"I'm not going to let my people get nailed for something they were ordered to do." --Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr., director, CIA "Directorate of Operations," 2004-2007	JAR's repeated statement of policy, as quoted by his deputy Robert Richer New York Times article, 2008/0220 Wednesday, pp. A1, A12: Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, "Tape Inquiry: Ex-Spymaster In the Middle>" Quote added 2008/0220
Editor's note: Mr. Rodriguez became a focus of press interest in December 2007 for ordering in 2005 the destruction of 2 CIA tapes allegedly showing harsh interrogation (including "waterboarding," which has a choking effect) of two senior al-Qa'ida terror suspects, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah. Rodriguez acted honorably and correctly; if the tapes had not been destroyed, they would inevitably have been leaked out as (1) recruiting videos for al-Qa'ida, and (2) conduits for both terrorist and legalist attacks on the junior CIA employees on the film. Congressional investigators who profess shock at obstruction of their investigations have failed to articulate any useful information the tapes could have provided them. Was the tape destruction "obstruction of justice"? A better description is "obstruction of treason."

Were the destroyed tapes legal evidence of crime (torture), hence required for preservation? Would-be prosecutors note that the USA has embraced both international treaties and domestic laws against torture. Two separate lines of argument converge to mitigate the charge.

(1) Is choking severe enough to constitute immoral "torture"? (2) Are some crimes (eg. mass murder) so harmful and evil that the would-be perpetrators forfeit some of the civilized values they reject? In the light of #2, the answer to #1 would be different for a garden-variety insurgent in his own community, than for a terrorist with a nuclear bomb. But some forms of torture are immoral under any circumstances, eg those that cause permanent injury (eg. Israel's former "shaking" that risked brain damage), or those innately disgusting, eg electric shocks to sensitive areas.

It is not clear how many lives (if any) were saved by information extracted by harsh interrogation of senior al-Qa'ida terrorists. Even if the threat was not considered worth it, however, that does not justify US leaders scapegoating subordinates for their own decisions.