In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: Hayden, the tapes and potential pardons
Background: Congressional knowledge of the tapes and the Mukasey confirmation
Reactions: Congress investigates; Hayden distances himself
Historical Context: The history of waterboarding
Opinion & Analysis: The videotape controversy
Related Topics: Former CIA interrogator speaks out
Reference Material: Waterboarding described
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CIA and Lawmakers Face Questions about Interrogation Tapes
by
findingDulcinea Staff
CIA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden admits that his agency failed to inform Congress about the destruction of tapes showing the waterboarding of two al-Qaida suspects; also a related revelation puts congressional leaders from both parties under scrutiny.
30-Second Summary
On Dec. 12, in a closed-door hearing with members of the House Intelligence Committee Hayden admitted that his agency had failed to fully inform Congress about the interrogation tapes’ existence and eventual destruction.
This testimony comes one day after his classified briefing with the Senate Intelligence Committee, and his subsequent efforts to publicly distance himself from the controversy. Speaking to the press, Hayden emphasized that the decision to videotape the interrogations was made in 2002, under then CIA Director George Tenet, and the tapes’ destruction occurred in late 2005 under Tenet’s successor Porter Goss.
Hayden’s admission follows The Washington Post’s report that four key members of Congress knew about the tapes, and the use of waterboarding they reveal, as early as September 2002.
In fact, the Post reports that this “Gang of Four”—which included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—were privy to about 30 such private briefings “long before ‘waterboarding’ entered the public discourse.”
But why would the CIA want to disclose such sensitive information about their interrogation tactics? The Wall Street Journal surmises that it is “in part because senior officials at the CIA, not to mention the interrogators themselves, assuredly did not want to begin any such policy absent closing the political and legal loop on it."
In fact, Newsweek cites an unnamed intelligence officer as saying that the reason CIA officials decided to tape the interrogations in the first place was to protect the interrogators by “demonstrating that everything … complied with guidelines set down by the White House and Justice Department.”
Although the legality of waterboarding remains unclear, legal culpability is very much an issue in regard to the destruction of the interrogation videos. So much so that The New York Sun expects CIA officials involved to seek a pardon from President Bush. “There’s a very real possibility one of President Bush’s last acts very well might be granting immunity to certain CIA employees,” military personnel defense attorney Frank Spinner told the Sun.
This testimony comes one day after his classified briefing with the Senate Intelligence Committee, and his subsequent efforts to publicly distance himself from the controversy. Speaking to the press, Hayden emphasized that the decision to videotape the interrogations was made in 2002, under then CIA Director George Tenet, and the tapes’ destruction occurred in late 2005 under Tenet’s successor Porter Goss.
Hayden’s admission follows The Washington Post’s report that four key members of Congress knew about the tapes, and the use of waterboarding they reveal, as early as September 2002.
In fact, the Post reports that this “Gang of Four”—which included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—were privy to about 30 such private briefings “long before ‘waterboarding’ entered the public discourse.”
But why would the CIA want to disclose such sensitive information about their interrogation tactics? The Wall Street Journal surmises that it is “in part because senior officials at the CIA, not to mention the interrogators themselves, assuredly did not want to begin any such policy absent closing the political and legal loop on it."
In fact, Newsweek cites an unnamed intelligence officer as saying that the reason CIA officials decided to tape the interrogations in the first place was to protect the interrogators by “demonstrating that everything … complied with guidelines set down by the White House and Justice Department.”
Although the legality of waterboarding remains unclear, legal culpability is very much an issue in regard to the destruction of the interrogation videos. So much so that The New York Sun expects CIA officials involved to seek a pardon from President Bush. “There’s a very real possibility one of President Bush’s last acts very well might be granting immunity to certain CIA employees,” military personnel defense attorney Frank Spinner told the Sun.
Headline Links: Hayden, the tapes and potential pardons
‘CIA Chief Cites Agency Lapse in Tapes’
Government officials told The New York Times that during the Dec. 12 closed-door hearing, the House Intelligence Committee grilled General Hayden about his earlier claims that committee leaders had been notified of the agency’s intention to dispose of the tapes. The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed in November 2005. Reportedly, they documented the interrogations of suspected al-Qaida operatives Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees are now expected to turn their focus to other CIA officials such as Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who is believed to have authorized the destruction of the tapes.
Source: The New York Times
NPR legal affairs writer Eric Weiner provides a short primer addressing the more pressing questions surrounding the interrogation videotapes: “Was it illegal to destroy the videotapes? That’s not yet clear … Those who ordered the tapes destroyed could, in theory, be prosecuted on charges of obstruction of justice, though legal experts say it would be a difficult case to prove.”
Source: NPR
‘Bush May Pardon America’s Spies’
According to The New York Sun, CIA officials involved in interrogations and the destruction of the agency videotapes may seek assurance against criminal prosecution through a presidential pardon. “I think there's a real possibility one of President Bush's last acts very well might be granting immunity to certain CIA employees," defense attorney Frank Spinner said. “I think it depends in part on the election.”
