Videos of torture shocked the public, although no one saw them
The American press informed its fellow citizens that five years ago, the CIA destroyed videos of the brutal torture that its officers used on terror suspects. The leadership of America's main espionage agency decided to "defend" its agents and give them the opportunity to continue to enjoy their lives without clouds.
GOSS GIVEN GOOD
The well-known American newspaper The New Yotk Times reported that CIA Director Porter Goss, who headed America's main espionage agency in 2004-2006, during his directorship gave the go-ahead for the destruction of video recordings of torture of suspected terrorists, which were carried out in one of the prisons in Thailand. The newspaper referred to CIA official documents that have become public. These materials, which are official correspondence by e-mail of specialists of the department, were published on April 15 in pursuance of a court decision on a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The correspondence includes 165 emails, which dealt with the destruction of video footage of interrogation of militants.
The order to destroy the interrogation records was given by Goss' aide, director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, Jose Rodriguez. Rodriguez made this decision in November 2005, fearing that in the event of the release of the video materials, the CIA operatives will face serious trouble and even their lives may be in danger.
According to the staff of this department, with whom the journalists managed to talk, at first the head of the CIA expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that his assistant signed this order without consulting him and with the legal department of the main intelligence agency of the United States. It also follows from the documents that the White House was not warned about the destruction of the video recordings.
However, as it became known from the published e-mails between the employees of the department, whose names are not disclosed, after the destruction of the tapes, Goss nevertheless admitted that the elimination of these materials was indeed extremely necessary.
The destroyed videotapes recorded the interrogation and torture of two prisoners suspected by the CIA of links to al-Qaeda. The interrogations of the arrested were carried out in one of the prisons in Thailand in 2002. Until 2005, video materials - more than 100 videotapes - were stored at the CIA headquarters in Bangkok.
The CIA has been criticizing its inhumane treatment of prisoners at various political levels and in the American press for years. However, no one was brought to administrative responsibility and to court for these acts. While it may be the first figure on this future list of guilty, which human rights defenders hope should eventually appear in the White House, in some way it appears to be the current deputy head of the secret service, Steve Kappes.
FIRST SWALLOW?
On April 14, CIA Director Leon Panetta announced the resignation of his deputy. He said that Kappes will vacate his seat in May this year. As appropriate in such cases, Panetta said that his deputy, who allegedly made the decision to resign from his post a few months ago, "meets the highest standards of service to the American people."Speaking about the merits of his deputy, Panetta noted that he took part in many very important missions, including negotiations with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2003. After his visit and contacts with Gaddafi, Libya abandoned programs to create chemical and biological weapons.
At the same time, as noted by the American press, Kappes, a former deputy director of the CIA during the time of George W. Bush, was implicated in a scandal involving the use of prohibited methods of interrogating persons suspected of terrorism. After Barack Obama came to the White House in the United States, a report was declassified confirming the use of brutal torture by CIA officers of arrested terrorists and citizens of various states suspected of belonging to militant cells.
So, after the events of September 11, 2001, Kappes worked in the operations directorate of the CIA, which controlled the use of the so-called harsh methods of interrogating jihad soldiers. The spy himself has repeatedly denied his direct participation in the program, which authorized the torture of suspects.
His place, according to CIA experts, should be taken by Michael Morrell, who is currently engaged in analytical work in the CIA.
CONGRESSMEN ALSO NOT WITHOUT SIN
But, as it turns out, not only the CIA bosses are to blame for the cruelty and unreasonable methods of obtaining the necessary information from the militants. Earlier this year, the Reuters news agency reported that at least 68 US parliamentarians between 2001 and 2007 also knew a lot about the harsh methods used by the CIA to extort information from arrested persons. They even received reports on the interrogation program carried out by this special service. According to Reuters, information about this is contained in the CIA materials declassified at the request of human rights activists. In 2009, after Obama came to power and the presidential administration changed, tough intelligence methods became the subject of bitter political controversy.
As it became known to the US public, with the approval of the Department of Justice, the CIA used a whole range of methods of intensive interrogation against terror suspects, including the so-called "water torture", which was also called "partial drowning". Torture with water (waterboarding) is an imitation of drowning an interrogated person. The arrested person is tied to a flat surface, water pours on his face and he has the feeling that he is drowning.
Information about the brutal methods used by CIA operatives has drawn sharp criticism from representatives of the Democratic Party in the US Congress against the administration of George W. Bush. However, later it became known that leading Democratic politicians, including the current Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pilosi, who was then the parliamentary leader of the Democrats, knew about the not very humane methods of the CIA.
CIA material, which once again sheds new light on the CIA's methods, was declassified at the request of the Judicial Watch legal foundation. They contain information that in 2002, Pilosi and seven other members of the House Intelligence Committee heard a report on the interrogation of Al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to water torture.
Last spring, the US Senate Intelligence Committee informed the Americans that Condoleezza Rice, who was the president's national security adviser in 2002, had verbally sanctioned the use of water torture on Abu Ubaydah. Then the senators presented a detailed chronology of how brutal interrogation methods were discussed and sanctioned in the White House.
It is not known for certain what is going on in the CIA casemates. But, judging by the continuing wave of criticism against this department, the perpetrators will nevertheless be found. But whether they will be named and whether they will be punished, hardly anyone will undertake to predict. Too tall faces, former and present, were implicated in this dirty scandal.
