WH Presser - Bush has“no recollection of being made aware of the tapes"

[underpants]

Perino: Congress Knew More About CIA Activities Than Bush, President Not ‘Aware’ Of Torture Tapes
During the White House press briefing today, reporters bore into White House Press Secretary Dana Perino over when President Bush was first informed about the CIA’s destruction of videotapes in 2005 that featured agency officials using harsh interrogation tactics. Perino said that Bush had “no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday”:

QUESTION: Thanks. On these CIA videotapes, did either the President or Vice President or Condoleezza Rice, when she was National Security Advisor, or Steve Hadley, see them before they were destroyed?

PERINO: I spoke to the President, and so I will have to defer on the others. But I spoke to the President this morning about this. He has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday. He was briefed by General Hayden yesterday morning.

Watch it:


If what Perino says is true, it means that members of Congress were more informed of the CIA’s activities than the president himself. In his letter to agency employees yesterday, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden stated that “leaders of Congressional oversight committees were fully briefed on the matter.”

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) told the AP that she was made aware of the tapes’ existence:

California Rep. Jane Harman, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was one of four lawmakers informed in 2003 of the tapes’ existence and the CIA’s intention to ultimately destroy them.

“I told the CIA that destroying videotapes of interrogations was a bad idea and urged them in writing not to do it,” Harman said.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) says he was also made aware of the tapes’ destruction in 2006:

While we were provided with very limited information about the existence of the tapes, we were not consulted on their usage nor the decision to destroy the tapes. And, we did not learn until much later, November 2006 — 2 months after the full committee was briefed on the program — that the tapes had in fact been destroyed in 2005.

According to Perino, Bush says he wasn’t “made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday,” but members of Congress learned of the tapes in early 2003 and then their destruction in late 2006.

As President, Bush is in charge of the executive branch, which the CIA is a part of. But somehow, the administration that has vastly expanded executive authority, expects the public to believe that Congress knows more about the CIA’s interrogation activities than the President does.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/07/bush-not-aware-tapes/

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I guess he learned that from Gonzo!

[underpants]

4. Poor Alberto is still walking around DC

looking for his car.


He just can't seem to remember where he parked.....just walking around hitting the truck latch button on his remote....just walking around...

[MuseRider]

12. :)

What a lovely thought. I can actually imagine it to be true, kind of.

Good one UP as always, very clever.

[rodeodance]

5. lots of this back and forth with his loyal buddies

[BOSSHOG]

2. dana perino can't recall who george bush is

A total farce of an administration and conservatives love it.

[11 Bravo]

6. Dana Perino couldn't find her own ass with both hands and a compass.

(Although, I have to admit, I wouldn't mind assisting her in her search.)

:hide:

[ladjf]

20. The smartest person in the world could not do a good job

as Press Secretary for this administration. Perino will not last much longer. As dim as she is, she has got to see the impossibility of her mission.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

22. Exactly - she's supposed to defend the indefensible

How would anyone here like to have to spin for Bush? It's got to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. The only thing I fault her on is remaining in the job. If I were her, I'd quit.

[ladjf]

25. Looking at it from her perspective, getting such a high profile

job for a young person must have been a heady experience. However, as the reality sets in, her opinions about the job will change. Eventually, she will have no choice but to separate herself from the horror of what she is being asked to do. She is being psychologically molested. It doesn't matter that she volunteered.

[underpants]

29. That may be true but there is also a great payoff

All she has to do is not name any names and she will get a book deal and be taken care of the rest of her life. They may not be sound but they are well organized and very well funded.

[SpiralHawk]

3. "When you vacation as much as I do, it's easy to forget." - Commander AWOL

"...Especially inconvenient shit, like the truth."

- Commander AWOL

[spanone]

7. now that's a lawyerly answer...and a bullshit one to boot

[seafan]

8. The Nixon Tapes; The Bush Tapes. Those pesky tapes'll getcha every time. n/t

[sam sarrha]

9. they're likely to give him a lobotomy just like Reagan before the Iran Contra hearings

[AuntPatsy]

10. It doesn't matter if we believe him or not, as long as impeachment remains off the table he could

care less, he and his cohorts but its a bit obvious there is definately a strange little power struggle going on behind closed doors, the question is, is this struggle for justice for this country and it's people or for personal gain?

[gratuitous]

17. Well, there is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity

So even if today's Democratic leadership doesn't have the belly for it, there's no guarantee that future Democratic leaders (and heck, maybe even a Republican or two might grow a conscience) will be satisfied to just let this entire criminal administration off the hook, particularly once the evidence gets beyond the reach of these crooks and back into the hands of the people.

[AuntPatsy]

26. What worries me though is that many of them could have been set up,

you do realize how possible it is to frame someone of a crime they did not at all commit? I just don't put anything pass this bunch and I do find it extremely difficult to believe that so many continue to ignore the out and out criminal behavior of this administration.

The only thing I can come up with is that threats, blackmail and the like is what is being used to hold down the masses from pushing too hard, now they know by now that many people out there already have proof of wrong doing, but this proof gets sat on?

I don't feel that justice will be served further on down the line unless it is served now, I have a feeling that some might have inadvertently even become somehow part of the criminal empire and fear themselves will be persecuted if they attempt to persecute those that are doing the actual crimes.

