CIA Admits That Info About Torture Briefings For Dems May Not Be Accurate

[babylonsister]

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/cia-admits-that-info-about-torture-briefings-for-dems-may-not-be-accurate/

CIA Admits That Info About Torture Briefings For Dems May Not Be Accurate


As I noted below, newly released documents appear to show that according to the CIA, officials briefed Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats back in 2002 about the use of torture techniques on terror suspects.

But a letter that accompanied these documents, written by the head of the CIA, appears to clearly concede that the information in the docs about who was briefed and when may not be accurate or reliable.

Republicans are pointing to the documents — which were produced by the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence, and sent to select members of Congress — to charge that Pelosi and other Dems have been lying about what they knew about waterboarding and when.

But the docs were accompanied by a letter from CIA chief Leon Panetta that appears to suggest the CIA can’t promise that the info is right. The letter was sent along with the documents to GOP Rep Pete Hoekstra, a leading critic of Dems on torture, and Dem Rep Silvestre Reyes, the chairman of the intelligence committee.

I’ve obtained the letter, and a PDF is right here. This is the key part (click to enlarge):



Emphasis mine. “MFR” apparently refers to “memorandum for the record.”

As you can see, this letter says that the info about briefings is taken from notes based on the “best recollections” of those who were there, adding:

In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened.

That would appear to be a concession that the CIA isn’t willing to vouch for the accuracy of the info about the briefings in the docs, and that only further inquiry will produce a reliable recounting of what happened.

To be clear, it’s perfectly possible that the info about what Dems were told is right. But not even the CIA is willing to promise this right now. So it’s unclear how much stock to place in the documents at this point.

**********************************

Update: I’ve just learned that this same letter was also sent to GOP Rep Pete Hoekstra, a leading proponent of the claim that Dems knew the full scope of the torture program early on. I’ve edited the above to reflect this.

I’ve obtained the letter to Hoekstra, which you can read right here. What this means is that the Republican who has lodged the highest-profile attacks on Dems over what they knew and when has been directly informed by the CIA that the info on the briefings may not be reliable.

[annabanana]

1. kickety kick!!. . .n/t

[robinlynne]

2. amazing that the CIA isn't sure about dates/times...I thought that was their business.

[Echo In Light]

3. I don't trust how any 'potential' accountability re torture is geared at letting CIA off the hook

[robinlynne]

9. I'm not saying that. I'm saying what I said. PLs dont read other meanings into my words.

[Echo In Light]

10. ??? ...I wasn't disagreeing w/you, nor putting words in your mouth

[mmonk]

4. There is no doubt as to the Republican redirection on the matter.

However, evidence of torture was out there in 2003 and nothing was done and no hearings emerged nor deep inquires. I would imagine some on the intelligence committees were briefed in some manner though probably not full disclosure for deni-ability purposes. There were also some reports out there such as the Taguba report as well as all the International Red Cross assertions

[NNN0LHI]

5. Boy this is really going to come as a real disappointment to some people around here

It was a good learning experience though.

Now I pretty much know who to never trust about anything.

Don

[malaise]

6. Ding ding

Just as I said. I'll trust Pelosi over the CIA any time, any day.

[unblock]

7. ya don't mistake whether or not a congresscritter was in the room for a top secret briefing

especially if it was written AT THE TIME. if these were written quite a bit later, sure, but not if they were written at the time.

what this strongly suggests is that some of the mfrs KNOWINGLY LIED, putting certain people there when they in fact were known not to be, or identifying the topic as torture when in fact it was not. all as a way to gain leverage over and compliance from these people, lest they be embarassed or prosecuted with cia "evidence".

[deminks]

8. Torture enthusiasts Bush and Cheney are catapulting the propaganda, again.

Cooking the intelligence, calling in favors from ABC, manufacturing the headlines. It's a shame they can't learn new tricks.

[Vickers]

11. When I was a government employee, an MFR was known as a CYA.

Basically it is your "recollection" of an event.

It doesn't have to be written on the day something happened, there is no review process, it does not have to be up-channeled or sent out for distribution or even annotated anywhere else except the MFR form itself.

