Maybe the CIA is handing congress the Neo-Con butt for some ass-kicking. Agenda's can be funny things. Who says the spookmeister isn't one smart 4-Star? If they Neo-Cons get all bogged down then the flatten Iran block on Cheneys list might be just out of reach. Do you wonder? I do mean this came like a bolt from the blue.
About Face
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
SPONSORED BY
At some point between 2002 and 2005, one or more representatives of the IG's office travelled to the secret location overseas where the videotapes of the CIA's interrogations of Abu Zubaida and Abd al-Rahman al-Nashiri were stored and watched them, according to a former government official with direct knowledge of the matter. This source said that following the review, the IG's office issued a written "certification" that the tapes demonstrated that CIA officials had fully complied with post-9/11 Justice Department guidelines on the handling and questioning of high-level Al Qaeda detainees.
The CIA declined to confirm or comment on the existence of such a document. However, an intelligence official acknowledged that the Inspector General's office was aware of the tapes and did examine them. The official said that the IG's office was not party to the decision--made by Rodriguez--to destroy the tapes. By the same token, the official said, at the time the Clandestine Service decided to destroy the tapes, the IG's office did not regard them as relevant to any ongoing investigation that it was conducting. The IG's office also viewed the question of what to do with the tapes -- whether or not they could be destroyed -- as a matter for the agency's management, the official said. That view-that the tapes lacked relevance to inquiries under way at the time--was taken into consideration when Clandestine Service officials made their decision to destroy the tapes, the official said.
The tapes' destruction is now the focus of multiple investigations--including a joint probe by the CIA IG and the Justice Department into whether any laws, such as obstruction of justice statutes, were violated when the tapes were destroyed. Against that backdrop, Helgerson's office has taken measures to exclude from its current investigation any IG personnel, apart from Helgerson himself, who were involved in any earlier dealing with any issue related to the tapes, according to a government official familiar with the situation.
Terror Watch appears weekly on Newsweek.com
© 2007
Discuss