Inquiry into CIA tapes seen as payback for FBI

The Justice Department's criminal inquiry into the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency interrogation tapes will be carried out largely by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has been sharply at odds with the CIA over the agency's interrogation practices.

In some law enforcement circles, the prospect of the FBI interviewing high-level CIA officials, under the plan announced Wednesday, and rummaging in the files of the agency's secret interrogation programs represents a payback moment in the rich history of rivalry between the agencies.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, FBI officials have refused to allow agents to take part in CIA interrogations in which harsh methods were used, questioning the effectiveness of the techniques. Others have feared agents might be compromised if they later testified in criminal cases. Some former FBI officials have been among the most vocal critics of what the CIA calls enhanced interrogation techniques.

Some of the sharpest disputes between the agencies have focused on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, one of two terrorism suspects whose interrogations were recorded on the destroyed tapes. The tapes showed harsh interrogation techniques and were destroyed, according to the CIA, to protect the identities of personnel involved.

Some government officials have insisted that the most successful parts of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah came when FBI agents, using nonconfrontational interview techniques, extracted a wealth of information from him before the CIA authorized a tougher approach.

Inquiry into CIA tapes seen as payback for FBICIA officials have said their tactics were responsible for extracting the most important information from Abu Zubaydah. President George W. Bush has cited the Abu Zubaydah interrogation as an example of the success of the CIA program.

Leaders of both agencies have asserted for years that cooperation and coordination between the FBI and the CIA on counterterrorism issues have increased dramatically since 2001 attacks, which by accounts from each side, is true.

Nevertheless, despite the official pronouncements that the rivalry has ended, the investigation will be carried out against a backdrop of ill will that pervades the culture of the two agencies.

Law enforcement officials said Thursday that past disagreements would not influence the FBI investigation into the destroyed tapes.

They insisted the inquiry would be handled in a professional manner under the direction of a Justice Department team led by John Durham, a career U.S. prosecutor from Connecticut.

Intelligence officials have said they would cooperate fully with the criminal inquiry as they have with similar inquiries in the past.

Bush said Thursday that the White House would cooperate with the investigation. "I strongly support it," Bush said in an interview with Reuters. "And we will participate."

Bush, who was asked during the interview whether he was concerned that the investigation might raise questions about his counterterrorism policy, replied: "See what it says. See what the investigation leads to."

In another development Thursday, Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, released a letter she sent to the CIA in February 2003 in which she expressed concern about the agency's interrogation techniques and its intent to destroy videotape of Abu Zubaydah. That Harman had expressed those concerns was reported last month, but the contents of the letter had not been released.

The letter, declassified at Harman's request, was written shortly after she received a classified briefing about the agency's detention and interrogation program because she had become the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

The letter, dated Feb. 10, 2003, said Harman had been informed five days earlier by Scott Muller, then the agency's top lawyer, that the CIA planned to destroy the tape after its inspector general had completed an inquiry into the agency's detention and interrogation program.

In the letter, Harman urged CIA officials to reconsider their plan to destroy the videotape, which she said "would reflect badly on the agency." The letter from Harman asked whether White House officials had determined that the interrogation methods used by the CIA were "consistent with the principles and policies of the United States" and whether Bush had approved the methods.

In a brief reply, dated Feb. 28, 2003, and also released by Harman on Thursday, Muller did not answer directly, saying only that "a number of executive branch lawyers" had participated in the determination that "in the appropriate circumstances, use of these techniques is fully consistent with U.S. law."

The reply did not address the issue of videotapes.

Feuding between the FBI and the CIA dates to the founding of the intelligence agency in 1947.

In recent years, their debates have been sharpened by disputes about whether the CIA or the FBI bore greater responsibility for missing signals that might have uncovered the Sept. 11 plot before the attacks.

Demonstrators held after Iowa anti-war protests

At least 10 anti-war demonstrators were arrested yesterday during protests in Des Moines over the lack of debate on the war on Iraq in the election campaign.
The protestors, ranging in age from 23 to 76, were taken into custody after briefly occupying the campaign offices of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. Most were held by local police, though some were released with a citation to appear in court at a later date.

The protests were part of a coordinated effort by peace activists to raise the issue of the Iraq war in the campaign.
Earlier this week, the group - a loose coalition of Catholic peace activists and veteran anti-war demonstrators - occupied the Des Moines office of Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas.

