Why Were the Tapes Destroyed?
by Paul Craig Roberts
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Many Americans are content with the 9-11 commission report, but the two chairmen of the commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, are not.
Neither was commission member Max Cleland, a U.S. senator who resigned from the 9-11 commission, telling the Boston Globe on Nov. 13, 2003, “This investigation is now compromised.” Even former FBI Director Louis Freeh wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 17, 2005, that there are inaccuracies in the commission’s report and “questions that need answers.”
Both Kean and Hamilton have twice stated publicly, once in their 2006 book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9-11 Commission, and again in the Jan. 2, 2008, New York Times, that there are inaccuracies in their report and unanswered—or mis-answered—questions.
On the second day of this new year, Kean and Hamilton accused the CIA of obstructing their investigation: “What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one of the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.”
In their book, Kean and Hamilton wrote that they were unable to obtain “access to star witnesses in custody who were the only possible source for inside information about the 9-11 plot.”
The only information the commission was permitted to have about what was learned from interrogations of alleged plot ringleaders, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, came from “third-hand” sources. The commission was not permitted to question the alleged plotters in custody or even to meet with those who interrogated the alleged plotters. Consequently, write Kean and Hamilton, “We had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information” that was fed to them by third party hands. “How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was telling us the truth?”
The fact that videotapes of the interrogations existed was kept secret from the 9-11 commission.
The videotapes have since been destroyed. The destruction of the videos has become an issue because of White House involvement in the decision to destroy them and because the videos are believed to have been destroyed because they reveal methods of torture that the Bush administration denies using.
According to President Bush, the United States does not practice torture even though he and his Department of Justice (sic) assert the right to torture.
Is the torture issue a red herring? The 9-11 commission was not tasked with investigating interrogation methods or detainee treatment. The commission was tasked with investigating al-Qaida’s participation in the 9-11 attack and determining the perpetuators of the terrorist event. There was no reason to withhold from the commission video evidence of confessions implicating al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.
Was the video evidence withheld from the 9-11 commission because the alleged participants in the plot did not confess, did not implicate al-Qaida and did not implicate bin Laden? Does anyone seriously believe that evidence of confession would not have been revealed—evidence that could have foreclosed what has become a massive industry of 9-11 truth-seekers involving large numbers of highly credible persons?
There is no reason for the Bush administration to fear the torture issue. The Justice Department’s memos have legalized the practice, and Congress has passed legislation, signed by President Bush, giving retroactive protection to U.S. interrogators who tortured detainees.
The Military Commissions Act passed in September 2006 and signed by Bush in October 2006 strips detainees of protections provided by the Geneva Conventions: “No alien unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights.”
Other provisions of the act strip detainees of speedy trials and of protection against torture and self-incrimination. The law has a provision that retroactively protects torturers against prosecution for war crimes.
Did the Bush administration cleverly take advantage of the torture claims in order to spin the destruction of the CIA videotapes as a “torture story”? It is much more likely that the tapes were destroyed because they reveal the absence of confession to the plot.
As Kean and Hamilton ask, without evidence how do we know the truth? All we have is the word of the administration that told us Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that, while sitting on a National Intelligence Estimate report that concluded that Iran had terminated its weapons program in 2003, told us that Iran had an ongoing nuclear weapons program and was close to having a nuclear weapon.
What about the bin Laden videotape in which he takes credit for the 9-11 attack? Every indication is that the tape is a fake. The bin Laden in the Nov. 9, 2001, “confession video” looks nothing like the bin Laden in the last confirmed video of December 2001.
Recently, the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that the former president of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, said that Italian intelligence had concluded that the bin Laden confession video was a fake.
William Arkin in the online Washington Post on Feb. 1, 1999, described a voice-morphing technology developed at the government’s Los Alamos laboratory. Arkin reported that digital morphing, including appearance, “has come of age, available for use in psychological operations.”
Investigative reporter Kristina Borjesson reminds us that “six days after 9-11, CNN reported that bin Laden had sent a statement to Al Jazeera denying that he had been involved.” She also reminds us that the FBI says it has no hard evidence that bin Laden was responsible for 9-11.
The FBI wants Osama for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, not for 9-11. Borjesson also reports that in the “confession video” bin Laden is revealed writing with his right hand, but is known to be left-handed.
If the bin Laden “confession video” is indeed a fake, as it appears to be, why run the risk of creating such a video if the CIA has on videotape the confessions of the alleged al-Qaida participants in the 9-11 plot? Why destroy such evidence, especially when torture has been given a green light by the Department of Justice and U.S. Congress?
