UK Torture Inquiry Farce on Last Legs, While Rendition to "Killing" Remains Uninvestigated

Originally posted at MyFDL/Firedoglake

Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor at the UK Guardian are reporting that the widely heralded 2010 announcement of a British government official inquiry into UK torture is facing a boycott by British human rights and attorney groups. The reason is undue secrecy.

[British Prime Minister] Cameron also made clear that the sort of material that has so far been made public with the limited disclosure in the Guantánamo cases would be kept firmly under wraps during the inquiry. "Let’s be frank, it is not possible to have a full public inquiry into something that is meant to be secret," he said. "So any intelligence material provided to the inquiry panel will not be made public and nor will intelligence officers be asked to give evidence in public."

This from the UK Guardian... July 14, 2010.

The handwriting was on the wall for some time on this sham inquiry, but the British human rights and lawyer groups kept fighting to make something real out of it. I can understand the impulse to do this, but really the inquiry's true intentions were telegraphed when Sir Peter Gibson was made its chair, as I noted when the news first broke.

The investigation is being conducted by a panel of three, whose head is the intelligence-connected Sir Peter Gibson, who is Intelligence Services Commissioner, responsible for monitoring secret bugging operations by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (Britain’s version of the NSA). Many questions have been raised by the appointment of Gibson, and it is startling to think that British human rights groups will accede to the appointment, given Gibson’s likely bias, not to mention his track record in other "judge-led" investigations.

The legal human rights charity group Reprieve describes three fatal flaws embedded within the official rules recently published for the inquiry:

First, the definition of evidence that will remain classified forever is hopelessly overbroad. Set out in Annex A [of the Detainee's Inquiry Protocol - PDF], this effectively includes anything that would in any way breach an "understanding" between the UK and its allies – in other words, anything the Americans would find embarrassing will not be made public.... Given that the essence of British complicity involves working with the US on torture and rendition, the exception to publicity swallows the rule.

Second, there is no meaningful, independent (preferably judicial) review of what should be kept secret... Unlike other inquiries where victims have made serious allegations of torture, the victims will not have meaningful legal representation. Their advisers will be denied access to any documents or hearings deemed secret by the inquiry.

Third, the Inquiry is left toothless due to a lack of powers to compel the attendance of witnesses or the provision of evidence or information from any party or organisation.

Truly, the UK government's so-called inquiry is being set up as Reprieve director Clive Stafford-Smith called it, "a whitewash." According to the Guardian article Shami Chakrabarti, director of the British group Liberty, states the inquiry is "a sham." "When is an inquiry not an inquiry?" Chakrabarti asked. "When it's a secret internal review."

Hiding Murder in the Rendition Program

While the U.S. Department of Justice is finally considering two cases of murder of detainees by the CIA, in general, the Obama administration has an official policy of "not looking back" and non-accountability when it comes to crimes of torture. But it seems likely there are more crimes waiting to be revealed.

Last July, around the time the UK torture inquiry was first proposed, I broke the story that the revelations of UK cooperation with U.S. rendition policies included possible "rendition to killing."

Like much of what I report, the revelation was not consistent with the accepted narrative of what the U.S. media is allowed to report, so it was also ignored by the supposed alternative blogosphere, who mainly grubs after the crumbs that are begrudgingly reported by Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or second-tier establishment-organs-cum-alternative-press like Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, or Salon.com. The mainstream press reports what government officials tell them, while the "alternative" press and bloggers report what academic and governmental dissidents say. Rarely is any real investigative work done.

But this revelation was based on hard documentation, as reported in my July 14, 2010 article.

A series of documents released on July 14 in the UK Binyam Mohamed civil case, Al Rawi and Others v Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Others, have produced a series of explosive revelations, reported in Britain and as yet unknown here in the U.S....

Now, one of the most incendiary revelations in the documents concerns instructions given to MI6 Special Intelligence Service (SIS) over detention operations. According to Chapter 32 of MI6′s general procedural manual, "Detainees and Detention Operations", "the following sensitivities arise" (PDF – bold emphasis added):

a. the geographical destination of the target. Where will she or he be held? Under whose jurisdiction? Is it clear that detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation?

b. what treatment regime(s) for the detainees can be expected?

c. what is the legal basis for the detention?

d. what is the role of any liaison partner who might be involved?

