Man in the Middle CIA acting General Counsel John Rizzo

[maddezmom]

Man in the Middle
It’s easy to get lost in all this guesswork about why, exactly, the CIA decided to destroy taped interrogations of terrorism suspects in 2005. (Read about it here and here.) One person who will likely be dragged into the fray is the CIA acting General Counsel John Rizzo, through whom all things legal pass on their way up the spook chain.

Rizzo, according to his bio on the CIA’s Web site, has been a lawyer for the agency since 1976. His career spans the agency’s Office of Congressional Affairs, Directorate of Operations, and now the General Counsel’s Office. He was waist deep in the Iran/Contra affair in the 1980s, and he was the legal filter for the new interrogation and detainement powers the President heaped on the CIA after 9/11.

Rizzo, who has a bachelor's degree from Brown University and his JD from George Washington University, had hoped to be the CIA’s first homegrown general counsel in 35 years. President Bush nominated him to the post in March 2006, but Rizzo’s reputation among Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- as that guy who signed off on the legality of the harsh interrogation techniques proposed after 9/11 -- doomed him in the end. Bush withdrew Rizzo's nomination in June, but he's hung on as acting GC since 2004.

Rizzo, in his confirmation hearings, told the committee that he struggled to keep up with the new legal authority President Bush had given the CIA.

In the operational arena, CIA in my experience had never before been authorized to detain and interrogate an individual believed to be holding vital national security information. In the foreign intelligence collection arena, CIA had never before been authorized to collect more volumes of information from exponentially more sources, and to analyze, and share that information faster with our counterparts in the law enforcement community, state and local governments, and our foreign partners.

more:http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2007/12/man-in-the-midd.html

[maddezmom]

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

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.



more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/washington/08intel.html?adxnnl=1&ref=world&adxnnlx=1197090611-z6/q4CUUDB7qhptg2TSByA