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Rizzo’s Brief with Nancy Pelosi: Bush Didn’t Include Torture in the Finding Authorizing Torture

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I’m going to deal with John Rizzo’s purported “mea culpa” in three posts, one each for each of his regrets.

Rizzo’s first regret is that the CIA did not push the White House to allow it to brief the entire intelligence committees so they could, as Rizzo said, “allow the committees—compel them, really—to take a stand on the merits to either endorse the program or stop it in its tracks.”

It’s an argument I totally agree with. But to make his argument, Rizzo mobilizes some of the same lies about the CIA’s briefing of the torture program, notably about Nancy Pelosi. He does so, however, with a really spooky move.

Shortly thereafter, almost seven years after CIA first informed her about its employment of waterboarding and the other EITs, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, stood before the cameras and claimed that all CIA ever told her was that waterboarding was being “considered” as an interrogation tactic, not that it would be ever employed. Confronted with evidence to the contrary, the Speaker subsequently conceded that she had been informed about EITs from the outset but insisted she was always opposed to them but powerless to do anything to stop them. None of which was true, but in hindsight the Speaker’s moonwalk was hardly unforeseeable.

It’s the same old story turning the question of whether Pelosi was briefed prospectively or historically into a claim that “she had been informed about EITs from the outset” without mentioning that even Porter Goss’ version of the briefing is consistent with Pelosi’s claim that CIA didn’t tell them in September 2002 that they had already started using torture. Rizzo’s use of this tired tactic is all the worse considering that 1) it appears that he was not at the briefing in question, and 2) the CIA changed its record of the briefing after the fact.

In other words, Rizzo’s attack on Pelosi is total bullshit. Furthermore, the attack falsely suggests that CIA briefed Congress before torture started.

But his use of Pelosi to make this point is rather intriguing. Rizzo makes no mention of Bob Graham’s attempt to exercise oversight over the torture program, which was discouraged by the CIA and thwarted by Pat Roberts.

More significantly, Rizzo makes no mention of Jane Harman, who did object to the program but proved unable to “stop it in its tracks.”

Rizzo’s silence about CIA’s briefing to Harman–and her objection to the torture program–is more significant given something else he asserts in this piece.

A few days after the attacks, President Bush signed a top-secret directive to CIA authorizing an unprecedented array of covert actions against Al Qaeda and its leadership. Like almost every such authorization issued by presidents over the previous quarter-century, this one was provided to the intelligence committees of the House and Senate as well as the defense subcommittees of the House and Senate appropriations committees. However, the White House directed that details about the most ambitious, sensitive and potentially explosive new program authorized by the President—the capture, incommunicado detention and aggressive interrogation of senior Al Qaeda operatives—could only be shared with the leaders of the House and Senate, plus the chair and ranking member of the two intelligence committees.

Rizzo starts by invoking the September 17, 2001 Presidential Finding that authorized the CIA to capture and detain al Qaeda members. He tells us–this may be news, actually–that that Finding was briefed to the entire intelligence committees and to appropriations committees. But then he says that the torture part of that program “could only be shared” with the Gang of Eight.

The detail is interesting, by itself, for the way it contradicts Rizzo’s later (false) claim that “every other member of Congress” “would be kept in the dark” about the torture program. After all, the Leaders are also members of Congress, but if the CIA’s own error-ridden briefing list is to be believed, the only Leader who ever got briefed in that role was Bill Frist (while Appropriations Subcommittee Republicans Duncan Hunter, Ted Stevens, and Thad Cochran also got briefings, as well as John McCain).

The comment is more interesting for what it says about the Finding itself. The CIA has long suggested (and reporting has repeated) that that Finding authorized the torture program. But Rizzo is making it clear here that that Finding did not include authorization for the torture program. The oral briefings the Gang of Four got were the only way the way the President informed Congress about the torture program.

While it’s significant that Rizzo is here admitting that fact, we already knew it. We knew it because Jane Harman twice asked about a Finding on torture, once implicitly in 2003 when she asked “Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President?” and once in the briefing CIA gave her on July 13, 2004, when she,”noted that the [redacted–almost certainly the Finding] did not specify interrogations and only authorized capture and detention.”

In other words, Rizzo basically admits that the point Jane Harman appears to have made repeatedly was correct: the torture program had not been formally included in a Finding briefed to Congress.

Rizzo’s lies about briefing Congress don’t appear to be the issue here. Rather, the problem is that the Administration did not issue the legally required Finding to Congress.

Congress to DOD: You Must Start Briefing Us on (Some) Cyberwar Now

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Robert Chesney notes that the HASC Mark on the Defense Authorization bill includes a section on cyberwar. Here’s the entire section:

This section would affirm that the Secretary of Defense has the authority to conduct military activities in cyberspace. The committee recognizes that because of the evolving nature of cyber warfare, there is a lack of historical precedent for what constitutes traditional military activities in cyberspace.

