Backgrounder: Was Iran the Reason for the CIA Director's Visit to Baku?

General Michael Hayden Meets With Azerbaijani President To Discuss Strategic Iran War Plans

Submitted by MichaelVail on Fri, 2007-10-05 06:53.

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Eurasia Insight
Posted: 2007-10-05 01:43:14

AZERBAIJAN: IS IRAN THE REASON FOR THE CIA DIRECTOR'S RECENT VISIT TO BAKU?

Rovshan Ismayilov: 10/04/07

Political analysts in Baku are debating the reasons for an unannounced late September trip to Azerbaijan by Central Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael Hayden. US diplomats remain tight-lipped about the visit. Many local experts, however, contend that Hayden’s talks with Azerbaijani leaders likely concerned Iran, Azerbaijan’s neighbor to the south.

Gen. Hayden’s one-day visit on September 28, which included a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Minister of National Security Eldar Makhmudov, was not publicized in advance, and few details have since been provided. According to informed sources, the CIA director arrived in Baku late on the night of September 27. The Turan news agency has cited “unofficial sources” as saying Hayden stayed in a private downtown hotel at which special security measures were taken. He left Baku in the early evening on September 28.

US Embassy spokesperson Jonathan Henick told EurasiaNet that Hayden’s visit was part of a trip to several countries in the region. Henick would confirm only that Hayden discussed issues related to regional security and international terrorism with President Aliyev and National Security Minister Makhmudov. Azerbaijani officials likewise declined to elaborate on the nature or specifics of the discussions.

Some Azerbaijani analysts, however, see “the Iranian issue” as the most pressing reason for the CIA director’s trip. The trip came five days before an October 3 statement by US President George W. Bush that Washington was prepared, under certain conditions, to negotiate with Tehran on the nuclear issue.

"This is a leader who has made very provocative statements, and we have made it clear, however, in spite of that we are willing to sit down with him so long as he suspends his program, his nuclear weapons program," President Bush said, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "In other words, it's his choice not mine any more."

“It is obvious that the CIA director would not travel to Baku without a serious reason for discussions,” commented expert Rasim Musabekov.

“It is clear – most likely Iranian issues were discussed.”

Political columnist Rauf Mirkadirov of Baku’s Russian-language Zerkalo (Mirror) daily seconds that view. “[The] CIA director would hardly visit Azerbaijan just for meeting with the president and the national security minister and discussing general issues,” he argued. “Most likely, a complex of problems [was] discussed . . . The major issue is no doubt Iran and the potential development of the situation around its nuclear program,” Mirkadirov said. Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia and the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline could also have been raised, he added. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Ilgar Mammadov, an independent Baku-based analyst, drew attention to the fact that Hayden's visit occurred shortly before the scheduled start of a trial of a pro-Iranian extremist group charged with trying to create a Shar’ia-based religious state in Azerbaijan.

A preliminary hearing for the government’s case against the 15-member group, named after its leader, Said Dadashbeyli, took place at the end of September in Baku, the Turan news agency reported on October 1. Group members are also charged with high treason, illegal arms possession, illegal contact with foreign intelligence services, robbery and other crimes.

The Ministry of National Security alleges that Dadashbeyli, an Azerbaijani citizen, worked with radical Islamic organizations – as yet not publicly named – and Iranian intelligence agents to set up a state with Shar’ia laws. A military group, dubbed the Northern Army of Mehdi, was allegedly formed by several of the defendants, prosecutors allege. Prosecutors also claim that one of the group’s members, Jeihun Aliyev, traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom, where he was offered money by Iranian agents. The money was to be used to mount a propaganda campaign designed to undermine Western and Israeli influence in Azerbaijan.

According to the investigation, group members received training in Iran. In Baku, they carried out physical training routines at the Interior Ministry’s Dinamo sports center and held religious discussions at the Karabakh War Invalids Society, according to media reports. Mob-related contract “hit jobs” were allegedly carried out by Dadashbeyli to raise money for the group’s activities, authorities allege.

Neither the group, nor Tehran is known to have commented on the charges. The group’s trial is scheduled to begin on October 8 in Baku behind closed doors.

