CIA lawyer reaffirms torture jail did exist
Accusations that Thailand let the CIA set up a secret prison where the torture of al-Qaeda suspects took place resurfaced yesterday in closed testimony by the agency's top lawyer to US lawmakers.
The lawyer was describing the destruction of interrogation tapes.
The Washington Post reported the CIA station chief in Bangkok sent a classified cable in late 2005 asking permission to destroy the videotapes "recorded at a secret CIA prison in Thailand that in part portrayed intelligence officers using simulated drowning to extract information from suspected al-Qaeda members".
News about Thailand hosting a cell in the covert prison system set up by the CIA around 2001 was first reported by The Washington Post in November 2005.
Afghanistan and several countries in Eastern Europe, as well as a small centre at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, were also said to be part of the system.
Thailand was a spoke in the "hidden global internment network [that] is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions," the newspaper reported in its November 2, 2005 edition.
The report provoked an international outcry, but Bangkok denied the claim.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat dismissed the report, saying it was groundless.
"We have checked with all concerned security agencies and they have insisted that there was no such facility in Thailand," he said.
In the US capital, the CIA's acting general counsel John Rizzo testified behind closed doors as the first witness in what House intelligence committee officials have said will be a long investigation.
A senior committee member told reporters after the four-hour meeting that Rizzo said whoever gave the command to destroy the videotapes apparently acted against the direction of his superiors.
"It appears he hadn't got authority from anyone," Representative Pete Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan, said.
Recorded on the tapes was the coercive questioning of two senior al-Qaeda suspects: Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, known as Abu Zubaida, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were captured by US forces in 2002.
They show Zubaida undergoing "waterboarding", which involves strapping a prisoner to a board and then pouring water over his nose and mouth, creating the sensation of imminent drowning. Nashiri later also underwent the same treatment.
The US Justice Department and the House intelligence committee are now investigating whether that deed constituted a violation of law or an obstruction of justice.
"I believe there are parts of the intelligence community that don't believe they are accountable to Congress and may not be accountable to their own superiors in the intelligence community, and that's why it's a problem," he said.
At the centre of the controversy is Jose Rodriguez, who had been scheduled to appear before the committee on the same day. His testimony was delayed by a demand for immunity.
Rodriguez was the head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, the branch that oversees spying operations and interrogations. He gave the order to destroy the tapes in November 2005.
The Post reported Rodriguez's attorney Robert Bennett as saying his client had consulted with CIA lawyers and officials who told him that he had the legal right to order the destruction of the tapes.
The Post said congressional investigators had turned up no evidence that anyone in the Bush administration openly advocated the tapes' destruction. The Post quoted Rodriguez's attorney as saying his client was carrying out the agency's stated intention.
"Since 2002, the CIA wanted to destroy the tapes to protect the identity and lives of its officers and for other counterintelligence reasons," Bennett said in a written response to questions from the newspaper.
"In 2003 the leadership of intelligence committees were told about the CIA's intent to destroy the tapes.
"In 2005, CIA lawyers again advised the National Clandestine Service that they had the authority to destroy the tapes and it was legal to do so.
"It is unfortunate that under the pressure of a congressional and criminal investigation, history is now being revised, and some people are running for cover."
The Nation Jan. 18, 2008