The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse

Richard A. Clarke
The Washington Post
Sunday, May 31, 2009

Top officials from the Bush administration have hit upon a revealing new theme as they retrospectively justify their national security policies. Call it the White House 9/11 trauma defense.

“Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans,” Condoleezza Rice said last month as she admonished a Stanford University student who questioned the Bush-era interrogation program. And in his May 21 speech on national security, Dick Cheney called the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a “defining” experience that “caused everyone to take a serious second look” at the threats to America. Critics of the administration have become more intense as memories of the attacks have faded, he argued. “Part of our responsibility, as we saw it,” Cheney said, “was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America.”

I remember that morning, too. Shortly after the second World Trade Center tower was hit, I burst in on Rice (then the president’s national security adviser) and Cheney in the vice president’s office and remember glimpsing horror on his face. Once in the bomb shelter, Cheney assembled his team while the crisis managers on the National Security Council staff coordinated the government response by video conference from the Situation Room. Many of us thought that we might not leave the White House alive. I remember the next day, too, when smoke still rose from the Pentagon as I sat in my office in the White House compound, a gas mask on my desk. The streets of Washington were empty, except for the armored vehicles, and the skies were clear, except for the F-15s on patrol. Every scene from those days is seared into my memory. I understand how it was a defining moment for Cheney, as it was for so many Americans.

Yet listening to Cheney and Rice, it seems that they want to be excused for the measures they authorized after the attacks on the grounds that 9/11 was traumatic. “If you were there in a position of authority and watched Americans drop out of eighty-story buildings because these murderous tyrants went after innocent people,” Rice said in her recent comments, “then you were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again.”

I have little sympathy for this argument. Yes, we went for days with little sleep, and we all assumed that more attacks were coming. But the decisions that Bush officials made in the following months and years — on Iraq, on detentions, on interrogations, on wiretapping — were not appropriate. Careful analysis could have replaced the impulse to break all the rules, even more so because the Sept. 11 attacks, though horrifying, should not have surprised senior officials. Cheney’s admission that 9/11 caused him to reassess the threats to the nation only underscores how, for months, top officials had ignored warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that urgent action was needed to preempt a major al-Qaeda attack.

Thus, when Bush’s inner circle first really came to grips with the threat of terrorism, they did so in a state of shock — a bad state in which to develop a coherent response. Fearful of new attacks, they authorized the most extreme measures available, without assessing whether they were really a good idea.

I believe this zeal stemmed in part from concerns about the 2004 presidential election. Many in the White House feared that their inaction prior to the attacks would be publicly detailed before the next vote — which is why they resisted the 9/11 commission — and that a second attack would eliminate any chance of a second Bush term. So they decided to leave no doubt that they had done everything imaginable.

The first response they discussed was invading Iraq. While the Pentagon was still burning, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld was in the White House suggesting an attack against Baghdad. Somehow the administration’s leaders could not believe that al-Qaeda could have mounted such a devastating operation, so Iraqi involvement became the convenient explanation. Despite being told repeatedly that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, some, like Cheney, could not abandon the idea. Charles Duelfer of the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group recently revealed in his book, “Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq,” that high-level U.S. officials urged him to consider waterboarding specific Iraqi prisoners of war so that they could provide evidence of an Iraqi role in the terrorist attacks — a request Duelfer refused. (A recent report indicates that the suggestion came from the vice president’s office.) Nevertheless, the lack of evidence did not deter the administration from eventually invading Iraq — a move many senior Bush officials had wanted to make before 9/11.

On detention, the Bush team leaped to the assumption that U.S. courts and prisons would not work. Before the terrorist attacks, the U.S. counterterrorism program of the 1990s had arrested al-Qaeda terrorists and others around the world and had a 100 percent conviction rate in the U.S. justice system. Yet the American system was abandoned, again as part of a pattern of immediately adopting the most extreme response available. Camps were established around the world, notably in Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners were held without being charged or tried. They became symbols of American overreach, held up as proof that al-Qaeda’s anti-American propaganda was right.

