UK military may have used banned interrogation tactics in Iraq: rights panel
Mike Rosen-Molina July 28, 2008 at 10:31 AM ET

[JURIST] The armed forces of the United Kingdom may have used officially-banned tactics to interrogate detainees in Iraq, according to a report [text] released Sunday by Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights [official website]. In previous testimony before the committee, top defense officials had denied the use of "wall standing, hooding, subjection to noise, sleep deprivation and deprivation of food and drink," all of which were prohibited by the UK government in 1972, but recent evidence discovered during an investigation of the Baha Mousa [BBC report; JURIST news archive] case indicated that those techniques may still be in use. The committee called for an investigation into allegations that former Minister of State for the Armed Forces Adam Ingram and Lt. Gen. Robin Brims [profiles] may have lied to the committee:

What a crock of shite! This whole bunch of torture-mongering bastages belong in jail awaiting trial for Capital Crimes...

Justice Advised CIA in '02 About Legal Waterboarding
By Joby Warrick Friday, July 25, 2008; Page A08

Lawyers for the Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its officers could legally use waterboarding and other harsh measures while interrogating al-Qaeda suspects, as long as they acted "in good faith" and did not deliberately seek to inflict severe pain, according to a Justice Department memo made public yesterday.

The memo, apparently intended to assuage CIA concerns that its officers could someday face torture charges, said interrogators needed only to possess an "honest belief" that their actions did not cause severe suffering. And the honest belief did not have to be based on reality.

"Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it," stated the Aug. 1, 2002, memo signed by Jay S. Bybee, then an assistant attorney general with the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo was one of three released by the Justice Department under a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The heavily redacted memos offer insight into the administration's legal maneuvering as it sought to justify the CIA's program of aggressively interrogating high-level al-Qaeda operatives held in secret prisons overseas. The program included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, as well as sleep deprivation and other measures intended to weaken resistance and coerce confessions...

All I can say is - IMPEACH, INDICT, IMPRISON!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4635175&page=1
Bush Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks
President Says He Knew His Senior Advisers Discussed Tough Interrogation Methods
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE April 11, 2008

pResident Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

Bush Lawyers Discussed Fate of C.I.A.Tapes
Thu, 2007-12-20 By Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, New York Times

WASHINGTON - At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.1219 01

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel.

Congress Challenges Bush Over CIA Tapes
Dec 19, 4:21 PM (ET) By PAMELA HESS and LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a direct challenge to President Bush, a House panel said Wednesday it has prepared subpoenas to force CIA officials to testify about the agency's secret destruction of interrogation videotapes.

The Justice Department had blocked the officials from appearing at a closed hearing before the panel this week, citing the department's ongoing investigation into the destruction of videotapes of the harsh interrogation of two al-Qaida suspects in 2002. The CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005.

The House Intelligence Committee's threat marked the second challenge to a White House attempt to shut down independent investigations into the matter, and escalates a fight over which branch of government properly has jurisdiction. On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected an administration effort to keep the courts out of the investigation, and summoned Justice Department lawyers to court on Friday to discuss whether destroying the tapes violated a court order to preserve evidence about detainees...

House Judiciary witness: Destroyed CIA tapes are 'ultimate cover-up'
David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Thursday December 20, 2007

DOJ representative is no-show at hearing

The CIA's official explanation for destroying at least two videotapes depicting severe interrogation techniques "fails the straight-face test," an expert witness told the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

In a hearing focused on the Justice Department's role in the tapes' destruction and the legality of torture tactics, George Washington University Law School professor Stephen Saltzburg heavily rebuked CIA reasoning that the decision was made in part to protect the identify of interrogators.

"The rationale for destroying the tapes to protect the identity of the interrogators is almost as embarrassing as the destruction itself," said Saltzburg, who is also general counsel for the National Institute of Military Justice. He said that the tapes could easily have been modified to obscure the faces of those involved, and that regardless, the CIA keeps a written record of which officers interrogated detainees.

"And so the explanation for destruction fails the straight-face test," he said. "The only plausible explanation, I believe, is that the CIA wanted to assure that those tapes would never be seen by any judicial tribunal -- not even a military commission -- and they would never be seen by a committee of Congress."..

Bush May Be Forced to Explain Destroyed CIA Torture Tapes
By John Dean, FindLaw.com Posted on December 18, 2007

By my count, there appear to be no less than ten preliminary investigations underway, following the revelation that the CIA destroyed at least two sets of videotapes (containing hundreds of hours of footage) of "advanced interrogation" techniques being employed in terrorism investigations. In fact, every branch of government is now involved.

Within the Executive Branch, according to news reports, the CIA's General Counsel and Inspector General are investigating. The Department of Justice is investigating. On Capitol Hill, both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are investigating. In addition, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is inquiring as to whether the Federal Records Act has been violated. And Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, has made preliminary inquiries as well.