“Usually, such issues [security, fighting extremists and terrorist groups] are being discussed at the highest level. Therefore, it is possible that Hayden’s visit is somehow linked with this trial,” Mammadov said. “It is possible that Iran has intensified subversive activity against Azerbaijan and the CIA director discussed this issue.” An exchange of intelligence information on extremists groups’ activity in the region, he added, is another possibility. [Ilgar Mammadov is a board member of the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation Azerbaijan. EurasiaNet.org is financed by the Open Society Institute’s Central Eurasia Project].

Azerbaijani media and political analysts have long contended that Azerbaijan could be used by US forces as a base for potential military operation against Iran. The US government, however, has repeatedly denied such a possibility. Azerbaijani officials have also stressed that they have no interest in being part of a military campaign against Iran, a country with which Azerbaijan, also a majority Shi’ite society, shares strong cultural and religious ties. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The denials, however, have not convinced all analysts. Musabekov did not exclude that Hayden traveled to Baku “to familiarize the Azerbaijani leadership with some additional intelligence data that may change Baku’s position over the issue of military operation against Iran.”

Columnist Mirkadirov takes issue with the claim that Hayden’s trip was part of a larger regional tour. “There was no information that Michael Hayden traveled to any other place in the region except Baku,” he said. “I believe it was a targeted visit to Baku and after that he [Hayden] returned to the United States.”

Some pro-government political analysts, however, prefer to steer clear of commentary. Political analyst Aydin Mirzazade, a parliamentarian for the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party, commented that he does not want to get lost in guesswork. “The US Embassy provided some information [on the visit] and I have nothing to add,” he said.

Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based in Baku.

Boeing jerks get court repreive on rendtion

Court Dismisses Lawsuit on Secret Kidnapping

by Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge, saying the case involved a state secret, dismissed a lawsuit on Wednesday against a unit of Boeing Co that charged the firm helped fly terrorism suspects abroad to secret prisons.The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint in May accusing Jeppesen Dataplan Inc of providing flight and logistical support to the U.S. government with at least 15 aircraft on 70 “extraordinary-rendition” flights.

“In sum, at the core of plaintiffs’ case against Defendant Jeppesen are ‘allegations’ of covert U.S. military or CIA operations in foreign countries against foreign nationals - clearly a subject matter which is a state secret,” Judge James Ware wrote in a ruling issued on Wednesday evening.

The court “grants the United States’ motion to dismiss on the ground that the very subject matter of the case is a state secret.”

The complaint to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleged Jeppesen “falsified flight plans to European air traffic control authorities to avoid public scrutiny of CIA flights.”

The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of five men who say the CIA had them flown to foreign prisons for interrogations and torture. The plaintiffs are an Ethiopian living in Britain; an Italian who was working in Pakistan; an Egyptian citizen living in Sweden; a Yemeni; and an Iraqi who is a British resident.

The government argued the case should be dismissed because they could not confirm details of the operations.

Those details “include whether any private entities or other countries assisted the CIA in conducting the program; the dates and locations of any detentions and interrogations; the methods of interrogation employed in the program; and the names of any individuals detained and interrogated by the CIA (other than fifteen individuals whose identities have been divulged so that they can be brought to trial),” the U.S. government said in its filing last year.

The judge mentioned he had reviewed a classified declaration from Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, in its assessment of the case.

“The Court’s review of General Hayden’s public and classified declarations confirm that proceeding with this case would jeopardize national security and foreign relations and that no protective procedure can salvage this case,” Ware wrote.