The "objective" of "killing" points to the existence of extrajudicial murders carried out by the intelligence services. It’s not clear if the killings are by UK or liaison — including United States — forces. "Liaison partners" refers to instances of operational cooperation with non-UK intelligence agencies.

I have since discovered that BBC reported the same revelations about "killing" on July 15, so at least it was reported in the British press, where it made some stir, the BBC labeling as "stark" the paragraph on about "killing" as "the objective of the operation." Still, no U.S. news outlet picked up on this.

This is not the first time that unheralded killings of detainees has appeared in an otherwise unnoticed document. Last December I reported on a discussion of Guantanamo health protocols at a February 19, 2002 meeting of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, where officials were told that a "number of the detainees have died of the wounds that they arrived with.”

This is not as impossible or incredible as it may sound. We know that Guantanamo, like other DoD and CIA sites had their share of "ghost prisoners," i.e., prisoners whose existence was never reported to the International Red Cross or anyone else. Some of these disappeared forever. We don't know how many. (Maybe a real torture inquiry would shed some light on this.) Indeed, Manadel al-Jamadi, the subject of one of John Durham's recently announced criminal investigations, was such a ghost prisoner. And he, too, ended up dead, murdered.

Nor are such renditions and ghost prisoners a recent phenomenon. Consider the case of a Bulgarian political activist Dmitrov (aka "Kelly") who was rendered to U.S. Fort Clayton in Panama in the early 1950s, where, according to declassified CIA documents, he became a victim of the CIA's Project Artichoke mind control program. The full story was reported by H.P. Albarelli and myself in a Truthout article last year.

The United States, Great Britain and their partners in torture and rendition believe they are above the law, and that they can game the system forever. Perhaps they are right, and we have lost the battle before it was ever really engaged. I refuse to believe this is so. I can't believe that I am alone in wanting justice, and seeking a radical change in the configuration of forces that control this planet, which are currently organized in the name of power and oppression, for the benefit of an economic elite, and not around justice, social and economic equality, and a rational, humane world order based on cooperation and mutual respect for all nations and all individuals.

We desperately need a real, international inquiry into the crimes of torture, rendition, and aggressive war. But there is no political force currently operative that has the power and influence to make this happen, as the pending collapse of the UK torture inquiry enterprise demonstrates. And that is truly the dilemma of our times.

New Grand Jury Investigation on Torture, or DoJ Smokescreen?

Cross-posted at Firedoglake/MyFDL

News certainly travels fast, sometimes. While it took the U.S. government two years to reply to a request by a Spanish judge regarding whether or not the U.S. has instigated any investigations or proceedings against six high-level Bush administration figures named in a complaint by the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners (see PDF), and it took another three weeks to get the response distributed to the parties involved, and yet another three weeks to have the news of this response released to the world at large, it took less than 24 hours to learn that the entire case was dismissed by the Spanish judge on Wednesday.

In effect, Judge Eloy Velasco sent the case back to the U.S. at the request of the Department of Justice, who argued in their March 1, 2011 letter to the judge that the U.S. is plenty interested in investigating and prosecuting torture and other war crimes. Besides the cases of CIA contractors David Passaro and Don Ayala (Marcy Wheeler discusses the Passaro case here), assorted Defense Department prosecutions of "bad apple" abusers, and the lingering Durham investigation, the U.S. representation cannot dredge up any significant criminal investigations -- except one (if it is one).

The letter rogatory to the Spanish court refers to "pending federal investigations by the United States Attorneys' Office for the Eastern District of Virginia" on "various allegations of abuse of detainees." (p. 3-4 of letter) In addition the letter refers to "pending status and legal restrictions on the disclosure of investigative information, including rules of grand jury secrecy". Since there has been no previous reports on current grand jury proceedings in the Eastern District on detainee abuse that I know of, is this a reference to the former cases since sent from the Eastern District by Attorney General Holder in 2009 for review by special prosecutor John Durham? Or is this something new? Have some of the cases under preliminary review by Mr. Durham now reached full investigation status?