The Bush Administration has shown that it is not very good at investigating itself, so no one should hold their breath for the outcome of either the CIA or Justice Department investigation. And Attorney General Mukasey has dismissed an independent special counsel inquiry as very premature. The Democratic-controlled Congress could get to the bottom of all this, but one should bear in mind that our elected representatives have yet to get to the bottom of the political firing of U.S. Attorneys (although, to be fair, they did get former Attorney General Gonzales to resign). Today, Congress suffers from a degenerative spinal malady, and while they can bark, they appear unable to bite...

Disentangling Torture TapeGate
By Larry Johnson on December 10, 2007 at 10:16 PM in Current Affairs

After querying former intelligence officers and reviewing the letter from the U.S. Attorney’s in Richmond, Virginia, I can clarify some issues surrounding what’s what with respect to the question of the “destruction” of interrogation tapes and speculate on others.

The bottom line is: Jose Rodriguez, the recently retired Deputy Director of Operations, has been fingered as acting unilaterally, but that is not true. He did check with both the IG and the DO’s assigned Assistant General Counsel before destroying the DO’s copies of the tapes. Although Jose is a lawyer, he made the mistake of trusting fellow lawyers, and now is likely to get chopped up in the political meat grinder while trying to clear his name and reputation. (UPDATE: See today’s NY Times piece by Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti confirming Jose got a legal opinion before destroying the tapes.)

Why destroy the tapes? It appears that the June 2005 decision of the Italian judge to issue arrest warrants for C.I.A. officers and contractors involved in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in 2003 may have been the precipitating incident convincing Jose Rodriguez that Agency must destroy video tapes of terrorist interrogations. That operation was conducted with the full knowledge and approval of the Italians. If the Italians could flip on us that meant anyone could.

Let’s follow the timeline:...

Another Bush torture victim speaks out...

Man Held by C.I.A. Says He Was Tortured
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: December 9, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — The first of the so-called high-value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to “state-sanctioned torture” while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment.

The request, in a filing by his lawyers, was made on Nov. 29, before officials from the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda that current and former officials said included the use of harsh techniques.

Lawyers for the detainee, Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident, released documents in his case on Friday. They claim he “was subjected to an aggressive C.I.A. detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture” to numerous detainees...

Here's comes the hit on the designated fall-guy - former CIA Director of Operations Jose A. Rodriguez Jr, now in business with the brother of Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence....

C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes
December 8, 2007 By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The chief of the agency’s clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.

The disclosures provide new details about what Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said was a decision “made within C.I.A. itself” to destroy the videotapes. In interviews, members of Congress and former intelligence officials also questioned some aspects of the account General Hayden provided Thursday about when Congress was notified that the tapes had been destroyed.

Curious timing on the release of this info, not really "new" news but timely nonetheless... the Gang of Four was really a Gang of Six as it turns out. What about the other four in the Gang of Eight that weren't included? And Granny Nancy knew about torture all these years?

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002 - In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen December 9, 2007; 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...

I don't think the Dems are going to trust the "Loyal Bushies" to investigate themselves, this time.... now all we need are open, public hearings with subpeoned witnesses testifying under oath!

CIA, Justice Review Tapes' Destruction - CIA, Justice Department Open Investigation Into Videotape Destruction
By PAMELA HESS Dec 8, 2007

The Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog announced Saturday a joint inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists as the latest scandal to rock U.S. intelligence gathered steam.

The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted.

"I welcome this inquiry and the CIA will cooperate fully," CIA Director Mike Hayden said in a statement. "I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes."

The House Intelligence Committee is launching its own inquiry next week. It will investigate not only why the tapes were destroyed and Congress was not notified, but also the interrogation methods that "if released, had the potential to do such grave damage to the United States of America," said Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, on Saturday.

"This administration cannot be trusted to police itself," Reyes said.

But will Congress actually do its job, that is the question. Clearly the DoJ and CIA can't be trusted to once again investigate crimes of the Bush Junta...

Congress Looks Into Obstruction as Calls for Justice Inquiry Rise
By ERIC LICHTBLAU December 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — The Central Intelligence Agency faced the threat of obstruction-of-justice investigations on Friday from both the Justice Department and Congressional committees over the destruction of videotapes of interrogations of Qaeda operatives.

The Justice Department said it would review calls for a formal inquiry into the destruction of the tapes, while the House and Senate intelligence committees said they were opening investigations of their own into the episode, which Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, chairman of the Senate panel, called "extremely disturbing"... (See Rockefeller contradicts himself)

Why, indeed?...

Why Did The CIA Destroy Detainee Tapes?
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2007(CBS/AP) A well informed source tells CBS News the videotapes of U.S. interrogations of two high level al Qaeda operatives were destroyed to protect CIA officers from criminal prosecution, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

A day after CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told agency employees the tapes were destroyed in 2005, members of Congress, human rights groups and lawyers for accused terrorists said the tapes may have been key evidence that the U.S. government had illegally authorized torture.