SubscribeJeff Stein, CQ Columnist & National Security Editor
Was it just a coincidence that CIA officer John Kiriakou popped up to soft-sell the efficiency of water-boarding just as news broke that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation?
CQ Homeland Security (12/14/2007)
Labels: cia, Kiriakou, torture, water boarding, Zubaydah
posted by Jeff Stein at
3:03 AM
JEFF STEIN is an investigative reporter of long standing, specializing in U.S. intelligence, defense and foreign policy. In Sept. 2002, he launched CQ/Homeland Security. An Army Intelligence case officer in Vietnam, he is now CQ.com National Security Editor and writes the weekly SpyTalk column. An occasional contributor to the New York Times and Washington Post, Jeff was deputy foreign editor for UPI during the 1980s. He appears frequently on CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, the BBC and NPR as a commentator on national security issues.
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2 Comments:
From my 23 years in the Company I found the clandestine service bureaucracy too entrenched and secretive protecting their departmental turfs to coordinate such matters before public disclosures. It is not only NOT coincidental but also not suspicious in the least. There are times when the media give the CIA's bureaucracy too much credit. They are seldom plot driven, they just do what bureaucrats in all government agencies do best - protect themselves or better known as CYA. Regarding the destruction of the interrogation takes, I see nothing at all unusual about this as a common practice. Many Case Officers record agent debriefings as well as hostile interrogations and destroy the tapes after they have been transcribed. I have done so myself hundreds of times.
January 12, 2008 9:39 PM
Dear Porter,
Good to hear from you. You always have smart things to say. In retrospect, I've learned that you are almost certainly correct about Kiriakou and the timing of his appearance. I plan to follow up on it with a note in my column. The destruction of the tapes -- that is another matter, which I'll also be reporting on in the future.
January 13, 2008 2:29 PM
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