'This Is Just Between You and Me, Smashed Hat'

It seems that every week there is one big story that overtakes all others. Last week, for obvious reasons, it was all about Iran and the fallout from the NIE. This week, it's the fallout from the revelations that the CIA "destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives." After a couple days delay allowing officials to cover their tracks, the CIA and the Justice Department announced a joint inquiry into this matter. It will no doubt be a thorough and objective review.

"It’ll be interesting to know what the true facts are," President Bush said, insisting that he just learned of the tapes' destruction last week (a statement as believe as his assertions last week on the Iran intel). Gosh, for a big-time War President, he sure seems out of the loop!

The CIA insists that the tapes were destroyed "out of fear [they] would leak and reveal the identities of interrogators." It totally had nothing to do with the fact that the tapes had been requested by investigators, they swear! Oh, also no one at the CIA knows how to blur out someone's face in a video (should've splurged for Final Cut Pro, guys!).

Andrew Sullivan has a good post on the case of Abu Zubaydah, the detainee whose torture was on the destroyed tapes. This man's case is well-known and has been documented as part of several books already. In one, we learned that the President was directly involved in urging the CIA to go farther than they had been in their interrogations. Another book (and one I actually read... Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine) elaborates-

Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be....Abu Zubaydah also appeared to know nothing about terrorist operations; rather, he was al-Qaeda's go-to guy for minor logistics...

...Under that duress [of constant torture], he began to speak of plots of every variety — against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each...target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

Remember all those terror warnings circa 2002-2004? Most of them came from stuff like this.

Sullivan concludes, in light all of this, about the tapes' destruction-

"These tapes could have brought all this home to the American public and the world, revealing the president to be an active proponent of torture, even of a mentally ill man who provided nothing of any worth. They were and are critical to proving - in way that could not be denied or buried - that we have a war ciminal in the Oval Office. That is surely the simplest and most obvious reason they were destroyed. And it's the most plausible reason that on a matter in which he was very personally involved, a matter where he risked being exposed as a war criminal, the president "has no recollection" of being informed about the tapes' destruction...

...And it is the Congress's and the Attorney General's vital responsibility to see that justice is served, whomever it applies to."

Ohh Andrew, you moonbat! Why do you hate America so much?

Here's my best guesstimate for how this will play out... there will be lots of hearings, and one or two minor officials may even resign. Democrats will ask for answers, and the White House will stonewall and accuse them of endangering national security. Then, as the presidential campaign really heats up, everyone will lose focus and the investigation(s) will lose steam. Then there will be another horrifying revelation and this process will repeat itself-- as it has again and again-- until next January when this presidency is over.

As Principal Skinner once said, "Prove me wrong, children. Prove me wrong."

[UPDATE: TPM has a thorough timeline of the story of these tapes and who knew what.]