The Man Who Ordered CIA's Tape Destruction

Jose Rodriguez Ordered Tapes Of Terror Interrogations Destroyed Without Telling CIA Director

(CBS)  He is the man who ordered the destruction of video tapes documenting the CIA’s interrogation of two high-level al Qaeda operatives.

The then-head of the clandestine service, Jose Rodriguez, ordered the tapes destroyed shortly after a Washington Post expose focused attention on the CIA’s secret prisons, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

“Well, I think there might have been concern that those tapes could have been called for by some outside body and the CIA would no longer maintain control over them,” said retired CIA officer John Brennan, who is now a CBS News consultant.

Brennan says Rodriguez was also worried the Justice Department was backing away from its earlier support of harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding.

“And that therefore agency officers who participated in those interrogation sessions may be subject to some type of prosecution,” Brennan said.

Rodriguiz ordered the tapes destroyed without telling then-CIA director Porter Goss and against the advice of the CIA’s own general counsel, the White House deputy counsel and the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

“I expressed concern about destroying any video tapes and said that would be a very ill-advised move by the agency,” Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said.

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou led the raid, which captured the al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, told CBS News he and at least one other CIA officer refused to use the harsh interrogation techniques.

That job, he said, was turned over to retired commandos under contract to the CIA.

[infidel_us]

Well Jose....good luck back in Mexico. I''m sure you''ll have no trouble finding suitable employment in either the food service or hospitality industries!

[mudrose-2009]

yahright2,

That''''s pretty f*cked up right there, dude.

Posted by rafterman1

I CONCUR. HELL IS DEFINITELY WARMING UP.

[realpatriot1]

If the CIA felt that what they were doing was in the best interests of Americans they should''ve retained the tapes. The fact that they felt compelled to cover up says all that needs to be about how morally correct they felt about what they were doing.

No one is crying any tears for the detainees who we know for a fact are Al Quaeda operatives.

What makes the overall policy so disgusting is that we''ve profiled people, grabbed them off the street, detained them for years with no attorney or trial or any evidence against them being provided to an independent judge. We don''t know if any of these people have been tortured or not. All we have to go on in that regard is the perverted way that prisoners
were treated in Iraq and that doesn''t instill confidence in the wisdom of our government.

[mudrose-2009]

If it takes some officer dumping water over a terrorist%u2019s face to stop 3,000 American Civilian Deaths%u2026%u2026.So be it.

Posted by pzabbie

Exactly. We shouldn''t pamper terrorists and poop on our troops.

[pzabbie]

O.K. Rafterman1,
You got me. I understand your point. And I respect John McCann. Torture is not a reliable source. If I were to endure enemy interrogation, I would tell them what they wanted to hear, try to drop a few clues to our people, and do what I needed to survive. But%u2026You still don%u2019t respond to my assertion that the Constution only applies to American Citizens??!!

[mudrose-2009]

Some people at the CIA may have feared its employees were liable to being judged by retroactive standards. That prospect is not an excuse for a cover-up of possible wrongdoing. The Justice Department is right to investigate how the tapes were destroyed and who made the decision.

But while it''s truth-telling time, let''s hear the members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, give a thorough timeline of what they knew about interrogations. Let''s hear what they allowed to take place. Let''s hear them explain why anti-terrorism efforts they thought were necessary in 2002 are unacceptable today.

All you SOBs do is sell this country out to the highest bidder.

[mudrose-2009]

The Washington Post reported Sunday that interrogation methods now widely reviled on Capitol Hill evoked very different reactions in September 2002, when the horror of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was fresh. Back then, four senior members of Congress -- including Nancy Pelosi, now speaker of the House -- got a thorough briefing on waterboarding and other techniques used to extract critical information from terror suspects.

Their response? No one objected, and "at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder," two U.S. officials told the Post.

The CIA held some 30 briefings in all for members of Congress who had oversight of national intelligence agencies. "Officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support," the Post reported.

Today, some leaders of Congress are expressing outrage at harsh interrogation techniques, and working on legislation specifically to ban waterboarding. Some members obviously find such tactics more dispensable now than they did five years ago.

