Like Saddam, Junior Likes Torture Tapes

Did Bush Watch the Torture Tapes?
By Scott Horton

12/27/07 "Harpers" -- -- The Times (London)

Washington correspondent, Sarah Baxter, reporting with a summary of the developments in the case involving the CIA’s destruction of recordings of the treatment of Abu Zabaydah, points to the growing belief in Washington that President Bush viewed the torture tapes. Baxter reports:

It emerged yesterday that the CIA had misled members of the 9-11 Commission by not disclosing the existence of the tapes, in potential violation of the law. President George W Bush said last week he could not recall learning about the tapes before being briefed about them on December 6 by Michael Hayden, the CIA director. “It looks increasingly as though the decision was made by the White House,” said Johnson. He believes it is “highly likely” that Bush saw one of the videos, as he was interested in Zubaydah’s case and received frequent updates on his interrogation from George Tenet, the CIA director at the time.

It has emerged that the CIA did preserve two videotapes and an audiotape of detainee interrogations conducted by a foreign government, which may have been relevant to the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Al-Qaeda conspirator. The CIA told a federal judge in 2003 that no such recordings existed but has now retracted that testimony. One of the tapes could show the interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, a September 11 conspirator, who was allegedly handed to Jordan for questioning.

In this regards, the sequence of statements out of the White House is extremely revealing. It started with firm denials, then went silent and then pulled back rather sharply to a “President Bush has no present recollection of having seen the tapes.” This is a formulation frequently used to avoid perjury charges, a sort of way of saying “no” without really saying “no.” In between these statements, two more things unfolded that have a bearing on the question.

The New York Times squarely placed four White House lawyers in the middle of the decision about whether to destroy the tapes—Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, John Bellinger and Harriet Miers. It also reported that at least one of them was strongly advocating destruction. Suspicion immediately fell on the principle mover in support of torture, David Addington.

May they all rot in hell!

Second, John Kiriakou clarified his statements about the purpose for which the tapes were made. It was to brief higher ups about the process of the interrogation. Reports persist that one “higher-up” in particular had a special strong interest in knowing the details of the Abu Zubaydah case. His name is George W. Bush.

Mr. Frog Exploder, himself.

Are Bush’s denials that he has seen the torture tapes really credible? I don’t think so. And having seen them, the interest in their destruction would be equally fierce, which helps account for the involvement of the White House’s four most senior lawyers in the process. No doubt about it. The White House desperately wants to scapegoat some CIA people over this. (Laura Rozen’s article

“Operation Stop Talking” is the best treatment so far of this phenomenon, which finds its best current expression in the effort to “get” John Kiriakou). But the trail leads to the White House, and that is clearly where the decision was taken. It will be interesting to see the techniques used by the Justice Department to obscure all of this. At this point, no one who’s tracked Justice Department antics over the past six years is anticipating anything but a crude cover-up.

Torture Lawyer’s Appointment Blocked.

In 1946, the United States prosecuted two Justice Department lawyers for a peculiar crime. They had written memoranda which, in disregard of international law, facilitated the torture and abuse of prisoners. They were sentenced to ten years in prison, less time served. That was in the days when the Justice Department lived up to its name. The case is called United States v. Altstoetter. It would be a good case for Michael Mukasey to read; his underlings could benefit from a reading, too, since the time is approaching when it’s going to have some direct impact in their own lives.

In George Bush’s America, however, lawyers who specialize in making torture and abuse possible are promoted. Indeed, they become attorney general and get appointed to Court of Appeals judgeships. And one of the key figures in this disgraceful saga is Steven Bradbury, the “acting” head of the Office of Legal Counsel. Many senators demanded that Michael B. Mukasey withdraw his nomination to head the office after it was learned that he had issued memoranda enabling waterboarding and other torture practices. In fact, it was later learned that Bradbury was brought into the job in a rush when his predecessor, Daniel Levin, started exploring the need to impose limits on waterboarding. Levin was fired so that Bradbury could come in and confirm that under Bush torutre knows no limits.

