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How the CIA's Darkest Torture Secrets Were Exposed-and Covered Up
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_the_cias_darkest_torture_secrets_wer
e_exposedand_covered_up_20160911/
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Posted on Sep 11, 2016
By John Kiriakou
Justin Norman / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Editor's note: John Kiriakou is a former CIA officer, former senior
investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former
counterterrorism consultant for ABC News. He was responsible for the
capture(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/abu_zubaydah_case_sets_bad_prece
dent_for_military_justice_system_20160826) of Abu Zubaydah, then believed
to be the third-ranking official in al-Qaida, in Pakistan in 2002. In 2007,
Kiriakou blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program, telling ABC News
that the CIA tortured prisoners, that torture was official U.S. government
policy, and that the policy had been approved by then-President George W.
Bush. He became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration
under the Espionage Act-a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months
in prison as a result of the revelation and now writes a regular column for
Truthdig.
The Guardian published a story Friday on Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence (SSCI) investigator Dan Jones and his quest to get to the
bottom of the CIA's torture program. Jones' hard work resulted in the Senate
Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture. The article provides great
insight into the day-to-day
machinations(https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/09/cia-insider-dan
iel-jones-senate-torture-investigation) between the SSCI and the CIA,
although no new details on the torture program per se.
LISTEN: Robert Scheer and John Kiriakou Talk Government Double
Standards(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/audio_robert_scheer_hosts_joh
n_kiriakou_--_a_whistleblower_20151211)
What the article does provide, however, is proof that then-Attorney General
Eric Holder and others conspired to keep the worst news of the CIA's torture
crimes secret. They conspired to protect the CIA's most notorious torturers.
Holder also worked hard to make sure that as little news of the torture
program as possible was released to the American people.
Jones, a whistleblower in his own right, admits in the article that he
(probably "illegally") removed a document from the CIA that, in the end,
formed one of the main points of the torture report: that the CIA tortured
its prisoners with a level of brutality that was heretofore unknown, that
the agency covered up the torture and that it lied to both the congressional
oversight committee and the president about the extent of the program and
its efficacy.
READ: What Was Saudi Arabia's Involvement in the 9/11
Attacks?(http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/what_was_the_saudi_involv
ement_in_the_9_11_attacks_20160910)
The document that Jones removed, known as the "Panetta Review," was more
than 1,000 pages long. Jones did not leak it. He locked it up in the SSCI's
secure spaces and provided it to Democratic members of the oversight
committee. The CIA initially denied its existence. It later argued that the
document was a "work product" and thus not meant to be turned over to the
committee. In fact, it already had been turned over, but then it was
subsequently deleted from the SSCI computer system.
The article's author, Spencer Ackerman, notes that Jones and the committee
faced a stacked deck from the very beginning:
In November 2005, a senior CIA official named Jose Rodriguez destroyed 92
videotapes depicting the brutal 2002 interrogations of two detainees, Abu
Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Rodriguez's tapes destruction remained
a secret to his congressional overseers for two years, until a 6 December
2007 New York Times article revealed
it(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/washington/06cnd-intel.html?_r=0) ;
they barely even knew the CIA taped interrogations at all. Outrage was swift
and, while tilted toward the Democrats, bipartisan, to include the eminences
grises of the 9/11
Commission(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/washington/22intel.html) . Even
the U.S. Justice Department began an ultimately fruitless
inquiry(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR20
10110904106_2.html?sid=ST2010110904198) . The Senate committee, then
controlled by the Democrat (Jay) Rockefeller, demanded an explanation.
That explanation came from then-CIA Director Michael Hayden. He told the
committee that there was no "evidence destruction," because the CIA kept
extensive records of its interrogations. If the committee needed data, the
CIA would provide it.
What the CIA eventually provided stunned committee members. It included, for
the first time, reports that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured so relentlessly
that he would obey his interrogators "like a dog, when they would snap their
fingers." Zubaydah was "kept naked, filthy, stinking, shaking with fear,
shoved inside a filth-riddled wooden box, defecating on himself." Jones
said, "Everything we (committee investigators) were told was basically the
opposite of what happened."
Jones stated further that "it was hard to deny the ineffectiveness of the
CIA interrogations, the brutality, or the fact that the committee had been
deeply misled by the CIA." Unfortunately, Jones' conclusions did not seem to
interest most members of the SSCI.
Importantly, however, what Jones described was a pattern of felonious
behavior, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false
statements, all of which are punishable by five years in a federal prison
per incident.
READ and WATCH: John Kiriakou Challenges the American Injustice
System(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/john_kiriakou_challenges_america
n_injustice_system_20160310)
Briefly, in August 2009, Holder made noises that seemed to indicate that he
was interested in getting to the bottom of the CIA torture program. He
expanded the responsibilities of prosecutor John Durham so that they
mirrored the investigative responsibilities of Jones and the committee.
Great idea, right? Wrong.
As The Guardian article noted:
Every effort Jones made to talk with Durham failed. 'Even later, he refused
to meet with us,' Jones said. .
The lack of communication had serious consequences. Without Durham
specifying who at CIA he did and did not need to interview, Jones could
interview no one, as the CIA would not make available for congressional
interview people potentially subject to criminal penalty. Jones could not
even get Durham to confirm which agency officials prosecutors had no
interest in interviewing. 'Regrettably, that made it difficult for our
committee to do interviews. So the judgment was, use the record,' said
(Senator Ron) Wyden, the Oregon Democrat on the panel.
But when the Senate investigators discovered discrepancies between what the
cables they read indicated and what CIA leaders represented internally or
publicly, they would be unable to solicit answers from the people in
question.
The fix was in. Jones' hands were tied. Nobody inside the CIA would be
brought to justice. Holder's appointment of Durham gave the CIA a foil, a
protector. No CIA officer would risk speaking with a Senate investigator,
knowing that a prosecutor was asking the same questions. As a result, nobody
said anything. Nobody cooperated.
The fact that the agency was actively obstructing justice didn't faze
then-CIA Director Leon Panetta-or his successors, CIA directors for the
"most transparent president in history." As the article notes, "Panetta and
his successors never approved any interviews the committee sought with
agency personnel. It wasn't only officials involved in the program who were
constrained in speaking with Jones. In October 2009, during a visit to
Langley, Jones sought to interview staff from the Inspector General's
office, which had investigated interrogations in 2004." The CIA's lead
attorney at the time blocked those interviews.
In the end, Jones completed the torture report, documenting in more than
6,000 pages CIA crimes against detainees. Committee Republicans refused to
participate in the investigation and denounced the report's conclusions. The
CIA condemned the report, saying the conclusions were "flawed." Agency
leaders also argued that they had never "misrepresented" the torture
program. The agency said, "The factual record maintained by the agency does
not support such conclusions."
This is, of course, directly contradicted by the "Panetta Review." The CIA
was lying from the beginning. As Jones noted:
"What's so shocking about that is that we thought this problem-the CIA
providing inaccurate information to the president-was limited to the Bush
administration, to (ex-directors) [George] Tenet, [Porter] Goss, and Hayden.
This is John Brennan's CIA, Obama's CIA. There's a famous picture of Brennan
briefing the president with their response (to the Torture Report) in May of
2013, before we received their response. They're providing inaccurate
information to the president of the United States in the present day."
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