1000 Words
The very last item in the Vaughn Index the CIA submitted to Judge Hellerstein in an attempt to keep all this information secret is a photograph of Abu Zubaydah dated October 11, 2002.
A photograph.
We can’t have that either, the CIA says, because it’ll expose sources and methods. More specifically, they say we can’t have it because of:
Exemption b(1) – This document contains information relating to intelligence activities (including special activities), intelligence sources, intelligence methods, and foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources that is properly classified pursuant to section 1.4(c) and 1.4(d) of Executive Order 12958, as amended, and is thus protected from disclosure by Exemption b(1).
Exemption b(3) – This document contains information relating to intelligence sources and intelligence methods that is specifically exempted from disclosure by section 102A(i)(1) of the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, 50 USCA 403-1(i)(1) (West Supp. 2008) and section 6 of the Central Intelligence Act of 1949, as amended, 50 USCA 403g (West Supp. 2008), and thus is protected from disclosure by Exemption b(3). This document also contains information relating to the organization, functions, and names of persons employed by the CIA that is specifically exempted from disclosure by section 6 of the Central Intelligence Act of 1949, as amended, 50 USCA 403g (West Supp. 2008), and thus is protected from disclosure by Exemption b(3).
A picture, apparently taken two months after the waterboarding, and they won’t release it because, they say, it’ll reveal sources and methods.
What was apparent in a photo of Abu Zubaydah from October 2002 that it would reveal sources and methods?
Something 10,000 words, a good lawyer and a nice suit can’t hide?
Zubaydah’s lawyers have already demanded his medical records. I wonder if this counts?
Medical examiners can discern very interesting things from photographs of wounds to the human body. To an ME, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words — and translating the picture into words is what they get paid to do.
In a quick review of the Vaughn Index… I see lots of “Denied in Full”. I plan to call the CIA Public Affairs at (703) 482-0623 and ask them to read your last diary. Excellent work, Marcy. In case the CIA wants more info, I got your back.
Maybe someone had carved a backwards “B” in his face?
I hate to imagine what’s in that photo.
It may be that some now medically necessary tech shows up in that photo. AZ might not be able to breathe unaided, eg.
ETA: Or a tracheotomy scar? Or were you thinking that al-Nashiri had the tracheotomy? I lose my place sometimes.
I’d be surprised at a trach scar, first because it seems the trach kit was mandated by OMS after 12/04, and second because the ICRC report detailed the events of AZ, KSM and al-Nashiri with an eye to physician participation, and no one reported tracheotomy. Another possibility is shackle wounds or the “bedsores” he got from being shackled to a chair for 2-3 weeks:
“During this time I got blisters on the underside of my legs due to the constant sitting”.
Or blindfold wounds:
“Mr Abu Zubaydah alleged that during one transfer operation the blindfold was tied very tightly resulting in wounds to his nose and ears.”
Am I to understand that the CIA has identified 580 documents but that the court only ask for 65 as a sample of their “crimes”? And now Leon Panetta will not release any of the 65 pieces of evidence.
The judge needs to slap Panetta down and demand all 580 to be released except for names of local CIA officials. All names in the chain of communications should be revealed. I’m looking for that smoking gun where it says… Cheney wants you to ask this question.
I like this very, very much. The chief myth of torturers? That if people don’t happen to be killed, they recover very nicely, thank you very much. Just like bombed-out civilians.
I bet that not one item among the thousands generated by Bush’s reign of torture admits to lasting damage. It’s the fratboy’s hazing mentality run wild.
Apparently torturers can live with this outrage provided that no one finds out–as with those who get their kicks from child abuse, spousal abuse, elder abuse, choirboy abuse, or animal abuse. Never guilty, but always fearful of being shamed. Sadism and narcissism make for a poisonous cocktail.
Let everything surface with a name-tag attached.
I am inclined to believe that either there are things in the background that would shock the public (like the torture implements) or as others have suggested the photos of his wounds would suggest far more specificly the exact nature of what was perpetrated against this man.
In either case, like the torture videos that were destroyed they help fill in the picture for the public what exactly went on and of course that is unacceptable. Covering up is what these people do. Secrecy is what these people do.
is it that iron maiden in the background ya think ???
#11- the worst way to fight an war against insurgents is to wothdraw into defensive enclaves ..
see: dien bien phu …
the whole idea the photos reveal sources ..methods .. etc is absurd on it’s face .. and yeah .. publishing pictures of abused and dead bodies of prisoners would edanger our troops .. which is the main reason we aren’t supposed to engage in it .. our ideals and morality notwithstanding ..