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by Dave on 7 February 2008:
The 2001 confession video looks like bin laden to me. And, that looks like both Suleiman Abu Ghaith and Ayman al-Zawahiri to me with him in the video tape.
And while he may be left-handed, I believe custom would dictate the use of the right hand for writing. In fact, I’m aware of footage pre-911 of Osama writing with his right hand.
And why would he deny it at first? That’s not very hard to figure out. To cast doubt on US reaction. Maybe he’d rather muslims believe it was a jew or christian conspiracy to wage a war on Islam? At least at first. Luckily for him, some folks seem willing to help him out in that regard.
2 Comment by danielj on 7 February 2008:
Ok D I’ll bite.
Where is this footage of Osama writing with his right hand?
What custom dictates writing with the right hand if you are left handed?
Does that even make sense?
Why would anybody ever write with their left hand?
The person in the video looks nothing like Osama.
Was Mr. Osama convicted in an American court of planning and funding the attacks on 9-11 according to the traditional standards of Anglo jurisprudence?
Are you aware of Loose Change (by two jews by golly?!) and Painful Deceptions?
Can you address the cumulative arguments brought up in these videos and by the Scholars for 9-11 truth and this statement by the former Italian president:
“All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe…know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”
3 Comment by Dave on 7 February 2008:
http://www.911myths.com/html/fake_video.html
This link deals with the “it doesn’t look like Bin” claim. This claim is usually made by showing the poorest quality still out of the video. The link above shows stills of better quality (and less shadow) from the exact same video. Scroll down the larger images. That’s Bin Laden. By the way, everyone ignored the other two known Al Qaeda leaders in the video…
http://www.911myths.com/html/bin_ladin_right_handed_.html
Osama is left-handed, but the left hand is used for “dirty things” like wiping onesself. The right hand is used for “repectful things” like writing and shaking hands. That link contains an image of Bin writing with the right hand. It contains a link for the video the image was captured from, if you don’t trust the picture.
Which version of Loose Change? heh. Would you like a link debunking their movie? Feel free to raise a couple points at a time, I’ll be glad to debunk them.
Wonderful the former Italian President makes a claim without any evidence. No documents, nothing.
4 Comment by John Highsmith on 7 February 2008:
maybe the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing? bin Laden may have said to himself – ‘try your right hand it’s like a whole new person.’ yeah – right. even the fbi don’t buy that smack.
the media is the 3rd leg of the Tripod – big business IS big government IS protected by big media. these days the media itself sets the agenda.
democracy – in this alien marxist-inspired State-Capitalistic system we labor UNDER and have for 100 years – finds its lowest common denominators like water draining down.
and of course the Mighty triumvirate of those lowest points is the TRIPOD.
once the cream rose to the top of society – today it’s an oil slick. and a landGrab (both hands) in palestine and the middle east. the ‘elite’:
they ‘know’ the unknowable. ha-Ha-HA… they’re berry-schmart.
5 Comment by Jack on 9 February 2008:
I don’t know why Roberts is sitting on the fact that the 9-11 job was all the work of the vast underground Cthulu civilization, which came up through the sewar pipes of NYC to wreak their devastation. Roberts must know this real truth of 9-11, he is a highly credible writer, so I ask why he is waiting to publicize?
6 Comment by Yankee Doodle on 16 February 2008:
“There is no reason for the Bush administration to fear the torture issue. The Justice Department’s memos have legalized the practice, and Congress has passed legislation, signed by President Bush, giving retroactive protection to U.S. interrogators who tortured detainees.”
“Other provisions of the act strip detainees of speedy trials and of protection against torture and self-incrimination. The law has a provision that retroactively protects torturers against prosecution for war crimes.”
Is that Constitutional, to write yourself an excuse after the fact for conduct which is not only unlawful but abhorrent?
Beyond that, the 9/11 Commission has zero credibility, even to point out shortcomings of its own report. They had access to Sibel Edmonds, and did nothing with the information she had. Kristen Breitweiser pointed out a great many things they could have followed up on, and they never did.
The Commission was there to rubber stamp a coverup, and to bury evidence. But, the charade isn’t taking as well as they had hoped, so now they’re muddying the waters yet more hoping to acquit themselves.
We need a real investigation, by honest people, and we need to follow the leads wherever they go, and if they lead important people to prison, that’s just too bad for the important people.
Our founding fathers must be turning over in their graves at this.