Image is everything..even to the CIA

Check out this article at the NYT today. Its all about how important image has become to the boyz and girlz at the CIA. Seems the CIA was paranoid that Abu Zubaydah would die whilst in their custody, so the following is what they did to protect their ‘image’:

So in the spring of 2002, even as the intelligence officers flew in a surgeon from Johns Hopkins Hospital to treat Abu Zubaydah, who had been shot three times during his capture in Pakistan, they set up video cameras to record his every moment: asleep in his cell, having his bandages changed, being interrogated.

In fact, current and former intelligence officials say, the agency’s every action in the prolonged drama of the interrogation videotapes was prompted in part by worry about how its conduct might be perceived — by Congress, by prosecutors, by the American public and by Muslims worldwide.

That worry drove the decision to begin taping interrogations — and to stop taping just months later, after the treatment of prisoners began to include waterboarding. And it fueled the nearly three-year campaign by the agency’s clandestine service for permission to destroy the tapes, culminating in a November 2005 destruction order from the service’s director, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.

Ah yes, the destruction of the Torture Tapes. One can only hope that move was illegal enough to strike fear into the hearts of every asshole that took part in the decision. Its a good read, and I highly recommend you check it out my dear reader.