C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes

[MannyGoldstein]

Source: The NY Times

WASHINGTON — Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.

Shortly after the tapes were destroyed at the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, Mr. Goss told Mr. Rodriguez that he “agreed” with the decision, according to the document. He even joked after Mr. Rodriguez offered to “take the heat” for destroying the tapes.

“PG laughed and said that actually, it would be he, PG, who would take the heat,” according to one of the document, an internal C.I.A. e-mail message.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/us/16tapes.html?hp

---

Face it, the bad guys won and nothing will come of this. We live in a world where war crimes are cool, and "shrewd businessmen" who bring the world to the brink of financial ruin get trillions in tax cash.

And the good guys? We're "fucking retarded".

Feh.

[EFerrari]

1. Is Goss still co-chair of the House Ethics Office?

He laughed.

Great.

[PSPS]

2. "brutal interrogation"

Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.

As long as the NYT keeps using weasel words and phrases for torture like "brutal interrogation," it's no better than Soviet-era Pravda.

[chill_wind]

3. Well now we know it goes all the way up.

All the "deliberations". And not some high-ranking autonomously acting underling. I bet Leon Panetta knew that, too, a long time ago.

[JDPriestly]

4. What happened to that stuff about people playing by the rules?

Doesn't that count any more?

[EFerrari]

5. What rules? Porter Goss's hands have been bloody for decades.

He's the last person that would care about rules or a little torture.

And yet he was not only confirmed to CIA but then accepted by Nancy Pelosi to head up the Ethics office.

What rules?

[Snazzy]

6. "brutal interrogation"

NYT still can't call it torture of course. NYT evolution, as of now, is something like: Enhanced > harsh > brutal.

"Waterboarding is torture," Holder said. "My Justice Department will not justify it, rationalize it or condone it." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030200852_2.html?sid=ST2009030201785

[Snazzy]

7. I know who [they were trying] to protect: that [redacted]

April 04, 2009

Destroyed CIA videotapes. Per Marcy's point here about this: that Foggo may be in a mood to talk, if he knows anything.

I'm told that there were three people in the room, e.g. two witnesses, to Goss allegedly authorizing a call be made to the station involved (Thailand) to order them to destroy the interrogation tapes: both then director of the national clandestine service Jose Rodriguez as well as his then deputy. Rodriguez' then deputy was described as "a senior ranking clandestine service official close to Goss" whose name is not well known, who has since retired from the Agency and gone to work for a large private sector company.

The contact says referring to the other person allegedly in the room when the decision on the tapes was made, Rodriguez' deputy: "I know for a fact that he was in the office when Goss said 'Get rid of the videotapes' and he said, 'Jose, it is up to you to do it.' He directed this guy , 'You call the station and tell them to do it.' ... My point is, Goss walked away from that" point "on - and they ... carried out what told to do."

According to the contact, Goss, after hearing Rodriguez' and his deputy's argument for why the tapes would be problematic if they got out, ordered Rodriguez' deputy to make the call to the station in Thailand to get rid of the tapes, and directed Jose to inform the committees. "Goss told Jose to tell the committees and told the other guy station invoved and destroy the tapes."

Apparently there was a currently serving senior CIA officer on one or more of the tapes, whose name I have redacted because he is still serving, who was mugging on the camera. "What I heard is that deliberately got on the TV camera. He's smiling, making gestures to one of the guys behind him..."

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/009078.html
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/02/what-does-dusty-foggo-know-about-the-torture-tapes/

[Solly Mack]

8. K&R

[avaistheone1]

9. It's not the crime. It's the coverup.

k&r

[Festivito]

10. Homicides and homicides covered up by authorities that chuckle over deaths.

And these are our super trusted people.

[cascadiance]

11. Has Jane Harman spoken up yet about her "friend" Goss yet?...

Or is she keeping her mouth shut too... I suspect she'll continue to do the latter...

[SLSmith]

22. Harman Wiretap Story Reverberates One Year Later (Press Release)

Winograd for Congress
April 21, 2010

Winograd Challenges Opponent to Break from AIPAC and Denounce Settlements

On the anniversary of the nationwide scandal involving Rep. Jane Harman’s reported quid pro quo with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), congressional opponent Marcy Winograd (CA / 36) calls on Harman to show her independence from AIPAC by denouncing Israeli settlements and the Gaza blockade.

Says Winograd, co-founder of LA Jews for Peace, “As a Jewish woman of conscience, I say to my opponent, another Jewish woman, let our legacy not be one of occupation and cruelty but one of Mitzvah or good deeds and reconciliation.”