Similarly, with regard to interrogation, administration officials conducted no meaningful professional analysis of which techniques worked and which did not. The FBI, which had successfully questioned al-Qaeda terrorists, was effectively excluded from interrogations. Instead, there was the immediate and unwarranted assumption that extreme measures — such as waterboarding one detainee 183 times — would be the most effective.

Finally, on wiretapping, rather than beef up the procedures available under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the administration again moved to the extreme, listening in on communications here at home without legal process. FISA did need some modification, but it also allowed for the quick issuance of court orders, as when President Clinton took stepped-up defensive measures in late 1999 under the heightened threat of the new millennium.

Yes, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice may have been surprised by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — but it was because they had not listened. And their surprise led them to adopt extreme counterterrorism techniques — but it was because they rejected, without analysis, the tactics the Clinton administration had used. The measures they uncritically adopted, which they simply assumed were the best available, were in fact unnecessary and counterproductive.

“I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities,” Cheney said in his recent speech. But this defense does not stand up. The Bush administration’s response actually undermined the principles and values America has always stood for in the world, values that should have survived this traumatic event. The White House thought that 9/11 changed everything. It may have changed many things, but it did not change the Constitution, which the vice president, the national security adviser and all of us who were in the White House that tragic day had pledged to protect and preserve.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052901560.html

Copyright 1996-2009 The Washington Post Company

Bush defends interrogation program in Michigan speech

Peter Hamby
CNN
May 29, 2009

BENTON HARBOR, Michigan (CNN) — Former President George W. Bush on Thursday repeated Dick Cheney’s assertion that the administration’s enhanced interrogation program, which included controversial techniques such as waterboarding, was legal and garnered valuable information that prevented terrorist attacks.

Bush told a southwestern Michigan audience of nearly 2,500 — the largest he has addressed in the United States since leaving the White House in January — that, after the September 11 attacks, “I vowed to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you.”

In his speech, Bush did not specifically refer to the high-profile debate over President Obama’s decision to halt the use of harsh interrogation techniques. Bush also didn’t mention Cheney, his former vice president, by name.

Instead, he described how he proceeded after the capture of terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003.

“The first thing you do is ask what’s legal?” Bush said. “What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, ‘I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.’ I can tell you that the information we got saved lives.”

Bush avoided the sharp tone favored by Cheney in recent weeks and stressed he does not want to disparage Obama.

“Nothing I am saying is meant to criticize my successor,” Bush said. “There are plenty of people who have weighed in. Trust me, having seen it first-hand. I didn’t like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best.”

The former president was speaking to the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan. In a change in format, he agreed to answer questions directly from the audience instead of responding to pre-submitted questions provided to a moderator.

He repeated his disclaimer about not passing judgment on Obama later when asked about North Korea’s nuclear test. Before answering, the 43rd president said he is “in no way trying to shape my successor’s decisions or criticize them.”

“I know there are news people here, and they love conflict,” he said. Bush then went on to say that diplomacy is impossible without leverage.

“A lot of times people want to give out the carrots,” he said. “My attitude is, you give out the carrots when the behavior changes.”

After his opening remarks, Bush engaged in a nearly hour-long back-and-forth with audience members that touched on nearly all aspects of his presidency, from the September 11 attacks to his ban on embryonic stem cell research, to his consultations with advisers as the economic crisis hit last year.

He strongly defended his Troubled Asset Relief Program in response to the economic crisis at the end of his presidency, calling it crucial to preventing capital markets from freezing up, which he said would have led to another Great Depression. However, he said he remains “a free-market guy.”

Asked what he thinks about conservative pundits who say the Obama administration’s fiscal policies are opening the door to socialism, Bush said: “I think the verdict is out. I think people are waiting to see what all this means.”

The former president received a noisy standing ovation when answering a question about what he wants his legacy to be.

“Well, I hope it is this: The man showed up with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to compromise his soul for the sake of popularity,” he said.

He also revealed the topic of the first chapter in his forthcoming book, which he said will be about “the stories of my administration, as I saw them.” That first chapter, he said, will answer the question: “Why did I run for president?”

