Waterboarding is a Game of Three Card Monty

As we reported two days ago, the CIA has admitted to the use of waterboarding. However, they qualified it by saying they’ve only used it on three high value detainees and not again over the last five years. Mike McConnell the intelligence director was quick to point out though, that waterboarding still remained in the CIA’s arsenal and the president could approve its use. Yesterday, the White House weighed in on this saying that waterboarding was in fact legal, and the President was ready to sign off on it if needbe. This afternoon, questions have arisen about the legality of Waterboarding, who used it, when it was used, and the CIA tapes that showed it in what is beginning to look more like a political game of three card monty by the hour.

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Waterboarding? Youbetcha

CIA Chief Michael Hayden has admitted that the CIA used waterboarding,but only on three people and not at all in the last five years. However, Intelligence Director Mike McConnell says waterboarding still remains in the CIA’s arsenal.

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CIA Tape Case – New Developments

The Bush Administration must love the fact that this CIA tape case broke just before Christmas and then got swept under the rug by both the holiday and the groundswell of presidential campaign hyperbolic naval gazing that’s been going since the start of this year. Despite the overall lack of coverage by the news media, the CIA tape case is moving forward on several fronts – a full run down is available on the flipside.

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CIA Tape Case -Criminal Probe Launched

Its been nearly a month since we started reporting on the destruction of the CIA torture tapes. We’re sure that certain folks within the administration were hoping it would go away in an egg nog induced haze, the case got new teeth yesterday when Attorney General Michael Mukasey launched a criminal probe into what happened with these tapes. News and analysis on the flip.

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Evidence of Torture and Dissappearances Keeps Coming Out

In what started as a trickle, has rapidly advanced to a rising tide, stories of torture and mass disappearances are flooding the news. The stories read like political fictions but are all too real. Countries involvement in torture is nothing new, in fact America’s involvement in torture is nothing new. But, what is new is the extent to which we show up in the regular cast of characters since start of the Bush administration. In stories from Pakistan to Thailand to Morocco, our agents are there, and the jig is up. The CIA tapes are just another tip in a very big, deep iceburg, where it seems everyone is guilty and our so-called enemies are coming out more and more innocent all the time. Full round up on the flipside.

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Waterboarding Like “Flipping A Switch”, Dems and Republicans Agree.

It’s clear to us why Pelosi took impeachment off the table. She and her cohorts supported the President’s descent into war crimes and as we reported earlier asked whether or not the torture techniques used were tough enough.

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CIA Tapes -NY Times Document Alludes to Existence of Tapes as of 2007

In a PDF from the New York Times surrounding the destruction of key CIA tapes showing interrogation techniques used on detainees, a sentence on page two alludes to the fact that the tapes were not in fact destroyed. Are these copies? Different tapes?

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UK asks US Government to Stop Destruction of Evidence in Another Terrorism Case

Just as the UK wrapped up negotiations with the US for the release of four detainees in Gitmo, another case involving a UK citizen detainee has resulted in a motion to stop the US Government from destroying evidence of torture. From the Independent

Lawyers for a British resident who the US government refuses to release from Guantanamo Bay have identified the existence of photographs taken by CIA agents that they say show their client suffered horrific injuries under torture.

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The First Obstruction Case?

According to the the New York Times Majid Khan, the first of the high-value terrorism suspects at Gitmo to meet with a private lawyer has said he was subject to state sanctioned torture, including waterboarding. This could well be the first obstruction of justice case to come out of the CIA tape case.

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CIA Tape Case Update: Blood In The Water

The blood is in the water on the CIA tape case, as was broken on Friday, the CIA has destroyed two tapes which contain evidence of waterboarding. This prompted a firestorm of accusations about who knew what, when, and whether or not there is a case to be made about obstruction of justice. Republicans and Democrats alike are looking at investigation vehicles to examine exactly what went on.  A round-up of the weekend coverage here…

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Biden Shoots From The Hip on the CIA

We’re not making an endorsement but there’s a whole lot of sense being made by Joe Biden on Sunday’s This Week. Check out the interview. We’re just glad someone is out committing truth, somewhere –

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Update: CIA Tape Case

Senator Edward Kennedy has release a statement on the CIA Tape case. According to the statement, congress was not notified. This contradicts a line in the earlier post on the Washington Post/New York Times articles that ran today. A few telling tidbits:

It is particularly difficult to take the Director’s explanation at face value when the news that these CIA tapes were destroyed came the very same week that we learned that as many as ten million White House emails have not been preserved, despite a law that requires their retention. At the same time, the President continued to insist that we grant immunity to the phone companies for their role in the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

These efforts are wrong, and they must be stopped. I and other concerned Senators will today call upon Attorney General Mukasey to immediately begin an investigation into whether the CIA’s handling and destruction of these tapes violated the law.

The full text of the statement can be found here.

Some how we doubt any sort of investigation will be forthcoming, or that it would go anywhere with the executive orders currently outstanding. But at least someone is saying something.

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CIA Destroys Evidence of Waterboarding

The Washington Post is running a story this morning that the CIA has destroyed video tapes of its agents using waterboarding against two Al-Qaeda suspects. All the tapes were destroyed in November of 2005 on the order of the CIA’s head of Clandestine Operations. According to the article:

The destruction came after the Justice Department had told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys. A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the request would not have covered the destroyed tapes.

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