DoJ Keeps Mum on Virginia "Pending" Investigation

In response to such questions, Dean Boyd, spokesman for the National Security Division at the Department of Justice replied to me today, "There is nothing further I can provide to you on this matter beyond what is in the document."

Since the U.S. representation to the Spanish court was meant to convince the judge that the U.S. was serious about seeking investigations and prosecutions regarding torture, it is important to know whether a new stage in the otherwise dilatory investigations by the Obama administration, who famously has announced it would rather look forward and not backwards when it comes to investigating torture, has been hereby announced, or whether this was a con job by DoJ, describing the Eastern District grand jury as somehow still in play, when in reality, its actions on detainee abuse are non-existent, waiting for some determination of the review by Durham and his office.

Durham's review has also been going on for over a year and a half now. But it was last June when, according to an article at Main Justice, Attorney General Holder said in remarks at the University of the District of Columbia Law School, that Durham was near the end of his preliminary review, and ”close to the end of the time that he needs and will be making some recommendations to me.” Did those recommendations include a referral back to the Eastern District for investigation and prosecution of those cases? According to the article, "several Justice officials cautioned that although Durham is nearing completion, it may take weeks or months to absorb his findings and decide what steps, if any, to pursue next."

In a rebuttal letter to the U.S. response, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which has been championing the Spanish prosecution, appears to believe the entire episode as written up in the recent March 1 letter is a smokescreen for a whole lot of nothing. CCR wrote, "The U.S. Submission tries to hide behind the secrecy aspects of the grand jury proceedings to suggest that this investigation is a robust investigation into detainee abuse. It is notable, however, that the United States government has not spoken of any investigation in Virginia when discussing US investigations into US torture..." (PDF).

It must be galling to those looking to the Spanish court, and the hard workers at CCR especially, to see Judge Velasco so quickly take U.S. guarantees of sincerity as good coin. The U.S. had told the court, "The United States will continue to address allegations of abuse by its personnel, at home and abroad, and therefore believes it is appropriate for the Spanish courts to refer complaints related to such matters to the United States for appropriate review and action."

CCR responded, noting the Obama administration policy of impunity for torture among mid-level and high-ranking government figures:

Through its actions and inactions, the U.S. clearly has demonstrated its unwillingness to exercise its jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute the named defendants for serious violations of international law. To refer this investigation from Spain to the United States would be to knowingly transfer this case to be closed.

Those following the torture scandal will find high irony in the U.S. claims that the DoJ Office of Public Responsiblity (OPR) and Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) investigations, into DoJ Office of Legal Counsel malfeasance on the torture memos and on the origins and spread of the DoD torture program, respectively, are somehow indicative of U.S. good faith on investigations. The OPR report found government attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee to be guilty of "professional misconduct," only to have DoJ Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis downgrade the OPR decision. The SASC investigation found the torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere to be the responsibility not of "bad apples" in the military, but of high officials who promoted a program of torture and detention abuse.

It seems unlikely that the Durham investigation is actually going to bear any fruit, or that a grand jury investigation on detainee abuse is actually underway in Virginia. Sooner or later, we will know the truth. But whatever it is, the actions and policy of the Obama administration won't fundamentally change, as high officials, such as those identified in the Spanish case -- David Addington, Jay S. Bybee, Douglas Feith, Alberto R. Gonzales, William J. Haynes, and John Yoo -- are not in any danger of prosecution. The U.S. has made that clear numerous times, and most lately in the response to the Spanish judge.

AP: CIA Gave $5 Million to Mitchell-Jessen Defense

Originally posted at Firedoglake/FDL

Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo at Associated Press report this morning on the CIA's largesse in helping fund the legal defense for their former SERE psychologists contractors-cum-torturers, Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but reading about it turns one's stomach.

The secret agreement means taxpayers are paying to defend the men in a federal investigation over an interrogation tactic the U.S. now says is torture. The deal is even more generous than the protections the agency typically provides its own officers, giving the two men access to more money to finance their defense.

