The CIA's Interrogation Tape Librarian

by  emptywheel

There's a couple of interesting points about the news that the CIA incorrectly asserted that it had no video tapes of the interrogations of top Al Qaeda leaders.

The CIA erred in twice telling a court in the case of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that it did not have any recordings of interrogations of "enemy combatants," when in fact it had three video or audio tapes, according to a letter released on Tuesday.    

Prosecutors only recently learned of the tapes from the CIA, they said in the letter to the judge who presided over the case and to a U.S. appeals court that considered the Moussaoui case.

In court declarations on May 9, 2003 and on November 14, 2005, the CIA stated the government did not have any video or audio tapes of the interrogations. Moussaoui initially sought the testimony of several top al Qaeda witnesses as part of his defense.

When it made both declarations, the CIA in fact possessed two video tapes and an audio tape of the unidentified "enemy combatant" interrogations, the prosecutors said.

This is not the first time an interrogation tape has gone missing. Recall that the government "lost" the last tape of the Padilla interrogations. While not a CIA tape, this missing tape phenomenon is becoming a pattern.

But I'm also curious how they "found" these CIA tapes. The Administration is preparing some show trials of precisely these kinds of detainees. Are the detainees in question allowed to see the tapes?

Comments

[bmaz]

No. Of course not. Nobody can actually see them, because that would violate national security/state secrets. Admitting they even have them has probably killed AhMuricans.

[Izzat Legal]

If the tapes were really lost, folks should lose their jobs.

But even if the tapes weren't really lost, has this admission/fabrication destroyed their value as evidence (chain of possession broken)?

Not that anyone planned to bring any of these shenanigans under legal scrutiny.

[phred]

EW, any idea who found the tapes? Any chance it was someone at CIA disgusted by the conduct of interrogations and the promotion of torture by our government trying to bring things to light?

[emptywheel]

phred

I have no idea. BUt that's the reason I raised the upcoming show trials. I expect they were "found" in preparation for those trials--presumably, they need to be turned over. And if not, they need to be turned over to prosecutors so they know what might hit them in the trial.

In other words, I suspect they were "found" only because they're about to become publicly acknowleged anyway, and someone figured they had better correct the record on the Moussaui case before that happened.

[Neil]

Are "recovered" interrogation videotapes an appeal able issue in their own right as a failure to provide discoverable information to opposing counsels? Or is it case for mistrial?

Had Cheney left this process in the hands of JAG system, it would not be a debacle it has become. But he had to torture and he decided upon a process without taking facts into account and without vetting the solution for analysis with internal subject matter specialists.

Cheney’s lack of understanding of the facts, his blind contempt for our adversaries, his lack of respect for the competence of the JAG system is an astounding Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. He went to the dark side. There's no honor among thieves, killers and torturers.

[bmaz]

Neil - It depends on the procedural status of the case. If the case is already on appeal, and there is an argument already perfected on evidentiary improprieties, you could most likely bring it in. If there is not a current appeal, or if there is no appellate ground that could reasonably be used to argue the tapes, most likely you would file some type of motion for post conviction relief in the trial court and then consolidate that with the appeal. That is a very general explanation, and not necessarily based upon the Moussaoui case particulars.

[johno]

An “Intelligence” agency “losing” videotapes? Yeah right. That’s like a 4 year old, with chocolate all over his face, claiming “I didn’t take the cookies”.

[bmaz]

Oh no; they really were misplaced. Who could have predicted they should look in Cheney's bedroom VCR?

[Mary]

There's also that missing videotape from GITMO of the "detainee handling" training that resulted in the beating and disability of KY soldier, Sean Baker.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03EFDC1031F936A35755C0A9629C8B63
The military also says it can't find a videotape that is believed to have been made of the incident.

If you dig through Baker's story, it is amazing how fast that videotape was lost. The same night he was being airflighted out IIRC.

[bmaz]

I would love to say I am shocked, but......

[bmaz]

You have to love this thought from BooMan:

U.S. as Safe Haven for Human Rights Violators

The Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and The Law held a hearing this morning.
...
It wasn't on C-SPAN and there isn't any transcipt available, so I don't know if they discussed what to do with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, George Tenet, David Addington, or any of the other human rights violators that are assuming the United States will provide them with a safe haven.

[phred]

Wow, thanks for the link Mary, I had not heard about that.

This is exactly what makes me wonder why the 3 tapes turned up now. I'm hoping someone with a conscience made sure they were found.

[Mary]

phred, unfortunately I'm at a point where I think they are innocuous and turned up so they can be used in a proceeding as evidence and they don't have any actionable on them - they can be used as a format for people to say what they say at funerals: Wow, he [the detainee] looks really natural, doesn't he?

More on Baker if you are interested:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/02/60II/main652953.shtml

Bloodied and disoriented, Baker somehow made it back to his unit, and his first thought was to get hold of the videotape. "I said, 'Go get the tape,'" recalls Baker. "'They've got a tape. Go get the tape.' My squad leader went to get the tape."

Every extraction drill at Guantanamo was routinely videotaped, and the tape of this drill would show what happened. But Baker says his squad leader came back and said, "There is no tape."

"That was the only time that I heard that a tape had gone missing," says Riley, Baker's platoon sergeant.

"Of all the tapes, this was probably the most important one that we should have kept," adds England.

Baker started having a seizure that morning and was whisked to the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo. "[He looked like] he'd had the crap beat out of him. He had a concussion. I mean, it was textbook," says Riley. "[His face} was blank. You know, a dead stare, like he was seeing you, but really looking through you."

Baker was airlifted to the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in Virginia, where doctors determined he had suffered an injury to the right side of his brain.