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/29/george.bush.speech/index.html?eref=rss_politics&iref=polticker

© 2009 Cable News Network

Cheney Grabs a Third Term

Maureen Dowd
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
May 20, 2009

Dick and Rummy are at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, holding court. The maître d’ fawns. Waiters hover. Tourists snap pics on their digital cameras. Cable chatterers stop by to ingratiate themselves.

It isn’t so much that Dick and Rummy are back. It’s that they never left.

They had no intention of turning America’s national security over to the Boy Wonder. The two best infighters in Washington history weren’t yielding turf to a bunch of peach-fuzz pinkos who side with terrorists.

Let W. work out at the S.M.U. gym in Dallas, waiting for history to redeem him; Dick and Rummy are leaning forward into history, as they always do. Cheney is tawny with TV makeup; there’s no point taking it off. The gigs are nonstop, and he has a big Obama-bashing speech Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute.

“That was funny when you were on Fox and Neil Cavuto called you Obama’s ‘ball and Cheney,’ ” Rummy grins, taking a gulp of his brunello.

Dick grunts, raising a fork of his Risotto Gucci with roasted free-range quail.

“The punks thought they could roll over us,” Vice mutters. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

Eyeing the quail, Rummy shakes his head. “Can you believe the nerve of that dadburn whippersnapper at the press dinner, saying your memoir would be called ‘How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People?’ Whatever happened to the great White House tradition of giving respect to your predecessors?”

Dick is looking over at himself on the TV behind the bar, where Fox is doing a segment about how Republicans on the Sunday talk shows praised him for his shock-and-awe campaign against Obama.

“I can’t believe how easy it was to bring Obama into line,” Rummy says, gnawing on Gorgonzola. “We wouldn’t have needed waterboarding if everybody cracked like a peanut. It was even easier than getting the bit into Junior’s mouth. Way simpler than if we’d had to contend with McCain. In the end, the right guy won.”

Dick is surprised, too, but who can tell?

“You’re running national security now and everyone knows it,” Rummy says. “You got Obama to do an about-face on the torture photos. He’s using our old line about how it would endanger the troops. He’s keeping our military tribunals. His Justice Department invoked our state secrets privilege to try to get that lawsuit on torture and rendition dismissed. He’s trying to stop any sort of truth commission, thank goodness. He’s got his own surge going in Afghanistan. He’s withdrawing from Iraq more slowly. He’s extended our secret incursions over the Afghan border into Pakistan.”

Dick smiles on one side of his face.

“Transparency bites,” he snarls.

“By golly, yes,” Rummy says. “We controlled Junior by playing on his fear of looking like a wimp just as his dad did. And now we’re controlling Boy Wonder by playing on his eagerness to show that the Democrats are tough on national security. He’s a sucker for four-star generals, can’t resist anyone in uniform. Petraeus and Odierno speak and he jumps. If we want to roll him, we just send in the military brass flashing their medals.”

Rummy knocks back some more brunello, and shoos away some Japanese tourists after confiscating their cameras.

“I hear Poppy Bush is furious at you,” he says. “He’s telling folks he put Junior in your care and you stole his presidency and destroyed the Bush name and derailed Jeb’s chances to ever be president, and P.S., you wrecked the country and the Atlantic alliance to boot. He has it in for Lynne, too. Thinks she spun you up, like she did in high school with her flaming batons. He thinks you got loopy from all the heart procedures. And Colin’s mad at you.”

“He can go to yoga with Pelosi for all I care,” Dick growls.

The two old connivers clink glasses. “So,” Rummy muses, “what do we make our new White House boy toy do next?”

“Well,” Dick says. “He’s got to keep Gitmo open. It’s rich that his own party won’t give him the money to close it. The NIMBY factor works every time — no terrorists in my backyard. He’s got to stop this pansy diplomacy with Muslim nations. He’s got to let Bibi take out those Iranian centrifuges. He’s got to stop his Kodak moments and Commie book club with Hugo Chávez. He’s got to release those C.I.A. memos proving that we were right to rip up the Constitution. And, of course, he’s got to pardon Scooter.”

“Can we get him to do all that, Dick?”