The two psychologists were the proprietors of Mitchell-Jessen and Associates, who sold their expertise in waterboarding and other psychological and physical forms of torture, formerly applied in teaching U.S. military personnel how to withstand torture, for the torture of Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abd al-Nashiri, and possibly others. The article describes how the contractors anxiously importuned their superiors to destroy the videotapes of their torture. After the CIA complied, and the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation with the accompanying scandal, the kabuki over the atrocities played out, paid for entirely from scarce taxpayer dollars, ending with a decision by feckless special prosecutor John Durham, not to prosecute anyone, whether for torture, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice, or anything.

The U.S. has long passed the Rubicon now, wherein it has become an official torture state. Its official military manuals of interrogation prescribe isolation (of the type people are noticing is being inflicted on Bradley Manning), sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, use of drugs, and other kinds of torture. The current President and the past either endorse torture, or consciously advocate turning a blind eye to it. Meanwhile, America's official torture center remains open for business, and Congress isn't even interested in shutting it down, blocking funds for either that or any transfer of prisoners to the United States.

What are we going to do now? The power elite's media machine drones on about espionage against journalists, and news providers, like Wikipedia's Julian Assange, while politicians of all stripes snap to attention.

It's time for something new in this stale, corrupt, monstrous political world we live in.

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

CIA Second Taping System Reported in Zubaydah Interrogation

Originally posted at Firedoglake/The Seminal

Jason Leopold has published an important article on Abu Zubaydah and the questions swirling around the destruction of the videotapes of his interrogation by the CIA. The Truthout reporter writes that a number of intelligence sources have described a hitherto unreported second taping system that was used on Zubaydah at the black site CIA prison in Thailand where the interrogations took place in 2002-2003.

Reportedly, this second set of tapes appear to have been used to collect "’data’ about Zubaydah, specifically, how much mental and physical pain he could endure after each torture session he was subjected to that took place prior to the issuance of OLC legal memos in August 2002." This data was then used to shape the parameters of the torture program and the types of legal approval John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury gave in those legal memos.

It is unknown if the purported second taping system was used on other CIA prisoners at the Thailand black site, but Leopold’s article also reports, in another important angle on the scandal, "that a similar taping system was also set up at a secret site at Guantanamo about a year later where interrogations of other high-value prisoners were also recorded." Last January, Scott Horton at Harper’s published a major expose concerning the possible killings of three prisoners in 2006 at a hitherto unrevealed secret site at Guantanamo unofficially known as Camp No. The prisoners had previously been labeled "suicides" by camp officials.

The issue of the tapes disposal has been under criminal investigation for many months by Special Prosecutor John Durham. Last August, Attorney General Holder also picked Mr. Durham to lead an inquiry into the abuse of prisoners subjected to the CIA’s interrogation program.

The investigation into the destruction of the tapes has included grand jury testimony by some CIA principals and a grant of immunity to CIA attorney John McPherson, who, according to the Washington Post, "reviewed the tapes years before they were destroyed to determine whether they diverged from written records about the interrogations."

Leopold is now reporting that the Senate Intelligence Committee has decided to look into the situation surrounding Abu Zubaydah’s CIA interrogation:

The panel will scrutinize 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 [were] 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.

As was reported in May 2009, FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, who was one of the early interrogators of Mr. Zubaydah, in his prepared statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee investigating prisoner abuse, mentioned the experimental nature of the CIA’s interrogation methods no less than four times. Mr. Zubaydah himself told the International Committee of the Red Cross that he heard or he suspected the CIA was experimenting with torture techniques upon him. I reported at the time:

It seems likely that Abu Zubaydah was a primary subject of JPRA/SERE’s reverse-engineering of torture techniques, using the paradigm of psychologist and former American Psychological Association president Martin Seligman’s theory of "learned helplessness."