However, Mukasey’s decision to wink at the process of torture and abuse is nowhere more evident than in his decision to proceed with the promotion of one of the prime torture lawyers, Bradbury. President Bush was prepared to use his recess appointment power to reward Bradbury with an order which would take away the word “acting” and make his position permanent—within the time limits of the recess appointment.
But the Senate figured this out, and by convening every day, it has blocked the appointment. As the Associated Press’s Laurie Kellman reports:

A nine-second session gaveled in and out by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., prevented Bush from appointing as an assistant attorney general a nominee roundly rejected by majority Democrats. Without the pro forma session, the Senate would be technically adjourned, allowing the president to install officials without Senate confirmation.

Bravo for the Senate.

Remembering those in Need On Christmas Day, the superscript in the New York Times read, just as it has read for a century: “It’s Christmas Day. Remember the Neediest!” And on St. Stephen’s Day, as Christmas continued, the editors of the Times did exactly that. They authored an editorial addressing the rotting cesspool of a Justice Department that the Bush Administration has created, and all the unfinished business which Congress must pick up in the coming year. And right at the top of the list was this:

There is evidence of impropriety in several recent prosecutions, including that of Don Siegelman, a former governor of Alabama who is serving a lengthy prison sentence. Mr. Mukasey needs to investigate Mr. Siegelman’s case and others that have been called into question to ensure that no one was wrongly put in jail by his department, and that anyone who acted improperly is held accountable.

The integrity of the Justice Department is precious. The fair application of the law is the cornerstone of American justice and American democracy. A halfway resolution of this scandal is not enough. It needs to be investigated vigorously and completely.

The fact is, since coming to office six weeks ago, Michael Mukasey has not lifted a finger to address the egregious abuses that led to the false charges brought against Governor Siegelman and the corrupt process by which he was convicted.

This continues to stain the Department of Justice. And, as we will soon be exploring in greater detail, the Justice Department continues to cover up, make apologies for the gross misconduct of those involved in the Siegelman case and to obstruct a proper investigation of prosecutorial misconduct by Congress. This scandal continues to fester, and the New Year must bring a renewed effort to secure justice and to punish those who perpetrated this abuse.

10 Myths About Iraq

American mainstream media coverage from Iraq remains pathetic. It’s heavily skewed by politics, which is to say, it doesn’t cover things in Iraq as they are. Rather it presents the vision of Iraq emanating from political leaders in the United States—from the White House and from Congress. In both cases, this vision reflects 90% political aspirations and interests and 10% reality. Shouldn’t the media be reporting on the facts on the ground rather than the politics in Washington?
Also those facts on the ground consist not just of the U.S. forces performing their mission, they include the complex political situation in the country as well. That’s the vastly more important story that regularly gets swept under the carpet because it’s “too complicated.” Complicated enough to warrant the expenditure of American lives and treasure, of course.
So what’s the remedy? I’d start with Juan Cole’s Informed Comment, still the indispensable supplement—and the best way to get a peek at the eyes and ears of the local and regional press, all within fifteen minutes. His posting yesterday is really superior—it’s Ten Myths About Iraq. And here’s a snippet:

Myth: The US public no longer sees Iraq as a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Fact: In a recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll, Iraq and the economy were virtually tied among voters nationally, with nearly a quarter of voters in each case saying it was their number one issue. The economy had become more important to them than in previous months (in November only 14% said it was their most pressing concern), but Iraq still rivals it as an issue!

Myth: There have been steps toward religious and political reconciliation in Iraq in 2007.

Fact: The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has for the moment lost the support of the Sunni Arabs in parliament. The Sunnis in his cabinet have resigned. Even some Shiite parties have abandoned the government. Sunni Arabs, who are aware that under his government Sunnis have largely been ethnically cleansed from Baghdad, see al-Maliki as a sectarian politician uninterested in the welfare of Sunnis.

