Michelle Malkin » The CIA’s destroyed interrogation videos, what the Dems knew, and when; Update: What Harriet knew

The CIA’s destroyed interrogation videos, what the Dems knew, and when; Update: What Harriet knew

By Michelle Malkin • December 7, 2007 09:13 AM

Update 12/8 10:00am Eastern: What Harriet Miers knew.

And Ed Morrissey takes a closer look at what Reps. Silvestre Reyes and Pete Hoekstra say they did and didn’t know.

***
Update 1:05pm Eastern. Tom Maguire: “This ongoing selective outrage by the Congressional overseers is ridiculous.”

Par for the course.

***
It’s the top news at Memeorandum this morning. The New York Times reported yesterday:

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.

The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss declined this afternoon to comment on the destruction of the tapes.

The newspaper expresses its explicit hope that its scoop on the tapes will “reignite the debate over the use of severe interrogation techniques on terror suspects, and their destruction raises questions about whether C.I.A. officials withheld information about aspects of the program from the courts and from the Sept. 11 commission appointed by President Bush and Congress.” But remember: Bill Keller tells us that he and his reporters “are agnostic as to where a story may lead; we do not go into a story with an agenda or a pre-conceived notion.” Uh-huh. The news just happens to be perfectly timed as the Supreme Court hears a Gitmo case and, as the WaPo, notes, on the same day “House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement on legislation that would prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics by the CIA and bring intelligence agencies in line with rules followed by the U.S. military.”

So, how bad is it? The Left is going bananas–with one its most unhinged bloggers now dubbing America a “Banana Republic.” It is bad. Center and right-leaning bloggers are weighing in. James Joyner points out that “People have gone to jail for obstruction of justice for actions much, much less brazen than this.” Ed Morrissey believes the tape destruction “looks a lot more like destroying evidence than tightening security.” Rick Moran concludes “Any way you slice it, someone needs to be held accountable for the tape’s destruction.”

It is worth noting that the CIA actually informed members of Congress about the tapes four years ago and also informed them in advance about their intention to ultimately destroy the tapes. One leading Democrat admits he knew about the destruction of the tapes last fall. Via AP:

Rep. Jane Harman of California, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was one of only four members of Congress in 2003 informed of the tapes’ existence and the CIA’s intention to ultimately destroy them.

“I told the CIA that destroying videotapes of interrogations was a bad idea and urged them in writing not to do it,” Harman said. While key lawmakers were briefed on the CIA’s intention to destroy the tapes, they were not notified two years later when the spy agency actually carried out the plan. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the committee only learned of the tapes’ destruction in November 2006.

They knew and they did nothing.

Posted in: Gitmo, Torture

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#190363

On December 7th, 2007 at 7:06 pm, purplepeep said:

The videos of the interrogation of the terrorists shouldn’t have been destroyed. They would have helped to determine how big a raise our agents should be getting.

Besides, I had just bought the jumbo-sized bag-o-popcorn…ah,well…
#190377

On December 7th, 2007 at 7:25 pm, DaMav said:

I have a hard time getting excited by these stories that indicate that maybe we did hurtful things to a terrorist.

And I have no trouble deciding that we are on the moral high ground in this war. Frankly, an interrogation tape is far too trivial to be relevent to drawing any conclusion on such matters. A bunch of sadistic dirtball savages who deliberately blow up women and children and think they are going to paradise for it vs the worst we could possibly imagine in an interrogation — wouldn’t tip the balance in the slightest.

If the law disagrees and lets the terrorists off the hook over this, then it simply shows we need some changes in the law.
#190381

On December 7th, 2007 at 7:34 pm, DaMav said:

@TexasTiger
You’re on to something!

The penumbra of the Right to Privacy should cover waterboarding in the sanctity of the agent’s own safe house.
#190458

On December 7th, 2007 at 9:49 pm, gandolphxx said:

Burn the tapes, feed the ashes to the gitmo detainees, then render them to the Northern Alliance warlords – package up a chunk of cash to prepay for the service – end of story.

Oops, almost forgot – stop taking prisoners – if forced to ship directly to the Northern Alliance or Kurds with a bag of cash.
#190517

On December 7th, 2007 at 11:09 pm, deepdiver said:

I was night scuba diving on a wall in about 100′ of water. My throat was really dry and I suddenly had a coughing attack. I coughed out my regular and couldn’t stop coughing. My bouancy was really trim so as I coughed I started sinking. On top of that, my dive buddy and I were at the back of the pack and he didn’t notice that I had disappeared. I watched the lights of the group disappearing into the haze as I started sinking. My lungs were on fire, but every time I cleared the regulator and started to take a breath I started coughing again even though I basically had no air left in my lungs. It is the only time scuba diving I really thought I was going to drown. I was near panic and only my training and will prevented me from freaking out. If I had panicked I would have died and floated down to the 200′ bottom. Water- check. Fear of drowning – check. Panic – well not quite but then I am trained to deal with panic.

I didn’t realize until I read some of the posts in this thread that it was not actually a survivable, although scary, scuba incident, I was tortured in a sinister conspiracy by “the man”.

That makes as much sense as the liberal view on the rest of this stuff.
#190553

On December 7th, 2007 at 11:47 pm, TexasTiger said:

On December 7th, 2007 at 7:34 pm, DaMav said:

The penumbra of the Right to Privacy should cover waterboarding in the sanctity of the agent’s own safe house.

It’s high time that the courts respect the sanctity of the relationship between an interrogator and his client.
#190639

On December 8th, 2007 at 9:09 am, franksalterego said:

Damned if you do…Damned if you don’t.

Six weeks of foot-stamping & sippy-cup banging begins in 4…3…

[yawn]
#190642

On December 8th, 2007 at 9:23 am, franksalterego said:

Question, for these self-righteous, sanctimonious, Liberal butt-heads:

What would you do with the tapes, if you had them?
#190644

On December 8th, 2007 at 9:34 am, franksalterego said:

Comment #194 cont’d…

And beings, you are so g’damned predictable, can you give us a reason to NOT destroy the tapes?
#190771

On December 8th, 2007 at 3:52 pm, RetFireman said:

Shhhh…don’t tell the Liberals, bt the CIA does things that are secret. It is the nature of their business to do things that are secret. It is called “Doing things that are secret for the good of the country and for National Security”

Also, don’t tell them that they don’t need to know everything that goes on. Just because they don’t know everything that goes on doesn’t automtically mean there is a cover-up or a conspiracy. It may be a simple as we just plain do not want our enemies to know what we are doing so that they do not take ad vantage of that knowledge and destroy us. I know it is a very difficult concept for them to understand, what with them wanting to see our nation destroyed and handed over to our enemies and all, what with all their sedition and treason and everything, but it really is just that freaking simple.

The nature of the CIA is SECRET!!!!

Morons.