According to a report last month by Mr. Leopold, a national security official said that Abu Zubaydah was used as an "experiment. A guinea pig." News of a second taping system, used to gather specific kinds of psychological or psychiatric data on the CIA’s interrogation subject(s), appear at the same time as revelations stemming from a release of CIA documents to the ACLU that describe CIA officials asking for "instructions" regarding the "disposition of hard drives and magnetic media" associated with the torture of Abu Zubaydah. Marcy Wheeler has been following a number of issues associated with the release of these documents at her Emptywheel blog.

Revealed: CIA Cable "Granting Permission" to Destroy Torture Videotapes

Originally posted at Firedoglake

A January 8 release of documents in the ACLU FOIA lawsuit seeking materials related to the CIA's destruction of videotapes of interrogators using "enhanced interrogation techniques" has revealed the first evidence of a precise instruction for the destruction of those tapes.

According to Rachel Myers at the ACLU, while there was previous evidence of requests from the "field" that the videotapes be destroyed, this is our first verification of the exact date CIA headquarters gave its approval.

The approval came in the form of "a two-page cable discussing a proposal and granting permission to destroy the videotapes.” (emphasis added) The cable was sent from "HQ" to the "Field" on November 8, 2005, the same day an earlier request was made from the "Field". Confirmation of the destruction of the tapes was already revealed in a cable “from the field to CIA headquarters, confirming the destruction of the videotapes.” (11/20/2009 Vaughn Index 4).

Requests for destruction of interrogation videotapes, and discussions around such an action are documented as far back as September 2002 (11/20/2009 Vaughn Index 55). It's presumed that these requests came from the Thailand CIA black site where Abu Zubaydah had been an experimental victim of the new so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, which were based on stress inoculation torture survival schools for the military, known as SERE. Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, formerly of SERE and its parent agency, Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), have been identified as being key figures in implementing the program.

The new cable has been withheld, citing numerous FOIA "exemptions," as have hundreds of other such pieces of evidence, including emails and draft memoranda, by the CIA. Its existence is revealed as part of a Vaughn index of withheld documents, wherein some description of the document is given, in addition to the reasons for withholding the document.

The "permission" cable is Document 154 in Part 6 of the latest Vaughn release/dump. It’s on pg. 13 out of 35 (all doc links are PDF). A full timeline on the CIA videotape destruction actions, which has not however been updated for the latest crop of documents, has been put together by the ACLU. All the documents released thus far can be accessed here.

Emptywheel has been covering this issue from the beginning. For instance, see this relevant story, wherein EW reports that "The CIA Asked to Destroy Torture Tapes on Same Day They Claimed They Didn't Torture."

Meanwhile, the investigation into the destruction of the videotapes, with prosecutor John Durham leading, has languished for over two years now. While justice is supposed to be blind and disinterested, the investigation will probably go nowhere unless public pressure is put on the Department of Justice and the Obama administration to hold the torturers accountable.

ACLU's Own Analysis

The ACLU has written up a preliminary review of the outstanding new finds in the latest CIA FOIA release, including a brief discussion of the "permission" cable that was the subject of this article. See the article at the ACLU's Blog of Rights. Among the new details adding to the torture narrative:

The conversation about destroying the tapes began during the torture of Abu Zubaydah. Two cables sent from the black site to CIA headquarters on August 19, 2002 discuss “lessons for the future based on CIA experience” and an August 20, 2002 cable discusses “a proposed policy regarding the use of videotapes in interrogations"....

... after the July 38 [sic], 2003 Principals meeting, the question of the tapes “seemed settled” until the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos in April 2004. In fact, the Vaughn index shows the conversation continuing even during this period, with a sequence of emails around September 22, 2008 [sic - most likely a typo for 2003] “concerning a draft memo on the destruction of the videotapes” and a February 19, 2004 email with attachment “concerning the legalities as to whether the CIA is legally required to retain the videotapes"....

There are numerous emails in the days leading up to destruction of the videotapes on November 8, 2005, just after the Washington Post published Dana Priest’s front-page exposé of CIA secret prisons and the day before The New York Times published a story on the CIA inspector general’s damning report. The CIA is clearly bracing for these leaks: on October 31, [2005] there is a 13-page email chain “discussing whether to publically acknowledge the counterterrorism program” and on November 1, [2005] an email with attachment “that discusses the Agency’s detention and interrogation program from a legal standpoint.” There are communications orchestrating how the agency will talk about the destruction of the tapes...

