Bush Tries To Stop Tape Investigation

It was learned recently that the CIA had destroyed some tapes. The tapes contained hours of the torture of two suspected terrorists. It's obvious that the tapes were destroyed so they wouldn't embarass the Bush administration.

But it's even worse than that. The tapes were destroyed 5 months after US District Judge Henry H. Kennedy issued an order telling the government not to destroy any evidence of the torture of terror suspects, especially those in Guantanamo.

Now, not only is Congress going to investigate the destruction of these tapes, but Judge Kennedy is considering his own investigation. Naturally, the Bush administration doesn't want either of these investigations to continue.

The Justice Department has refused to provide information, and has entered a brief in Judge Kennedy's court that says the destruction didn't involve a violation of his court order. Their justification is that the torture didn't take place at Guantanamo. They say the torture happened at a secret location (think rendition) and the two were transferred to Guantanamo after the torture had been completed.

Sounds to me like they're splitting some hairs to try and stay out of trouble. I think the judge, as well as Congress, has every right to investigate the destruction of the tapes. Both entities should issue contempt citations if the administration continues to refuse to provide information.

The Bush administration would like everyone to let the Justice Department do the only investigation. That might be OK if we actually had an independent Justice Department staffed with non-partisan professionals -- but we don't. What we have is a department staffed with Bush loyalists and led by an attorney general who can't figure out whether waterboarding is torture or not.

So basically, the Bush administration wants to be in charge of investigating themselves. That's like putting the fox in charge of henhouse security precautions. Is there anybody left in America that thinks that would be a full and impartial investigation?

After all the failures and lies of the Bush administration, there is no way they can be trusted to investigate themselves.