CIA Suffers 'Blowback' from Destroying Videotapes That Documented Torture

The CIA told a judge the tapes didn't exist, as he tried one of the suspects actually shown on the video.

(SALEM, Ore.) - It's a spooky world out there. That is confirmed once again by the CIA as they admitted this week to destroying videotapes of highly controversial interrogation techniques used against terrorism suspects.

The tapes are said to include waterboarding and other controversial and internationally condemned techniques used as early as 2002. One of the suspects who was shown being tortured was Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody.

Though they were requested by the defense, the recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the September 11 commission for that matter.

Both made formal requests to the CIA for transcripts and any other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners, agencies reported.

But the CIA's lawyers told federal prosecutors in 2003 and in 2005, that the CIA did not possess any videotapes of interrogations, even though they were sought by the judge in the case.

It all came to light when the CIA learned this week that the New York Times had the story and was going public with the information. The CIA had a sudden change of heart, admitting that the tapes were indeed destroyed.

CIA director Michael V. Hayden says the agency didn't want to compromise undercover agents' security, so the agency allowed the trial of a terror suspect to take place while denying that any tapes existed, when they would have corroborated the man's allegations against the U.S. government.

This is the same agency that Valerie Plame was associated with. Her secret identity as a government agent was outed by members of the Bush Administration over a political statement made by her husband against the war in Iraq. It seems our government has a vastly different regard for the agents captured on the videotapes that have been destroyed.

The revelation that the tapes were intentionally done away with raises many questions about whether the CIA specifically withheld information from Congress, the courts and the September 11 commission, over U.S. torture techniques that are and were employed.

Chalmers Johnson, a CIA operative from 1967 to 1973, says the term "Blowback" is what the CIA uses, "for the unintended consequences that are deliberately kept secret from the American public to keep the public from putting it in context."

Regarding its claim that the CIA destroyed the tapes to safeguard the identity of undercover employees, The Washington Post quoted CIA director Michael V. Hayden saying, "Beyond their lack of intelligence value – as the interrogation sessions had already been exhaustively detailed in written channels – and the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them, the tapes posed a security risk."

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

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, called the destruction of the tapes "another troubling aspect of the interrogation program" which has been under fire in recent months.

Hayden says leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees were told of the existence of the tapes and the CIA's intention to destroy them, The Seattle Times reported.

One is California Representative Jane Harman who was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee in 2003. That is when she and three other lawmakers who were told the tapes existed, and that the CIA planned to destroy them. She told reporters that she was against the idea of destroying the videotapes.

Another lawmaker, Representative Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, denied knowing about the tapes at all. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, claimed the panel didn't know of the tapes' destruction until an entire year had passed.

This revelation about the CIA lied to judges and the 911 Commission and destroyed videotaped evidence of torture techniques they denied using comes on an interesting day.

House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement on legislation today that forbids the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. Legislators say it is intended to bring United States intelligence agencies in line with rules followed by the U.S. military.

The battle for this measure isn't over; it still needs to be approved by the full House and Senate. But if it succeeds, these new laws will set a standard for legal interrogations that everyone involved in the U.S. government will have to follow. Specifically, the legislation will outlaw the use of simulated drowning, forced nudity, using hoods, military dogs and other harsh tactics against prisoners by any U.S. intelligence agency.

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Jefferson December 13, 2007 10:34 am (Pacific time)

Henry that was your typical gaseous response (lol) to some topic, what are you saying? Can you put it into a more meaningful format. I enjoy your syntax Henry, from a lyrical/melodic kind of way, but it's like: what are you saying?

Henry Ruark December 11, 2007 12:21 pm (Pacific time)

To all: Further re secret-agency tie, working contact via press assignment with several guarantees for me that anyone so-tied will never, ever, under any circumstance, use it for working ammo in such channel as this. One more unmissable tip-off for anything from nonentity nonsense file, no matter how

Jefferson December 12, 2007 1:33 pm (Pacific time)

Vic: Ron Paul? I have to admit there are certain aspects about him that I really like, though he does not have a chance. It's really too bad that many of these minor candidates do not have the bucks to get their message out there. Frankly, Duncan Hunter has some really good idea's also. Well time will tell Vic...

Vic December 12, 2007 8:35 am (Pacific time)

Sure waterboarding works...so does rape, genocide and burning people alive. Does that mean that we should adopt those acts and declare them "legal" ? Freud probably did build his conclusions largely on others observations, just as a musician who writes a song cannot help but draw on music they have heard before...be it consciously or unconsciously. No checkmate here...I am no fan of Clinton and think his betrayal of our country was and is very under-rated. I am no Democrat...actually registered as a Republican this year so I can vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Other than that, I think they are all the same...whatever party they claim to be. I also have to admit that while I heard in school about the Japanese waterboarding POWs (and getting hanged for war crimes as a result), I did not know until recently that we were doing it.

Jefferson December 11, 2007 2:25 pm (Pacific time)

Vic, waterboarding no doubt works. Do you think that is the reason that those on the far left never asked Clinton to stop it during his administration? Seriously Vic, why didn't Bubba and the democratic congress jump up and down and stop the highly democratic party staffed CIA to knock it off!? Checkmate! Freud, like Einstein, used other people's research and claimed it as theirs...

Henry Ruark December 11, 2007 9:38 am (Pacific time)

Nonentity now claiming Freud incompetent, while world proclaims him imcomparable, via continuing millions of books he wrote in full context of human usage. What publications can you claim, incompetent one fleeing sure retaliation if you expose too much of secret-agency past already at risk --your real reason for non-ID on 14th invitation for direct contact. So dig out old barracks bag and blow into that -may relieve non-credibility pains here somehow...and at least will save space, time and bored responses from those of us who do publish -and get paid for doing so, too !