By “withdraw them to defensive positions”, I mean that we should end the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and withdraw the troops. They aren’t “defending our freedom”, they’re doing security work on the taxpayer’s dime for the petro-military-industrial interests.
Release of the torture info likely increases the danger to some of our troops, but it is not a realistic threat to our national security.
The 9/11 perps were mostly from the Kingdom of Saud, with whom our Commanders-in-Chief continue to hold hands and play kissy-face.
Our troops were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in pursuit of oil, gas, and pipeline routes. If our leaders are concerned about their safety, they can withdraw them to defensive positions. They should not have the option of using “harm’s way” as an excuse for covering up illegality committed by government officials.
Now that you put it that way… One could interpret the use of the excuse that exposing the torture regime puts our troops in danger as rhetorically using those troops as human shields. That’s supposed to be a no no, isn’t it? Even rhetorically?
Somewhat OT: Glenn just gave us the link to the webcast of Feingold’s hearing on indefinite detention.
Oh, gosh, thanks, JimWhite — you got me through just in time to watch … David Rivkin. *wink*
Was October 11, 2002 one of Cheney’s bunker or “undisclosed location” days when he was off the radar?
Perhaps Dick is in the photo. He had to be doing something on those many, many, many “undisclosed” days he spent “somewhere” during those weeks.
Ah crap. Feingold is letting Rivkin spout his shit again?
Just getting him on record … Feingold is so darn sharp, it’s a shame that he does not hold a more powerful position.
Sarah Cleveland of Columbia Law smacking Livkin down quite effectively. – “prolonged detention is immoral“
What a great witness Cleveland (?) is. We need a vid of the statement she’s making about Boumediene. And Feingold’s questions are very sharp.
Skdadl !
What I find amazing about Feingold is, he continues his line of questioning as if he had anticipated everyone’s statements beforehand … a sign of an amazing Attorney !
Prof. Cleveland demonstrates something that I talk about a lot in my realm of expertise … her face has the shining light of truth and integrity. I can’t describe Livkin’s face without getting modded … *g*
Petro!
Yes — Cleveland has tremendous authority. She does shine … but I suspect also that her disdain for Rivkin, very carefully restrained, is where some of the power is coming from.
Let’s revisit what Panetta said, the reasons he said we couldn’t and shouldn’t ever see this content:
Personally, I think the two bits I’ve emphasized in bold are the problems most likely to appear in a photo, although the degree of damage done may be included. They don’t want the network of contractors and the foreign countries outed as torturers.
Yeah. There are reports that one of the reasons they destroyed the tapes was bc an interrogator was laughing in the camera.
I definitely think that the overall sales pitch they are making to the various courts is that the “real” reason they are trying to protect all this info is the “inherently Executive branch” issue of foreign relations and diplomacy and the damage to foreign govs and our relationship with foreign govs that will be revealed.
So, for example, taking that argument places it would walk, then if Biden paid off the Egyptian gov to kill Obama on his trip, and CIA was involved and had all the info – that would all be a “state secrets” in the court if now-President Biden and his CIA assassination coordination crew felt that it would damage the US relations with Egypt if their role came out. Uh huh – yeah, right.
But that IMO is the essence of the pitch they are selling. No no no, we aren’t trying to protect the CIA and we are really going to clean up our act, but let’s not cause wars and conflagrations and uprisings and let’s not lose access to intelligence from our torture friends by outing their torture.
The CIA memos pretty much authorized, IIRC, 30 day or so torture sessions. By Oct, Zubaydah’s 30 day torture session was up and if the picture shows forced nudity, for example, it is clearly a violation of the Geneva Conventions to be taking those kinds of pictures as well as to have the forced nudity, period. You could also have stress positions that were not as described in the photos. Given the love of the Egyptian interrogation system (that included in Wright’s book incidents like taking pictures of two young boys being sodomized to use for the purpose of forcing them to turn into spies) you might even have something much worse. You’d like to think not, but there’s not much you can not think anymore once your country’s “legal interrogation” progam starts off with kidnap and anal assault and nude photos. The “preliminaries”
I guess the Oct picture would by definition be kind of be proof of the “post-operatives” under that kind of euphemistic approach, where the 30 day torture session is supposedly over.