They pledged a similar demonstration today at the campaign office of another candidate.

The decision to protest at Obama's campaign office displays the dissatisfaction among some on the American left with the leading Democratic presidential candidates' stances on the war in Iraq.

With varying degrees of urgency, Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have called for a withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, but would leave in place military personnel to guard US interests, and carry out counter-terrorism missions.

With the exception of long-shot Ron Paul, the Republican candidates have pledged to continue President George Bush's policy in Iraq and the "war on terror".

The protestors, who call their endeavour Seasons of Discontent: A Presidential Occupation Project, want the next president to withdraw all US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan within 100 days of taking office.

"I don't see Obama as the change we want to see," protestor Brian Terrell, 51, said. "We're asking Obama to change."

"This war is a bi-partisan war; the empire is a bi-partisan empire," said Frank Cordaro, a 56-year-old former Catholic priest and fulltime activist in Des Moines. "Clearly, Obama, Hillary and Edwards are lining up in a similar way. They're conceding the fact that they're going to have to continue a US military presence in Iraq. And that's unacceptable."

Four protesters were arrested at Romney's headquarters, charged with criminal trespass and taken to Polk County jail. Romney's campaign was not available for comment.

About 10 demonstrators later entered Obama's headquarters, unfurled a banner, and pledged to stay until Obama promised to do what he could to immediately end the war in Iraq.

The protestors read names of American war dead, then a speech by Dr Martin Luther King. After about one and a half hours, Des Moines police arrived and made the arrests, charging protestors with criminal trespass.

A spokesman for the Obama campaign had no comment.

CIA declassifies Harman’s tape destruction letter.

Last month after the CIA admitted that it had destroyed videotapes of interrogations, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) — formerly the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — said that she had urged the CIA in writing not to destroy the tapes. Today, Harman’s office released the Feb. 10, 2003 letter after the CIA finally declassified it. In the letter, she urges the CIA to “reconsider” destroying the tapes:

You discussed [in a briefing the previous week] the fact that there is videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry. I would urge the Agency to reconsider that plan. Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future. The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the Agency.

OBAMA WINS IOWA!

Detainee file was overseen by ‘Tiger Team’

A specially created team of military officers played a key role in severely limiting what the Canadian public was allowed to know about the country’s role in Afghanistan.

Originally created to assist an investigation into the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan, the new team – codenamed Tiger Team – quickly came to scrutinize virtually every public access to information request dealing with the Afghan mission, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

In effect, the team added an extra layer of scrutiny to the access to information process, making it so complicated that an access to information official eventually described it as “convoluted.”

The added scrutiny also caused many delays in responding to requests, as access to information officers struggled to understand the new system at a time when the government faced harsh criticism over the treatment of detainees.

Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence implemented a new process last spring for judging what Canadians could and couldn’t know about the Afghan mission – a process that included the creation of a military “investigation support team” that oversaw the release of documents.

At first, the team was supposed to handle just information relating to a number of Military Police Complaints Commission investigations into the detainee-handling process. However, it soon started dealing with virtually all Afghan-related access to information requests from the public.

According to documents obtained by The Globe through an access to information request, the Canadian Forces’ Strategic Joint Staff launched the investigation support team on March 5, 2007. At the time, two MPCC investigations and a board of inquiry were looking into the treatment of Afghan detainees by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

In particular, the investigations focused on three people detained on or about April 6 or 7 of 2006.

The investigation support team, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Dana Clarke, included members of various Forces branches.

“This is the first time that the [Canadian Forces] has been engaged in hostilities since the Access to Information Act was introduced in 1985,” reads a May, 2007, SJS document outlining the creation of the investigation support team.

“It has been a learning experience and a number of mistakes have been made. We have noted tendencies to be both too restrictive and too open in releasing information.”

However, the documents obtained by The Globe show very few instances where the new team erred on the side of openness.

The extent to which top Canadian Forces brass looked to restrict public information about operations in Afghanistan is made clear in a June 20 e-mail to National Defence’s director of Access to Information, Julie Jansen, sent by Brigadier-General Peter Atkinson.

“Any ATI request for information related to DETAINEES, or Battle Damage Assessments (any report, SOP, SIR, sitrep related to IEDs, Vehicle Damage, casualties, protection, armour enhancements) is to be severed in its entirety less the address group at the top of the correspondence,” Brig.-Gen. Atkinson wrote.