In particular, this section would clarify that the Secretary of Defense has the authority to conduct clandestine cyberspace activities in support of military operations pursuant to the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) outside of the United States or to defend against a cyber attack on an asset of the Department of Defense.

The committee notes that al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces are increasingly using the internet to exercise command and control as well as to spread technical information enabling attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in areas of ongoing hostilities.

While these terrorist actions often lead to increased danger for U.S. and coalition forces in areas of ongoing hostilities, terrorists often rely on the global reach of the internet to communicate and plan from distributed sanctuaries throughout the world. As a result, military activities may not be confined to a physical battlefield, and the use of military cyber activities has become a critical part of the effort to protect U.S. and coalition forces and combat terrorism globally.

In certain instances, the most effective way to neutralize threats and protect U.S. and coalition forces is to undertake military cyber activities in a clandestine manner. While this section is not meant to identify all or in any way limit other possible military activities in cyberspace, the Secretary of Defense’s authority includes the authority to conduct clandestine military activities in cyberspace in support of military operations pursuant to an armed conflict for which Congress has authorized the use of all necessary and appropriate force or to defend against a cyber attack on a Department of Defense asset.

Because of the sensitivities associated with such military activities and the need for more rigorous oversight, this section would require quarterly briefings to the congressional defense committees on covered military activities in cyberspace.

While Chesney focuses on the use of “clandestine” in this passage (which I’ll return to), I think one of the key phrases is simply the requirement that DOD brief the Armed Services Committees quarterly on what it’s doing in cyberspace. As the AP reported in January, the SASC complained during the confirmation hearings of Michael Vickers that they weren’t getting briefed on clandestine cyberwar activities. Vickers claimed in response that the law only required that DOD brief Congress on human clandestine activities.

The Senate Armed Services Committee voiced concerns that cyber activities were not included in the quarterly report on clandestine activities. But Vickers, in his answer, suggested that such emerging high-tech operations are not specifically listed in the law — a further indication that cyber oversight is still a murky work in progress for the Obama administration.

Vickers told the committee that the requirement specifically calls for clandestine human intelligence activity. But if confirmed, he said, he would review the reporting requirements and support expanding the information included in the report.

So this section appears to close Vickers’ loophole, now requiring that DOD brief Congress on its activities in its quarterly clandestine activities reports.

In addition to legally demanding briefings, the section appears to affirmatively approve–as clandestine activities–cyberattacks against an AUMF-authorized target (so, al Qaeda and people like Anwar al-Awlaki we claim to be included in AUMF), and cyberdefense against an attack on an asset of DOD.

By the way, anyone want to speculate whether a Specialist allegedly downloading several databases onto a Lady Gaga CD constitutes a cyberattack on a DOD asset? Because if this permission includes WikiLeaks, then this section might be retroactively authorize attacks–say, DNS attacks on US-based servers–on WikiLeaks (note that DOD can attack outside the US, but such geographical limits are not placed on defensive actions).

In any case, as Chesney emphasizes, this section specifically authorizes attacks on AUMF-authorized targets and defense against attacks on DOD targets. Chesney notes that by calling these activities “clandestine,” it makes them a Traditional Military Activity.

That is to say, the language in § 962 refers to DOD authority to engage in cyber operations which are mean to go undiscovered but not meant to be denied.  That alone would presumably keep them from being categorized as a “covert action” subject to presidential finding and SSCI/HPSCI notification requirements.  Yet one can imagine that this does not quite suffice to solve the boundary dispute, insofar as it might not be clear on the front end that one would be willing to acknowledge sponsorship of an operation publicly if it becomes known…and indeed it might well be that the activity is very much meant to be both concealed and denied, making it hard at first blush to show that the activity is not a Title 50 covert action after all.  But in at least some instances there is a separate reason it should not be deemed a covert action: i.e., when the action is best understood as a high-tech equivalent to a traditional military activity (the “TMA” category being an explicit exception to the T50 covert action definition).  And that appears to be the case with the two categories explicitly described above, or at least arguably so.

The explanatory statement accompanying § 962 supports this reading.  It opens by stating that

[t]he committee recognizes that because of the evolving nature of cyber warfare, there is a lack of historical precedent for what constitutes traditional military activities in cyberspace.

So, to summarize, this section appears to affirmatively authorize two types of activities, defining them as clandestine operations, and mandating that Congress get quarterly briefings on them.

But note this clause: “this section is not meant to identify all or in any way limit other possible military activities in cyberspace.”

So, it appears, there may be these two types of explicitly authorized clandestine operations, and then the stuff John Rizzo warned about.

I did want to mention–cause I find this interesting–cyberwarfare, on the issue of cyberwarfare. Again, increasing discussion there clearly is an active arena, will continue to be active. For us lawyers, certainly for the lawyers in the intelligence community, I’ve always found fascinating and personally I think it’s a key to understanding many of the legal and political complexities of so-called cyberlaw and cyberwarfare is the division between Title 10, Title 10 operations and Title 50 operations. Title 10 operations of course being undertaken by the Pentagon pursuant to its war-making authority, Title 50 operations being covert action operations conducted by CIA.