Reporting by Adam Tanner; Editing by Peter Cooney

© 2008 Reuters

Torturegate: Zubaydah, Conyers, Hayden, Moussaoui, the Agency, the DoJ, Special Prosecutor

Moussaoui prosecutor may have known about CIA interrogation tapes during trial
Jaime Jansen at 8:41 AM ET

[JURIST] The federal judge presiding over the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] was seeking information about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] around the time the CIA destroyed videotapes of the interrogations [JURIST news archive] of terror suspects, including Zubaydah, according to court documents released in the Moussaoui case Wednesday. The court documents also say that the lead prosecutor may have known that the CIA had destroyed the videotapes more than a year before the government acknowledged the destruction in court. Moussaoui's attorneys submitted documents to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in December in an effort to send the case back to the Eastern District of Virginia to find out whether the existence of the videotape of Zubaydah should have been disclosed and whether it would have caused Moussaoui not to plead guilty [JURIST report]. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) [official website] has already called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the videotapes' destruction, while government officials familiar with the case argue that the lead prosecutor in the Moussaoui case was not obligated to disclose the videotapes of Zubaydah because the court had already decided Zubaydah was not relevant to the Moussaoui case. The accusations made by Moussaoui's lawyers contradict statements [JURIST report] made in December by CIA Director Michael Hayden [official profile] that the tapes had no relevance to any court proceeding at the time of their destruction.

Existence of the videotapes was verified in November after the CIA admitted it had mistakenly denied [JURIST report] that it had recorded interrogations in a court declaration during the Moussaoui trial. Hayden acknowledged [statement text] in December that the CIA had videotaped the interrogation of two al Qaeda suspects in 2002, but said that the tapes had been destroyed in 2005 amid concerns that they could be leaked to the public and compromise the identities of the interrogators. The US Justice Department has opened a criminal probe [JURIST report] into the matter, and multiple congressional inquiries are underway. The New York Times has more. AP has additional coverage.

Today's Torture gate News: WH - "We Definite Want to Consider" using Waterboarding Again

White House: We "Definitely Want To Consider" Using Waterboarding Again

Posted by Satyam Khanna, Think Progress at 1:10 PM on February 6, 2008.

Despite its hedging, the White House made clear today it very well may commit illegal torture again.

In congressional testimony yesterday, CIA director Michael Hayden confirmed that his agency used waterboarding on three al Qaeda suspects. In 2006, Hayden banned the use of waterboarding in CIA interrogations. The Pentagon also banned its employees from using it, and the FBI said its investigators do not use coercive tactics in interviewing terror suspects.

But in today's gaggle, White House said that it may approve the use of waterboarding again "depend[ing] upon circumstances":

"It will depend upon circumstances," spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding "the belief that an attack might be imminent, that could be a circumstance that you would definitely want to consider."

Later, in a press briefing, Fratto tried to distance himself from these remarks, claiming that he only was talking about "the process" of approving waterboarding. "I'm not speculating," he declared.

Fratto said this morning that if used again, waterboarding would "need the president's approval" and would notify "appropriate members of Congress."

Last week, Attorney General Michael Mukasey repeatedly refused to declare the practice illegal. Yesterday, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden "left open the option of reinstating it."

Despite its hedging, the White House made clear today it very well may commit illegal torture again.

Transcript:

QUESTION: Earlier, you suggested that it would not be ruled out for possible use in the future.

FRATTO: Again, I think I'd refer you to the testimony yesterday where the intelligence chiefs didn't rule anything out.

What I did talk about was the process whereby the administration would consider any enhanced interrogation techniques.

And that process includes the director of the Central Intelligence Agency bringing the proposal to the attorney general, where a review would be conducted to determine if the plan would be legal and effective. At that point, the proposal would go to the president. The president would listen to the determinations of his advisers and make a decision.

If he made a decision to authorize a specific interrogation technique, part of that process also involves going to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the chairmen and ranking members of the Judiciary Committees and to inform them that a change in the program has taken place.

QUESTION: But the fact that the process exists suggests that it could be used again? You're not ruling it out.

FRATTO: I'm not speculating at all on what circumstances in the future would cause the director of the CIA to make a proposal in that way. That's something for Director Hayden to address.

What we do know is that they're taking -- they take the interrogation program very seriously. They understand that it must be done with safeguards and under the rule of law.

Every interrogation technique used in this program was brought to the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice made a determination as to its lawfulness. And that allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to move forward with their program.

Any change would follow the process that I just outlined.

Tagged as: bush administration, torture, mukasey, mcconnell, waterboarding, fratto

Satyam Khanna is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.