Vic December 11, 2007 7:50 am (Pacific time)

Can we waterboard "Jefferson" again so he can show us that it is no big deal? Id pay good money for a front row seat....;)

Jefferson December 10, 2007 6:22 pm (Pacific time)

You know not of what you speak Henry. You were a peace time WWII fellow, right? So what in-depth experience did that provide? We could always discuss various theories of personality, but you seem to be stuck on that bazzar barker Freud and his incompetent daughter, which does fit your boilerplate (you are continuously emanating as a lower division operator), but that is essentially what your existence has been about: theory. I am a doer Henry, far removed from your observational level, but I certainly do enjoy your rhetoric, it's kinda like rubber-necking a car accident that provides welcome relief that I was not part of it...lol

Henry Ruark December 10, 2007 3:02 pm (Pacific time)

To all: Continued silly-sound with no offered proof, tied to terrible-seeming training, one more symptom of almost-certain psychosis gaining on host. ID, naturally, now matter of national security, with any clue forbidden by prior order and agreement. Happens I know the drill, so can call the turn: Next will be denial of any possible documentation by host "alrady at risk" from words-so-far. BS is allasame, no matter how far-repeated under continuing false pretenses. Without ID, that's all you get here from you-know-who.

Jefferson December 10, 2007 10:39 am (Pacific time)

Matt I am in all places at all times. If time allowed I would provide you some information on Jeffersonism, the secrets of the universe are available to certain people. But according to legend: I built the house I was born in. P.S. If you talk to older veterans who went through "survival traing" and advanced "E and E" you may just find out what type of various types of training procedures we went through and frankly, I believe most of those vets would tell you they would rather have had "panties" put over their heads than some of the other stuff we went through. Waterboarding is effective, whether it should be considered torture is at this time more of a poltical definition than a realistic one...I assure you the politicans say one thing in public, and the "informed ones" say something else in private. War is hell! Matt you and most of America live off the blood and sacrifice of others, instead of writing about things you know nothing of, go volunteer and help some disabled veterans, just do it! Hey, catchy slogan...

Janet December 9, 2007 8:20 pm (Pacific time)

I appreciate the national coverage on this story. Big things happening beyond our local community.

Matt Johnson December 9, 2007 6:34 pm (Pacific time)

Jefferson, why do I have trouble believing you went through "waterboard training"? That just sounds too convenient to take seriously. You advocate for exactly what this country does not stand for. This guy "Ken" and you need to be over in Iraq since you support it all so much. You are probably little more than the crooks discussed in this story if you believe half of the crap you belch out.

Jefferson December 9, 2007 6:08 pm (Pacific time)

Ken it's far more than a mental disorder, unfortunately.

Jefferson December 9, 2007 6:05 pm (Pacific time)

I went thru "waterboarding" training a long time ago, many of those in highly trained elite units did, no big deal. Possibly when the enemy we are fighting in the Mideast start to wear military uniforms and quit killing women and children I may just give a damn. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and make value judgements, but when the %$#@ hits the fan, you do what you have to do to survive and protect others. I personally get physically ill when I hear that POS Ted Kennedy speaking about torture, what do you think this POS may know about "water torture?" So Neal do you think that America should break off all relations with countries who engage in torture (maybe even apartheid types of behavior) ? You know cut off all aid, etc.? If you don't think we should cut them off, then why? Thanks Neal, I would really like to hear your view on that. Look at Saudia Arabia...

Neal Feldman December 9, 2007 12:52 pm (Pacific time)

Jefferson - you know what? Waterboarding is torture. I do not care if Pelosi saw it as such immediately or not. I do not care if you agree on the point or not. Just as you can rant all day long that 2 2=3 it does not make it so. And this country is supposed to be better than torture. I guess those like you just buy into the Shrub Administration BS that the end justifies any means, even if the means used destroy any value that the original end may once have had. Ah well...

Jefferson December 9, 2007 10:54 am (Pacific time)

The below may offer some more insight. It really is going to be pretty insignificant in the not too distant future...I still wonder why so much silence about Sandy Berger and his other anti-American associates who provided China with the tech that may in due time cause a tragedy far beyond what one could ever imagine. By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page A01 In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk. Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in an interview two months ago that he had informed congressional overseers of "all aspects of the detention and interrogation program." (By Charles Dharapak -- Associated press. Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup. Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge. With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Ken December 9, 2007 4:01 am (Pacific time)

Bla, bla, bla, they hate us so much that everybody wants to come here, legal or illegal. I don't see no reports about the crimes against humanity from the Islamic nutcases who want to kill us and take over this Country. You don't hear nothing about the ones who commit honor killings. And here everyone is just freeking out about the watergrap. Gee, it's the truth. Liberalism is a mental disorder.

Vic December 8, 2007 7:25 am (Pacific time)

So why isnt Hayden in prison? These Bazis need to be tortured and locked up for the rest of their pathetic lives. No wonder the rest of the world hates us and views us all with distrust and suspicion. Hang the war criminals now !

Neal Feldman December 8, 2007 4:38 am (Pacific time)

Every day another crack in the wall of secrecy surrounding the Shrub administration shows more lies, nire corruption, more criminal activity and more crimes against humanity as well as against the US Constitution that they swore an oath to support and defend, nor rape and shred. When will they finally impeach and remove these crooks? Ah well...

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