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Since I’ve been talking so much about Helgerson, and since we now have proof that Helgerson’s investigation was always central to discussions of the torture tape destruction, I would be remiss in ignoring this bit from the LAT (h/t Laura).
The CIA has completed a controversial in-house probe of its inspector general and plans to make a series of changes in the way the agency conducts internal investigations, according to U.S.
Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane have done good reporting on the terror tape story. But their latest installment reads like an attempt on the part of the CIA to get its story straight. While it appears to present a nice coherent narrative people with CIA officers acting rationally, it raises more questions than answers.
One thing it does appear to support, though, is that the tapes were destroyed, in addition to an effort to prevent the tapes from coming out as Congress was trying to outlaw torture, because they were trying to protect the European ally on whose soil the torture took place.
It appears the fluid and constantly evolving rationalization of the Bush Administration for their destruction of the torture tapes may be starting to congeal in an operative theory relying, at least in significant part, on a provision of the Federal Records Act allowing destruction of certain records located outside of the United States during wartime. Does it hold up?
I agree with Jeff. Given the news that the torture tapes never entered the US, given Porter Goss’ apparent command not to destroy the torture tapes “in Washington,” and given the terms of the Federal Records Act, I think the CIA and the Administration stretched logic with each and every request for the torture tapes so as to claim they never were required to hand over the tapes.
The LAT has a story suggesting Jose Rodriguez destroyed the torture tapes against Porter Goss’ wishes, and that Goss simply didn’t punish him for the act. But two details suggest an entirely different story: that Goss gave Rodriguez very clear instructions that the tapes should not be destroyed in the US, but should be destroyed in the country they were stored in.
I’m all in favor of holding the several people in the White House who intervened to destroy evidence responsible for their actions.
But as we begin to hear about Jose Rodriguez considering immunity it might be well to remember what I pointed out when Rodriguez was first floating the idea of immunity.
In the hands of a less than shrewd majority and a politically reliable minority leader, immunity can be counter-productive. In the case of Monica Goodling, the Dems basically gave Monica a get out of jail card for nothing in exchange. Until I see that Crazy Pete Hoekstra’s heart is in the right place on this issue (which would, frankly, astound me), then I’d suggest we want to be very careful before we give Rodriguez something for nothing.
Per Jeff’s suggestion, I took a closer look at Zelikow’s memo on how the CIA stiffed the 9/11 Commission on evidence relating to interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri. I’ll come back and comment on it in more detail–but I was struck by how closely the requests coincided with the beginnings of the Abu Ghraib scandal and Tenet’s resignation.