One other point on that “reveal” identities of CIA officers involved in clandestine operations issue – a CIA officer who was NOT covert originally is tied to several abusive areas, including the continued el-Masri detention followed by dump. Once info on her activities to set up the continued detention and abuse of civilians began to get play, she was swapped into a “covert” assignment so her identity couldn’t be discussed.
But yeah – that wasn’t done to prevent embarassment or to cover up for crimes either.
I understand what you’re saying, and you could be right.
But I wonder what happens if we deliberately pants the Saudis, or if cosmos-help-us there were other non-Muslim countries with historic anti-Muslim sentiment involved in torture? Kind of makes one wonder whether other recent geopolitical posturing isn’t interrelated with whomever appears in those photos…
Mitchell-Jessen may be up to their ears, but they may have been a front, too; who else was “contracted”, perhaps as observing advisers?
Just need to get all the damned dirty laundry out and start over, fresh, perhaps even a World Court-sponsored truth and reconciliation commission launched in tandem to releasing this info, because there’s already enough material implicating foreign governments and it’s surely not going to be better.
Exactly – it’s a big big issue and one I’ve pointed up for a long time. But its not a “new” issue and it’s one that was very clear in both its nature and potential impact when Obama was running and making his rhetoric – when he was finger steepling for serious affect (not a typo).
I think that is an important issue that will have to be dealt with – the extent to which the US Gov can place itself above the law and commit crimes and acts of depravity as long as it includes a foreign gov in its crime. I don’t really think there’s a wealth of case law on that point. /s
But I think that’s a big issue separate and apart from what in in the picture. I don’t think they’d have much trouble redacting faces or even completly excising other persons from the photo and still turning if over if identification of foreign gov participants or CIA agents was the issue. That would be an easy initial fix from Hellerstein (give us a copy with other persons blocked out or with identifiers in backgrounds blocked out) So I trend towards the “method” of what they were doing to Zubaydah in the pic being what is shown and if it is redacted, there’s nothing in the pic.
Panetta tries to claim that this is all still on the Q T bc it is one thing to talk about torturing someone in a memo, but it is “operational” to show a picture of what was authorized happening, and that’s nonsense. So I’d think that it showed something that wasn’t authorized.
I guess one piece of info that wouldn’t be classified and Panetta should have to ante up would be whether or not the pic is one that Bradbury had access to when he drafted the memos
(my bold)
Great observation. That one piece of info needs to be known.
Thanks, Marcy. From a quick read through it appears the denials are a cut and paste job.
I do not want to try to imagine the horror, Loo Hoo.
Are the paraphernalia of torture considered a method? Would a hood in the picture, for example, be considered a method?
if they’re claiming the photo would reveal sources and if that is in fact true, it’s obvious there are some luminaries in the photo and present at a torture session
Petrocelli
That’s a feature, not a bug.
Hats off for all that you have to stomach, in order to keep putting up these important posts … maybe you can teach me your meditation whenever you come up here … I do not have the stomach or fortitude for this.
What are folks going to do when we are in the “belly of the beast”
So appreciate these lawyer folks, Ew etc who are so committed to justice, truth and accountability on important issues like pre war snowjobs.
Malinowski on the important question of what it means to start with the premise that acquittals cannot be afforded or risked, and then to build a system on that basis. Sorry to be too slow to keep up with his logic, but this is also an excellent statement.
(Malinowski is personally very affecting.)
Shorter Rivkin (in response to great statement from Malinowski): But when the Russians and Chinese do it, they are cynical politicians. We’re different.
Gah!
Elisa Massimino handed Rivkin his ass on a silver platter !
Good statement as well from Cardin as they close down.
Excellent statement from Cardin ! Frankly, I dunno how any of them can look at Rivkin’s Suit/Tie and keep
a straight face.
October 11, 2002 – a date in history.
From torture timeline
October 2002: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri captured
October 11, 2002: Date of photograph of Abu Zubaydah
The timing implies that al-Nashiri implicated Iraq in some way and someone wanted collaborative information before they would believe al-Nashiri, so Abu Zubaydah was tortured. Whichever excuse for invasion Congress wasn’t buying at the time is probably the information wanted.
You could also read the October 11th photo/torture of Abu Zubaidah as an ‘unnecessary flourish’ by the CIA since the White House was, by that time, clearly on a glide path and just hours away from getting its Iraq war authorized. The WH already had majorities in both Houses – and didn’t need to deliver some ‘tortured’ confessions (pardon the pun) to convince waivering Members.