There wasn't even a standard format for an MFR; you just typed it up and put it in your PERSONAL files.

Many times it was typed up the very day that someone or something (GAO? FOIA? IG inspection? Congressional inquiry? Your commander is pissed off?) triggered an investigation. Imagine that!

It was used to bolster your version of events if the shit hit the fan. For the most part, they are the least reliable form of written information to be found in the government, akin to eyewitness testimony while not under oath *cough* bush-cheney *cough-cough*.

IOW, pure bullshit.

[Canuckistanian]

17. So basically, MFRs are unvetted "observations"?

With no corroborating documentation required?

[Vickers]

19. Yup.

Anyone who thinks these things are in any way reliable is misinformed.

To me they are the equivalent of self-generated hearsay. :P

Full disclosure: They DO have their purpose as a memory jogger, but if they are not subsequently bolstered by (for instance) sworn testimony, with the threat of perjury if things disagree, then I accord them the value of the paper they are written on.

[FarCenter]

12. Not much of a disclaimer

The disclaimer is just that these aren't, e.g. handwritten notes made during the briefing. Instead, people went back to their offices and documented the meetings in memoranda for record.

They are about as good as it usually gets -- unless you had videos or audio recordings. Which isn't likely for this type of briefing.

[gratuitous]

14. Was there a gap between the meeting and the MFR?

Curiously, we don't know. Certainly, if someone went directly from the meeting to their office and wrote down their recollections, we'd probably have to credit the MFR as far as it went. But if the person in the meeting didn't write up his or her recollection of the meeting for, say, a few weeks, it's hard to argue that the MFR is all that reliable. And if the gap in time was measured in months or years? Well, if that's as good as it gets, then I'd argue the MFR is essentially worthless.

Apparently, MFRs can be drafted anytime after an event; they're not reviewed, and they don't become part of the official record. While these MFRs might have some sort of archival curiosity attached to them, they're hardly the stuff of what a criminal investigation would deem as evidence.

[FarCenter]

15. The records are probably dated close to the meetings.

The excerpt from Pannetta's letter in the image attachment to the OP says --

"This information, however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents MFRs completed at the time and notes that summarize the best recollections of those individuals."

I would expect this means that the dates on the MFRs are the same or close to the dates of the briefings. The dates and integrity of the records should be attested to by the record custodians. Beyond that you would have to call the authors and briefing participants as witnesses individually, get their testimony as to the veracity of the records, and then compare their testimony.

[Vickers]

18. There is no record custodian for MFRs. They are generally filed

in your personal filing cabinet (the one that's part of your desk for instance).

They are not routed for review, and they are not inspected as part of an IG or QC or GAO inspection (unless SPECIFICALLY requested).

It would be interesting to compare the dates of the hardcopy MFRs with the computer file dates (if there are any).

There is a reason many MFRs in my time (80s and 90s) were written on typewriters...

[gratuitous]

20. Probably

But "probably" doesn't mean "definitely," and in this house of mirrors, it's unwise to rely on any one witness's assertions. A full investigation would go a long way toward generating some public confidence in what is right now a very shadowy pissing match, with selective leaks followed by cherry-picked memoranda and anonymous or near-anonymous pronouncements.

Certainly what has just come out doesn't look really good for Pelosi, but she wasn't in a position of authority in September 2002 to do much of anything with whatever the Bush administration did or did not share with her. I remember quite clearly that in its craven attempt to make the Iraq invasion look "bipartisan," the Bush administration lied over and over again about the "fact" that Congress supported the invasion based on the same intelligence the administration had. As we have come to find out, the information the administration shared with select members of Congress was anything but complete, and tended to be only the information that supported the case for invasion.

Which is to say, I don't trust anything that comes out of Foggy Bottom that purports to show that information was fully and freely shared.

[KansDem]

13. Damn! I don't know *what* to think anymore...

Waterboard me and see what I say. That might be a good first step...

:sarcasm:

[FarCenter]

16. First, we'd have to figure out what we want you to say.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

21. Not surprising, but will it really matter in the end?

The doubt has been raised which will be exploited if it proves to be factual or not. This will be used to detract from any investigations on the grounds that they're partisan.