The article also lists the 10 documents withheld due to FOIA exemption (b)(7)(a), which relates to their use in an ongoing criminal investigation (Durham). In addition, there are three documents withheld for Congressional  consultation. ACLU notes "that there is a substantial paper trail surrounding the destruction of the videotapes."

We know Durham has been down that trail. Where is his investigation going?

Obama's Executive Orders on Guantanamo and the Question of Prosecutions

+++ Update: Here's a link to the draft executive order's text +++

Like attacking a hydra with many heads, the new administration is planning to take its first whacks at the torture regime set up by the Bush Administration. It's most infamous manifestation lies 90 miles off the U.S. coast at Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba.

Today, the government ordered a 120-day suspension of the military tribunal hearings of the Guantanamo detainees, as well as lesser delays in habeas hearings filed by attorneys on behalf of some of the prisoners.

Now, breaking news reported at ABC News, reports that tomorrow we will see three executive orders issued by President Obama aimed at the closure of Guantanamo "within a year", and promising immediate changes in the procedures and policies surrounding interrogation of detainees, and the conditions of their detention.

The ABC article is vague on whether the CIA will be included as regards changes in interrogation policies.

It is unlikely, but possible, that the new administration would in the first week expressly prohibit some interrogation techniques or refer to new legal parameters for the CIA program.

Of late, legislation has been introduced into Congress that would hold all U.S. interrogations, including those held by the CIA, to guidelines established in the Army Field Manual. The recent version of the manual is, despite assurances by former Bush administration, Pentagon, and some human rights officials, seriously flawed, allowing for solitary confinement/isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, and manipulation and creation of fears, among other coercive interrogation techniques. Physicians for Human Rights and The Constitution Project have both called for serious revision to the manual.

The Executive Director for Center for Constitutional Rights, Vincent Warren, was quick to respond to news of the proposed executive order to close Guantanamo. (CCR has been the central organization in organizing the defense of the Guantanamo detainees, gathering over 400 pro bono attorneys from all over the U.S. to help represent them.

"It only took days to put these men in Guantanamo, it shouldn't take a year to get them out.

We are proud that President Obama made addressing Guantanamo one of his first acts in office. Yet we are disappointed that he outlined no concrete steps for closing the base and gave his administration an entire year to sort out its plans - meaning that some men could have been detained indefinitely in terrible conditions for eight full years. Surely he could do better.

President Obama should commit to dismantling the military commissions, not just suspending them, and to prosecuting any cases before federal criminal courts - real courts with real laws."

A lot of the discussion about closing Guantanamo has to do with the disposition of its prisoners, how or where they would be tried, where they would go if released, etc. Outside of these important questions, the existence of these men, many or most of them who have been tortured, held without rights, is an embarrassment and an accusation against the system that kidnapped many of them and then held them incommunicado for years, with no right of redress, without charges, without hope. They were held in abusive conditions that amount to psychological torture. Many of them were tortured under interrogation.

Despite some recent releases, there are over 240 prisoners still languishing at Guantanamo, and over 600 at Baghram Air Base in Afghanistan. A true accounting of the number of prisoners held by the military and CIA is not available.

What do the proposed executive orders from Obama portend? Until we see the final drafts, it may be presumptuous to say. But while they mark a real change from the policies of the Bush administration, it is not clear how far they will really go. Will the CIA be forced to give up their "enhanced interrogation techniques", i.e., their right really to do what they damn well please when they interrogate prisoners, up to and including torture (even if they swear they never torture, that waterboarding, for instance, is not torture, etc.)? What procedures are proposed for the closure of Guantanamo? Will habeas be fully restored? Will isolation as a matter of policy, and other abusive procedures at Guantanamo be ended? What will be the standard for interrogation? Will the military commissions be ended?

