TIME: Enhanced interrogation approved by top attys/officials at WH, DOJ, including Rice, Ashcroft

[seafan]

CIA Tapes Furor: A Legacy of Mistrust

By MASSIMO CALABRESI
December 7, 2007

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Indeed, the man who ordered the tapes destroyed is certainly familiar with the case that agency employees view as one of the worst political betrayals of an operative. Jose Rodriguez headed the National Clandestine Service when he ordered the interrogation tapes destroyed. But during the 1980s and 1990s he was a case officer in Latin America and in the CIA headquarters office that oversees operations there. He served under Terry Ward, the onetime director of Latin American operations who was fired in 1995 by then-CIA director John Deutch. President Bill Clinton's foreign intelligence advisory board had found Ward "derelict" in his duties for failing to inform Congress of human rights violations by agents of the CIA in Guatemala, including complicity in the death of an American citizen.

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Now, Rodriguez's eagerness to protect his case officers has landed him, and others at the CIA, in serious trouble. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin called Friday for Attorney General Michael Mukasey to initiate an investigation into whether actions by Rodriguez or others criminally obstructed justice. Durbin argues, in his letter to Mukasey, that by refusing to turn the interrogation tapes over to the 9/11 Commission, CIA officials may have violated the law against criminal obstruction. Durbin has given Mukasey until Dec. 12 to respond.

The CIA, meanwhile, is scrambling to defend itself against the accusation of obstruction.

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The irony may be that Rodriguez could have made matters worse, rather than better, for the clandestine service by destroying the tapes. A former senior Administration official says that the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the case officers had been approved by top lawyers and officials at the Justice Department and the White House, including then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

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And here is Larry Johnson's take on this today:

Looks like the cat is out of the bag and the “new family jewels” were destroyed.

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During the Church Committee investigation of CIA misdeeds in 1975-76, “family jewels” was the euphemism for the list of unsavory secret activities–e.g., assassination, domestic spying, etc.–carried out by CIA officers that then CIA Director, William Colby, handed over to Congress. Those “jewels” tarnished the Agency’s reputation and its officers. Well, here we go again.

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The truth on this will come out assuming that the Democrats press the investigation. At initial glance the CIA is hiding behind the lamest of excuses:

General Hayden’s statement said that the tapes posed a “serious security risk” and that if they had become public they would have exposed C.I.A. officials “and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers.”

I do not dispute the possibility of retaliation by Al Qaeda against an undercover officer. In fact, it happened to Valerie Plame Wilson, but her identity was exposed by the Bush Administration. Then there is the question of tradecraft. Did the CIA officers participating in the interrogation/torture sessions allow themselves to be filmed so that they could be easily identified? I am skeptical. When the truth comes out I think we are likely to discover the people doing the questioning were contractors, not undercover Agency officers.

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Let’s be clear why these were destroyed–the chief of the Operations Division, Jose Rodriguez, understood that this was video evidence of torture. It was not the exposure of clandestine identities that had him fretting. It was the fear that CIA officers and contractors could be standing before a tribunal in the Hague trying to explain why the images of torture were not torture.

Then there is the potential embarrassment from showing that these extreme interrogation measures did not produce any intelligence of significance.

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Jose Rodriguez will not be the only one walking the public plank on this issue. In fact, he did not undertake this mission without the permission or direction from higher ups. And when you are the Deputy Director of Operations, there are not a lot of people above you. Prominent names include George Tenet, John McLaughlin, Porter Goss, and John Rizzo. Darrel Plant has an insightful piece giving some important background on Rizzo, the acting CIA General Counsel.

Other intelligence officers likely to be asked tough questions include Cofer Black (now a senior official with Blackwater) and Ambassador Henry “Hank” Crumpton, who was Cofer’s deputy and subsequently served as the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism at State Department.

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Interestingly, Porter Goss now has 'former intelligence officials' covering for him, claiming he didn't know about the destruction of the tapes, even though he was CIA Director at the time in 2005.

Don't think it'll wash, Mr. Goss.


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