They Changed Their Minds

The Central Intelligence Agency has agreed to make documents related to the destruction of interrogation videotapes available to the House Intelligence Committee and to allow the agency’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, to testify about the matter, Congressional and intelligence officials said Wednesday.

[...]

“The Department of Justice has changed their minds, and today we have reason to believe that we will be getting the documents,” [House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre] Reyes told reporters on Wednesday.

  NYT

Changed their minds. Is it coincidental that the the NYT just reported that four White House lawyers were involved?

There may also be audio tapes.

I wondered what has become of the Italian attempt to bring to justice the CIA agents who kidnapped Abu Omar, so I poked around a bit. There is supposed to be a decision on January 29 on whether a state document can be revealed in public court (although it already appeared in the press).

The CIA agents charged, who can be arrested if they go back to Europe, are not likely to make an appearance in Italian court.

The conviction [in absentia] of the Americans is a virtual certainty, say legal observers.

[...]

Omar, now wanted in Milan on terrorist charges, would be eligible to collect damages from U.S. and Italian officials in the event of a guilty verdict.

  CQ Politics

And good luck collecting on that U.S. award.

His critics, [Italian prosecutor Armando] Spataro says, “see a trial in absentia of the Americans as an obstacle to fighting terrorism,” meaning that it wrongly targets the CIA, one of the very agencies leading the fight against the terrorists.

“But we,” he stresses, “see following the law as central to the fight against terrorism.”

How novel.

Et Tu Italia?

Searching for illegal drugs at an airport, Italian investigators came up with something else - a black market arms deal with Iraq.

The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear.

The purchase would merely have been the most spectacular example of how Iraq has become a magnet for arms traffickers and a place of vanishing weapons stockpiles and uncontrolled gun markets since the 2003 U.S. invasion and the onset of civil war.

  Yahoo

We've done so much for that country.

Meanwhile, the planned replacement of the army's AK-47s with U.S.-made M-16s may throw more assault rifles onto the black market. And the weapons free-for-all apparently is spilling over borders: Turkey and Iran complain U.S.-supplied guns are flowing from Iraq to anti-government militants on their soil.

Meanwhile, we accuse Iran of supplying arms to the Iraqi fiasco.

"It seems strange that a pro-Western government, supported by the U.S. Army and other NATO countries on its own territory, would seek Russian or Chinese weapons through questionable channels," the anti-Mafia prosecutor wrote in seeking the arrest warrant that short-circuited the complex deal.

Doesn't it just?

Iraqi middlemen in the Italian deal, in intercepted e-mails, claimed the arrangement had official American approval. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad denied that.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to find that to be true. Whether by inexcusable incompetence or by design, we seem to be arming all sides in Iraq. Good business for the arms manufacturers, eh George? Although, to be fair, in this instance, the Iraqis insisted on buying Russian-made weapons. Does the Carlyle Group have stock in Russian arms companies?

The arms broker in this case, al-Handal, turns out to have also been a front company in the food for oil scheme under Saddam Hussein's reign. They obviously weren't put out of business when Saddam was captured. (Of course, the Sunni militias are back in business now, with U.S. backing, too. Apparently, Saddam and Sons are the only ones out of business.)

Citing the names of "friends" in top U.S. military ranks in Iraq, al-Handal said his company has fulfilled scores of supply and service contracts for the U.S. occupation. Asked why he claimed U.S. approval for the abortive Italian weapons purchase, he said he had a document from the U.S. Army "that says, 'We allow al-Thuraya Group to do all kinds of business.'"

All kinds.

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

CIA on Trial

MILAN, Italy -- The first trial involving the CIA's extraordinary renditions program opens Friday in the absence of all 26 American defendants accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terrorist suspect.

  WaPo

Yes, and good luck getting them extradicted if convicted, too.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.