Did CIA Rendition Flights Rely on Bogus State Dept. Letter?
Interesting question, eh? Eric Umansky writes for ProPublica:
As the Washington Post and others have reported today, an obscure court case in New York state has led to the disclosure of new details on CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, in which the United Statescaptured dozens of alleged terrorists and sent them to secret prisons overseas.
About 1,700 pages of documents have been filed in the case, which involves a billing dispute between two charter companies who had been hired to carry out the secret flights. The records include flight itineraries for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and others. As the head of one of the companies testified, “We were transporting government personnel and their invitees.”
But what really caught our eye are potentially forged State Department letters authorizing the flights. The letters were sent to each air crew before flights and were signed by a State Department official who may not exist.
The letters were all signed by “Terry A. Hogan.” (Here is one of them.) But the Associated Press says there are indications that Hogan “was fictitious”: . . .
Continue reading. You can see why I saw “CIA” stands for “Criminals in Action”: they consistently break laws, and not just governmental laws: laws of common decency, morality, ethics, and whatever else they can find to break. And they expect total immunity for their lawbreaking, and by God! Obama is here to see that they get it.
The rot spreads quickly once it takes hold.
I heard and read about the law suit a few days ago and it was being billed as one of the few times ever that the agency was allowing all sorts of information to be released to the public with no objections at all coming from them. In my opinion that rarity should be the real story hear.
Although the article above is rather dull I found it interesting enough for background information. The article seems to focus on the untraceable names, forged or fake signatures and the like but what is the actual point ?
Congress decades ago in the CIA charter specifically allows the agency to develop and operate shell companies and use fictitious names in order to not just operate their projects but to also fund them, what I find rather astonishing and rather naive is that this is considered news !
What seasoned journalists should be really looking into is why the law suit is left to continue through the judicial process unimpeded by national security issues and the like as in many other situations. After all it came about because one company did not pay another for the debts incurred during the transport of the “invitees”
Also fascinating, to me anyway, are the naming of the countries that the Invitees were being Lear jetted around to. This under the guise that they needed to be ferried around to various detention centers in these third party countries.
“oh come on now” I say, what is this foolishness ?…Water-boarding in one country is going to be different than in another ? Is it the ‘water or the board’ that makes the difference ? Such as Evian’s water at Lord Byron’s prison along the shores of Lac Leman ? Or the knotless planks of Western BC Cedar ?
Why the need to be ferrying them around ? A dark humid dungeon along the shores of some god forsaken shore or just a simple cell on the Eisenhower would of done just as well, no ?
Something just doesn’t click on this whole saga, the game is afoot and I am sure there will be more to come.
Nick
2 September 2011 at 5:06 pm
Interesting thoughts. Now that you mention, there *is* something odd about this. Like the story isn’t really the story, as you say.
LeisureGuy
3 September 2011 at 11:43 am
I just remembered that there’s a specific name for this error: “burying the lede.”
LeisureGuy
3 September 2011 at 5:18 pm
Bingo !! that’s exactly it ! deviating and bordering on a ‘disinformation’ campaign to steer away or obscure the path towards the truth.
Nick
3 September 2011 at 7:27 pm