Dick twinkles. “Yes, we can.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

John Weaver: GOP “Headed For A Blowout” In 2012 If Cheney, Limbaugh, Palin Lead

Susan Crile
Huffington Post
05-18-09

Another leading Republican strategist has voiced concerns about the direction of the GOP.

John Weaver, a top adviser to Utah Governor John Huntsman, said this week that the Republican party is headed for an electoral “blowout” if it continues to be defined by “Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney.”

The Washington Examiner reported:

“If it’s 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we’re headed for a blowout,” says strategist John Weaver, who advised Huntsman and was for years a close adviser to Sen. John McCain. “That’s just the truth.”
Until last week, Weaver was preparing for Utah Gov. John Huntsman’s possible presidential run. Huntsman, who just accepted President Obama’s invitation to become Ambassador to China, is a favorite of GOP moderates.

Weaver’s comment is the latest in a series of calls from within the GOP for a more moderate tone. Last week, moreover, a National Journal poll of top GOP political insiders and strategists found last week that Republicans believe former Vice President Dick Cheney has hurt the party since leaving office.

Despite such warnings, top Republican leaders have continued to endorse the idea that Limbaugh and Cheney should represent the party.

John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the House and Senate minority leaders, both expressed support for Cheney’s attacks on President Obama during Sunday show appearances this weekend.

“It doesn’t hurt us, it helps us,” Boehner told CNN’s “State of the Union.” Boehner also said Cheney is a “big member in our party.”

Meanwhile, RNC Chairman Michael Steele responded to a question on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about Washington Post writer Dan Balz’s claim that Republicans ‘wince’ at Cheney by saying, “There was no wincing here; the vice president expressed his view.”

For moderates like Weaver, the GOP leadership’s continued support for conservative voices suggests bad things for the Republican party’s future.

“I firmly believe that Huntsman and people like him are the prescription for what ails us,” Weaver said. “But I have the feeling that our party maybe won’t order that prescription in 2012.”

Copyright 2009 HuffingtonPost.com

Cheney, Master of Pain

Maureen Dowd
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
May 17, 2009

Dick Cheney has done many dastardly things. But presiding over policies so saturnine that they ended up putting the liberal speaker from San Francisco on the hot seat about torture may be one of his proudest achievements.

Nancy Pelosi’s bad week of blithering responses about why she did nothing after being briefed on torture has given Republicans one of their happiest — and harpy-est — weeks in a long time. They relished casting Pelosi as contemptible for not fighting harder to stop their contemptible depredations against the Constitution. That’s Cheneyesque chutzpah.

The stylish grandmother acted like a stammering child caught red-handed, refusing to admit any fault and pointing the finger at a convenient scapegoat. She charged the C.I.A. with misleading Congress, which is sort of like saying the butler did it, or accusing a generic thuggish-looking guy in a knit cap with gang tattoos to distract from your sin.

Although the briefing was classified, she could have slugged it out privately with Bush officials. But she was busy trying to be the first woman to lead a major party. And very few watchdogs — in the Democratic Party or the press — were pushing back against the Bush horde in 2002 and 2003, when magazines were gushing about W. and Cheney as conquering heroes.

Leon Panetta, the new C.I.A. chief, who is Pelosi’s friend and former Democratic House colleague from California, slapped her on Friday, saying that the agency briefers were truthful. And Jon Stewart ribbed that the glossily groomed speaker was just another “Miss California U.S.A. who’s also been revealing a little too much of herself.”

It’s discomfiting to think that the woman who’s making Joe Biden seem suave is second in line to the presidency.

Of course, a lot of the hoo-ha around Pelosi makes it sound as if she knew stuff that no one else had any inkling of, when in fact the entire world had a pretty good idea of what was happening. The Bushies plied their dark arts in broad daylight.

Besides, the question of what Pelosi knew or didn’t, or when she did or didn’t know, is irrelevant to how W. and Cheney broke the law and authorized torture.

Philip Zelikow, who was State Department counselor for Condi Rice and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, testified last week before Congress that torture was “a collective failure and it was a mistake,” perhaps “a disastrous one.”