Why is that important and fascinating? Because, as many of you know being practitioners, how these cyber-operations are described will dictate how they are reviewed and approved in the executive branch, and how they will be reported to Congress, and how Congress will oversee these activities. When I say, “these activities,” I’m talking about offensive operations–computer network attacks.

This issue, this discussion, has been going on inside the executive branch for many years, actually. I mean I remember serious discussions during the Clinton Administration. So, again, this is not a post-9/11 phenomenon. Now, I’m speaking her from a CIA perspective, but I’ve always been envious of my colleagues at the Department of Defense because under the rubrik of Title 10, this rubrik of “preparing the battlefield.” They have always been able to operate with a–to my mind [?] a much greater degree of discretion and autonomy than we lawyers at CIA have been, have had to operate under, because of the various restrictions and requirements of Title 50 operations. Covert actions require Presidential Findings, fairly explicit reports to the Intelligence Oversight Committees. We have a very, our Intelligence Committees are … rigorous, rigorous and thorough in their review. I’ve never gotten the impression that the Pentagon, the military, DOD is subject to the same degree of scrutiny for their information warfare operations as CIA. I’m actually very envious of the flexibility they’ve had, but it’s critical–I mean I guess I could say interesting but critical how–I mean if there were operations that CIA was doing, they would be called covert actions, there’s no getting around that. To the extent I’ve ever understood what DOD does in this arena, they certainly sound like covert actions to me but given that I’ve had more than my hands full over the years trying to keep track of what CIA’s doing at any given time, I’ve never ventured deeply into that area. But I think it’s fascinating. [my emphasis]

Now, maybe this section just politely puts the kibosh on all of this Title 50 masquerading as Title 10 stuff, stuff done under the auspices of DOD to avoid the oversight requirements that Title 10 intelligence operations would require. Maybe this section limits DOD’s activities to its two authorized clandestine activities.

But I doubt it. With the language about not limiting DOD to these two functions, you can pretty much assume there’s some Special Access Programs (like the kind the Air Force refuses to talk to Congress about) not safe to be mentioned in public documents like laws.

Look on the bright side, though: Congress is at least requiring that DOD brief Congress on some of the secret stuff they’re doing in cyberspace.

Update: Specialist corrected per Ralph.

Obama Pretends the Bob Woodward Law Doesn’t Exist

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Yesterday, Michael Whitney pointed out how irresponsible it was for the ultimate commander of all the people who will decide Bradley Manning’s innocence or guilt to state publicly, before his trial, that “he broke the law.” But there was something else wrong with it. As transcribed by the UK Friends of Bradley Manning, Obama said,

OBAMA: So people can have philosophical views [about Bradley Manning] but I can’t conduct diplomacy on an open source [basis]… That’s not how the world works.

And if you’re in the military… And I have to abide by certain rules of classified information. If I were to release material I weren’t allowed to, I’d be breaking the law.

We’re a nation of laws! We don’t let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He broke the law.

[Q: Didn’t he release evidence of war crimes?]

OBAMA: What he did was he dumped…

[Q: Isn’t that just the same thing as what Daniel Ellsberg did?]

OBAMA: No it wasn’t the same thing. Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way. [my emphasis]

But of course, Presidents (and some Vice Presidents) actually don’t have to “abide by certain rules of classified information.” As explained by John Rizzo in the context of the Obama Administration’s leaks to Bob Woodward, they can and do insta-declassify stuff for their own political purposes all the time. They can do it to make the President look important; they can do it to lie us into an illegal war; they can do it to ruin the career of someone who might expose the earlier lies. (Steven Aftergood and Eugene Fidell explain the legal reason this is true for the Politico.)

The way secrecy in this country works is insidious not just because the government prevents citizens from learning the things we as citizens need to know to exercise democracy, but also because the President and other classification authorities can wield secrecy as an instrument of power, choosing to release information they otherwise claim is top secret when it serves their political purpose. As I pointed out last year, this power even extends to information about whether or not the President has approved assassinating an American citizen.

Less than a month ago, the Obama Administration told a judge they didn’t have to–couldn’t–tell a judge their basis for killing a US citizen. Instead, they invoked state secrets, claiming (among other things) they couldn’t even confirm or deny whether they had targeted Anwar al-Awlaki for assassination.

Yet this came after one after another Obama Administration official leaked the news that al-Awlaki had been targeted, and after they had obliquely confirmed that he was. The Administration can leak news of this targeting all it wants, apparently, but when a US citizen attempts to get protection under the law, then it becomes a state secret.

There’s a lot of other reasons why this President’s claim that “we are a nation of laws!” is utterly laughable, from his Administration’s refusal to prosecute torture or bank fraud to its efforts to prevent former officials from doing time for breaking the law.

