Mudd Wrestling and Torture
Spencer’s got one of the big scoops of the day: that Philip Mudd left the FBI about six weeks ago (so early March).
Philip Mudd, one of the intelligence community’s leading al-Qaeda analysts, has quietly retired from the FBI, where he was associate executive director of the National Security Branch. Mudd confirmed in an email that he left “about six weeks ago,” but didn’t immediately respond to additional questions about his departure.
Mudd was a longtime CIA counterterrorism specialist before coming to the FBI, but it doesn’t appear as if he’ll return to his home agency. This could be it for Mudd’s government career.
Spencer describes Mudd as one of the smartest guys on al Qaeda in government (here’s Mark Hosenball’s report on this, repeating the superlatives). But, last year, when he was nominated to take over Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence side, he was forced to withdraw his nomination after Senate staffers questioned whether he had ties to the torture program.
The White House nominee to be the undersecretary of intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security has withdrawn, he and the White House said in statements Friday.
The withdrawal of the nomination of Philip Mudd, a veteran CIA analyst who had worked in recent years as a senior executive at the FBI, comes after an AP report yesterday. The report said that a Republican lawmaker planned to question Mudd over whether he had “direct knowledge” of the Bush-era harsh interrogation program while serving in a senior analytical role at the CIA.
The sinking of the nomination of someone who had served in an analytical capacity at the CIA, rather than in an operational or senior policy one, shows the broad scope of exposure to the controversial Bush-era harsh interrogation program for officials who did not obviously have a direct role in the program.
An aide to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told the AP that “Mudd’s analysts used information obtained through harsh interrogations, and the official said that Mudd is likely to be questioned on whether the analysis branch pressured interrogators in the field to use harsher methods because they believed detainees were not telling the truth.” Collins sits on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee that oversees the DHS. [my emphasis]
Now, I didn’t make the connection between these two events last year, but since I’ve been reading the questions CIA’s Inspector General was (probably) asking a manager at CTC in February 2003, I happen to have read this passage of the CIA IG Report just this morning.
Handgun and Power Drill
91. [Redacted] interrogation team members, whose purpose it was to interrogate al-Nashiri and debrief Abu Zubaydah, initially staffed [redacted]. The interrogation team continued EITs on Al-Nashiri for two weeks in December 2002 [redacted] they assessed him to be “compliant.” Subsequently, CTC officers at Headquarters [redacted] sent a [redacted] senior operations officer (the debriefer) [redacted] to debrief and assess Al-Nashiri.92. The debriefer assessed Al-Nashiri as withholding information, at which point [redacted] reinstated [redacted] hooding, and handcuffing. Sometime between 28 December 2002 and 1 January 2003, the debriefer used an unloaded semi-automatic handgun as a prop to frighten Al-Nashiri into disclosing information.44 After discussing this plan with [redacted] the debriefer entered the cell where Al-Nashiri sat shackled and racked the handgun once or twice close to Al-Nashiri’s head.45 On what was probably the same day, the debriefer used a power drill to frighten Al-Nashiri. With [redacted] consent, the debriefer entered the detainee’s cell and revved the drill while the detainee stood naked and hooded. [my emphasis]
Of note, the torturers had deemed al-Nashiri compliant. But CTC decided he had more information and sent out an operations guy to further question him, which is what led to two death threats being used against al-Nashiri (the kind of threats John Yoo had specifically refused to approve around July 25, 2002).
The IG Report describes the debriefer here as an operations person. Mudd was an analyst. So Mudd was probably not this person’s direct supervisor. But the CIA IG Report later makes it clear that the analysts were the ones driving further torture sessions when they decided the detainee had not revealed everything he knew or should have known.
205. According to a number of those interviewed for this Review, the Agency’s intelligence on Al-Qa’ida was limited prior to the initiation of the CTC Interrogation Program. The Agency lacked adequate linguists or subject matter experts and had very little hard knowledge of what particularly Al-Qa’ida leaders–who would later become detainees–knew. This lack of knowledge led analysts to speculate about what a detainee “should know,” vice information the analyst could objectively demonstrate the detainee did know. [three lines redacted]
206. [three lines redacted] When a detainee did not respond to a question posed to him, the assumption at Headquarters was that the detainee was holding back and knew more; consequently, Headquarters recommended resumption of EITs. [my emphasis]
Now, none of this means that Philip Mudd was in the chain of command that ordered al-Nashiri to be tortured some more (and even less of this means that Mudd approved of some cowboy swinging a gun next to al-Nashiri’s hooded head). Furthermore, the IG Report makes it clear that the order to torture Abu Zubaydah one more time, as distinct from al-Nashiri, came from DO, not CTC.
