skin samples, for instance, they were able to confirm allegations that he was drugged and subjected to a bizarre starvation regimen. Throughout this process, El-Masri's account of what transpired, part of which he wrote up as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times , has consistently been vindicated. The El-Masri cable suggests that the Embassy in Berlin was trying to protect thirteen CIA agents then subject to an arrest warrant. These agents' true names are now known, and an arrest warrant continues to hang over them -- now issued by Spanish prosecutors after American diplomatic pressure effectively chilled the German investigation. But the most noteworthy thing about this cable is the addressee -- Condoleezza Rice. Might she and her legal advisor, John Bellinger, have had an interest in the El-Masri case that went beyond their purely professional interest in U.S.-German diplomatic relations? The decision to "snatch" El-Masri and lock him up in the "salt pit" involved the extraordinary renditions program, and it seems as a matter of routine that this would have required not only the approval of the CIA's top echelon but also the White House-based National Security Council. It's highly likely that Rice and Bellinger would have been involved in the decision to "snatch" and imprison El-Masri. If authority was given by Rice, then responsibility for the mistake -- which might well include criminal law accountability -- may also rest with her, and this fact would also not have escaped Koenig as he performed his diplomatic duties.