We are not, anymore, a nation of laws. The Constitutional Professor President has institutionalized the efforts W and Cheney made to make sure that remains true.

But one of the ways our lawlessness most disproportionately works against the citizens of this country is the government’s abuse of secrecy.

Rule of Law Has Broken Down for Secrets, Just Like Everything Else

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Michael Isikoff takes a story Jack Goldsmith already treated and raises the logical conclusions. As I noted, Jack Goldsmith asked John Rizzo why it was that Woodward could publish the proceedings of a briefing from which even top Obama officials–like John Podesta–were excluded. Rizzo responded,

Simple. When a President himself is a key source and directs or at least signals to his Administration to cooperate with the author, that for all intents and purposes means the book becomes one big authorized disclosure. That’s what Obama did for Woodward, and that’s what Bush did for Woodward in his three books during that Administration, which also were packed with hitherto sensitive information. That’s what is remarkable and unique about Woodward’s standing.

Isikoff notes the same passage Goldsmith did and asks,

How can they credibly prosecute mid-level bureaucrats and junior military officers for leaking classified information to the press when so many high-level officials have dished far more sensitive secrets to Woodward?

He focuses closely on the case of Stephen Jin-Wood Kim whom the Obama Administration is prosecuting for leaking info on North Korea to Fox’s James Rosen.

Kim was indicted in August on charges he leaked classified information about North Korea’s nuclear intentions to James Rosen, a correspondent for FOX News.

Abbe Lowell, who got a couple of AIPAC officials cleared after threatening to show how they had only passed on information that people like Condi had already leaked to the press, is the lawyer asking this question.

Aside from the undercurrent, which seems to be asking why John Bolton’s buddies can’t politically leak information like Bolton used to when he was at State (and, implicitly, why AIPAC can’t leak information the President’s aides can), Isikoff is right.

But he misses the even bigger double standard (and of course doesn’t mention Dick Cheney’s orders to Scooter Libby to leak Valerie Plame’s identity to one of the designated reporters for these leaks, Judy Miller, which seems to be a notable example of this intentional leaking).

Less than a month ago, the Obama Administration told a judge they didn’t have to–couldn’t–tell a judge their basis for killing a US citizen. Instead, they invoked state secrets, claiming (among other things) they couldn’t even confirm or deny whether they had targeted Anwar al-Awlaki for assassination.

Yet this came after one after another Obama Administration official leaked the news that al-Awlaki had been targeted, and after they had obliquely confirmed that he was. The Administration can leak news of this targeting all it wants, apparently, but when a US citizen attempts to get protection under the law, then it becomes a state secret.

Now, Isikoff quotes some White House official denying that this kind of double standard exists.

Asked for comment, a White House official told NBC News: “The president is upset about the leak of any sensitive information to any pubic sources, and that includes sensitive information in the Woodward book. In fact, you’ll note that he explicitly refused to address classified matters with Mr. Woodward, even though he was asked about them.”

‘Unclassified gossip’

The official also disputed that the disclosures in the Woodward book might complicate the administration’s anti-leak crackdown. “Leaks are leaks and leaks of classified national security information are crimes. They are not less criminal because there are also leaks to Bob Woodward,” though the official contended that much of the “sensational” disclosures in Woodward’s book were “unclassified gossip about staff differences.”

As for claims of a double standard: the official stated: “There is no double standard. The administration opposes all leaks of classified information.” The official further said President Obama “certainly did not authorize” his aides to share share classified information with Woodward.

But (as Isikoff notes) DOJ is not investigating any of the intentional leaks in Woodward’s books, just as the Obama Administration went to some lengths to protect the Cheney and Bush transcripts that make it clear that they were ordering classified leaks for political gain.

You see, in addition to reserving the decision for itself of who gets prosecuted or not for fraud on courts and torture, the Administration is also arbitrarily choosing who gets prosecuted for leaks.

Woodward’s Secrets

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Jeebus: Goldsmith may be getting a hang of this blogging thing, but I’m not: John Rizzo, not John Brennan. So the stuff I originally said about Brennan doesn’t make any sense.

I may not always agree with Jack Goldsmith, but he’s getting a hang of this blogging thing. Today, he posts the answer John Brennan gave him to the question of how Bob Woodward got very specific details of a meeting that a number of Obama’s top advisors had to leave because they didn’t have the appropriate clearance.

The first Chapter of Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars describes Barack Obama’s first post-election intelligence briefing from Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, on November 6, 2008.  The chapter shows McConnell, at the direction of President Bush, excluding many Obama aides (including Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta and former Deputy National Security Advisor James Steinberg) from the briefing.  Because the briefing contained highly classified information about “sources and methods,” McConnell explained, only those “designated to take a top national security cabinet post” could attend.   Woodward then recounts this highly classified intelligence briefing in great detail, including several highly classified CIA and NSA programs, and their code names.