…’Cause wasn’t the whole purpose of the torture to draw out confessions about direct links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda…?
Q for those who watched – I don’t suppose anyone ever asked anything about a hypothetical of, oh, say, taking someone like KSM’s children and disappearing them into years of indefinite detention, did they?
The current trial of a Khmer Rouge torturer (torture trials around the world seem to be unpopular with the US media right this moment) indicates that they had a policy of killing the children of people they suffered bc, you know, they might grow up resenting the torture and torture death of their parents, so kill them off now.
That’s basically the US argument on permanent detention, the Rivkin solution to what you do with your torture victims. The approach basically paves the way for also saying that you need to indefinitely detain forever anyone who would be resentful of you indefinite detention of others, bc those who resent that action then become the threat as well — then those who resent the new crop you’ve detained, then those …
Khmer Rouge baby smashing, justifed bc “they might take revenge on you”
Obama indefinite detention, justified bc “they might take revenge on you”
Where are those kids?
No one mentioned the disappeared children, but all of Malinowski, Massimino, and Cleveland — and Feingold — were strong on emphasizing the “false positives,” Cleveland especially when she talked about Boumediene, and all talked about the revenge factor in the context of U.S. torture as a recruiting tool for terrorists.
One of the problems of their history that many European writers were chewing on through the C17-C18 was the revenge cycle, macro and micro. As people were slowly sifting out the basic principles and structures necessary to building democracies and also to establishing some kind of international stability and peace, the revenge cycles came in for special attention, and just about everyone who was anyone recognized that justice systems, nationally and internationally, had to be structured to stop them.
I guess that Rivkin and his ilk have chosen to be post-Enlightenment. Or they don’t understand what they are returning us all to.
I doubt that there are any Brits or Canadians in the CIA photos, but there sure are a lot of UK and Canadian citizens who want to know if our governments have been complicit in any of the dirty games (and we know that they have). When our governments talk about the harm that would be done to international relations by coming clean about these horrors, they mean the damage that would be done to relations among national elites. They don’t mean us. The people have an interest in knowing the worst — that’s what our governments are scared of.
I couldn’t believe that Rivkin could be so stupid as to say that terrists would be running around in the U.S. if their convictions were overturned.
I really admire all the other witnesses for not snapping at him — I couldn’t do that.
Have you noticed, Petro, the elaborate courtesies of the U.S. Senate especially? Man, are those people polite to one another. We should show them Question Period some time. *wink*
LOL … the burden of having everything entered on the record, I guess … they have to offer smackdowns in legalese.
I miss Chretien for his incredible quips.
Good on the “false positives” They really need to nail down that the WH knew about a big number of false positives as early as summer of 2002 and that it was papered with a memo from the CIA expert sent to GITMO. It should be well past time to hold back the powder.
The WH knew at least by 2002 that it was holding innocent people at GITMO in violation of Article 147 of the GCs (and since most of them didn’t come from Afghanistan the failed state crap doesn’t work on them) and the WH proceeded for a period of now on 7 years, through two administrations and with Congress complicitly and compliantly passing both the DTA and MCA, to hold those innocent people bc it feared the war crimes fallout. And even more shockingly, it refused to even change their conditions of detention after having such information given to it, so that it they were all subject to ongoing Executive and DOJ authorized abuse, and their families tortured by having disappeared family members for years.
That’s one of the most important docs for anyone to get out – the one telling the WH they were detaining innocent people in abuse at GITMO. Bc it is subsequent to that info that people like Jack Goldsmith and now Barack Obama have touted continuing to keep those people in abuse as a long term solution.
UHM, didn’t Barack Obama tell me that this evidence contained NO NEW INFORMATION ???
sounds like that was a DELIBERATE LIE
not sure where the line is, but Obama is dangling over it
he’s buckin to join george in the cell
I got a bit of that absolutist “Manichean” world view expressed by george bush
you’re either a defender of HUMANITY or you’re a CRIMINAL AGAINST HUMANITY
ain’t no neutrals there
Hey Leen,
OT
Did you watch this special by Brian Williams. Some interesting stuff there. The West Wing episode is really interesting. Brian slips in some observations worth hearing from the MSM.
And this from NPR yesterday is quite the listen regarding Behavioral Psychology.
Enjoy connecting the dots between the two news items.