Nevertheless, this report on al-Nashiri–which was made public more than two months after Mudd withdrew his nomination but likely was available to Homeland Security Committee staffers before that point in unredacted form–does match the allegation made by Collins’ staffer pretty closely.
The big question is timing. A lot of Mudd’s bios have disappeared from the web. But when he moved to the FBI from serving as the number 2 guy in CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, here’s how they described that phase of his CIA employment.
Mr. Mudd returned to the CIA in January 2002 from the Near East Section of the White House National Security Council (NSC), where he served as the Director responsible for Gulf and other Middle Eastern issues. His NSC tour concluded with his joining Ambassador James Dobbins in the U.S. effort to reconstitute a new government in Afghanistan.
Mr. Mudd currently serves as second-in-charge of the CTC, which has responsibility for all-source analysis and global clandestine operations on subjects ranging from al-Qa’ida’s leadership to Hizballah to terrorists’ use of chemical and biological weapons.
That is, he returned to CIA in January 2002, and a year or so later assumed the role of CTC’s number 2. But I’m not sure what Mudd did in the interim year (though he had just returned from helping Hamid Karzai set up a new Afghan government). In other words, it’s not clear whether Mudd oversaw the analysts who decided they knew al-Nashiri was withholding information or not in late December 2002.
But the timing sure is notable.
An unfortunate name, Mudd.
A handgun and … a power drill … “while the detainee stood naked and hooded.”
This is mature, adult and reasonable behavior? Designed to enhance our “security”?
Phil Mudd better hope that his fingerprints are not found on any of this, or he might need to seek employment in the private sector. That will teach him.
Might Mudd be moved unburden himself of his “insights” should the slings and arrows become too much?
Or, as a good G-man, will he maintain a stiff upper lip and a discreet silence?
(Very minor typo … in the last sentence … “the” between “decided” and “knew” should be “they”.)
Way back when, I did a diary with another related snippet of text a bit further down in the OIG report [Section 264, pp 104-105]:
This repeats the reliance on what the prisoner “should know” and directly ties that bad analysis to further torture.
Yup.
I think it’s possible, though not probable, that Mudd was the one that got asked those questions we were looking at earlier. In any case, the presumption was that people at CTC would know what it meant when you were asked if you knew about the specific EIT used on al-Nashiri. Which does seem to point to the import of this story. And if I’m not mistaken, this is one that is in Durham’s expanded mandate.
I’m pretty sure I’m getting a whiff of the unmistakable stench of Cheney:
This sounds very much like The Stovepipe operation going on under Wolfowitz/Feith at the behest of Cheney at DOD at the time, which Seymour Hersh wrote about in an article of that name at the New Yorker.
Or to put it differently, we’ve had two of our top counter-terrorism people retire unexpectedly recently, Mudd and Kappes. Both were involved in the chain of command on torture, and both may have been involved in ordering someone to do further torture.
One is an exception. Two starts to become a pattern.
Now don’t go getting my hopes up…
Those are a very arresting pair of sentences, are they not, Jim.
(Down hopes! Let us wait … yet a bit …)
DW
Mind you, I don’t think either one of them would be in serious legal trouble. If they were, it’d be hard to get them out of govt (bc in govt they’ll have more legal protection). Plus, I think there’s something in the US Attorney’s manual that lets you deal public figures out of office in lieu of charges.
Now that they’re both recently retired, I wonder if they have any foreign travel plans…? ;-)
Um, yeah, it sure starts to strike a chord.
It will be a lot less embarrassing for the Obama administration to have these guys out of office when the shit hits the fan, and oh yes, that will be happening.
Good riddance and no tears for either of these guys. Great article, EW, and nice scoop for Spencer.
Only slightly OT, Judge Kennedy found today for Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman’s habeas petition, citing the unreliability of the evidence due to torture (torture claims that were unrebutted by the government). I’ve written it up, with substantial quotes from Kennedy’s decision, over at The Seminal.
Reading the accounts of torture in Kennedy’s decision (PDF) will make your blood boil.
Yup. bmaz is working on a post on it.
It’s up now.