CIA Director: Yes, We Tortured

CIA Director: Yes, We Tortured

Related
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CIA used waterboarding on three Al-Qaeda detainees: chief

1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — CIA director Michael Hayden for the first time admitted publicly Tuesday that the agency had used "waterboarding," or simulated drowning, in interrogations of three top Al-Qaeda detainees nearly five years ago.

The technique, which critics say is tantamount to torture, was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a time when further catastrophic attacks on the United States were believed to be imminent, Hayden said.

"Let me make it very clear and to state so officially in front of this committee that waterboarding has been used on only three detainees," he told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"It was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was used on Abu Zubaydah. And it was used on Nashiri."

Mohammed has claimed to be the operational mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Abu Zubaydah is alleged to have been an aide to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. And al-Nashiri is alleged to have been the operational commander of the suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

All three were initially held and interrogated at secret CIA-run detention centers overseas before being transferred in 2006 to a military-run detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hayden's remarks were the first direct official admission that agency interrogators had used "waterboarding" in questioning "war on terror" detainees.

They came amid a long-running battle between the administration and members of Congress over so-called "enhanced" or coercive interrogation techniques used by the CIA.

Attorney General Michael Mukasy told Congress last week that the CIA no longer uses "waterboarding" and that it was not "currently" an authorized interrogation technique.

Mukasy refused to say whether waterboarding is torture.

"There are some circumstances where current law would appear clearly to prohibit waterboarding's use. Other circumstances would present a far closer question."

In testimony Tuesday, Hayden suggested that the CIA no longer needed to use "waterboarding" in interrogations because circumstances had changed since the period following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"We used it against these three high-value detainees because of the circumstances of the time. Very critical to those circumstances was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were imminent.

"In addition to that, my agency and our community writ large had limited knowledge about Al-Qaeda and its workings. Those two realities have changed," he said.

He said the technique had not been used in almost five years.

But Hayden defended the CIA use of coercive interrogation techniques as lawful and opposed moves by Congress to make the agency follow rules of interrogation set forth in the Army Field Manual.

He said "it would make no more sense to apply the Army Field Manual to CIA -- the Army Field Manual on interrogations -- than it would be to take the Army Field Manual on grooming and apply it to my agency, or the Army Field Manual on recruiting and apply it to my agency, or, for that matter, take the Army Field Manual on sexual orientation and apply it to my agency."

Retired Admiral Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, likewise suggested that the circumstances determine whether waterboarding is lawful.

"If there was a reason to use such a technique, you would have to make a judgment on the circumstances and the situation regarding the specifics of the event," he said.

Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON at 12:21 PM

Legal Community Condemns Destruction of CIA Tapes

Questions:

1. Where is the ACLU?

2. Where is Turley calling for impeachment?

Legal Community Condemns Destruction of CIA Tapes

Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:11 pm (PST)

by William Fisher

NEW YORK - A former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ethics adviser has joined leading members of the U.S. legal community in calling on Congress to investigate the destruction of tape recordings of interrogations carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

<http://www.commondr eams.org/ archive/wp- content/photos/ 1227_04.jpg>

JesselynRadack — who came to prominence as a whistleblower after she objected tothe government’s treatment of John Walker Lindh, the ‘American Taliban’captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan — told a newsteleconference last week that the destroyed tapes are “part of a pattern.” She said,

“There are some five million missing White House e-mails. No one knows where the hit lists are from the U.S. Attorneymassacre. And now the CIA interrogation videotapes have been erased.

This is criminal.”

“Remember when the Justice Department prosecuted Enron and Arthur
Anderson for destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice? Now the
Justice Department is trying to block congressional oversight and legal
proceedings involving this latest scandal,”

Radack added.

Radack’s comments came during the launch of a new campaign,
“American Lawyers Defending the Constitution.”

The effort is backed by a statement signed by more than 1,300 lawyers and law students around the country, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein, leaders of legal organisations and more than 100 law professors in the U.S. Their statement calls on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to hold wide-ranging hearings to investigate

“unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity
by the Bush Administration.”

