http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06…..index.html

The whole first part of the press conf is about all the classified info reviewed by DOJ prior to the presser, then it goes into a string of recitations about Zubaydah that had to have made Coleman choke a little.

In any event, before Clement gave his speech on torture, you had Arar filing a torture victims act claim against the AG of the United States and his DAG for their roles in torture. You supposedly also had DOJ in the midst of an “unprecedented” review of classified info very specifically including the Zubaydah handling, all of which gve rise to Comey’s presser in June.

This all just doesn’t shape up very pretty for the CIA (or anyone else in the Administration involved in this process regarding the tapes). As they currently have their bogus defense postured, the second prong doesn’t pass the smell test because they specifically say that the only reason they didn’t destroy the tapes earlier is that they knew the tapes were germane and might be requested. Prong number one is out because of the “other information” portion of the request I noted above. It seems that most people have looked at this behavior as a crime. There are two distinct classes of crimes here: the first being the failure to disclose; the second being the destruction. Both appear to be pretty clear cut; of course, that has never stopped this greasy crew from slipping out of culpability before.

Chapters 5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al Qaeda members. A number of these “detainees” have firsthand knowledge of the 9/11 plot.

Assessing the truth of statements by these witnesses–sworn enemies of the United States–is challenging. Our access to them has been limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations where the actual interrogations take place. We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting. We were told that our requests might disrupt the sensitive interrogation process.

We have nonetheless decided to include information from captured 9/11 conspirators and al Qaeda members in our report. We have evaluated their statements carefully and have attempted to corroborate them with documents and statements of others. In this report, we indicate where such statements provide the foundation for our narrative. We have been authorized to identify by name only ten detainees whose custody has been confirmed officially by the U.S. government.

Of course both Abu Zubhaydah and al Nashiri are among those ten identified in the attached footnote.

Very damning.

It looks to me like the CIA’s legal defense is going to pivot around two claims (at least): first, the 9/11 Commission never specifically and explicitly asked for video recordings of interrogations; and second, anyway the recordings are not germane to the narrow inquiry into 9/11 (as distinct from the pursuit of forward-looking intelligence or whatever).

http://www.thenation.com/blogs…..pid=262693

“Because it was thought the commission could ask about the tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active,” Mr. Mansfield said.

John McLaughlin clearly sees the danger in that position for Team Tenet, very much including himself, so he has to push back against it, as he did yesterday in that CNN appearance:

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, what I would tell you at the time is, you know, the implication, again, in the “New York Times” story is that we had somehow decided not to destroy them because we thought they might ask for them. This is just flat wrong. We had decided not to destroy them, period, and they were just — they were there. That’s all there was to it.

Now, that’s not the implication of the NYT story, it’s the explicit, stated position of the CIA itself! What’s up with that?

It is worth noting that McLaughlin’s position is strengthened by the fact that the CIA apparently did not destroy the tapes until November 2005. If the CIA were just waiting until the 9/11 Commission finished its work, it would have destroyed them in 2004. It may be that there was at that point something else that kept them from doing so – whether it was the advice of the White House, some other pending investigation or whatever – or it could even be that some tapes were destroyed in 2004, for all we know. But there must be more to the story than that the CIA waited until the 9/11 Commission was done to destroy the tapes – 16 months later!

“These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee.

If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done the [sic]*FBI* interrogators. The FBI will left [sic] holding the bag before the public.” [my bold]

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Do you think the writer of this email was using the old definition of “torture”? (/snark)