Tale of the tapes, part 2

Both Instapundit and Hot Air are suggesting that Ted Kennedy owes someone an apology for his comments about the CIA interrogation tapes that were destroyed. But just one minute, says Just One Minute:

DoJ lawyers involved in the Moussai trial told a judge they had watched videotape of CIA interogations in 2007.

Follow the links at that site for a DoJ letter to Zacarias Moussaoui judge Brinkema explaining that the tapes THEY are talking about, destroyed in 2007, would not have changed the verdict. Just how many tapes are there?

The letter redacts which terror suspects those tapes contained, which might be crucial. In searching around on the tubes to ascertain the direction Moussaoui's lawyers pointed their discovery, we find this comment just a few days ago (emphasis added):

Gerald Zerkin, one of Moussaoui's lawyers in the penalty phase of his trial, recalled some of the defense efforts to obtain testimony from video or audio tapes of the interrogations of top al-Qaida detainees. "Obviously the important witnesses included Zubaydah, Binalshibh and KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed)... those are the guys at the head of the witness list," Zerkin said. He could not recall specifically which tapes he requested or the phrasing of his discovery requests, which he said were probably still classified.

So many foggy memories out there! Whoever it was, the public ended up with a substitution for testimony, which at the time was the first we'd heard from any of them about anything. Maybe it should have been called substitution for tapes soon to be destroyed. Bottom line, there still appears to be a tape problem.

Bottom bottom line--all of this must be balanced within the context of Debra Burlingame's testimony, because much of the legal wrangling we're seeing could be in response to a concerted effort by the enemy to subvert the courts against us. Remember Moussaoui's famous quote: "it's permitted to lie for jihad".

MORE 12/12/07

Moussaoui unvarnished. Context is everything.

ONE MORE 12/12/07

The buzz from the destroyed tapes continues, as evidenced by this report, which features a lawyer for one of the combatants. But as the Moussaoui testimony above alludes, these detainees are at war with the US. Aside from the bizarro notion of such people even having attorneys at all, the demand for discovery of things such as interrogation tapes that undoubtedly contain sensitive national security information (harmful if leaked) is the very reason Bush did not want enemy combantants brought into the US courts system.

It's been a long time since 9/11, and people have forgotten why those Congresspeople once asked CIA if they were doing enough.