The designation of “high value” or not would also tend to come from the analysts at CTC, so they both designated someone to be tortured and then, if the info was not justifying their “high value” designation (like an AZ) they would have not only frustration over not getting the info but also a legal reason (the Bybee memo requirement that the torturee be a high value operational member of Al-Qaeda) to push for the torturers to get info out that made the analyst’s initial designation “correct.”
From CTC. Or that guy doing the profiling. What’s his name again? Oh yeah. John Brennan.
*g* Got me.
Part of me is thinking: If these guys had to step down bc of ties to torture then why were they even recommended for a high level job in the Obama administration? But the other part of me is thinking, well, you’ve got OBama’s top security advisor who is at LEAST as exposed on warrantless wiretapping as these guys are exposed on torture.
But he was able to talk candidate Obama into giving
himselfthe telecoms immunity.Yeah, this gets into a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn’t it? If a subject is a “high value detainee,” then by definition, he oughta know stuff, right? And if the interrogations aren’t generating actionable intelligence, then almost by definition, he’s gotta be withholding important information, so then tighten the screws!!! Never mind the possibility that this cab driver might have been misclassified as a High Value Detainee! We don’t make mistakes! These are the worst of the Worst! ….aren’t they?
Bob in AZ
PS Do I hafta put in the snark tag?
No tag needed. *g* The other layer is, “oh, and guys, btw, everything we just did to him might be illegal UNLESS you are able to get something out of him to prove he really was a high value detainee”
Bc the comfort opinion prefaced everything on the detainees being tortured also being high value operational members of Al-Qaeda. So you get an AZ. And a dead Gul Rahman. Then what?
*****************
BTW – a bit tangential, but if Congress really is going to be wondering why the habeas filings are the first they’ve heard that AZ isn’t a member of AQ and didn’t know anything about AQ terrorist attacks, they may also be wondering what happened to one of the witnesses CIA had that who was trying to tell them that AZ wasn’t a member of AQ.
Remember Noor al-Deen?
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/03/29/they-should-have-listened-to-noor-al-deen/
Who made the arrangements to disappear al-deen to Syria and deep six the info he had that AZ wasn’t AQ?
That WaPo story that was the springboard for EW’s piece included this:
And yet, as the doc dump shows, the paper being put together as late as 2005 (as well as the earlier Padilla presser, where the public and indirecly the Sup Ct was tutored by DOJ on AZ being an AQ operative) and even in 2007 the CIA was still generating propaganda about AZ being AQ. So when did anyone ever come clean with Congress?
If there’s going to be some kind of trial of AZ – or at least some kind of quasi judicial (military or civilian) proceeding – then at some point the issue of how a guy who was what Dan Coleman described came to be designated, even over the input of someone like Coleman, as “high value” and ripe for torture has to come up and be addressed.
Since a lot of people had seen that name a lot prior to his capture, if nothing else, Mudd may have been involved in the original designations that opened the door to kicking out the FBI and having the CIA go to town on the crazy guy. Not the same culpability as telling intorturgators who wanted to stop to not only keep going, but ramp up, still a pretty prominent slot to have to hold down if more of the story is coming out.
And keep in mind, that even by the time of the Padilla Presser and the CIA doc describing the history of the AZ torture and later, CIA was STILL using the CTC determination that AZ was a “high value operational member of al-Qaeda” and never mentioning the Hannis or Dan Coleman or the fact that they discovered AZ wasn’t actual al-Qaeda at all.
So part of the pattern could well be the big “Walkback” by DOJ when it was forced to go into court on AZ – where it finally anted up, publically (and despite the previous DOJ presser to the contrary) that AZ wasn’t a member of al-Qaeda or an al-Qaeda deputy or in the al-Qaeda chain of command, etc. That was declassified the end of March, but the decision process was ongoing before that.
They (DOJ) have now filed docs saying that at the time of his capture, AZ was none of the things that Bybee and Yoo said he would need to be to justify his torture. Even if their parameters had been followed. So that does pretty much call into question who said he was – and why – and why Congress and courts and OLC and others have never been told until that filing that Coleman was right and CIA torturers were wrong?
It is interesting, however, that Mudd was described by Hosenball as believing:
which is something I can agree with.
Yup. There’s a real disconnect. This guy is supposed to be the one guy who knows his stuff, too. (Though we believed we knew a lot about al-Nashiri; though we were relying on Yemen for that knowledge which is always dicey.)
The other explanation for Kappes and Mudd leaving is if they’re not in the line of fire, but their direct reports are, and they’re leaving to object to it.
Though given the underwhelming treatment for Kappes when he left, I’m not so sure.