After reading this chapter, I wondered how a meeting involving classified information so sensitive that a close Obama aide and former top national security official could not attend could the following year be recounted in such loving detail in the first chapter of a best-selling book.  Woodward clearly got his information from participants in the meeting or their close aides.  Was it right for these people to speak to Woodward about these matters?  Was it legal?  I sent these questions to John Rizzo, the just-retired thirty-four year veteran CIA lawyer who has seen his share of leaked classified information over the years.

John responded:

Simple.  When a President himself is a key source and directs or at least signals to his Administration to cooperate with the author, that for all intents and purposes means the book becomes one big authorized disclosure. That’s what Obama did for Woodward, and that’s what Bush did for Woodward in his three books during that Administration, which also were packed with hitherto sensitive information.  That’s what is remarkable and unique about Woodward’s standing.

Now, Goldsmith appears offended that Obama and Bush would treat classified information so lightly.

Me, I’m more interested in what this says about Woodward’s (and, while we’re talking about it, Judy Miller’s) position in the information management function.

John Brennan–a guy who oversaw targeting for Cheney’s illegal wiretap program and therefore presumably had the highest clearance in two Administrations–lackadaisically says that if the President wants something leaked, it becomes legal to leak it.

In Judy Miller’s case, we saw how this selective leaking ensured the Administration could declassify its politicized case for war, while ensuring those who disputed the case were kept silent under threat of prosecution.

Woodward is even more interesting. Woodward knew to ask certain pointed questions of Richard Armitage–the same questions, as it turns out, that Bob Novak asked to elicit information about Valerie Plame’s purported role in Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger. But according to John Brennan, at least, even if Richard Armitage leaked Plame’s role intentionally, it would not be illegal. And remember, too, that on July 8 or 9 (this is reflected in notes introduced at trial; you’ll have to take my word for it though, because I don’t have my records with me), the VP’s office did give Woodward detailed information about the Iraq NIE. In other words, we know Woodward was a part of the OVP’s strategy for rebutting Joe Wilson in what was effectively a political hit.

More generally, though, consider what this suggests about the excuse that Cheney was prepared to use for having ordered the leak of Plame’s identity. John Brennan, at least, argues that if the President “signals to his Administration” that he wants certain information out there, it’s legal to leak it. I don’t necessarily buy that, mind you.

But it suggests one of Obama’s key advisors buys off on the idea that it’s cool for the President to selectively declassify information (you know, like leaks to the press about targeting Anwar al-Awlaki, even if you later invoke state secrets about it) for political gain.

The Timing of the Ramzi bin al-Shibh Tapes

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I wanted to point out two details of timing on the Ramzi bin al-Shibh tapes:

  • The tapes were made after CIA started getting worried about making interrogation tapes
  • The tapes were disclosed after the CIA started trying to figure out what happened to the Abu Zubaydah tapes

The tapes were made after CIA already started getting worried about making interrogation tapes

The AP says the tapes were made while al-Shibh was in Morocco for the first time–sometime between September 17, 2002 and March 7, 2003.

When FBI agents finally had a chance to interview Binalshibh, they found him lethargic but physically unharmed. He projected an attitude suggesting he was unconcerned he had been caught.

Before the FBI made any real headway, the CIA flew Binalshibh on Sept. 17, 2002, to Morocco on a Gulfstream jet, according to flight records and interviews.

Current and former officials said this was the period when Binalshibh was taped. His revelations remain classified but the recordings, the officials said, made no mention of the 9/11 plot. It’s unclear who made the tapes or how they got to the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters.

In March 2003, Binalshibh was moved to a Polish facility code-named Quartz soon after his mentor, Mohammed, was nabbed in Pakistan.

This would mean al-Shibh arrived in Morocco (and therefore the tapes were made) sometime after some people met at Langley and decided they should destroy the Zubaydah tapes.

On 05 September 2002, HQS elements discussed the disposition of the videotapes documenting interrogation sessions with ((Abu Zubaydah)) that are currently being stored at [redacted] with particular consideration to the matters described in Ref A Paras 2 and 3 and Ref B para 4. As reflected in Refs, the retention of these tapes, which is not/not required by law, represents a serious security risk for [redacted] officers recorded on them, and for all [redacted] officers present and participating in [redacted] operations.

[snip]

Accordingly, the participants determined that the best alternative to eliminate those security and additional risks is to destroy these tapes [redacted]

The CIA appears to have already been manipulating briefing records, possibly to give the appearance of Congressional support for either the program or the destruction of the tapes.

Note, too, that there are only two video tapes (plus the “audio” tape I’ve raised questions about here). If the audio tape were, in fact, just an audio tape, that would leave two video tapes. Which is how many tapes existed of Rahim al-Nashiri’s interrogations, at least by the time they did the inventory. That’s presumably because al-Nashiri was taken into CIA custody after the point when–on October 25, 2002–HQ told the Thai black site to record over tapes every day.

