I'll be honest, when i first heard this story, my bullshit meter started going off. Not because its sounded implausible so much as because this story seemed to be the ultimate "gotcha". A destroyed tape supposedly showing the "torture" of a terrorist subject is really, when you think about it, the perfect charge against the CIA. Since the tape was destroyed, there's no way the CIA can "prove" it didn't show torture, after all. And if the tape is found, then the CIA has to show classified interrogations and put its interrogators (who regularly receive death threats) in additional harm. Its a win/win situation for the defeatists. But it would seem that there really is a legitimate reason to be very, very, concerned by the content that might have been on this tape, and its not because out Interrogators are "torturing" people.
From NRO
Zubaydah, wounded when he was captured in Pakistan, was fooled in a fake flag operation to believe that the Saudis held him. Instead of being afraid of the ‘Saudis,’ he demanded to talk to three Saudi princes (one, the nephew of the King, who happened to be in the U.S. on 9/11). He gave his interrogators the private cell phone numbers of all 3. He did the same regarding the chief of Pakistan's air force.
After the U.S. told the Saudis and Pakistanis of Zubaydah's finger pointing, all four men had tragic 'accidents.' The King's nephew died of complications from liposuction at the age of 43. A day later, the 41 year old Prince named by Zubaydah died in a one-car accident on his way to the funeral of the King’s nephew. The third named prince, age 25, died a week later of "thirst," according to the Saudi Royal Court. And shortly after that, the chief of Pakistan’s air force died when his plane exploded with his wife and 15 of his top aides on board
When my book was published, CIA officials trashed it 'off the record,' but made no public comment. I have always held the same position. There is (or was) firm evidence of what transpired, of whether my reporting was accurate or not. Make the interrogation tapes public and then we'll know whether one of the top al Qaeda operatives accused leading Saudi royals and a top Pakistani military man - now all dead - of being his sponsors. And accused two of them – the King’s nephew and the Pakistani air force chief – of having advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Now, suddenly coincidence of coincidence, the CIA says the Zubaydah interrogation tapes are destroyed. How convenient.
Now I realise I'm just a reactionist, redneck, neoconservative, misogynist, minority hating, ignorant, uneducated, stupid, ugly conservative, but to me, this is pretty damn concerning. Especially when you realise that Saudi Arabia is spending billions to fund mosques, texts, and multimedia content which pushes one of the single most radical forms of Islam.
Now I know that these nuts jobs are supposed to be our Allies, and in truth in some minor ways they are. But one of the things I have consistently disapproved of from the Bush administrations is how cozy our ties to SA are, given that SA is, quite frankly, one of the single most barbaric, primitive, oppressive, and just plain evil cultures on the face of the earth. And yes I know that the record shows that the Bush Administration did recommend for these tapes not to be destroyed, but it still bugs me that our best "ally" in the middle east is a nation whose society is so completely incompatible with our own.
Which is another reason why the ongoing effort in Iraq is so important. We need a real ally in that region, and has history has shown, the best way for the USA to create an ally is to kick the shit out of a country, and then rebuild it in our image. I mean it worked in Japan, and Germany.
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