Waterboarding in the news

News about waterboarding has spiked this week amid revelations that the CIA destroyed videotaped waterboarding sessions.

The most interesting part of the Reuters account occurred on the third of three pages (a pox on the inverted pyramid!).

He said the techniques were "lawful, safe and effective," and approved by the Justice Department and executive branch. But the CIA wanted to make sure it was within the law, "So, on its own, the CIA began to videotape interrogations," he said.

He said the CIA stopped the taping because officials concluded it was not needed as a backup to the agency's other means of documenting interrogations. It destroyed the tapes after making sure they had no more intelligence value and were not relevant to any inquiries.

(Reuters)

I've known too many journalists to trust their paraphrasing, and in the above account two paraphrases appear to work against each other.
1) CIA taped to makes sure it was within the law
2) CIA stopped taping because taping not needed to back up other documentation of interrogations

If they're taping to make sure the technique is within the law, they really only need to tape a given technique once. If that's the sole reason they're doing the taping then no additional reason is needed to stop taping. The second paraphrase implies that the taping was done to provide backup documentation.

Thus, the statement that the CIA stopped the taping because the additional documentation was not needed implies another purpose for the taping.

If I'm the editor I have the reporter(s) clarify that point.

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CIA sticking it to the administration, 2004

Because I think it's an important story, and because I see no shame in latching onto Powerline's coattails in order to update the reporting, here's more on the bureaucratic war within the executive branch of the US government:

Pillar's "management team" at the CIA, where he was employed as the national intelligence officer on the Near East/South Asia desk, approved the appearance. According to Novak, the ground rules for the speech were based on the "Lindley Rule," which holds that the speaker, his audience and the event are not to be disclosed, "but the substance of what he said can be reported." That substance, apparently, was a harsh assessment of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq.

Think about that: A senior, unelected CIA official--Paul Pillar--was given agency approval to anonymously attack Bush administration policies less than two months before the November 2, 2004, presidential election. That Pillar was among the most strident of these frequent critics--usually in off-the-record speeches to gatherings of foreign policy experts and business leaders--was well known to his colleagues in the intelligence community and to Bush administration policymakers. His was not an isolated case; CIA officials routinely trashed Bush administration policy decisions, often with official approval, in the months leading up to the Iraq War and again before the election. Pillar, who had complained to a CIA spokesman that someone had violated the ground rules by providing his name to Novak, simply got caught.

(Daily Standard)

So, the CIA set up background press conferences ("not for attribution"stuff) so that CIA officers could criticize the policies of their bosses in the Bush administration. That is a jaw-dropper of a story, but I haven't seen the mainstream media pick up on it at all. Even though they were no doubt present at the press conferences where it was being done.

Or most of them (except for the one who identified Paul Pillar's role) thought that secret was worth keeping.

To make the link to the most obvious parallell, Joe Wilson wrote his now-infamous New York Times op-ed piece, "What I didn't Find in Africa," with the permission of the CIA. You can't ordinarily just go on a clandestine CIA mission and later write a public story about it because you feel like it.
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The CIA has issued an official statement regarding Rowan Scarborough's book about the bureaucratic war ("Sabotage").
Powerline sees it as a classic non-denial denial.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra delves into an apparent CIA leak

WASHINGTON: A senior Republican lawmaker called on the top US spy chief to probe claims CIA officers collaborated with a Council of Europe investigation into secret US "war on terror" prisons.
Pete Hoekstra, the top-ranked Republican on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell in a letter published Friday that such a finding would represent a serious security breach.

"Every intelligence official swears an oath to protect the people and national secrets of this great land," Hoekstra wrote.

"To willingly discuss the details of any classified government program with an agent of a foreign power without authorization is absolutely unconscionable. This would represent an egregious violation of the public's trust."
(The News)

Why the CIA hasn't started the ball rolling with a complaint to the Justice Department is anyone's guess at this point. We heard about how the investigation into the Plame leak was "mandatory" because secrets were divulged--but no apparent investigation took place into the leaks regarding the NSA surveillance program.

The Department of Justice shares something in common with the CIA. It is almost assuredly dominated by career employees who tilt to the left politically.

Is ideology blocking the complaint that probably should stem from this case?

It's encouraging seeing Hoekstra get involved in this. He and Senator Rick Santorum were effective in obtaining release of a large trove of captured Iraqi documents--some of which appeared to suggest some collaboration between Saddam Hussein and the Taliban/al Qaida (the material remains unverified, to my knowledge).