Source: The New York Sun
Background: Congressional knowledge of the tapes and the Mukasey confirmation
‘Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002’
The CIA is legally obligated to inform Congress of covert activities. However, in highly sensitive cases the attendees of these briefings can be limited to the “Gang of Eight,” which includes the top four congressional leaders of each political party and four senior intelligence committee members. In the case of the detainee interrogation briefings, access was limited to the top Republican and Democrat on each of the two intelligence committees. The Washington Post notes that although the Gang of Four knew about the use of waterboarding as early as 2002, “only after information about the practice began to leak in news accounts in 2005—by which time the CIA had already abandoned waterboarding––did doubts about its legality … evolve into more widespread dissent.”
Source: The Washington Post
Slate provides a timeline of the legal and legislative events that may have led to the CIA’s destruction of the videotapes.
Source: Slate
‘Torture Issue Puts Mukasey’s Future in Question’
In November 2007 the opposition to Michael Mukasey’s nomination as attorney general led his supporters to accuse Democrats of the self-interested politicizing of the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding.
Source: findingDulcinea
Reactions: Congress investigates; Hayden distances himself
Congressional Quarterly reports that Hayden’s testimony is likely to persuade the House of Representatives to pass the conference report for the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization (HR 2082—H Rept 110-478). The bill contains a provision that would ban harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, a provision that has drawn a veto threat from the president. The legislation also demands that the White House turn over documents relating to interrogation and detention policies. The Senate has not announced when it will take up the conference report.
Source: Congressional Quarterly
On Dec. 10, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.) and the Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced that the committee would be launching an investigation into the destruction of the tapes. The press release reads, “Our investigation will be complete, thorough and bipartisan … We will use every tool at our disposal to conduct a fair and complete review on behalf of the House of Representatives and the American people.”
Source: The U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
‘Hayden Distances Himself from Destruction of CIA Videos’
In public statements following his classified testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Hayden attempted to distance himself from the interrogation tapes controversy. Hayden pointed out that the decision to record the interrogations in 2002 was made while George Tenet was acting CIA director, and that the tapes’ destruction took place in 2005 under Porter Goss. “There are other people at the agency who know about this far better than I,” Hayden told reporters.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Historical Context: The history of waterboarding
The use of waterboarding was first documented in the 14th century, and was then known variously as “water torture,” the “water cure” or tormenta de toca—a phrase referring to the thin piece of cloth placed over the victim’s mouth. During the Enlightenment, in the 1800s, many European countries banned the practice. However, it gained new prominence in the 20th century, being used by Japanese troops in World War II, U.S. troops in the Philippines and the French in Algeria. The Khmer Rouge waterboarded its own people in Cambodia, the British used it against Arabs and Jews in occupied Palestine in the 1930s, and during the 1970s it was used by the military dictatorships of Chile and Argentina.
Source: NPR
Opinion & Analysis: The videotape controversy
The Wall Street Journal lambastes the congressional leaders who have known about the use of waterboarding since 2002, writing that “one certainly may hold as abhorrent the idea of aggressively interrogating any terrorists ever, either for fear of what they might do to our people, as John McCain does, or because one thinks this violates our values. What one may not do—at least not if one wants the system to function—is assent to such a policy in 2002 and then, when the policy is made public, put up the pretense that one is ‘shocked’ and appalled to learn of it. This is bad faith.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Slate speculates on how the national debate over detainees and torture would have changed if the CIA’s tapes had been made public in 2002: “It's worth asking how the Moussaoui trial, the Jose Padilla trial, and the cases of those detained at Guantanamo Bay would have gone differently if the evidence had been produced in the interim instead of destroyed. Then there's the thinking of the 9/11 Commission. And of Congress, which passed legislation about torture and interrogation in December 2005, without the benefit of tapes that would have illustrated what the lawmakers had just allowed. It's hardly a stretch to say that if these torture tapes had made it to YouTube, Michael Mukasey wouldn't have been parsing and mincing about waterboarding this fall.”
Source: Slate
In an analysis piece citing unnamed intelligence and government officials, Newsweek posits that the CIA frequently asked White House lawyer Harriet Miers for guidance in dealing with the tapes: “An extensive paper—or e-mail—trail exists documenting the contacts between Clandestine Service officials and top agency managers and between the CIA and the White House regarding what to do about the tapes, according to two former intelligence officials … The reason CIA officials involved the White House and Justice Department in discussions about the disposition of the tapes was that CIA officials viewed the CIA's terrorist interrogation and detention program—including the use of ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques—as having been imposed on the agency by the White House.”
Source: Newsweek
Related Topics: Former CIA interrogator speaks out
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, former CIA interrogator John Kiriakou said that the use of waterboarding on al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubayda was necessary at the time. Kiriakou said that the defiant Zubayda broke down only 35 seconds after interrogators began subjecting him to the tactic, and that the resultant information—which led to the arrest of Jose Padilla—“probably saved lives.” However, Kiriakou now considers waterboarding to be torture, and “Americans are better than that.” ABC News has the full video of the interview.
Source: ABC News
Reference Material: Waterboarding described
Waterboarding is an interrogation technique in which “the prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.” ABC News provides a description of the technique and relates how CIA officers have used it to interrogate al-Qaida suspects.
Source: ABC News
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