The ‘TapeGate’ furor erupted after the New York Times revealed in early December that the CIA in 2005 had destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, “a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal
scrutiny about its secret detention programme, according to current and former government officials.” The CIA subsequently announced the programme. The videotapes showed agency operatives subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody — to severe interrogation techniques in 2002. In a message to his staff, CIA Director General Michael V. Hayden reportedly said the tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that the video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks. He also said the tapes no longer had intelligence value.

The destruction of the tapes has raised questions about whether CIA officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sep. 11 commission about aspects of the programme.

The CIA programme that included the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects began after the capture of Zubaydah in March 2002.

The CIA has said that the DOJ and the executive branch reviewed and approved of the use of a set of harsh techniques before they were used on any prisoners, and that the DOJ issued a classified legal opinion in August 2002 that provided explicit authorisation for their use.

Other participants on the telephone press conference included Michael Ratner, president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights <http://www.ccrjusti ce.org/>, a legal advocacy group, and Marjorie Cohn, president of the 6,000-member National Lawyers Guild <http://www.nlg. org/>.

Ratner, whose organisation has played a major role in providing defence lawyers for detainees in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, underscored the importance of congressional action.

“For far too long Congress has been the handmaiden of the Bush administration’ s undermining and subversion of basic constitutional rights. The right to be free from torture; warrant-less wiretapping; jailing without habeas corpus; and disappearances into secret sites. Principles going back to the Magna Carta are at stake,”

he said.

Ratner called on Congress to

“do its job: defend the Constitution from its enemies.” “Its enemies are the Bush administration,”

he stressed.

“Just announcing that investigations will be held and subpoenas will be issued is terribly insufficient unless Congress is willing to enforce the subpoenas by issuing contempt citations,”

Ratner said, emphasising that,

“Congress has a constitutional duty to oversee the activities of the executive branch, and our entire system of government is threatened when Congress simply folds before an obstinate executive.”

Cohn, author of the recently published book, “Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law”, told IPS,

“From the illegal war in Iraq, to the illegal torture of prisoners in U.S. custody, to the illegal destruction of evidence by the CIA, the Bush administration has become an institution of lawbreakers. Congress must hold hearings to investigate this lawbreaking, and should authorise the appointment of an independent prosecutor since Michael Mukasey cannot be counted on to conduct an impartial investigation.”

Radack rose to prominence as a major whistleblower in the Lindh case. In the course of Lindh’s criminal prosecution, the court ordered all documents associated with his interrogation to be turned over. After some documents were turned over, Radack was asked about the existence of
more documents. At that time, she looked through the files and discovered that the bulk of her work was missing and had not been turned over. Radack was able to reconstruct much of her work, and informed her supervisor that her department had not complied with the court order.
She was forced to resign before the documents were turned over. A criminal investigation into Radack’s actions was eventually closed with no charges, but her case was referred to the state bar of Maryland, which eventually cleared her of all wrongdoing. She has never been called to testify before Congress.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said it had no knowledge that Lindh was represented by a lawyer prior to his interrogation, but this position appears to be contradicted by material in Radack’s files.

Radack told the news conference,

“My e-mails documented my advice against interrogating Lindh without a lawyer, and concluded that the FBI committed an ethics violation when it did so anyway. Both the CIA videotapes and my e-mails were destroyed, in part, because officials
were concerned that they documented controversial interrogation methods that could put agency officials in legal jeopardy.”

In a related development, one of America’s leading constitutional scholars said White House involvement in the CIA’s decision to destroy videotapes documenting severe interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists could constitute as many as six crimes.

Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University law school in Washington, appeared on CNN to discuss a report by the New York Times that four White House attorneys — including then-White House counsels Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers — participated in discussions with the CIA about whether or not the tapes should be destroyed.

Turley said,

“There are at least six identifiable crimes here, from obstruction of justice to obstruction of Congress, perjury, conspiracy, false statements, and what is often forgotten: the crime of torturing suspects.”

“If that crime was committed it was a crime that would conceivably be ordered by the president himself, only the president can order those types of special treatments or interrogation techniques,”

he added.

© 2007 Inter Press Service