After 9/11, he recalled, “the tough, gritty world of ‘the field’ worked its way into the consciousness of the nation’s leaders,” adding that the cultural “divide between the world of secretive, bearded operators in the field coming from their 3 a.m. meetings at safe houses, and the world of Washington policy makers in their wood-paneled suites” led the policy makers to become too deferential to C.I.A. operatives, and miss the fact that even the operatives disagreed among themselves about torture.

Ali Soufan, the ex-F.B.I. agent who flatly calls torture “ineffective,” helped get valuable information from Abu Zubaydah, an important Al Qaeda prisoner, simply by outwitting him. Torture, he told Congress, is designed to force the subject to submit “through humiliation and cruelty” and “see the interrogator as the master who controls his pain.”

It’s a good description of the bullying approach Cheney and Rummy applied to the globe, and the Arab world. But as Soufan noted, when you try to force compliance rather than elicit cooperation, it’s prone to backfire.

The more telling news last week was yet another suggestion about Cheney’s reverse-engineering the Iraq war. Robert Windrem, a former NBC News investigative producer, reported on The Daily Beast that in April 2003, after the invasion of Baghdad, the U.S. arrested a top officer in Saddam’s security force. Even though this man was an old-fashioned P.O.W., someone in Vice’s orbit reportedly suggested that the interrogations were too gentle and that waterboarding might elicit information about the fantasized connection between Osama and Saddam.

In The Washington Note, a political and foreign policy blog, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff at State, wrote that the “harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 … was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and Al Qaeda.”

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

I used to agree with President Obama, that it was better to keep moving and focus on our myriad problems than wallow in the darkness of the past. But now I want a full accounting. I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism. Even if it only makes one ambitious congresswoman pay more attention in some future briefing about some future secret technique that is “uniquely” designed to protect us, it will be worth it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17dowd.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

A Broken Republican Party

Buck
Blue Herald
May 15th, 2009

Rush Limbaugh couldn’t be more wrong. The very worst of what constitutes republican ideology is all that is left of the party nowadays. Their numbers are dropping, and he is mostly to blame for it. How ironic that people think of Rush as the glue that holds the party together when, in actuality, he’s driving them apart.

I can’t say a broken GOP saddens me though. Those who listen to Limbaugh’s daily radio whine are not the kind of people I want leading my country. The deeper these morons follow Rush into the wilderness, the better off America (and the real republican party) will be.

Rush Limbaugh is driven by greed. What else would explain his willingness to destroy the GOP? And how ironic is it that he has driven the party to such mediocrity, yet his listeners continue to allow him to lead?

Roberta McCain is right when she says that she and Rush belong to two different parties. Democrats realized a long time ago that Limbaugh’s love for the almighty dollar trumped that of any feelings he may have towards America. Maybe it’s not too late for real republicans to realize that fact and take back their party.

Limbaugh hits back at McCain’s mom
(CNN) — Rush Limbaugh responded to Roberta McCain’s criticism of his tough radio persona Thursday, joking over the fact “McCain’s mother is dumping on me.”

“She is absolutely right” in her assessment that that she belongs to a different Republican Party than he does, Limbaugh said during his radio show: “The Republican Party she belongs to gets shellacked election after election after election.”

In an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno Wednesday, the outspoken 97-year-old mother of Sen. John McCain said, to cheers from the audience, that Limbaugh “does not represent the Republican Party that I belong to.”

“I belong to the Republican Party,” she said. “What he represents of the Republican Party has nothing to do with my side of it. I don’t know what the man means, I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

On his show Thursday, Limbaugh made clear he found the criticism quite amusing.

“Sending Sen. McCain’s mother out to dump on me?” Limbaugh said, laughing. “I love it.”

http://blueherald.com/2009/05/a-broken-republican-party/

© 2009 Blue Herald

Bill Clinton To Cheney: ‘It’s Over’

Mark Nickolas
Political Base
May 13, 2009

Apparently, former President Bill Clinton feels the same way about Dick Cheney as do the rest of us:

Bill Clinton jokingly laughed off a question Wednesday about former Vice President Dick Cheney and his recent claims that the country is less safe under the Obama administration.