Myth: The US troop surge stopped the civil war that had been raging between Sunni Arabs and Shiites in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Fact: The civil war in Baghdad escalated during the US troop escalation. Between January, 2007, and July, 2007, Baghdad went from 65% Shiite to 75% Shiite. UN polling among Iraqi refugees in Syria suggests that 78% are from Baghdad and that nearly a million refugees relocated to Syria from Iraq in 2007 alone. This data suggests that over 700,000 residents of Baghdad have fled this city of 6 million during the US ’surge,’ or more than 10 percent of the capital’s population. Among the primary effects of the ’surge’ has been to turn Baghdad into an overwhelmingly Shiite city and to displace hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the capital.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bush administration tells Judge Not To Invetigate Destroyed CIA Tapes

Judge urged not to ask about CIA tapes

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

The Bush administration told a federal judge it was not obligated to preserve videotapes of CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists and urged the court not to look into the tapes' destruction.

In court documents filed Friday night, government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about the tapes would interfere with current investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.

It was the first time the government had addressed the issue of the videotapes in court.

Kennedy ordered the administration in June 2005 to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Government lawyers told Kennedy the tapes were not covered by his court order because Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were not at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba. The men were being held overseas in a network of secret CIA prisons. By the time President Bush acknowledged the existence of those prisons and the prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, the tapes had been destroyed.

In court documents, acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey S. Bucholtz was concerned that Kennedy might order CIA officials to testify about the tapes. Bucholtz said that "could potentially complicate the ongoing efforts to arrive at a full factual understanding of the matter."

The administration has taken a similar strategy in its dealings with Congress on the issue. On Friday, the Justice Department urged Congress to hold off on questioning witnesses and demanding documents because that evidence is part of a joint CIA-Justice Department investigation.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey also refused to give Congress details of the government's investigation into the matter Friday, saying doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure.

Even if Kennedy accepts the argument that government did not violate his order, he still could demand a hearing. He could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Zubaydah was the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002. He told his interrogators about alleged Sept. 11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, and the two men's confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks.

Al-Nashiri is the alleged coordinator of the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 sailors. Like Zubaydah, he is now at Guantanamo.

David Remes, a lawyer who represents a Yemeni national and other detainees, has called for a court hearing. He says the government was obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


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BuCheney may Not Be Out of The Woods Yet?

The Investigations of the Destruction of CIA Torture Tapes

How An ACLU Lawsuit Might Force the Bush Administration To Reveal What Actually Happened

by John W. Dean

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.

There are three court orders that may have been violated, but one in particular strikes me as a very serious problem for the CIA. Accordingly, we may well be in the unique situation in which a pending civil lawsuit might flush out some answers, and the federal judiciary might thus embarrass the other branches into actually taking meaningful action. I say “might” because the Bush Administration thinks nothing of stiffing federal court judges who seek information, and they probably figure they can tap-dance for the federal judiciary - along with all the other inquiries — until they are out of Washington on January 20, 2009.

Nevertheless, the situation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests by the American Civil Liberties Union, could well force the Bush Administration’s hand. An order holding the CIA in contempt of court might get the Administration’s attention.

The ACLU’s Lawsuit, and the Order that the CIA Produce Documents

When word of mistreatment of detainees surfaced, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request targeting the CIA and others on October 7, 2003 and May 25, 2004, seeking records concerning the treatment of all detainees apprehended after September 11, 2001 and held in U.S. custody abroad. This, of course, would mean not only in Guantanamo but in the secret prisons in Eastern Europe operated by the CIA.

Not surprisingly, the government stiffed the request, so the ACLU filed a lawsuit in June 2004 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case ended up in the courtroom of Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein. On September 15, 2004, Judge Hellerstein ordered the CIA and other government departments to “produce or identify” all responsive documents by October 15, 2004.

