18 Sep The Former CIA Directors’ Letter to President Obama
18.09.09
|
8 Comments
In case you were curious about the text of the letter sent by former directors of the CIA to President Obama urging him to reverse the AG’s decision to appoint a prosecutor to investigate various CIA activities under the Bush administration, RCP has posted a pdf of the text. It is short and, unsurprisingly, rests on the names of the signatories rather than anything especially said in its text. Not being very clued into the day to day politics of these things, I don’t really know what effect this kind of thing has, if any. However, here is the pdf. (Update: Here is the WaPo story from Saturday, September 19, 2009, reporting that the DOJ investigation is likely to be “narrow.”)
I can’t imagine why anyone would care that former CIA directors don’t want the CIA investigated. But I am struck by one notable absence from the list: George H.W. Bush!
I note also that the letter erroneously claims CIA interrogators will be required to pay for their defence. That is, of course, inaccurate: the Detainee Treatment Act provides that the government will pick up their tab. I guess the CIA directors didn’t bother to read the Act (which would explain a great deal)…
very good point!
Both of KJH’s points been addressed on other sites, but I’ll mention the rebuttals here.
First, H.W. likely refrained from signing the letter because of his status as a former President.
Second, Holder’s investigation is looking at whether CIA interrogators went beyond what they were authorized. It is not clear that the DTA covers their defence is such circumstances.
HLS’s first point is unpersuasive: if Bush agreed with his fellow Directors, you’d think he’d want to use his stature as a former President to oppose the investigations. There is no limit on a former President’s ability to speak up about policy issues of concern to him.
That said, having read the DTA more carefully, HLS’s second point may well be correct. (See s. 1004(a),(b).) I certainly hope so!
Hayden, Goss and Tenet are worried about themselves being prosecuted – that’s all the letter is about – whatever high-minded phrases are in there. It should be noted that the prosecutor John Durham was seconded from Connecticut to the Eastern District of Virginia (the prosecutors who investigated the earlier matters) because those prosecutors recused themselves due to conflict of interest and out of an abundance of caution. The obvious question that arises here is the true independence of the prior investigations – were those prosecutors willing to “follow the facts wherever they lead” as Mukasey’s public affairs person assured the Society of American Law Teachers on January 14, 2009 on John Durham when his office responded to our calls for a prosecutor. That letter is available at http://www.saltlaw.org/userfiles/1-14-09DOJtoSALT.pdf and all the exchanges/actions by SALT are at http://www.saltlaw.org/contents/view/195. (Full disclosure: I am Co-chair of SALT’s Human Rights Committee). John Durham was originally appointed by Mukasey because of the destruction of the torture tapes revealed by Michael Hayden and others in December 2008 – so Hayden really is caught in a bind. Those tapes were done and hidden under Goss and Tenet’s watches and so all the antics with them are part of what… Read more »
KJH,
At least in my memory, former Presidents rarely make (or sign on to) public statements that criticize the policy of a sitting President (maybe Carter has, but I’m pretty sure H.W., Clinton, and Reagan have not). Is that because former Presidents always agreed with policies of whoever was President? I don’t think so . . .
David Cole’s October 8, 2009 New York Review of Books article entitled The Torture Memos: The Case Against the Lawyers is available also at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23114?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_content=92432244&utm_campaign=October+8%2c+2009+issue+_+khujdk&utm_term=TheTortureMemosTheCaseAgainsttheLawyers
He comes out for a truth commission – a blink after the devastating analysis he does of the memos released with the CIA IG report – but his analysis appears trenchant of the lawyering involved.
Best,
Ben