Memos say Republican leader did not object to destruction of interrogation tapes

So when was it, exactly, that the inmates took control of the asylum? News from Washington that newly released documents indicate that the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee did not object to CIA plans to destroy videotapes of "enhanced" interrogations of terror suspects in 2003 again raises the uncomfortable specter of a U.S. Congress abdicating its oversight responsibilities under pressure from the executive branch. The formerly secret documents were released Monday in response to freedom-of-information requests by three nonprofit organizations, according to the New York Times. The disclosures should add impetus to a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes started by the Justice Department in 2008. Attorney General Eric Holder, who took office last year after the inauguration of Barack Obama, a Democrat, also asked investigators to review the decision to use invasive interrogation techniques following the election of Barack Obama, a Democrat, to the presidency. The documents also show that the CIA refused to allow ranking members of Congress to see any of the covert prisons the agency used to house terror suspects captured overseas or to witness any of the "enhanced" interrogations approved by then-president George W. Bush in apparent violation of U.S. treaty obligations. The committee chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), issued a statement Monday denying that he approved the destruction of the tapes. The tapes, reported to show the interrogations of top al-Qaida operatives Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were destroyed by the CIA in 2005. But a CIA memo prepared after Roberts was briefed by the agency in February 2003 says "Senator Roberts listened carefully and gave his assent," the Times said. The nonprofit groups that requested the memos, Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University, said the 100 pages of documents, which were heavily blacked out, showed the need for a full public investigation of the interrogation program, the Times said.

The worst keeps getting worse

Most likely, the latest revelations about coercive interrogation techniques used by the CIA in Afghanistan are not nearly the end of the story of U.S. excesses in the so-called War on Terror. But they certainly help explain the maniacal secrecy of U.S. authorities under the Bush administration in keeping information about the interrogation program from the public. Top government officials, notably but probably not limited to Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush, knew the program violated the country's international treaty obligations but authorized it anyway, and kept it secret not out of concern for the United States, as they said, but to keep their own selves out of trouble. They probably expected to be honored as heroes for saving the country from danger and gave only passing thought to the fact that they were sacrificing the United States' very reason for existence. They probably still don't get it, and blame the new president, Barack Obama, for whatever is about to unfold. The fact that their policies were rejected by an overwhelming majority of voters in the last election does not even register as a repudiation -- they think the public just doesn't understand. But the people of the United States know when the government is taking away their constitutional rights, spying on them, and doing nearly unspeakable harm to others while hiding behind the flag. The new information, contained in a top-secret CIA report being made public next week, include threatening detainees with a mock execution, a handgun and an electric drill, was revealed by officials who had access to the report, according to the Washington Post newspaper. The threatened execution was used in an effort to pursuade suspected al-Qaida commander Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, suspected of being the mastermind of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 sailors in 1999, to provide information to his interrogators. Federal law prohibits threatening a prisoner with immediate death, the Post said. Al-Nashiri later was one of three detainees subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. A CIA spokesman said the agency did not endorse such excesses and promptly investigated any reports of them. "The CIA in no way endorsed behavior -- no matter how infrequent -- that went beyond formal guidance," said Paul Gimigliano, the agency spokesman, according to the Post. "This has all been looked at; professionals in the Department of Justice decided if and when to pursue prosecution. That's how the system was supposed to work, and that's how it did work." The actual report, which was compiled in 2004, is expected to be made public next week, the newspaper said.