversight and are not held to account when they mess up. One also has to wonder if private contractors can spy on ordinary Americas who don’t agree with the neocon policies and either take action or report it to their neocon buddies… but I’m digressing again. Seems to me that Black has drank the coolaid, but I could be wrong). One of the first news reports about the torture memos scandal made it fairly clear that CIA was asking the WH, “What exactly is, and is not allowable?” They’d been stuck with failed policy decisions so many times in the past that it was simply smart to get a ‘get out of jail free card’ from WH counsel before proceeding.

Other examples of recent years rifts between CIA and conservatives, neocons or other branches of governemnt:

• Novak claiming that the whole Plame affair was a CIA setup.
• Wall Street Journal claiming that the NIE was a setup by the 17 intelligence agencies to make Bush & Co. look bad.
• CIA, believing him to be an Iranian spy, raiding Ahmad Chalabi’s offices with the DoD or Pentagon tipping him off beforehand.
• WH and others constantly blaming CIA for Iraqi WMD claims, SotU speech, etc. when it was clear that VP’s office was pushing for the conclusions it wanted

And I’m sure there are more.

Scheuer was replaced as Chief of Alec Station in mid-1999 by Rich B. AFAIK, Rich B. headed Alec Station until December 2001 when he became the Chief of the reopened Kabul Station.

On July 10, 2001 Tenet, Black and Rich B. gave NSA Rice an urgent briefing on the possibility of a terrorist attack. Also in attendence were counterrorism czar Clarke and Deputy NSA Hadley. For reasons that have never been explained to the American public, the FBI evidently was not asked to participate in this meeting despite being the agency with jurisdiction. Furthermore, why would high ranking CIA officials give Rice an urgent briefing yet not tell the FBI that al Qaeda operatives were in the US?

Yeap, Nice read on the facts.

Cofer’s handling of counterterror was predetermined, contingent on his hiring people Condi wanted in place.

Then when she moved up to SoS he’d get the inside track on all of the deals between the contractors and gov’t. After he’d help undermine the original mission statement and personnel infrastructure at the Company, he could profit off the new deals.

has boosh make the US a pawn for everybody els? Probably.

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A new Chinese red line over Iran
By M K Bhadrakumar

The conference on the Middle East in Annapolis in the United States last week seemed to be an exercise in self-delusion. Robert Fisk, who has chronicled the Levant for the past 31 years for the British media, somberly noted, “The Middle East is currently a hell disaster and the president of the United States thinks he is going to produce the crown jewels from a cabinet and forget Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran – and Pakistan, for that matter.”

But in the days that followed, crown jewels did indeed begin to

tumble out of President George W Bush’s cabinet. What awaits determination is whether Bush orchestrated it, or just let it happen.

In any case, the morning after the Annapolis shindig, we learnt that Syria and the US had a common choice in General Michel Suleiman (who also happens to be close to Hezbollah) for the unfilled Lebanese presidency. And then we saw on Sunday Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz entering the conference hall of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Doha flanked by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The GCC, flag-carrier of US regional strategy for three decades, had never before invited Iran to its meetings.

By Monday morning, the Bush administration had released declassified extracts of the sensational National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear problem, a report lying in the cabinet in the Oval Office in the White House for some time. The White House said on Wednesday that Bush was told in August that Iran may have suspended its nuclear weapons program. And now we learn that Bush will be packing his bags for his first-ever visit in his presidency to the Holy Land and Palestine.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IL07Ak02.html

Bye-Bye Cookie

Reuters reports that Howard “Cookie” Krongard has decided to resign as the State Department’s inspector general. The decision comes after a disastrous appearance last month before Rep. Henry Waxman’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where Krongard’s testimony invited charges of perjury. Krongard, who had allegedly interfered in an arms smuggling investigation targeting Blackwater USA, initially denied that his brother Buzzy Krongard (a former high-ranking CIA official) was a member of that company’s advisory board. He later changed his tune after reaching Buzzy by phone during a break in the hearing.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/

Right after he fumbles with perjury before Congress, the evidence tampering on interrogation tapes emerges. He is alleged to have intefered with an investigation of Blackwater re: arms smuggling. It would appear to abe an example of action concistent with purging tapes that also seem to implicate contractor abuse(in more than meaning of the word).

Hmmmm.

Is this related? I wonder what “squad” these geeks that did this were really from.

The Wall Street Journal reports: ‘Investigators learned that [Office of Special Counsel head Scott Bloch, who has been under investigation since 2005] erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said … Bypassing his agency’s computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service … Bloch had his computer’s hard disk completely cleansed using a “seven-level” wipe: a thorough scrubbing that conforms to Defense Department data-security standards. The process makes it nearly impossible for forensics experts to restore the data later.’”

Also, one has to ask why it took so long to get clearance for Justice investigators to look into some of these issues.

mikegorse at huffpo mentions a DoJ pdf, located here:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20071207_intel_letter.pdf

and mikegorse says

Here’s where we are. We are condeming Pelosi for orchestrated behavior of a scoff-law executive branch being mis-run by the VP of Torture while George nee Howdy Doody fiddles away your future and treasury.

We are arguing about who let the tapes get destroyed while the DOJ tells us they just watched the tapes last month.

MAJOR CONTRADITION by DOJ

Two days ago the New York Times web page carried the story C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations By MARK MAZZETTI – and beneath the story, a link to the letter from US Attorney, Chuck Rosenberg to Chief Judge Williams and Judge Brinkema explaining the tapes existence.

On page 2 of the PDF, paragraphs two and three, the solicitor clearly says “On September 13, 2007, an attorney for the CIA notified us of a discovery of a video tape of the interrogation of [redacted]. On September 19, 2007, we viewed that video tape and a transcript [redacted] of the interview.”

The next paragraph starts “After learning of the existence of the first video tape, we requested the CIA to perform an exhaustive review to determine whether it was in possession of any other such recording for any of the enemy combatant witnesses at issue in this case. CIA’s review, which now appears to be complete, uncovered the existence of a second video tape, as well as a short audio tape, both of which pertain to interrogations [redacted]. On October 18, we viewed the second video tape and listened to the audio tape, while reviewing transcripts.”

It appears to me the US Attorney has told the Judges he watched the video tapes in September and October of 2007, that Michael Hayden says were destroyed (“all copies”) in 2005. Is this as transparent a lie as it seems? Doesn’t anybody read the facts already in evidence?

WTF? These appear not to have anything to do with Moussaoui’s missing torture tape.