The CIA claimed that some of the relevant documents were the subject of an inquiry by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General, so its attorneys requested a stay of the judge’s order and an extension of time to comply with the request for other documents. In February 2005, Judge Hellerstein denied the CIA’s request for a stay, but he did not enforce the stay immediately when the CIA moved for the judge to reconsider his ruling based on additional evidence from the CIA’s Director - as the CIA entered a full-court press to prevent the ACLU from getting anything.

This stalling action had been playing out, when news of the destruction of the tapes became public. Now, in the action before Judge Hellerstein, he ACLU has moved to hold the CIA in contempt of court, based on the Judge’s September 15, 2004 ruling. It is difficult to see why the CIA is, in fact, not in contempt, given the nature of the FOIA request and the judge’s order.

Motion to Hold the CIA In Contempt

On December 6, The New York Times reported that the CIA had destroyed two videotapes of CIA detainees who were being subjected to “aggressive interrogation techniques” - more commonly called torture. The Washington Post soon reported that the destruction of the tapes had occurred in November 2005. CIA Director Michael Hayden publicly acknowledged that destruction, and soon confirmed this statement under oath in testimony to the House and Senate, saying that the destruction had occurred before he became Director.

Passing over who did what and why to focus on the situation in Judge Hellerstein’s courtroom, on December 12, of this year the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt of court. The ACLU makes a powerful case that the CIA violated Judge Hellerstein’s order of September 15, 2005 - issued before the CIA’s apparent destruction of the tapes.

The Court’s Order required the CIA to “produce or identify all responsive documents.” Those not produced had to be identified. Classified documents were to be “identified in camera [that is, only to the court] on a log produced to the court.” Recall, too, that the FOIA request sought information on the handling of all but a few detainees, who were within the United States.

It is well- and long-established law that a court order of this nature requires that the party preserve all information possessed that is responsive to the request. Thus, the CIA was obligated to preserve the tapes even if they were hell-bent on fighting in court to deny them to the ACLU. And as this litigation proceeded, Judge Hellerstein’s later orders only served to reinforce that obligation, as a string of precedents makes clear.

What Is Next?

In addition to holding the CIA in contempt for destroying tapes that were subject to an FOIA request that surely reached these videos, the ACLU has also requested that the CIA provide some public disclosure of the facts surrounding the destruction of this material. In addition, the ACLU has requested permission to take depositions of those involved, under oath, and has requested that the court issue a further order barring the CIA from destroying, removing, or tampering with other records that are the subject of the ACLU’s FOIA request. Finally, the ACLU is seeking costs for its expenses and such other relief as the Court may deem appropriate.

How this is resolved depends on one factor: Judge Hellerstein. Doubtless, the CIA will respond with papers proclaiming its innocence, and no doubt denying that it was aware of the destruction. However, this is where the Judge himself - if he does not give the ACLU discovery powers - may demand that the CIA tell him what they have been up to, given his clear prior orders.

As I have written before, judges appointed by Republican presidents tend to throw cases that might embarrass Republican presidents out of their court, as quickly as they can figure out how to do so. Federal judges appointed by Democratic presidents, fortunately, do not tend to cower when either Republican or Democratic presidents are involved. A judge ends up with a case like this through a random selection procedure; in this case, the CIA happened to draw a Judge it cannot intimidate, which makes it interesting.

More on Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, Who Issued the Videotapes Order

Judge Hellerstein was appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1998. An editor of the Columbia Law Review during his law school years, he started his legal career in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps of the Army in 1959-1960. An experienced litigator with a prestigious New York City law firm, he is a highly-respected judge. He works hard, is fair, and is savvy.

He is also a nightmare for the CIA in a case like this, because on June 3, 2005 he ordered the release of four videos from Abu Ghraib, along with dozens of photographs - not withstanding an effort of the government to suppress this material from ever becoming public.