“The rationale for doing so, is that this information if allowed to go into the public domain can be used by our enemies ie the Taliban, to further target and make assessments on their effectiveness against our own troops … it is based on these issues that the information identified above cannot be released as it puts our troops at greater risk.”

But while blanket severance may seem easy to implement, the new process quickly caused confusion among DND access to information co-ordinators, as well as members of the Canadian Forces.

Co-ordinators reported trouble meeting deadlines, both because of the added layer of scrutiny by the investigation support team, and the added workload from the MPCC investigations.

One brigadier-general complained that while he supported the added scrutiny, he didn’t support the new process – specifically, the accountability trail in cases where the general signed off on certain severances and then SJS officials made further indistinguishable deletions.

There is also some confusion about where the new process fits within the access to information framework.

In a string of e-mails that begin with the brigadier-general’s accountability concerns, the Forces’ access to information deputy director makes it clear that the new process is purely internal and cannot supersede access to information legislation.

Still, the impact that Tiger Team had on restricting the flow of public information about Afghanistan appears to have been significant.

In early June of last year, Ms. Jansen voiced her concerns to Brigadier-General A.J. Howard about fully severing two items that were the subject of an information request. “We can’t just apply a blanket exemption based on speculations,” she wrote.

Brig.-Gen. Howard replied: “I will not address this any further by e-mail… If you would like to drop by my office so I can explain all of this to your satisfaction I would be happy for you to do so.

“My advice – tread carefully on both of these matters – there are very serious diplomatic and allied issues at stake here.”

It is unclear what the two items are – in the documents obtained by The Globe, they are fully severed.

Conyers demands special counsel in CIA tape investigation

In response to Attorney General Mike Mukasey announcing he would appoint John Durham, the Assistant United States Attorney from Connecticut, to investigate the CIA’s tape destruction, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) said “it is disappointing” that Mukasey “declined to appoint a more independent special counsel in this matter.” From his statement:

Because of this action, the Congress and the American people will be denied — as they were in the Valerie Plame matter — any final report on the investigation.

Equally disappointing is the limited scope of this investigation, which appears limited to the destruction of two tapes. The government needs to scrutinize what other evidence may have been destroyed beyond the two tapes, as well as the underlying allegations of misconduct associated with the interrogations.

The Justice Department’s record over the past seven years of sweeping the administration’s misconduct under the rug has left the American public with little confidence in the administration’s ability to investigate itself. Nothing less than a special counsel with a full investigative mandate will meet the tests of independence, transparency and completeness. Appointment of a special counsel will allow our nation to begin to restore our credibility and moral standing on these issues.

Court bars detainee transfer to Algeria

A federal appeals court Monday blocked the Bush administration from transferring a detainee at Guantánamo Bay to Algeria, where the prisoner says his life would be in danger from the government and al Qaeda.

The appeals court is stopping any transfer while it considers Ahmed Belbacha's request that he not be returned to his home country.

Belbacha, 36, was brought to Guantánamo Bay in 2002 from Pakistan. He had been an accountant at the Algerian government's oil company, Sonatrach.

Belbacha said that after he was recalled for a second term of service in the Algerian army, he was targeted with death threats by terrorists in Groupe Islamique Armee, then at the height of a violent campaign for an Islamic Algeria.

Belbacha never reported for duty, but he said the GIA visited his home at least twice and threatened him and his family. He left the country, traveling to France, England, Pakistan and Afghanistan before being taken into custody and sent to Guantánamo Bay.

The U.S. military has classified Belbacha as an enemy combatant, saying he associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The U.S. government said he is eligible for transfer subject to appropriate diplomatic arrangements for another country to take him.

Belbacha's lawyer, David Remes, said he went to court after hearing from a confidential source that Belbacha was to be sent to Algeria.

A Defense Department detainee list says Belbacha was born Nov. 13, 1969 in Algiers

HAPPY NEW YEAR...TIME TO STOP THE TORTURE!

Best Video yet of Bhutto killing

U.S. seen internationally as an ‘Endemic Surveillance Society.’

In the recently released annual survey of worldwide privacy rights by Privacy International and EPIC, the United States has been downgraded from “Extensive Surveillance Society” to “Endemic Surveillance Society.” As Glenn Greenwald notes, this is “the worst possible category there is for privacy protections, the category also occupied by countries such as China, Russia, Singapore and Malaysia.” In general, “the 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance of privacy safeguards.”