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ian neal
Angel - now passed away
Joined: 26 Jul 2005
Posts: 3140
Location: UK
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 Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 6:21 pm Post subject: CIA Destroyed Videos Showing Interrogations |
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CIA Destroyed Videos Showing Interrogations
December 7, 2007, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007 120601828.html
The CIA made videotapes in 2002 of its officers administering harsh interrogation techniques to two al-Qaeda suspects but destroyed the tapes three years later, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said. Captured on tape were interrogations of Abu Zubaydah ... and a second high-level al-Qaeda member who was not identified. Zubaydah [was] subjected to "waterboarding" ... while in CIA custody. All the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations. The destruction came after the Justice Department had told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys. The startling disclosures came on the same day that House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement on legislation that would prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics by the CIA. The measure ... would effectively set a government-wide standard for legal interrogations by explicitly outlawing the use of [waterboarding], forced nudity, hooding, military dogs and other harsh tactics against prisoners by any U.S. intelligence agency. Civil liberties advocates denounced the CIA's decision to destroy the tapes. Jameel Jaffer, a national security lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the tapes were destroyed at a time when a federal court had ordered the CIA to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU seeking records related to interrogations. "The CIA appears to have deliberately destroyed evidence that would have allowed its agents to be held accountable for the torture of prisoners," Jaffer said. "They are tapes that should have been released to the courts and Congress, but the CIA apparently believes that its agents are above the law."
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Related to this is the case of Jose Padilla convicted in a 'dirty bomb' conspiracy who was himself an alleged victim of torture and whose sentencing has just been postponed.
The case against Padilla rested strongly on the evidence of Abu Zubaydah whose testimony was extracted under torture and the tapes of which have now been erased by the CIA.
In a recent Glasgow Sunday Herald article at a senior police officer talked up in outrageous terms the dangers of a dirty bomb in the UK despite evidence that says the danger from a RDD is more psychological than physical and certainly not as grave as is often reported
http://www.springerlink.com/content/66177940r3lq4636/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb#_note-6
As Jeffrey Dingle concludes in Dirty Bomb Real Risk? in the Security Journal
| Quote: | | As threats are identified, so-called dirty bombs have gained a great deal of attention. The term, dirty bomb is used to refer to a radiological dispersal device (RDD), a radiological weapon which combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. A dirty bomb is not a weapon of mass destruction. A detonation would create psychological, not physical, harm through mass panic and terror. It is unlikely that the radioactive material contained in a dirty bomb would kill anyone. Rather, the material would be dispersed into the air and reduced to relatively low concentrations, resulting in low doses to people exposed. |
http://chimesofreedom.blogspot.com/2007/11/secret-state-terrorism-rule s-ok-recent.html |
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Mark Gobell
On Gardening Leave
Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 4529
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| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:00 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Moussaoui Judge Questions Government
Tuesday November 20, 2007 11:16 PM
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press Writer
McLEAN, Va. (AP) - A federal judge expressed frustration Tuesday that the government provided wrong information about evidence in the prosecution of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, raising the possibility of ordering a new trial in another high-profile terrorism case.
At a post-trial hearing Tuesday for Ali al-Timimi, a Muslim cleric from Virginia sentenced to life in prison in 2004 for soliciting treason, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said she can no longer trust the CIA and other government agencies on how they represent classified evidence in terror cases.
Attorneys for al-Timimi have been seeking access to documents. They also want to depose government witnesses to determine whether the government improperly failed to disclose the existence of certain evidence.
The government has denied the allegations but has done so in secret pleadings to the judge that defense lawyers are not allowed to see. Even the lead prosecutors in the al-Timimi case have not had access to the information; they have relied on the representations of other government lawyers.
Brinkema said she no longer feels confident relying on those government briefs, particularly since prosecutors admitted last week that similar representations made in the Moussaoui case were false.
In a letter made public Nov. 13, prosecutors in the Moussaoui case admitted to Brinkema that the CIA had wrongly assured her that no videotapes or audiotapes existed of interrogations of certain high-profile terrorism detainees. In fact, two such videotapes and one audio tape existed. |
Full article here
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Mark Gobell
On Gardening Leave
Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 4529
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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Guardian
| Quote: | Judge Urged Not to Ask About CIA Tapes
Saturday December 15, 2007 2:31 PM
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration has told a federal judge it was not obligated to preserve videotapes of CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists and urged the court not to look into the tapes' destruction.
In court documents filed Friday night, government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about the tapes would interfere with current investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.
It is the first time the government has addressed the issue of the videotapes in court.
Kennedy ordered the Bush administration in June 2005 to safeguard ``all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.''
Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos.
Government lawyers told Kennedy the tapes were not covered by his court order because Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri - the suspected terrorists whose interrogations were videotaped and then destroyed - were not at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba.
The men were being held overseas in a network of secret CIA prisons. By the time President Bush acknowledged the existence of those prisons and the prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, the tapes had been destroyed.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday refused to give Congress details of the government's investigation into the matter, saying that doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure. |
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Mark Gobell
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Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 4529
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:34 pm Post subject: |
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Original AP Story
| Quote: | Judge Urged Not to Ask About CIA Tapes
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration told a federal judge it was not obligated to preserve videotapes of CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists and urged the court not to look into the tapes' destruction.
In court documents filed Friday night, government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about the tapes would interfere with current investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.
It was the first time the government had addressed the issue of the videotapes in court.