Judge Hellerstein appears to have no tolerance for torture. Unlike his former colleague and now-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who still is not clear that waterboarding is torture, one does not have the sense that Judge Hellerstein suffers from such confusion. While Judge Hellerstein is going to appropriately protect the sources and methods of the CIA, if any judge is going to get to the bottom of this destruction of these records quickly, this is the judge.

John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president.

© 2007 FindLaw.com

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Tapes Destroyed In Violation of Court Order

CIA destroyed tapes despite court orders

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

The Bush administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest interrogation tactics.

Normally, that would force the government to defend itself against obstruction allegations. But the CIA may have an out: its clandestine network of overseas prisons.

While judges focused on the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and tried to guarantee that any evidence of detainee abuse would be preserved, the CIA was performing its toughest questioning half a world away. And by the time President Bush publicly acknowledged the secret prison system, interrogation videotapes of two terrorism suspects had been destroyed.

The CIA destroyed the tapes in November 2005. That June, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. had ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued a nearly identical order that July.

At the time, that seemed to cover all detainees in U.S. custody. But Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the terrorism suspects whose interrogations were videotaped and then destroyed, weren't at Guantanamo Bay. They were prisoners that existed off the books — and apparently beyond the scope of the court's order.

Attorneys say that might not matter. David H. Remes, a lawyer for Yemeni citizen Mahmoad Abdah and others, asked Kennedy this week to schedule a hearing on the issue.

Though Remes acknowledged the tapes might not be covered by Kennedy's order, he said, "It is still unlawful for the government to destroy evidence, and it had every reason to believe that these interrogation records would be relevant to pending litigation concerning our client."

In legal documents filed in January 2005, Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler assured Kennedy that government officials were "well aware of their obligation not to destroy evidence that may be relevant in pending litigation."

For just that reason, officials inside and outside of the CIA advised against destroying the interrogation tapes, according to a former senior intelligence official involved in the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation.

Exactly who signed off on the decision is unclear, but CIA director Michael Hayden told the agency in an e-mail this week that internal reviewers found the tapes were not relevant to any court case.

Remes said that decision raises questions about whether other evidence was destroyed. Abu Zubaydah's interrogation helped lead investigators to alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Remes said Abu Zubaydah may also have been questioned about other detainees. Such evidence might have been relevant in their court cases.

"It's logical to infer that the documents were destroyed in order to obstruct any inquiry into the means by which statements were obtained," Remes said.

He stopped short, however, of accusing the government of obstruction. That's just one of the legal issues that could come up in court. A judge could also raise questions about contempt of court or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Kennedy has not scheduled a hearing on the matter and the government has not filed a response to Remes' request.

___

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this report.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Waterboard The Whole Mess Of Them!

December 11, 2007

C.I.A. Chief Says Others Decided Fate of Video

By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 — Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, distanced himself today from the decision to record and subsequently destroy hundreds of hours of video footage taken during the interrogations of senior Al Qaeda captives.

Speaking in public after delivering classified testimony before a Senate committee, General Hayden said that the decision to record the interrogations in 2002 was made under George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and that the destruction of those tapes in 2005 came under the watch of Porter J. Goss, who succeeded Mr. Tenet.

“There are other people at the agency who know about this far better than I,” General Hayden said after he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. General Hayden became C.I.A. director in May 2006, six months after intelligence officials have said the tapes were destroyed.

Congressional officials said today that they would likely call both Mr. Goss and Mr. Tenet before the committee as part of its investigation into the destruction of the video footage.

In a statement to C.I.A. employees last Thursday, General Hayden indicated that he supported the decision to destroy the interrogation footage. He did not reiterate that support in his public comments today, although he did not say the decision was wrong.

Congressional officials said General Hayden attempted during the session to provide a timeline of events surrounding the destruction of the tapes that he has constructed from agency records.

Emerging from the meeting, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the committee, called the hearing “useful,” but he said he still had questions about who authorized the destruction of the tapes in 2005 and why Congress was not informed at the time.

