CIA Operated Second Taping System at Black Site Prison

By GottaLaff

(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

My dear friend and ace reporter Jason Leopold has done some great reporting, and has graciously allowed me to cross-post a few excerpts. Please read his whole piece here.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has launched an investigation into the brutal torture of Abu Zubaydah, the "high-value" detainee captured in March 2002 that the Bush administration wrongly claimed was one of the planners of 9/11 and a top al-Qaeda operative, according to several Capitol Hill sources.

The investigation of Zubaydah, who was tortured at a secret black site prison in Thailand, will be conducted alongside the committee's ongoing probe of the Bush administration's interrogation and detention policies.

The panel will pour over thousands of pages of highly classified documents related to Zubaydah's detention and torture to determine, among other things, whether the techniques he was subjected to was accurately reflected in CIA cable traffic sent back to Langley, whether he ever provided actionable intelligence to his torturers, and how the CIA and other government agencies came to rely on flawed intelligence that led the Bush administration to classify him as the No. 3 person in al-Qaeda and its first high-value detainee, Hill sources said. [...]

"It was a very partisan group," Mickum said about the briefing. "Republicans had their agenda and they were not very interested in hearing the facts of the case. I told them what my views were on the case. I'm delighted [the committee] has decided to take a hard look at the case now." [...]

Meanwhile, highly placed intelligence sources directly knowledgeable about Zubaydah's torture said some of the interrogation sessions captured on at least 90 videotapes between April and August 2002 showed Zubaydah being subjected to torture methods not approved by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). [...]

The OLC did not approve the use of water dousing as an interrogation technique until August 2004. [...]

[F]ive intelligence sources said in interviews conducted over the past month that they were aware of a second taping system that was set up at the black site prison in Thaliand--possibly one they said was installed by an outside contractor--which captured Zubaydah's torture sessions that were stored on computers and separate hard drives.

There's more, including how this ties in to Yoo's torture memos. Go.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here.

Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Abu Zubaydah had nothing to do with 9/11 attacks

By GottaLaff

(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Jason Leopold is a good friend who works his tush off when he sniffs out a good story. He's thorough and does his homework. For that reason, it's necessary to read his entire post, not just the excerpts I provide here.

There is a lot to this story, and it's an important one. Jason has graciously given his permission to cross-post his work:

The Justice Department has quietly recanted nearly every major claim the Bush administration had made about "high-value" detainee Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo prisoner who at one time was said to have planned the 9/11 attacks and was the No. 2 and 3 person in al-Qaeda.

Additionally, Justice has backed away from some of the claims intelligence officials working in the Clinton administration had also leveled against Zubaydah, specifically, that he was directly involved in the planning of the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa. [...]

His torture was videotaped and the tapes later destroyed. [...]

In recent months, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen has been on a public relations campaign promoting his book, "Courting Disaster," in which he defended the torture of Zubaydah, claiming that he reviewed classified intelligence that revealed Zubaydah's torture produced actionable intelligence that thwarted imminent plots against the United States.

But court documents unclassified last week debunk Thiessen's assertions. Moreover, the government acknowledges in its partially redacted filing that it does not rely on anything Zubaydah told his torturers after his March 2002 capture in Pakistan in arguing that he should continue to be detained.

The document also refutes every statement George W. Bush made publicly about Zubaydah, who the former president claimed was one of al-Qaeda's "top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."

For the first time, the government now officially admits that Zubaydah did not have "any direct role in or advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001," and was neither a "member" of al-Qaeda nor "formally" identified with the terrorist organization.

Please go read the whole thing here while I find a wall to bang my head on... repeatedly.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Torture Diaries, Drawings and the Special Prosecutor

By GottaLaff

(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

My dear friend and all around terrific investigative reporter/writer came out with a great piece today over at Truthout. He allows me to share his work here at TPC, but I'll only give you a few excerpts.

His post is so thorough I can't possibly do it justice here:

Attorneys defending Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo prisoner designated as the first "high-value" detainee by the Bush administration, have finally gained access to three volumes of diaries he wrote while he was in the custody of the CIA and brutally tortured by agency interrogators and contractors at a secret "black site" prison.

The diaries, identified as volumes 7, 8 and 9, were written between 2002 and 2006 and total a little more than 300 pages. They were turned over to defense attorneys by the government late last year after a lengthy legal battle, and are believed to contain detailed descriptions of the torture techniques to which Zubaydah was subjected.

The diaries are crucial to the defense, said one of Zubaydah's attorneys, Brent Mickum, because they will reveal locations of where Zubaydah was detained and identify people with whom he spoke, contradicting previous government assertions that Zubaydah was connected to and involved in the planning of terrorist plots against the United States.

However, however, however, there's always a however:

However, because the diaries are written in Arabic and US District Court Judge John Roberts' ruling did not state that the government was required to have the diaries translated, it is unlikely the defense will learn what Zubaydah wrote about his torture any time soon.

However:

However, there were "some issues" that arose, the extent of which Mickum cannot discuss because those early volumes of Zubaydah's diaries, while unclassified, have been designated by the government as "protected," thus preventing the public from seeing any of this information.

"Frankly, it's just another, in a long litany of classification abuses that the judicial system, for whatever reason, refuses to address," Mickum said.

It is unclear why Roberts did not require the government to provide translations for volumes 7, 8, and 9, which are top secret because they describe specific torture techniques and may also describe the interrogators who administered the torture, Mickum said.

However:

Mickum said in lieu of the torture tapes, the drawings Zubaydah made contain the best description of the torture techniques CIA interrogators used against Zubaydah while he was being held at the agency's black site prison facilities.

Yet John Yoo, one of the architects of the systematic torture employed by BushCo, finds all of this rather amusing. Besides, we're just "settling scores" when we call this appalling brutality out.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Ex-CIA agent: Zubaydah waterboarded before DoJ memos approved

By GottaLaff

There are reports popping out everywhere that all seem to be revealing the same thing: BushCo broke the law. I sense a theme:

A former U.S. intelligence agent said in a report published Monday that terror suspect Abu Zubaydah was subjected to simulated drowning months before the Bush administration’s Department of Justice had written memos approving the use of waterboarding.

The claim strikes a serious blow to repeated Bush administration arguments that no laws were broken in the torture of prisoners because legal guidelines had been closely followed.

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer John Kiriakou, speaking with BBC’s Panorama, said that internal communications detailed Zubaydah’s torture beginning “at the very end of May or the very beginning of June 2002.”

Bush administration lawyers did not issue memorandum supportive of torture — a war crime under the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war — until August of that year.

Kiriakou said that President Bush had personally given written authorization for Zubaydah’s torture.

So much for "following the law".

As you know by now, I am passionate about holding those accountable who were responsible for authorizing the torture and brutality. All of them.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.