Lawmaker warned CIA not to destroy tapes

[sabra]

Source: MSNBC/AP

Calif. Democrat said in 2003 that such a move 'would reflect badly'

WASHINGTON - The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee warned in a 2003 letter that destroying videotapes of terrorist interrogations would put the CIA under a cloud of suspicion, according to a newly declassified copy of the letter.

"Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future," Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., wrote in a Feb. 10, 2003 letter to then-CIA general counsel Scott Muller. "The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the agency."

Harman's office released the declassified letter on Thursday, a day after the Justice Department announced it had opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes. The letter notes that a copy also went to then-CIA Director George Tenet.
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...

Harman was one of several officials who recommended against destroying the tapes. One official familiar with the investigation said Alberto Gonzales, who served as White House counsel and then attorney general, advised against destroying the videotapes. Another administration attorney, John Bellinger, then a lawyer at the National Security Council, has told colleagues that administration lawyers who discussed the matter in 2003 came to a consensus that the tapes should not be destroyed, said a senior official familiar with Bellinger's account of the 2003 White House discussion. "The recommendation in 2003 from the White House was that the tapes should not be destroyed," the official said.

President Bush has said his "first recollection" of being told about the tapes and their destruction was when Hayden briefed him about it last month.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22491589 /

[truthisfreedom]

1. Man, this "first recollection" business is going to be the first time bush changed his response

and had it handed to him on a platter.

[Rockerdem]

12. Slap forehead

I groaned when I read that she wrote that the "videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law..." That is a legal opinion that didn't have to be conceded. In fact, it might be flat-out wrong to characterize it that way. Bushco will use it as a crutch and talking point; say it was a matter of dispute.

Why do we constantly roll over for those b@stards?

[RuleOfNah]

2. Was anyone warned about viewing the tapes in 2003?

Would viewing torture tapes be a war crime? Would remaining silent about viewed torture tapes be a war crime? Would coercing others to ignore the issue of torture tapes be a war crime? When I consider the depth and breadth of the implicated I can only assume that international courts will also remain silent on the issue. Would that be a war crime too?

[Drum]

7. You raise excellent questions.

And that good string also seems to imply the collective responsibility (ultimately, in the general sense) of citizenry for the health of government. Of course, we were prevented from learning enough about the present debacle, and so it's truly owned by its concentric layers of architects and enablers. I wish I could find more faith in the prospects of the people's representatives and courts to bring them to account, but it we can't lose sight of the necessity for those measures, and the questions of right v. wrong that guide our collective decisions. Personally, when I think of the coercion and blackmail that keeps voices of conscience---the whistleblowers, the Deep Throats, the witnesses---silent, I get the saddest, and it makes me see the present regime as close to truly evil, as indicated by what they are willing to extinguish from our world.

I appreciate your post, RuleofNah, and those potent questions...I hope that we will hear more debate on those very things, in hearings/trials/columns to come.

[Old and In the Way]

3. So how many tapes were destroyed?

I assume that there have been lots of interrogations in Bush's GWOT. Was every tape destroyed? Strange way to run a GWOT. There could be many clues in these interrogations that might be needed for future reference/criminal prosecutions.

Unless, of course, these tapes documented that there were no secrets revealed. In which case, the whole GWOT might be simply a fraud perpetuated on the American people to cover their justification to invade and steal Iraq's oil.

[maddezmom]

4. glad we got to see it

and I'll bet *co isn't.

[gratuitous]

5. Nobody said "Hell, no!"

So it's easy to see how these tapes were destroyed. I mean, it's just a member of the House, the White House counsel who became the Attorney General, a lawyer at the NSC and the consensus of administration lawyers telling them not to. Well, it's just destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice.

[Imagevision]

6. Today; "Bush tells senior White House officials to stonewall the investigation, how does

this flake of a person get away with so much wrong doing, I don't get it? - is this all because of the
over-sight that Bush thumbs his nose at? - why have the Dem's allowed him to get away with so much.

[Drum]

9. I think they get away with it---

to such a staggering degree---is because they always bring up "precedent." Administrations of every stripe seem to get their hackles up on the poking-into-their-business. After all, even if it seems a small number of people comparatively, their defenses (no matter what the Party, or charges) see themselves as protecting a whole third of the trinity of American federal government, and all three jockey in their own ways and times for shoulder-to-shoulder stature...at least ideally.

The fuckin' awful thing about the Bushies is their exploitation of that defense, and their use of it as a shield for wrongdoing and shameful things---they take advantage of their positions and abuse their powers for the wrongest reasons. They capitalize on the fact there's a largely-numbed and -programmable electorate.

I hate the whole goddamned crew of 'em. This term of W & Co. has tested my faith in democracy and mankind more than anything in my 45 years. It's unbelievable to witness such regression from the species, and horrifying that it comes from my country.

[RuleOfNah]

11. Sources and methods.

When it comes to secrets even how the secrets are known or not known are considered secrets that are not to be publicly known or unknown.

That premise began devouring the foundations of Intelligence when the mathematics really kicked in. Torture slipped in as part of methods and W&Co extended the concept beyond boundaries of sanity. Given a real DoJ, if Addington would flip on Cheney and Rumsfeld we might get closer to the truth, and to justice.

[guruoo]

8. Are we sure they were really destroyed?

I mean, come on!

[mediaman007]

10. Someone has duplicates. They will show up...just not when they should.