Posted on 12/22/2007 9:57:21 AM PST by K-oneTexas
Destroying CIA Tapes Deserves a Thank You By Linda Chavez
Friday, December 21, 2007
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His name isn't yet familiar to most Americans, but I expect it will be by the end of 2008: Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. He is the man, according to recent press reports, who ordered the destruction of interrogation tapes made by the CIA, which allegedly show the effects of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" used against terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In the next few months, his name will likely be dragged through the mud, and he will be vilified as a rogue official engaged in a massive cover-up. I think he deserves a medal. According to information that has already leaked out about the investigations into the CIA tapes, Rodriguez, who was head of the agency's clandestine operations at the time, made the decision to destroy the videos in November 2005. The tapes themselves were made in 2002, just months after the United States experienced the most devastating foreign attack against American civilians in our nation's history. Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden speaks to reporters upon his arrival in the Capitol for a meeting with the House Appropriations Committee's Select Intelligence Oversight Subcommittee hearing on CIA interrogation programs, in Washington December 13, 2007. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (UNITED STATES) Looking back, it's very easy to condemn the extraordinary measures our government took to try to save lives in the wake of 9/11. And, of course, the media and members of Congress have perfect 20/20 hindsight, but the rest of us should show a little restraint when it comes to judging past decisions in light of contemporary misgivings. A collective amnesia seems to have set in on what conditions were like in 2002 when those CIA interrogations took place. Most Americans fully expected that the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were just the beginning of a terrorist war on American civilians. After all, we were being told by nearly everyone in a position to know that the question was not if we would suffer another major terrorist attack, but when. By the time the CIA interrogated Zubaydah and al-Nashiri, the East Coast had been hit not only on Sept. 11 but by a series of anthrax attacks that killed 11 people and injured 17 others (a case that has yet to be solved.) Sniper John Allen Muhammad, a convert to the Nation of Islam, and his sidekick, Lee Boyd Malvo, had also gunned down 10 people and critically injured three others in the Washington, D.C., area in a monthlong rampage. Congress was so concerned that the government had not done enough to protect us that it created a new federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and established the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who would become speaker of the House of Representatives when the Democrats returned to power four years later, told the Washington Post in January 2002 that she began every speech with "We stand side by side with President Bush on the war on terrorism." So what exactly did we expect the CIA to do when they captured high-level al-Qaida operatives? Read them their Miranda rights, provide them with free lawyers and place them in a cell with cable TV? We don't know exactly what the captured al-Qaida operatives told interrogators -- thankfully -- but we do know that there hasn't been another al-Qaida attack in the United States in more than six years. We also know that congressional leaders, at least initially, made no objections to the use of waterboarding when they were informed about it in September 2002. (Speaker Pelosi now claims that she did object later.) We also know that by the time Rodriguez reportedly gave instructions to destroy the CIA tapes, America's reputation had been severely damaged by the release of other tapes entirely unconnected to the CIA's or any U.S. efforts to obtain intelligence from captured prisoners. In April 2004, CBS's newsmagazine "60 Minutes" had aired a handful of inflammatory videos made by out-of-control, low-level American military guards at Abu Ghraib prison. Those tapes revealed disgusting, evil mistreatment of ordinary prisoners by a handful of American soldiers -- not an attempt to solicit valuable information from high-level al-Qaida detainees. Abu Ghraib resulted in convictions for some dozen soldiers and effectively ended the careers of several officers. It is difficult to imagine what harm might have come from the release of the CIA interrogation tapes -- but there is no doubt that had they continued to exist, at some point they would have become public. The tapes' release would have jeopardized sources and methods used by the CIA, the most serious category of risk to American intelligence. And their release might have led to assassinations of CIA operatives, greater risk for our captured soldiers, and international hand-wringing by our putative allies. Rodriguez's lawyer says that his client sought and received legal clearance to destroy the tapes. Even though he is likely to become a scapegoat, what he did was right. He protected not just his men but all of us. I, for one, thank him. |
Linda Chavez is chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics .
Is this the, you are a bigot, Linda Chavez, the illegal employer? She can pound sand, damn liberal!
Same Linda Chavez, discredited political hack, that wants more illegals in Prince William County. Came out here to threaten “we the people.” Get a life Linda - quite living at the trough. Jorge won’t be el Preidente much longer.
Why is it that those people who were upset, that the identity of a CIA operative was revealed by the Bush Administration, are the same ones that are upset at the CIA's destruction of tapes for the purpose of protecting the identity of CIA operatives?
Uh, last I heard, Linda was a conservative.
Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. took the lesson of Richard Nixon and his tapes to heart.
“Most Americans fully expected that the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were just the beginning of a terrorist war on American civilians.”
The beginning of a terrorist war on American civilians began long before that. At the WTC 2/26/93. In Iran in 1979.
Destroying the tape deprives our enemy’s in the Democratic Party another bat to bash America with.
Ignore the message and attack the messenger (for some other shortcoming)?
If it’s the Linda Chavez I think it is, she’s hardly a liberal. But for a moment, let’s assume she is. Have you an argument with the points raised in her article? If you do, then bring that on as opposed to an ad hominiem, name calling, non-sequiter post. I think that would raise the level of debate considerably, IMHO.
I hate it when I agree with her, but she is absolutely right on this.
Seems pretty simple to me.
Yes, true, but I always thought it would be the Chinese who hit us, with maybe five or six simultaneous nuclear bombs in NY, DC, Chicago, LA, Dallas, and pick your own favorite liberal center of debauchery or two.
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