House rejects CIA tape-destruction claim

[Truth2Tell]

Source: The Politico

The CIA did not tell Congress about the destruction in 2005 of videotapes recording aggressive CIA interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects until this year, the top two members of the House Intelligence Committee said in an angry letter Friday to CIA Director Michael V. Hayden.

Anticipating an upcoming New York Times article revealing the destruction, Hayden said in a memo to employees on Thursday that congressional oversight committees had been notified about the existence of the tapes and plans to get rid of them.

"Based upon available records and our best recollection, this simply is not true," said a joint letter from House intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Calif.) and the committee's ranking member and former chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.).

-snip

In a statement on the Senate floor on Friday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) accused the CIA of a cover-up and compared the actions to "the eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap in the tapes of President Richard Nixon."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7261.html

---

Lies, Lies and more Lies.

Can we Impeach yet?

[Ian David]

1. We'll impeach Bush when simians take flight from Pelosi's anal cavity. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

4. Or when monkeys fly out of her butt, eh?

[UpInArms]

5. you are ever the optimist!

me - nah - I'm waiting for those pigs to fly - then it will be that blue moon on the 7th Tuesday.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

18. Absolutely. She's George Bush's biggest fan. nt

[rockybelt]

2. The lies just keep comin'

The criminals are starting to get real nervous and some of them are going to try to save their asses by telling their stories and providing documentation.

I wonder if that hasn't started happening even more than we know. It seems that the dems cells are actually dividing now and they may be able to grow bones yet. Just listening to some of the statements made by the dems makes me wonder. Like Joe Biden's impeachment promise, Kennedy's eighteen and half minutes, etc. Do they have more BB's than they're letting on?

[balantz]

3. I'm hoping so.

I found it hopeful to learn today that my Congresscritter just jumped on board with the impeachment crew.

[rockybelt]

16. Grijalva?

[balantz]

17. That's him

[DavidDvorkin]

6. That may be our only hope

Since we can be sure that our Reps and Sens aren't going to do the job on their own initiative.

[Canuckistanian]

7. This is big in Canada

This news item got 3rd billing on our national CBC radio news program "The World at 6".

Even if the American MSM is utterly ignoring this, the rest of the world isn't.

OOOoo, I just heard...


Coming up..... a report on Huckabee's campaign. This should be good.

[humbled_opinion]

8. Hey Dmocrat Leaders Of Congress

While you fidget and squiggle and worm and squirm when it comes to impeaching the existing occupants of the White House.... you better ask yourself this question....

How quick are the Rethugs going to be to bring up impeachment articles and investigations on Hillary when she wins in 08...

They are going to go balls out to get her and you all play nonchalant with Bush and his croonies.

[KoKo]

9. Lady Liberty now Tortures! The Beacon of Hope for Immigrants now has become

Nazi Germany or the Kings and Dictators most Americans fled their "Homeland" to come to fleeing from persecution.

Lady Liberty...cries with the dishonor. The eyes of millions who looked to for hope...and their children condoned the very thing their elders fled to hope for a better world.

[salib]

10. The creepyist thing to me is that they "anticipated" the article

Are they spying on the New York Times!? (he asks naively)

[unkachuck]

11. oh dear....

"Hayden said in a memo to employees on Thursday that congressional oversight committees had been notified about the existence of the tapes and plans to get rid of them."

....isn't the destruction of potential evidence of a possible federal crime obstruction of justice?........wouldn't that make Congress a co-conspirator?

....c'mon, you can't fool me....we ain't no nation of laws, we're a nation of men, unequal men at that....

[PSPS]

12. "aggressive interrogation"

Why not use the real term -- torture. Or, to be more accurate to our new Nazi sensibilities, Verschärfte Vernehmung.

[Supersedeas]

13. Hayden is preparing his comrades to lie -- wonder what Mukasey is doing with his troops?

[Fearless]

14. TK 2012!

[LiberalFighter]

15. Send Hayden, Porter and Tenet wearing Bush masks to Iraq

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Louis J Sheehan]

19. C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes

C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes

By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The chief of the agency’s clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.

The disclosures provide new details about what Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said was a decision “made within C.I.A. itself” to destroy the videotapes. In interviews, members of Congress and former intelligence officials also questioned some aspects of the account General Hayden provided Thursday about when Congress was notified that the tapes had been destroyed.

Current and former intelligence officials say the videotapes showed severe interrogation techniques used on two Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first three terror suspects to be detained and interrogated by the C.I.A. in secret prisons after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Top C.I.A. officials had decided in 2003 to preserve the tapes in response to warnings from White House lawyers and lawmakers that destroying the tapes would be unwise, in part because it could carry legal risks, the government officials said.
Louis J Sheehan

[fasttense]

21. It wouldn't be so bad if Pelosi had not announced to the world and her opposition

that IMPEACHMENT was off the table. There is nothing stopping the bushes from their continued pillage and plunder of the US. Doesn't she know you don't reveal your plans to the enemy? Now she doesn't even have the threat of IMPEACHMENT to stop the thieves.

[Infinite Hope]

22. I have to say, this wording is quite obscure...

""Based upon available records and our best recollection, this simply is not true," said a joint letter from House intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Calif.) and the committee's ranking member and former chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.)."

"available records"..."best recollection"

I wish they'd say something declarative.