CIA burns interrogation tapes...

[Che Guava]

...alledgedly, because of the use of torture on them....

CIA destroyed interrogation tapes


The CIA has confirmed that it destroyed at least two video tapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects.

According to the intelligence agency, the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of CIA agents and because they no longer had intelligence value.

But civil liberties lawyers have refused to accept this, saying the CIA previously denied such tapes existed.

They say the move appears to be an attempt to destroy evidence that could have brought CIA agents to account.

The New York Times, which broke the story, quotes current and former government officials as saying the CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005 as it faced Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention programme.

Officials feared the tapes could have raised doubts about the legality of the CIA's techniques, the newspaper says.

The tapes are thought to have shown the interrogation in 2002 of a number of terror suspects, including Abu Zubaydah, who had been a chief recruiter for the al-Qaeda network.


The videos were, according to the New York Times, wiped in 2005, at the time the agency was being scrutinised about its secret detention programme.

The Associated Press news agency on Thursday obtained a letter sent to all CIA employees by the agency's current director, Michael Hayden, explaining why the footage was destroyed.

In the internal memo, Gen Hayden told staff that the CIA had begun taping interrogations as an internal check in 2002 and decided to delete the videos because they lacked any "legal or internal reason" to keep them.

According to AP, the CIA chief wrote to employees: "The tapes posed a serious security risk.

"Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the programme, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers."

'Troubling'

The CIA acknowledges that these early interrogations were harsh, but Gen Hayden says that the CIA's internal watchdogs saw the tapes in 2003 and verified that the techniques used were legal.

But Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy said the tapes' destruction was troubling.

"The damage is compounded when such actions are hidden away from accountability," he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union has accused the agency of showing an utter disregard for the law.

"The destruction of these tapes appears to be a part of an extensive, long-term pattern of misusing executive authority to insulate individuals from criminal prosecution for torture and abuse," an ACLU statement said.

The BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says the news is likely to trigger more questions about the interrogation techniques used by the CIA and whether they amounted to torture.

There are also questions over whether CIA agents withheld information from the courts and a presidential commission.

The CIA's failure to make the tapes available to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the 9/11 Commission could amount to obstruction of justice, according to the New York Times.

Lawyers in the Moussaoui trial and officials from the 9/11 Commission had both requested from the CIA details of any relevant interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects.


After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, President George W Bush authorised the use of "harsh techniques" in the interrogation of suspected terrorists.

According to our correspondent, those techniques are alleged to have included water-boarding, a method in which a suspect is held down and gagged while water is poured into his mouth in order to simulate drowning.

Human rights groups say that water-boarding - and other techniques allegedly used by the CIA - can be defined as torture under various international treaties to which the US is a signatory.

The Bush administration has always maintained that it does not allow the use of torture.

link

So what does the destruction of interrogation tapes like this suggest to you?

 

[El_Machinae]

That destruction of evidence is still deemed to be the game-winning strategy.

 

[Rhymes]

*Shock and awe*

It's not like people didn't suspect that government agencies had secret documents

It tells me that the government is hypocritical, if they use torture and think they are in the right, they shouldn't hide about doing so. If they thinks it's wrong, they shouldn't do it.

 

[Phlegmak]

So what does the destruction of interrogation tapes like this suggest to you?

No tapes, no torture! The torture never happened! We've always been at war with East Asia!

Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit. Except for the first two sentences.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

So what does the destruction of interrogation tapes like this suggest to you?

What I want to know is why, after all the billions we pour into their budget, the CIA still uses such archaic technology as video tapes.

 

[sourboy]

Let's see. 9/11 = terror. Since 9/11, no terror.

Burn em.

 

[Patroklos]

We've always been at war with East Asia!

Aren't you clever

 

[Phlegmak]

Aren't you clever

Yes.

 

[PredatorFett]

What I want to know is why, after all the billions we pour into their budget, the CIA still uses such archaic technology as video tapes.

That is SO TRUE.

 

[Kozmos]

If they wanted to conceal the identities they could just edit the tapes extensively instead of burning them completely.

 

[woody60707]

Well both sides are right

because they (the tapes) no longer had intelligence value.

destroy evidence that could have brought CIA agents to account.

Both claims are 100% true. I would bet good money this is SOP for the CIA. Would you want another Plame on our hands? Innocent or not, people want the names of those CIA agents.

Now being this is (likely) SOP for the CIA to do, how would you prove this is criminal intent. But it surely does help the CIA in this one case.

 

[Winner]

So what? I don't care a bit about some terrorist scum.

 

[downtown]

Congress is pissed. Sen. Rockefeller says there will be hearings.

I bet the CIA is pretty terrified.

 

[Bronx Warlord]

About time the CIA got something right.

 

[Riffraff]

Seeing that the US administration openly admits/admitted torturing suspects during interrogation, this isn't all that exciting.

 

[bigdog5994]

righties scares us with terrorist and socialism

lefties scared us with the big bad government and global warming

same ole', same ole'

 

[Erik Mesoy]

So what? I don't care a bit about some terrorist scum.

Straaaaawmaaaaaaan!

Go back to the first sentence of the article:

"The CIA has confirmed that it destroyed at least two video tapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects."


Let's try again: A group of people accused of committing torture has been destroying evidence.
Try to add something more useful this time.

 

[Bill3000]

lefties scared us with the big bad government and global warming

eh? I thought the righties scare us with the bad big government

 

[FriendlyFire]

*Shock and awe*

It's not like people didn't suspect that government agencies had secret documents

It tells me that the government is hypocritical, if they use torture and think they are in the right, they shouldn't hide about doing so. If they thinks it's wrong, they shouldn't do it.

This is how they go Abu Zubaydah to talk.

Hayden did not disclose one of the al Qaeda suspects whose tapes were destroyed. But he did identify the other. It was Abu Zubaydah, the top ranking terror suspect when he was tracked and captured in Pakistan in 2003.

"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

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.


EDIT:
Link Main story
LINK sublink

 

[FriendlyFire]

About time the CIA got something right.

I wonder if the CIA actually did "knock off" certain members of the Saudi(s) or if there deaths have been covered up. renditioning them to the US and then applying the same interrogation techniques (drugs) would have revealed how deep the rabbit hole went.

At least we can be satisfied that the Pakistani General died for hes involvement in 9/11.


EDIT: Destroying national intelligence wouldnt that be TREASON ???
(unless of course it is to prevent it from falling into enemy hands)