General Hayden, in his message last Thursday, said the C.I.A. had informed leaders in Congress about the destruction of the footage, which documented the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. But both Republicans and Democrats have said that they can find no record of any formal notification from the agency, and that the C.I.A. cannot point to one.

“Trouble arises, as we see with the C.I.A. tape case, when intelligence leaders refuse to comply with their constitutional duty to keep Congress ‘fully and currently’ informed,” said Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, in a statement today.

One Democratic aide said that the Senate Intelligence Committee plans also to meet with John L. Helgerson, the C.I.A.’s inspector general, to learn about a joint, preliminary investigation of the tapes’ destruction that Mr. Helgerson is conducting with the Justice Department.

The aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because firm decisions about future witnesses had not been made, said that committee members did not want to get in the way of what could become a criminal investigation.

“We have to be very careful not to interfere with their ability to bring those charges,” he said.

In an interview with ABC News today, President Bush said “it will be interesting to know what the true facts are” after the inquiry by Justice Department and C.I.A inspector general is complete.

This president would find a turtle race "interesting." I wish I had a nickel for everything he finds "interesting." Hells Bells, he already knows all about the tapes and their destruction. He and Cheney probably have their own set. He and/or Cheney probably OKed it or ordered it. Who does he think he's fooling.

But lawmakers from both houses showed far less patience. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada delivered a blistering indictment of the Central Intelligence Agency’s decision to destroy video footage, saying the action had damaged America’s “moral authority,” and questioning whether there was a broader cover-up behind the C.I.A’s decision.

One Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, said the Justice Department inquiry was not sufficient, and asked that Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appoint an independent counsel in the matter.

Mr. Mukasey indicated today that he would likely turn down such calls, saying that the Justice Department “is capable of doing whatever it needs to do.”

Like covering up the cover-up, for example?

During his first news conference as attorney general, Mr. Mukasey said that Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein, who is leading the investigation, will “go wherever the facts lead him.” Much of the news conference was dominated by questions about Mr. Mukasey’s views on the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding, in which a subject is made to believe he is being drowned. The issue nearly cost Mr. Mukasey his Senate confirmation after he refused to say if he considered the technique to be torture.

From now on, anyone who says that waterboarding isn't torture or that they don't know whether or not it is, should be waterboarded on the National Mall. Then, maybe they can speak with some authority on the matter, since it seems that only the actual experience of being waterboarded will be of any educational value to them.

He said today that he still had not decided if waterboarding was torture, and that he was continuing to review classified legal opinions from within the Justice Department about interrogation methods.

Legal opinions? OMG! What about just plain old common sense and one's own sense of behaving humanely toward one's fellow human beings, no matter what they have done?

Government officials have said that during Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation sessions, his C.I.A. questioners used tactics including noise, stress positions, isolation and waterboarding.

The Justice Department’s own role in the videotape episode was questioned today by the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who in a letter to Mr. Mukasey asked for a “complete account of the Justice Department’s own knowledge and involvement in these matters.”

The letter was signed by Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the panel, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s senior Republican. It asked for answers to several specific questions that have so far gone unanswered by Justice Department officials about whether officials had viewed the tapes or whether they were ever aware of plans to destroy them and when they were first told the tapes had been destroyed.

Elsewhere in Washington, a three-judge panel of United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a interim order today directing the government not to destroy any evidence of torture that lawyers for a Guantánamo detainee say they believe exists.

The order came after lawyers for the detainee, Majid Khan, filed a request asserting that he had been tortured while held in secret C.I.A. prisons for more than three years before he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, last year.

J. Wells Dixon, one of Mr. Khan’s lawyers, said today that he believed the judges would not have issued the order “if they did not think there was any risk” that the government might destroy evidence of torture.

Government lawyers have not yet responded to the assertions.

David Johnston and Philip Shenon contributed reporting from Washington, and William Glaberson from New York.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.