It is now HQS policy that [redacted] record one day’s worth of sessions on one videotape for operational considerations, utilize the tape within that same day for purposes of review and note taking, and record the next day’s sessions on the same tape. Thus, in effect, the single tape in use [redacted] will contain only one day’s worth of interrogation sessions.

Now we know they kept two (or maybe three) tapes for al-Nashiri (presumably taking notes off one day’s tape while the other was being used to record new interrogations) because the tape inventory shows the following:

Detainee #2

[Tape] 91 [Redacted]tape and rewind #2

[Tape] 92 3 [Redacted] use and rewind #3 [redacted] final

While obviously we have no such inventory showing the al-Shibh tapes, it is possible that they were used in the same manner as the al-Nashiri tapes were–to collect just one day’s worth of interrogation to assist in transcription or note-taking. (And remember, ultimately there were transcriptions made of the al-Shibh tapes, though we don’t know when that happened). It’s possible then–though this is just a wildarsed guess–that the existence of just three tapes suggests they were started after HQ decided to tape over tapes (so after October 25), or that they first implemented the policy for al-Shibh sometime before October 25.

Also note the content of the last three–presumably chronologically–tapes of Abu Zubaydah. Tapes 89 and 90 are “use and rewind” #1 and #2. But the tape just before that–tape 88–has “no video but there is sound.” Thus, the last three tapes from Abu Zubaydah consist of two video tapes and one “audio” tape, just like the three tapes from al-Shibh.

If in fact the 2-3 al-Shibh tapes only include the last days of his interrogation on which taping was used, then the AP source’s claim that they simply show him sitting in a room being interrogated doesn’t mean that the tapes contained no forensic evidence of something else–more abusive interrogations that happened on earlier days. After all, the tapes would no longer “show” what had happened during earlier interrogation sessions.

One more note about this early period. One question the AP raises is when and how the tapes were moved from Morocco to Langley.

It’s worth remembering that the Zubaydah and al-Nashiri tapes were also moved at one point. In a cable from HQ to the field (we know this from Vaughn Indices that described this cable before it was released) written on December 3, 2002, just days after John McPherson reviewed the torture tapes and presumably discovered they had been tampered with, someone says:

It was a mistake to move [redacted] tapes [redacted] in light of Ref C guidance.

Notably, given that this refers to tapes being moved in the past tense on December 3, this may suggest the tapes were moved from the black site before it was finally closed. Mind you, the detail may be completely irrelevant to al-Shibh’s tapes, but they do suggest people in the field were moving tapes without clear approval from HQ.

The tapes were disclosed after the CIA started trying to figure out what happened to the Abu Zubaydah tapes

As I noted here, the story the AP’s sources told (that a person stumbled across a box under a desk with all three al-Shibh tapes in it) and the story DOJ told Leonie Brinkema (that they learned first of one tape, and then, after asking CIA to make sure there were no more) differ in key ways.

But that difference gets all the more interesting given indications that CIA was trying to figure out what had happened to the Zubaydah tapes in precisely the same time period. Read more →

Jay Rockefeller and the Torture Tape Investigation

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I’ve been writing a lot about the way CIA gamed briefings with Congress so they could destroy evidence of torture: how they created potentially misleading records about the September 2002 briefings with destroying the torture tapes in mind, how they created a record of Pat Roberts’ approval for destroying the torture tapes in February 2003 but not Harman’s disapproval of them, and how Crazy Pete Hoekstra got a really suspicious briefing the morning the torture tapes were destroyed.

But I’ve been neglecting the role Jay Rockefeller may play in all this.

Yesterday’s AP-hosted CIA spin made a big deal of Harriet Miers’ early 2005 order that CIA not destroy the torture tapes.

In early 2005, Rizzo received a similar order from the new White House counsel, Harriet Miers. The CIA was not to destroy the tapes without checking with the White House first.

It’s in that context where they list all the requests that might cover the videotapes and explain why they weren’t legally binding on the CIA: three judges orders and the 9/11 Commission request.

But that narrative left out a few more data points. Oddly, the AP seems to make nothing of John Negroponte’s warning to Porter Goss–issued on or before July 28, 2005–not to destroy the torture tapes. Maybe that’s because it reveals that months after Rizzo got the order from Harriet Miers, the Director of CIA was still actively discussing destroying the tapes. Maybe that’s because, given Goss’ apparent happiness with Rodriguez’ destruction of the tapes in November 2005, the evidence that Goss was considering destroying them three months earlier suggests complicity.

Now consider the two requests from Jay Rockefeller for John McPherson’s report on the torture tapes.

In May 2005, I wrote the CIA Inspector General requesting over a hundred documents referenced in or pertaining to his May 2004 report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation activities. Included in my letter was a request for the CIA to provide to the Senate Intelligence Committee the CIA’s Office of General Counsel report on the examination of the videotapes and whether they were in compliance with the August 2002 Department of Justice legal opinion concerning interrogation. The CIA refused to provide this and the other detention and interrogation documents to the committee as requested, despite a second written request to CIA Director Goss in September 2005.

