Ka-plunk roughly approximates the foreboding sound of good shoe-leather falling upon hardwood floors in the beginning revelations of illicit affairs of sex or State. There is certainly nothing sexy about the subject or object(s) of this CIA-generated Ka-plunk, which we have addressed earlier.
I am too deeply absorbed into editing the 20-minute DVD movie of our Antony and Cleopatra entry in the 4th Chinese Universities Shakespeare Festival, hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, to write more than the brief metaphor above to recommend, excerpt and link to an article in The New York Times.
Justice Dept. Sets Criminal Inquiry on C.I.A. Tapes
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Wednesday that the Justice Department had elevated its inquiry into the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency interrogation videotapes to a formal criminal investigation headed by a career federal prosecutor.
The announcement is the first indication that investigators have concluded on a preliminary basis that C.I.A. officers, possibly along with other government officials, may have committed criminal acts in their handling of the tapes, which recorded the interrogations in 2002 of two operatives with Al Qaeda and were destroyed in 2005.
C.I.A. officials have for years feared becoming entangled in a criminal investigation involving alleged improprieties in secret counterterrorism programs. Now, the investigation and a probable grand jury inquiry will scrutinize the actions of some of the highest-ranking current and former officials at the agency.
The tapes were never provided to the courts or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had requested all C.I.A. documents related to Qaeda prisoners. The question of whether to destroy the tapes was for nearly three years the subject of deliberations among lawyers at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