I’m going to offer something counter-intuitive here, perhaps even a bit squirrely. *g*
We’ve discussed this many moons ago before (I distinctly remember bmaz offering some good commentary), but what if Kappes and Mudd are in the direct line of fire, and in order to effect a 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, are leaving?
From past memory, my argument previously was that there is an inherent conflict between the obligation that government employees face between a requirement that they answer questions truthfully as government employees and their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.
And again, if I remember correctly, my argument previously was that in order to plead that 5th Amendment right, folks could not remain as government employees. They had to leave government service in order to use that right.
Perhaps Kappes’ and Mudd’s departure from government employment means that they are in fact targets of Durham’s investigation.
Just MHO and YMMV. *g*
One of the lawyers can say this better. But while that’s true, you need to look at the example of McPherson, who apparently got immunity before testifying. There’s a problem with forcing people to testify while they’re still govt employees on those terms bc then in trial they can say they thought they had to testify to keep their jobs.
It may be that MacPherson wasn’t actually a Durham target, and therefore Durham felt free to offer that immunity since it came at no real cost.
Or MacPherson didn’t think he was a target, but may have been reluctant to testify against others at the CIA and somehow still keep his job at the CIA, and Durham forced the issue with the immunity grant.
And speaking of CIA lawyers spilling their guts, I wonder whatever happened to the rest of the crew in McPherson’s leaky rowboat:
And if folks don’t remember who some of these crew are, from a Law.com article about the Obama Administration’s pick of Stephen Preston for the CIA General Counsel position:
Oh. I guess that confirms that C/CTC is “Chief/Counterterrorism/Legal.”
Leans that way, doesn’t it?
The Federal government has a right to demand that its own employees testify and testify truthfully about acts occurring in the course and scope of their employment. Such an employee is, of course, free to avail themselves of the Fifth; however, they can be terminated or disciplined for doing so.
Another excellent brief brief Counselor!
“I don’t recall” sure works, though.
Sigh.
It’s also a safer thing to say than, “I think treating them as criminals would be better because then, when we bought guys off drug lords and stuff, and CTC cued them up for torture experiments, we ended up creating monsters in our own ranks and torturing and killing people who had nothing to do with 9/11 and someday all the crap we did will come out and make our sons and daughters worry about leaving our grandchildren with us, alone, bc they’ll understand we chose monstering”
Heh, wait a few minutes and check back if you want a whiff of that. there was a substantial habeas decision released today, and it is pretty damning for the government. Seriously so. I’ll have it up shortly.
A couple points EW:
From Spencer’s quote:
(My Bold)
And your assumption based on Spencer’s quote:
(My Bold)
The CIA’s CounterTerrorist Center (CTC) per Wiki was organizationally part of the Directorate of Operations (DO).
While there was indeed analysis taking place at the CTC, that was not all the CTC folks actually did. Again per Wiki:
As you can see from the above quote, the CIA’s CTC also had/has a direct, on the ground, operational role.
And it’s not just Wiki. Continuing on:
(My Bold)
I would proffer that Mudd’s designation as an “analyst” is not totally or necessarily entirely accurate. Yes, the CTC did “analysis”, but it also had/has a strong “operations” role in the GWOT.
It might even be argued the the CTC is the “primary” CIA operations unit responsible for GWOT.
In fact, one could argue that there is no other component within the CIA that has the CIA’s “primary” operations GWOT role than the CTC. All CIA GWOT “operations” begin and end with the CTC.
I’m beginning to suspect that the CIA folks on the ground in charge of the detainee interrogations (including the contractors Mitchell and Jessen, but not the CIA’s OMS personnel) worked directly for the CTC.
And lastly,
It still may have been the CTC where the actual order originated.
As the CTC organizationally was part of the DO, the IG report may have chose to describe the order as coming from the DO generally rather than from its CTC sub-unit specifically.
Oh, no question CTC joins the two, and no question but that the torturers reported to CTC. That’s why I’m so certain that CTC/LGL is what is behind a lot of the redactions we’ve been looking at.
Part of the reason I’m focusing on Mudd’s role as an analyst is 1) because Collins’ staffer was describing their objection in terms of his managing analysts, and 2) because I’m not yet convinced that Mudd could have been in a role to be the interviewee for whom those questions were drawn up. Partly bc his portfolio was analysis.
But I could well be wrong on that last point. That is, my lurking suspicion is that he IS that interviewee.