In this day and age, and with today's technology, it is not at all impossible to believe that not one is safe regardless of how up in the world they are from becoming another blackmailed victim of this administration

Yes we do see outrage and reports supposedly being investigate by some of those in government of the crimes already known that have come out on the net but in all this time have we seen even one actual member of this inner circle of criminals face any true punishment?

[gratuitous]

30. I share your frustration

One of the few enduring hopes that sustains me is that Martin Luther King was speaking truly when he said that the arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I hope that the people of our country take justice seriously enough to pursue it and put forward leaders who will do the same, even if it doesn't happen in a timely enough way to suit me.

[AuntPatsy]

31. I like that quote, never heard it, thank you for sharing, it helped somewhat...

[panader0]

11. The destruction of the tapes, and the all too convenient forgetting

juxtaposes weirdly with the outing of Valerie Plame. The tapes were said to have been destroyed because some bad people might then be able to identify CIA agents. But Plame? Throw her under the bus.

[malaise]

13. And poor old Porter Goss didn't know they were destroyed

Stay away from the fan DUers -you know what's coming.

Is the lame duck about to be roasted.

[mtnester]

14. Eventually "no recollection" will make the dictionary

as accepted slang for "lying my ass off"

Speaking of that, I am off to start a companion thread


On edit - the promised companion thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2425164&mesg_id=2425164

[niyad]

15. gee, dana, how much has he had to drink lately? or is he doing coke again?

[flakey_foont]

16. there's always the Steve Martin excuse

"I forgot"...........and if that doesn't work,, "Well, Ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse Me!"

[old guy]

18. I don't know the technical definition of BS,

but I know it when I see/hear it. Believe me, this is a hugh..er..huge pile.

[Whoa_Nelly]

19. 1) The CIA would not destroy tapes of which they didn't already have copies

Honestly, that agency is not that stupid. There are most likely classified copies (if not the originals) of these tapes filed away

and

2) Am currently looking for previous history of Bush being aware of these tapes.
I seem to remember his referral to these somewhere in one of his pressers, or statement made by Rummy or 'Sleeza, inferring that Bush knew about (had maybe seen?) these tapes.
Am still digging...

[Whoa_Nelly]

23. May 24, 2004

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/guan-m21.shtml

Former prisoners demand release of Guantanamo Bay videotapes
By Richard Phillips
21 May 2004



Statements by former British prisoners at Guantanamo Bay over the past week provide further damning proof that the sadistic torture used at Abu Ghraib in Iraq originated in Afghanistan and the Pentagon’s infamous military prison in Cuba. The declarations were followed by new evidence that Australian detainees in Guantanamo Bay—David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib—were beaten and abused.

On May 13, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, two British prisoners released in March, issued an “open letter” to US President Bush and the Senate Armed Services Committee detailing the abuse and denouncing Washington’s denials of torture in Guantanamo Bay. They have demanded full public access to all video and photographs taken during interrogation sessions at the top-security American jail. (See: http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/ltr%20to%20Sentate%2012may04v2.pdf).

more at link

[underpants]

27. Moussaoui's lawyer asked about them AND the 9/11 Commission

Beginning in 2003, attorneys for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui began seeking videotapes of interrogations they believed might help them show their client wasn't a part of the 9/11 attacks. These requests heated up in 2005 as the defense slowly learned the identities of more detainees in U.S. custody.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyL3au-RZxEcch2P9ymXaJ9mroogD8TCAIDO0

I can't find the link that I saw about an hour ago :grr: but these tapes were either asked for or should have been in the material given to the 9/11 commission.

But their destruction raises questions about whether agency officials withheld information from the courts and from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 commission), about aspects of the program. The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the 9-11 commission, which was appointed by the President, George Bush, and Congress, and which had formally requested the CIA produce transcripts and other documentary evidence of CIA prisoner interrogations.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/cia-defiant-over-destruction-of-torture-tapes/2007/12/07/1196813021836.html

[Whoa_Nelly]

28. So, if Bush can say that Congress knew about it all

and am pretty sure it came down from Rummy and Gonzo to Congress, then Bush did know about (saw?) these tapes.

McFuckwad cannot make a statement that "Congress knew" unless he also knew...otherwise he would have no such response to make.

And, I get the impression that by saying "Congress knew", the little shit-for-brains is inferring it's the fault of the dreaded Dems, when in fact, all this originally came to light during a Repug controlled house and senate!


May 16, 2004

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4925271-102275,00.html

US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp

Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse
David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday May 16, 2004

Observer
Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.

The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatised to speak until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately.

They say that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul claims, they will provide final proof that brutality against detainees has become an institutionalised feature of America's war on terror.

<snip>
But it is the revelations about Guantanamo Bay that are the most damaging for a White House desperately trying to draw a line under the Iraq abuse allegations.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has been an outspoken critic of the Abu Ghraib abuse, said he would demand that Rumsfeld must produce the videos this week.

'Congressional oversight of this administration has been lax in many areas, including detention policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo,' Leahy said. 'It is past time for that to change. If photos, videotapes or any other evidence exists that can help establish whether or not there has been mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, it should be provided without delay to Congress.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

21. So I see that Bush is not flatly denying knowledge of the tapes

His response leaves open the possibility that he knew. Since he's the Commander In Chief and the bucks stop with him, we should assume that he knew about them if he was doing his job in a competent fashion.

[originalpckelly]

24. Let me remind you George: you got off to them.

Now do you remember?