The Prosecutions Issue

The story of the unraveling of the torture network built by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the CIA and others, will take place in the light of an ongoing push by many for prosecutions of Bush administration officials for torture. Obama has indicated he is not disposed to pursue such prosecution. It's possible, as the ACLU has proposed, that ongoing investigations left over from the spate of Bush WH scandals will metamorphosize into something bigger, a large scale investigation into wrong-doing by the administration or the Pentagon/CIA.

Hence, according to the New York Times:

Obama is facing even more intense pressure from liberal, human-rights and civil-liberties groups to allow some kind of investigation into the Bush administration's terrorism policies.

Chris Anders, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said it would be a simple matter to start such an inquiry because the Justice Department's special prosecutor, John Durham, is already investigating whether the CIA acted illegally when it destroyed videotapes of its harsh interrogations. Anders said Durham's mandate could be expanded to look into whether the interrogations depicted on the tapes were illegal.

Most recently, according to a Reuters report earlier this month, Durham stated in a court filing that his probe of the CIA destruction of videotapes of the "harsh" interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was nearing an end. "A considerable portion" of the work is now done, but some witnesses still need to be interviewed. (Link to Durham's filing)

Durham made the court filing as part of a FOIA lawsuit by the James Madison Project requesting a release of the documents associated with the tapes destruction. The CIA had asked the court for a delay until February 28, the latest date Durham states his investigation will be finished. According to Secrecy News, a section of the website for Federation of American Scientists:

Key details of the pending criminal investigation have been redacted from Mr. Durham’s affidavit, including the number of witnesses interviewed and the volume of documents examined to date....

Mr. Durham noted that “in many instances,” delays have resulted from witness requests for legal representation and the need to get witness attorneys cleared. In some cases, the government officials involved have retired and have been “read out” of the highly compartmented intelligence programs in question, and it has taken additional time to have their credentials reinstated, he said.

Expanding the Durham investigation seems like a long-shot, but who knows what will be in that FOIA release when it finally comes? The bulk of the Democratic leadership is surely afraid of what an investigation might bring, due to reports of the complicity of some of the Democratic leadership, particularly Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman and Jay Rockerfeller, in the approval of some of the torture program.

The next couple of months -- I never get tired of repeating -- will be key in the struggle to hold the torturers accountable, and to bring real, lasting change to the system that has brought the United States to the status of pariah nation by the use of torture, and by the cover-up of such use.

Conyers Raps New AG on CIA Tapes Investigation

Before everybody praises Michael "Is Waterboarding Torture?" Mukasey, Bush's new Attorney General, for appointing U.S. Prosecutor John Durham as head of a Justice Department criminal investigation into the CIA videotape destruction scandal, consider these succinct comments from an old Washington hand, Congressman John Conyers (remarks in bold are my emphases):

While I certainly agree that these matters warrant an immediate criminal investigation, it is disappointing that the Attorney General has stepped outside the Justice Department’s own regulations and declined to appoint a more independent special counsel in this matter. Because of this action, the Congress and the American people will be denied –- as they were in the Valerie Plame matter –- any final report on the investigation.

Equally disappointing is the limited scope of this investigation, which appears limited to the destruction of two tapes. The government needs to scrutinize what other evidence may have been destroyed beyond the two tapes, as well as the underlying allegations of misconduct associated with the interrogations.

The Justice Department’s record over the past seven years of sweeping the administration’s misconduct under the rug has left the American public with little confidence in the Administration’s ability to investigate itself. Nothing less than a special counsel with a full investigative mandate will meet the tests of independence, transparency and completeness. Appointment of a special counsel will allow our nation to begin to restore our credibility and moral standing on these issues.

So Durham is supposed to have cornered the mob, and have jailed some Connecticut pols... This is starting to smell like the Fitzgerald prosecution, with its Dudley Do-Right prosecutor, the limited scope of investigation, and likely many months before anything ever comes out about the destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice.

I agree with Congressman Conyers that a special prosecutor is needed in this case. But Rep. Conyers... really... wouldn't impeachment be a more direct way to "restore our credibility and moral standing on these issues"? And who could do more about that than... YOU!