And I’m also wondering whether John McPherson still works for the govt.
Excellent! I was finding it hard to believe you were buying the purported “hands-off” role that Mudd may have had at the CTC. I should’ve known better. *g*
As of a couple weeks ago, per WaPo:
Great comment! Almost worthy of its own diary…
Bob in AZ
I agree on the “almost” part. *g*
Or as someone (me?) might put it, tis better to leech on EW’s post than not to leech at all. *g*
Grins aside, ta!
ew @13
so are mudd and kappes collateral damage to durham’s investigt’n?
my thought when kappas left was that obama’s boys were cleaning house at the cia. maybe it was doj instead.
Excellent thought! I hope you’re right.
Bob in AZ
continuing
and then there’s the possibility of leaving gov’t to become a consultant, the dream of every long-time bureaucrat who is tired of the grind of bureaucracy.
knowing both the cia and the fbi side of counterterrorism, might allow mudd to make money as a consult that he would have to steal to make if he remained “inside”.
EW,
Thanks for noticing something that was easy to not notice!
O/T but important in light of a frequent concern here in the Wheel House:
Time to give them a piece of our minds?
Bob in AZ
A number of US civil society organizations submitted the following report to the Human Right Council regarding US policies http://www.charityandsecurity.org/news/US_Nonprofit_Rights_UN_Human_Rights_Submission
Thanks. Glad to see you’re still following things here!
Bob in AZ
EW, someone else right smack dab in the middle at CTC/LGL you might want to include in the torture videotapes destruction timeline:
(My Bold)
BTW, just thought I remind folks that Phil Mudd was one of two people who dreamed up the datamining for falafel approach to counterterrorism intel gathering.
I’m not impressed by his acumen.
Aw jeebus. I started joking about that long before it was revealed they really were doing it. That was Mudd?!?!?!
Hey, you know what other ethnic group eats a lot of falafel?
Good gravy but the man and his buddy were morons for ever giving this idea the time of day.
Yeah, living in SE MI like I do, we get to choose between Israeli style falafel, Lebanese, or general middle eastern. And that’s just within 1.5 miles of my house.
Um, that is a closer link to al-Qaida than many of the souls forgot at Gitmo
Something that struck me today that I thought worth bringing up here has to do with that order from CIA HQ prohibiting “editing” videotapes thingie from page 1 of Part 2 (35 page PDF).
First, you can’t do “editing” of videotape on your Ma and Pa’s VCR. You need more specialized video equipment, or have software on a computer to do video “editing”.
And there has been speculation that that CIA HQ order was ex post facto. That is, editing of torture videotapes had indeed already taken place, and meanwhile, the discussion of destroying those torture videotapes was reaching all the way up to the White House and the NSC, and they were purportedly adamant against such destruction.
So were the torture videotapes ever “edited”?
You only have to re-read an EW post from December 11, 2007 to get your answer:
Editing? You betcha!
Electronic copies? You betcha!
rayne @40
that was an interesting read.
“lord, what fools these fbi be!”
Regarding the meeting described by Dusty Foggo’s deputy (page 17 of the 57 page Part 3 PDF) in which Jose Rodriguez told Porter Goss and John Rizzo that the torture videotapes had been destroyed, I found this MSNBC piece (Update: actually the AP was the original source) back on January 16, 2008 about the meeting “interesting”:
I guess briefing Congressional Intel committee heads slipped Jose’s mind. *g*
And before I call it an evening, I thought it might be interesting to show what Robert Bennett, the lawyer for Jose Rodriguez, had to say to the WaPo back on January 16, 2008 about the torture videotape destruction ordered by his client:
(My Bold)
Implict rather than explict.
As in “nobody explicitly told him he couldn’t.”
As in “We advise you not to destroy the torture videotapes. Wink, wink.”
And some say Addington was a wanker, but if truth be told, he was a winker.
And one more “interesting” bit from that WaPo article that lends credence to the idea that both “editing” and “copying” took place as I indicated in my # 42 above:
@13 and 14 and in line with what MadDog dug up @45, I can sure think of situations where either or both of them might have some serious trouble, t the extent they were involved with the original reports to Congress that AZ was a high value al-Qaeda guy and yet, despite many years continued association with the AZ torture (even with Kappes leaving for a bit) neither of them bothered to ever give Congress the heads up on the fact that he wasn’t – actually – until Congress finds it out from the DOJ filing in AZ’s habeas.
