Cloak and Dagger! C.I.A. in hot water again!

The C.I.A. is supposed to be a cloak and dagger type of organization so I am surprised at how much it has been in the news lately.

First they put the Ice on George Bush's flights of fancy and paranoia by reveling that Iran dropped their nuclear ambitions back in 2003, and now they are in hot water for destroying torture tapes so that no one can accuse them of any wrongdoing!

According to the intelligence agency, the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of CIA agents and because they no longer had intelligence value.

Bullshit!

This C.I.A. is no different than any other law enforcement or security organization in that it will close ranks to protect itself and any information we get will be after the fact!

The New York Times, which broke the story, quotes current and former government officials as saying the CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005 as it faced Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention programme.

Officials feared the tapes could have raised doubts about the legality of the CIA's techniques, the newspaper says.

The tapes are thought to have shown the interrogation in 2002 of a number of terror suspects, including Abu Zubaydah, who had been a chief recruiter for the al-Qaeda network.

The Associated Press news agency on Thursday obtained a letter sent to all CIA employees by the agency's current director, Michael Hayden, explaining why the footage was destroyed.

In the internal memo, Mr Hayden told staff that the CIA had begun taping interrogations as an internal check in 2002 and decided to delete the videos because they lacked any "legal or internal reason" to keep them.

Once again, with gusto, Bullshit!

The CIA acknowledges that these early interrogations were harsh, but Mr Hayden says that the CIA's internal watchdogs saw the tapes in 2003 and verified that the techniques used were legal.

"The destruction of these tapes appears to be a part of an extensive, long-term pattern of misusing executive authority to insulate individuals from criminal prosecution for torture and abuse," an ACLU statement said.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, President George W Bush authorised the use of "harsh techniques" in the interrogation of suspected terrorists.

According to one correspondent, those techniques are alleged to have included water-boarding, a method in which a suspect is held down and gagged while water is poured into his mouth in order to simulate drowning.

Human rights groups say that water-boarding - and other techniques allegedly used by the CIA - can be defined as torture under various international treaties to which the US is a signatory.

The Bush administration has always maintained that it does not allow the use of torture but the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says the news is likely to trigger more questions about the interrogation techniques used by the CIA.

There are also questions over whether CIA agents withheld information from the courts and a presidential commission.

These questions seem to be rather silly since we know that, for example, police departments will hide evidence, change facts, whitewash information and outright lie to protect themselves and the C.I.A. makes them look like amateurs.

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com