It was during this 2005 period that I proposed without success, both in committee and on the Senate floor, that the committee undertake an investigation of the CIA’s detention and interrogation activities. In fact, all members of the congressional intelligence committees were not fully briefed into the CIA interrogation program until the day the President publicly disclosed the program last September. [my emphasis]

So in May 2005, Rockefeller asked John Helgerson for McPherson’s report. Then in September 2005, Rockefeller asked Porter Goss for the report directly. And Porter Goss–the guy who was actively considering destroying the torture tapes in July 2005 and who ultimately applauded Rodriguez’ success in destroying them–completely blew off Rockefeller’s request.

Mind you, Rockefeller asked for the report on the tapes, not the tapes themselves. But we now know that the report lacked any mention of the things noted in the IG Report: descriptions of the broken and blank tapes. We also know that the report didn’t do what is was purportedly intended to do: review whether the torturers had followed guidelines on torture.

Had Rockefeller gotten that report in 2005–in response to either his request of Helgerson or his request directly of Goss–he would have had good reason to at least suspect that the CIA had been engaging in a cover-up in November 2002 to January 2003, when it claimed to have reviewed whether Abu Zubaydah’s torturers followed DOJ guidelines but really did no such thing. He would have had reason to wonder why a lawyer, having reviewed tapes with abundant evidence of tampering, hadn’t even bothered to mention that tampering.

Which probably would have led him to ask for the tapes.

Mind you, like the 9/11 Commission, Rockefeller didn’t subpoena the report (as he noted, his push for a torture investigation was thwarted, presumably by then SSCI Chair Pat Roberts, the guy who had signed off on destroying the tapes).

But for some reason the CIA doesn’t want to admit it had this request pertaining to the torture tapes, in addition to all the requests from judges.

John Rizzo: DOD Engaged in Cyberwarfare with Limited Oversight

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I’ve done two posts on John Rizzo’s recent address to ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. But I wanted to call attention to a few more things he said in his talk.

Slightly more than halfway through his talk, he talks about how DOD gets to conduct what seem to him to be covert actions in the field of cyberwarfare without the Congressional oversight that CIA would have. (Note, this is my transcription and he’s a big mumbler, so I’m not sure of the accuracy of this transcription.)

I did want to mention–cause I find this interesting–cyberwarfare, on the issue of cyberwarfare. Again, increasing discussion there clearly is an active arena, will continue to be active. For us lawyers, certainly for the lawyers in the intelligence community, I’ve always found fascinating and personally I think it’s a key to understanding many of the legal and political complexities of so-called cyberlaw and cyberwarfare is the division between Title 10, Title 10 operations and Title 50 operations. Title 10 operations of course being undertaken by the Pentagon pursuant to its war-making authority, Title 50 operations being covert action operations conducted by CIA.

Why is that important and fascinating? Because, as many of you know being practitioners, how these cyber-operations are described will dictate how they are reviewed and approved in the executive branch, and how they will be reported to Congress, and how Congress will oversee these activities. When I say, “these activities,” I’m talking about offensive operations–computer network attacks.

This issue, this discussion, has been going on inside the executive branch for many years, actually. I mean I remember serious discussions during the Clinton Administration. So, again, this is not a post-9/11 phenomenon. Now, I’m speaking her from a CIA perspective, but I’ve always been envious of my colleagues at the Department of Defense because under the rubrik of Title 10, this rubrik of “preparing the battlefield.” They have always been able to operate with a–to my mind [?] a much greater degree of discretion and autonomy than we lawyers at CIA have been, have had to operate under, because of the various restrictions and requirements of Title 50 operations. Covert actions require Presidential Findings, fairly explicit reports to the Intelligence Oversight Committees. We have a very, our Intelligence Committees are … rigorous, rigorous and thorough in their review. I’ve never gotten the impression that the Pentagon, the military, DOD is subject to the same degree of scrutiny for their information warfare operations as CIA. I’m actually very envious of the flexibility they’ve had, but it’s critical–I mean I guess I could say interesting but critical how–I mean if there were operations that CIA was doing, they would be called covert actions, there’s no getting around that. To the extent I’ve ever understood what DOD does in this arena, they certainly sound like covert actions to me but given that I’ve had more than my hands full over the years trying to keep track of what CIA’s doing at any given time, I’ve never ventured deeply into that area. But I think it’s fascinating.

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Walter Pincus’ Chummy Torture Apology

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This is the kind of lede you’d expect from a dirty hippie blogger, not from a septuagenarian TradMed journalist.

Who other than the acerbic John A. Rizzo, who served a long tenure as the CIA’s acting general counsel, would use his first talk after retiring from government to lay out a series of ironies that illustrate the frustration felt by older agency professionals, given the treatment of their activities during the past decade?