Kennedy ordered the administration in June 2005 to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."
Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri
Government lawyers told Kennedy the tapes were not covered by his court order because Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were not at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba. The men were being held overseas in a network of secret CIA prisons. By the time President Bush acknowledged the existence of those prisons and the prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, the tapes had been destroyed.
In court documents, acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey S. Bucholtz was concerned that Kennedy might order CIA officials to testify about the tapes. Bucholtz said that "could potentially complicate the ongoing efforts to arrive at a full factual understanding of the matter."
The administration has taken a similar strategy in its dealings with Congress on the issue. On Friday, the Justice Department urged Congress to hold off on questioning witnesses and demanding documents because that evidence is part of a joint CIA-Justice Department investigation.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey also refused to give Congress details of the government's investigation into the matter Friday, saying doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure.
Even if Kennedy accepts the argument that government did not violate his order, he still could demand a hearing. He could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."
Zubaydah was the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002. He told his interrogators about alleged Sept. 11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, and the two men's confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks.
Al-Nashiri is the alleged coordinator of the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 sailors. Like Zubaydah, he is now at Guantanamo.
David Remes, a lawyer who represents a Yemeni national and other detainees, has called for a court hearing. He says the government was obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed. |
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Mark Gobell
On Gardening Leave
Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 4529
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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911truth.org
| Quote: | Which lie should we believe? CIA admits it destroyed evidence it said didn't exist.
by Nicholas Levis
CORRECTED & UPDATED
December 10, 2007
CIA claims it destroyed videotapes of interrogations central to the official story of September 11th. Writing in TIME magazine, former CIA agent and occasional "conspiracy theory" debunker, Robert Baer concedes that 9/11 skeptics seem all the more credible in the aftermath. Full-time debunker Gerald Posner also sees a cover-up.
The most important document in the official mythology of September 11th, The 9/11 Commission Report, is based largely on the reported statements of three prisoners: Khalid Shaikh Mohamed, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Abu Zubaydah. The Report describes these men as high-ranking members of Al Qaeda. U.S. authorities announced the captures of the three in the course of separate raids in 2002 and 2003. According to the CIA and U.S. military, they have been held ever since at "undisclosed locations," and have had contacts only with a handful of interrogators. No U.S. agency has ever produced any of them in a public proceeding, or even provided photographs of them in captivity.
Khalid Shaikh Mohamed (see entries in the "Complete 9/11 Timeline") was originally reported as killed during an attempt to capture him in Pakistan on September 10, 2002. He apparently survived, for he was reported as captured alive in March 2003. Until 2004, it was considered a security breach for a U.S. government source even to mention his name, although he was publicly identified as the "9/11 mastermind" in 2002.
The 9/11 Commission asked to see Mohamed and other prisoners, and was denied. The CIA instead provided English-language transcripts of interrogations supposedly held at the Guantanamo prison, and told the Commission no videotapes of such interrogations existed. The Commission made no fuss about this denial of access, although its report portrays Mohamed in particular as the most important planner of the September 11th plot.
The Report cites Mohamed, Binalshibh and Zubaydah uncritically as primary sources, without expressing a shred of doubt that the transcripts constitute the mens' words, that the words are genuine and unedited, or that the prisoners really are who the CIA says they are. This is despite the fact that Ernest May, one of the architects of the Report, admitted in a May 2005 memoir that the Commission "never had full confidence in the interrogation reports as historical sources." One top CIA official throws out an estimate that as much as 90 percent of information gleaned from Mohamed (or is that "Mohamed"?) is unreliable.
We learned this week that CIA videotapes of at least some of these supposed interrogations -- tapes which were previously said not to have existed! -- are now said to have been destroyed in 2005. So far the CIA has copped to destroying hundreds of hours of tapes of Abu Zubaydah and of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, also identified as an Al Qaeda leader (captured in 2002, never produced in public).
The CIA claims -- bizarrely -- that this was done to protect the identities of the interrogators (apparently the Agency's 19th-century video technology is incapable of blurring out faces or distorting voices on a tape). The corporate media floated the idea that the motive was to cover up the use of torture, possibly waterboarding. But as the "evidence" from which the official 9/11 fable lives disappears further into a black box, naturally any breathing skeptic must wonder to what extent the tapes, or even the prisoners, existed in the first place. And granting that the tapes existed, was the motive behind their destruction to hide torture, or to hide evidence? Even a defender of the official story like former CIA agent Robert Baer knows this latest twist only adds to the stink of obstruction and fakery in everything the intelligence community says about 9/11.
Gerald Posner, meanwhile, finds occasion to repeat a story told to him and to other sources such as Ron Suskind (author of The One Percent Solution), of how Zubaydah was supposedly duped by the CIA into naming three Saudi princes and a Pakistani general as accomplices to the terror network. All four of these personages subsequently turned up dead, the three princes in fact killed in separate incidents within a single week.
(Thanks to Paul Thompson and KJF for assists.) |
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The Medium is the Massage - Marshall McLuhan. |
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TmcMistress
Mind Gamer
Joined: 15 Jun 2007
Posts: 392
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:53 am Post subject: |
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Part of why I don't like living here. The CIA is actually being allowed to investigate itself in this matter, and hardly anyone seems to be throwing a fit about it.
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"What about a dance club that only let in deaf people? It would really only need flashing lights, so they'd save a lot of money on music." - Dresden Codak |
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