Esp given the revelations in the habeas walk back that gov is conceding that AZ didn’t have any info on al-Q terrorist plots when he was captured. If and as some of the story comes out and it becomes clear that the no one was concerned about continuing to lie to Congress and it could/would still be ongoing, but for some lawyers having to decide how willing they were to lie to the courts, then some in Congress might well want to make some inquiries into why no one involved ever came and told them – OOPS.
@35 – isn’t it interesting how all we ever get told is “it all came from SERE so it must be fine” What you don’t hear much is, “we put it together after consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods”
@24/25 – EW is getting at the interviewee’s Garrity Rights. Under Garrity, there’s no generalized protection for a public employee to not answer or to lie; however, a public employee asked to provide information in an investigation with criminal overtones can’t be fired for refusing to answer unless/until they are first told that answers won’t be used against them in a criminal proceeding.
http://www.affi-iaff.org/garrity.pdf
The statements can be used against other people in a criminal proceeding, though, and if the statements given were lies, there could be consequences for lying in the investigation independent from the criminal actions consequence.
…Garrity Rights…
Ta for the formal term and enlightening this NAL!
You have heard it before; same issue as with the Blackwater Nissor Square shooters.
Thanks!
Ok, I thought I was done for the evening, but I had to throw out just one more tidbit.
Contrast these 2 WaPo “reports” approximately a year apart. One is as I referenced in my # 23 above, just from a couple of weeks ago. The second WaPo “report” is from March 2, 2009.
The 2009 WaPo report:
The 2010 WaPo report again:
A couple points:
1. As a sidenote, the report states that “the tapes were incinerated”. So now we know how they got rid of them. Though I should say that burning stuff like videotapes and ensuring they are completely destroyed by the fire is not a simple task.
2. In March 2009, the WaPo reports the Durham investigation is almost complete, yet a year later in March 2010 the WaPo reports that CIA OGC attorney McPherson, who “reviewed” the torture videotapes and torture notes, will be visiting a Durham Grand Jury either in March or April 2010, and under a grant of immunity.
And of course, the immediate question is WTF changed in the year between March 2009 and March 2010?
I guess we’ll have to stay tuned. *g*
I honestly think Dusty Foggo’s testimony got Durham beyond the first level of omerta. And that happened bc CIA hung him out on the Cunningham charges–including, especially, Porter Goss.
May have been one expensive floozy Foggo was so hooked on he had to spot her at HQ.
I hope you’re right.
They don’t like it if you steal, unless you get permission first.
Just ask Edwin Wilson.
Didn’t MTZ (?), the office supply co, cut the check for that boat for the Dukester ?
All roads lead somewhere.
This is called “panning for gold”…all-source analysts study the “firehose” of data, and pick out discrete bits and pieces they want followed up on. In CTC’s case, this means filling in the blanks through interrogations: the pieces to the puzzle, if you will, they can’t or haven’t been able to put together via human intelligence or signals intelligence.
“Ask him about this date.”
“Ask him who used to run this safe house in Karachi.”
The military does the same. Human intelligence collection, at least in pursuit of HVTs, is driven by nuggets gleaned from signals intelligence and analysts standing in front of the “firehose”.
All lingo is current as of January 2010.
crossword @56
that is very useful info.
but that must mean the interrogations are piecemeal and chaotic rather than systematic.
Precisely.
I didn’t mention the upcoming or concurrently ongoing Congressional investigation directly in my spec about Congress having some questions that Kappes and Mudd might not want to answer (likely answer “again” for comparison and contrast with their previous input) bc it was mentioned so recently, but I know I skip around a lot in the comments and realized I probably should tie it in.
Jason Leopold put up a story a few days ago about the fact that the SSCI is supposedly getting ready to take a closer look at the AZ interrogations:
http://www.truthout.org/zubaydahs-torture-detention-subject-senate-intelligence-inquiry58666
Now that the tapes are destroyed and years after the allegations that the Bush admin lied about AZ’s AQ status is probably not the best of times for the investigation – but since Kappes BFF has been DiFi and she chairs all this, he may have received some inside sourcing about why he might not want to be a the SSCI’s beck and call as an admin employee while this investigation is ongoing. Ditto Mudd.
Great dot connecting off of Spencer’s scoop EW!
Mary,
Interesting and probable observation.
Thanks to all for great comments.
Here’s an interesting Frontline interview.
The respone to “Who is the Enemy” caught my eye –
In response to Mary @71
How about this:
” Bold not in original.
How about this:
” Bold not in original.