Rather than focusing on the details John Rizzo revealed that slightly advanced the story of the investigation into the John Adams Project, Pincus chooses to uncritically air Rizzo’s complaints about torture. Pincus doesn’t even challenge Rizzo’s claim that there is an irony to the way CIA has been treated.

Which is a pity, because Rizzo made some downright absurd comments. Take Rizzo’s complaint about the shock over the number of times Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were waterboarded.

He pointed out that while Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaida, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed were undergoing waterboarding in CIA detention, the United States was conducting lethal operations against terrorists. “There was never, ever, as far as I could discern, any debate, discussion, questioning on moral or legal grounds about the efficacy of the United States targeting and killing terrorists,” he said.

“A lot of attention, a lot of criticism was given about the number of waterboarding sessions they [Abu Zubaida and Mohammed] had,” Rizzo said, “but I don’t believe there would have been nearly as much similar discussion about the number of bullets that would have been pumped into them if they had been killed rather than captured.”

The shock over the revelation that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in a month doesn’t just stem from the claims John Yoo made–based on representations from Rizzo–that waterboarding was not torture. The shock also stems from the divergence between CIA-sponsored disinformation that waterboarding worked immediately, after just one use, and the reality that CIA used it over and over and over. Which in turn leads to questions of efficacy–and to the inaptness of Rizzo’s comparison. You pump someone full of bullets and each bullet adds just one more piece of certainty that the objective–the neutralization or death of the target–is accomplished. But when you waterboard someone an 83rd time, does it advance the objective–purportedly collecting reliable information–in the least? In the case of Abu Zubaydah, whose 83 waterboardings seem to have yielded in just 10 pieces of useful intelligence, the answer appears to be no. Indeed, in a memo addressed to and based on information from John Rizzo, John Yoo wrote,

Moreover, you have also orally informed us that although some of these techniques may be used with more than once, that repetition will not be substantial because the techniques generally lose their effectiveness after several repetitions.

[snip]

You have indicated that these acts will not be used with substantial repetition, so that there is no possibility that severe physical pain could arise from such repetition.

There’s no irony here! John Rizzo (and the lawyers from the Counterterrrorism Center who contributed to this memo) either lied to John Yoo about the number of times waterboarding would be used, or CIA itself failed to meet the terms of this memo. And poor John Rizzo thinks the public is wrong to be shocked at the result.

All of which details might be appropriate to mention in an article about Rizzo’s self-indulgent claims of irony. But they don’t appear in this article.

ACLU Better Spooks than the Torturers

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Apparently, the ACLU (or rather, private investigators hired by the John Adams Project) are better spooks than the torturers. I say that because John Rizzo has now confirmed what had not been certain before: that when ACLU asked the PIs to figure out who had tortured the men it represented at Gitmo, the PIs actually got the right men–or at the least covert CIA people. (h/t MD)

“These were pictures of undercover people who were involved in the interrogations program given for identification purposes to the 9/11 [terrorists].”

[snip]

Mr. Rizzo said the photos “were pictures of agency people, some of which were captured paparazzi-style, clearly taken in a kind of surveillance mode.”

[snip]

“These were undercover people, the pictures taken surreptitiously found in the cell of one of the 9/11 suspects. I think they found it under the guy’s blanket,” he said.

[snip]

But he said that he could think of two types of crimes that may have been committed by the attorneys giving the photos to the detainees.

One possible crime would be the “disclosure of classified information, being the faces of these people, to an enemy foreign power,” Mr. Rizzo said.

Hey ACLU? You got the right people. John Rizzo–who was closely involved with the torturers–has now confirmed it for you in print.

All of which sort of highlights the problems with this witch hunt. To support it (in the Moonie Times before it goes under, I should note), Rizzo is arguing that faces are now classified. Not identities. Faces. Yet it didn’t have its torturers wandering around in burkas to hide those faces, which made them readily available for PIs to photograph. But the PIs presumably couldn’t be sure of the identities behind those faces until either the detainees at Gitmo confirmed them … or until someone like John Rizzo went and told a newspaper they were “undercover people who were involved in the interrogations program.”

And while we’re discussing John Rizzo, it’s rather important that Rizzo was the one who started this witch hunt in the first place, don’t you think?

John Rizzo, who was the agency’s top attorney until December, said in an interview that he initially requested the Justice Department and CIA investigation into the compromise of CIA interrogators’ identities after photographs of the officers were found in the cell of one al Qaeda terrorist in Cuba.

After all, if the full extent of individual torturers’ actions becomes public, it will be more likely they will be prosecuted for their actions. If that happens, it’s possible the torturers will expose the roles of those above them. And that would include John Rizzo, who almost certainly knew that the torturers were already exceeding the techniques approved by the Bybee Two memo as the memo was written. In other words, Rizzo has a very personal interest in hoping the names that belong with these faces don’t become named. Because if they do, the full extent of Rizzo’s complicity with torture might become exposed.