What the CIA Had to Destroy By Nat Hentoff

[Demeter]

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0803,hentoff,78870,6.html



The many reasons this torture evidence was too hot to handle



So what was on those videotapes destroyed by the CIA? Let's put a face to it. Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and, after being shot in the groin while trying to escape, was sent to recover in a CIA secret prison. He would be the first of the CIA's many "ghost prisoners"—and also the first to test the value of what the president has often described as an "alternative set of procedures . . . that are safe and necessary."

As described by Ron Suskind in The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 , Zubaydah—held in an ice-cold cell—was denied medication for his wounds, threatened with death, prevented from sleeping, incessantly blasted with pounding rock music (by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among others), and, at last, waterboarded. After 30 seconds of feeling that he was on the verge of drowning, he was more than eager to answer any questions.

In a September 6, 2006, speech, George W. Bush triumphantly called Zubaydah "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States." After the application of those "alternative" interrogation procedures, which the president described as "designed to . . . comply with our laws, our Constitution, and our treaty obligations, the Department of Justice reviewed extensively and determined to be lawful," the detainee "disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks" and "also provided information that helped stop a terrorist attack being planned for inside the United States."

But, Suskind added, two weeks before Bush's words of praise for these "coercive" interrogations, Dan Coleman—the FBI's leading expert on Al Qaeda—asserted that Zubaydah was "insane, certifiable, split personality," and that he wasn't the top operative he was made out to be. The CIA was informed of Coleman's assessment, and it was, "of course, briefed to the President and Vice President." Undaunted, Bush made his congratulatory speech and then surreptitiously said to CIA director George Tenet: "I said he was important. You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?"

After his involuntary contribution to the advanced arts of interrogation, Zubaydah became a resident of our penal colony at Guantánamo Bay, which the president has made an entirely law-free zone, much like the CIA's secret prisons. But after two Supreme Court decisions contradicted the commander in chief in his assertion of unfettered war powers, the Bush administration reluctantly set up a transparently prosecutorial kangaroo court there.

[groovedaddy]

1. Destroying evidence, no less...n/t

[randymaine]

2. kick n/t