[pzabbie]

==One of the founding fathers'''' principles was that the Constitution could be a blueprint of rules for all of mankind==

Rafterman1.
Again, I disagree. Ask any of the 9/11 relatives/ survivors if they don%u2019t feel threatened by %u201CAmerica will never be threatened by a bunch of guys living in caves and running around with AK47''''s%u201D. Mohammad Atta didn%u2019t live in a cave, and didn%u2019t carry an AK47. If it takes some officer dumping water over a terrorist%u2019s face to stop 3,000 American Civilian Deaths%u2026%u2026.So be it.

[mudrose-2009]

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi''s position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee''s top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA''s program because of strict rules of secrecy.

"When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy," she said. "I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything."

But you did know now didn''t you Pewlosi?

[mudrose-2009]

Part VII

I can''t describe that program to you," Hayden said. "But I would suggest to you that it would be wrong to assume that the program of the past is necessarily the program moving forward into the future."


Bush Derangement Syndrome. Boring!!!!!

[mudrose-2009]

Part VI

Information about the use of waterboarding nonetheless began to seep out after a furious internal debate among military lawyers and policymakers over its legality and morality. Once it became public, other members of Congress -- beyond the four that interacted regularly with the CIA on its most sensitive activities -- insisted on being briefed on it, and the circle of those in the know widened.

In September 2006, the CIA for the first time briefed all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, producing some heated exchanges with CIA officials, including Director Michael V. Hayden. The CIA director said during a television interview two months ago that he had informed congressional overseers of "all aspects of the detention and interrogation program." He said the "rich dialogue" with Congress led him to propose a new interrogation program that President Bush formally announced over the summer

[mudrose-2009]

Part V

U.S. law requires the CIA to inform Congress of covert activities and allows the briefings to be limited in certain highly sensitive cases to a "Gang of Eight," including the four top congressional leaders of both parties as well as the four senior intelligence committee members. In this case, most briefings about detainee programs were limited to the "Gang of Four," the top Republican and Democrat on the two committees. A few staff members were permitted to attend some of the briefings.

That decision reflected the White House''s decision that the "enhanced interrogation" program would be treated as one of the nation''s top secrets for fear of warning al-Qaeda members about what they might expect, said U.S. officials familiar with the decision. Critics have since said the administration''s motivation was at least partly to hide from view an embarrassing practice that the CIA considered vital but outsiders would almost certainly condemn as abhorrent.

[mudrose-2009]

Part IV

Only after information about the practice began to leak in news accounts in 2005 -- by which time the CIA had already abandoned waterboarding -- did doubts about its legality among individual lawmakers evolve into more widespread dissent. The opposition reached a boiling point this past October, when Democratic lawmakers condemned the practice during Michael B. Mukasey''s confirmation hearings for attorney general.

GOP lawmakers and Bush administration officials have previously said members of Congress were well informed and were supportive of the CIA''s use of harsh interrogation techniques. But the details of who in Congress knew what, and when, about waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning that is the most extreme and widely condemned interrogation technique -- have not previously been disclosed.

[mudrose-2009]

Part III

Congressional officials say the groups'' ability to challenge the practices was hampered by strict rules of secrecy that prohibited them from being able to take notes or consult legal experts or members of their own staffs. And while various officials have described the briefings as detailed and graphic, it is unclear precisely what members were told about waterboarding and how it is conducted. Several officials familiar with the briefings also recalled that the meetings were marked by an atmosphere of deep concern about the possibility of an imminent terrorist attack.

"In fairness, the environment was different then because we were closer to Sept. 11 and people were still in a panic," said one U.S. official present during the early briefings. "But there was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, ''We don''t care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.'' "

[mudrose-2009]

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Individual lawmakers'' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

[mudrose-2009]

Part II

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration''s counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

[mudrose-2009]

Part I

By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, 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.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

[mudrose-2009]

Again, nowhere in the Constitution does it ever imply there is any situation where "all bets are off". If we won''''t even follow our own rules of conduct, why should we expect others to do so as well? If we torture just because our enemies do, we don''''t deserve freedom.

Posted by rafterman1

Listen very carefully. Nancy Pelosi and most of the Congress all knew about waterboarding and we all for it. The Administration wanted to be sure everyone signed off on it. Just because they don''t want to own up to it doesn''t mean they didn''t know. See, all of this is terrific grandstanding and political theatre. If all they say was true, Bush would have been outta here a long time ago. They Dimnowits and George Soros play you nitwits like a fiddle.

[teeus]

Okay, Ill bite.

Whats "tritorous"?

[pzabbie]

Why don''t you people stay on topic????!!!!