In the spontaneous debate at the recent California Democrat Party convention, Harman said she cared about the rights of the Palestinian people.

Says Winograd, “I am pleased to hear that my opponent shares my concern about the safety of both southern Israelis previously under rocket fire, as well as 1.5 million Palestinians, almost half of them children, routinely denied clean water and medicine in Gaza. However, the published report from Congressional Quarterly suggests a far too cozy relationship with AIPAC, a defender of the Israeli settlements and the Gaza blockade.”

In April 2009, Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly broke the story that Jane Harman had been recorded on a legal wiretap promising to use her influence to get spying charges dropped against two AIPAC analysts. According to CQ, Harman offered to use her influence in exchange for AIPAC’s promise to help Harman become chair of the House Intelligence Committee by threatening to defund the leadership of the Democratic Party if Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not make Harman chair. Harman reportedly ended the conversation with AIPAC by saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Winograd joins Harman in calling once again for the release of transcripts of the wiretapped conversation. “Only with the release of these transcripts,” says Winograd, "can the residents of the 36th district know with certainty that their representative truly represents them and not a lobby group that advocates for a foreign government.”

[kpete]

12. Destruction of videotapes documented in CIA e-mail

Source: Washington Post

Destruction of videotapes documented in CIA e-mail

By MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, April 16, 2010; 6:43 AM

WASHINGTON -- Internal CIA e-mails show the former agency head, Porter Goss, agreed with a top aide's 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of the harsh interrogation of a terror suspect, a controversial action that remains the focus of an FBI investigation.

The documents show that, despite Goss' apparent agreement, CIA officials almost immediately began worrying they'd done something wrong. The e-mails also indicate that President George W. Bush's White House counsel, Harriet Miers, hadn't been informed of the tapes' destruction and was "livid" to find out later.

The videos showed CIA interrogators using waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique that's widely considered torture, on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah. The videos showed that interrogators did not follow the waterboarding procedures authorized by the Bush administration, the documents indicate.

...........

Jose Rodriguez, the agency's top clandestine officer, worried the 92 tapes would be "devastating" to the CIA if they ever surfaced, the documents show. He approved the destruction of the tapes.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/16/AR2010041600702.html

---

.....in 2005, Porter Goss, the former director of the CIA, blessed the decision, after the fact, by one of his top aides (Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.) to destroy dozens of the missing torture videotapes. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/... After Rodriguez offered to "take the heat" (apparently realizing that he'd screwed up), and Goss laughed and said that, actually, he (Goss) would have to take the heat. I guess I don't get the joke, or how this is in any way funny.

more:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/16/857842/-Porter-Goss-Blessed-Destruction-of-CIA-Videotapes-After-the-Fact

[rfranklin]

13. Will anybody, anywhere, go to jail for anything?

It is truly amazing how lawless this nation is.

[Soylent Brice]

14. no. they will not. n/t

[Soylent Brice]

15. blurp

[ensho]

16. Goss is a criminal punk

nt

[EFerrari]

21. From way back.

Operation 40 was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation in the early 1960s, which was active in the Caribbean (including Cuba), Central America, and Mexico. Created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1960 after the January 1959 Cuban Revolution and presided over by Vice-president Richard Nixon, it included people such as Frank Sturgis (who would later become one of the Watergate burglars), Felix Rodriguez (a CIA officer who later was involved in the capture and summary execution of Che Guevara), Luis Posada Carriles (now held in the US under illegal immigration charges, he is demanded by Venezuela for his key role in the execution of the 1976 Cubana Flight 455 bombing), Orlando Bosch (founder of the counterrevolutionary Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, CORU), which organized the 1976 murder of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier), Rafael 'Chi Chi' Quintero, Virgilio Paz Romero, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Bernard Barker, Porter Goss, and Barry Seal. Members took part in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion directed against the government of Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro.

Operation 40 had 86 employees in 1961, of which 37 were trained as case officers.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_40#Members

Simple torture must be a comedown when you've been a member of a death squad.

[Javaman]

17. so is the halfwit meirs pissed about the tapes being destroyed? or for being out of the loop?

sounds like she's piseed that she wasn't invited to the tape burning party.

[Drops_not_Dope]

18. kicking

and recommended.

[fascisthunter]

19. these are some sick people

not in shape to work on the tax payer's dime...

[Hubert Flottz]

20. They do as they please and they get away with it all.

The Outlaws have taken over the country.