“I wish him well,” Clinton told CNN while greeting voters after a campaign stop with Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. “It’s over,” he added, apparently a reference to the Bush administration.

“But I do hope he gets some more target practice before he goes out again,” Clinton said with a grin before moving along the ropeline.

http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/Mark%20Nickolas/blog/&blogId=7204

Copyright 2008, Whiskey Media

IG Report: Waterboarding Was Neither “Efficacious Or Medically Safe”

Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
May 11, 2009

A CIA inspector general’s report from May 2004 that is set to be declassified by the Obama White House will almost certainly disprove claims that waterboarding was only used in controlled circumstances with effective results.

On Monday, the Washington Post reported the impending release of a May 7, 2004 IG report that, the paper added, would show that in several circumstances the techniques used to interrogate terrorist suspects “appeared to violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture” and did not produce desired results. It is difficult, the report will conclude, “to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.”

A fury of speculation ensued among a host of reporter-bloggers, who viewed the forthcoming information as the strongest proof to date that proclamations of waterboarding’s usefulness were overblown.

But there is no need to wait for the report’s declassification. Information from its pages was already made public in the footnotes of the Office of Legal Counsel memos written by Steven Bradbury in 2005 and released by the current administration less than one month ago.

And the conclusion seems pretty clear: Not only did interrogators, for a period of time, use waterboarding that was deemed by U.S. officials to be more frequent and intense than was medically safe, it did so to apparently limited results.

As the Huffington Post reported back in mid-April, on a footnote on Page 41 of the Bradbury memo, it is written that “Agency interrogator[s]” had “in some cases” used the waterboard in a manner different than the way “used in the [the Marine Corps' Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape] SERE training.”

“The difference was in the manner in which the detainee’s breathing was obstructed,” read the footnote, citing the IG report. “At the SERE school and in the DoJ opinion, the subject’s airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the Agency interrogator… applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee’s mouth and nose.”

Medical personnel at the detention facility protested the use of the waterboard in that form, stressing that “there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used by the psychologist/interrogators was either efficacious or medically safe.’”

The important things to take away from the footnote seem clear: for a period of time interrogators were using the waterboard with a “frequency and cumulative use” that had to be toned down. Moreover, they were doing it in a way that was determined to not be “efficacious.”

The officials tasked with crafting and implementing the interrogation methods adjusted the techniques to fit within the legal parameters set forth by the Bush Department of Justice. But for a period of time, they were operating in excess and outside those bounds.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/11/ig-report-waterboarding-w_n_201733.html

Copyright 2009 HuffingtonPost.com

Obama Likely To Declassify 100-Page CIA Report From 2004 Showing No Proof That Torture Worked

He's still a dick

Mark Nickolas
Political Base
May 11, 2009

Now that former Vice President Dick Cheney wants the Obama administration to release just two secret documents (21 pages in total) to show that the Bush-Cheney torture program uncovered acts that kept us safe — after first complaining that Obama was “cherry-picking” documents to make public (after releasing 6 memos, 137 pages in total) — it appears that President Obama is taking Cheney’s advice and is inclined to declassify even more documents, including this 2004 CIA report by its inspector general which sure does seem to contradict Cheney’s claims that torture worked:

Government officials familiar with the CIA’s early interrogations say the most powerful evidence of apparent excesses is contained in the “top secret” May 7, 2004, inspector general report, based on more than 100 interviews, a review of the videotapes and 38,000 pages of documents. The full report remains closely held, although White House officials have told political allies that they intend to declassify it for public release when the debate quiets over last month’s release of the Justice Department’s interrogation memos.

According to excerpts included in those memos, the inspector general’s report concluded that interrogators initially used harsh techniques against some detainees who were not withholding information. Officials familiar with its contents said it also concluded that some of the techniques appeared to violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the United States in 1994.

So, not only is Cheney defending their acts of torture (i.e., war crimes), but even the CIA question whether anything useful came from it, a fully irrelevant question if the issue is whether war crimes were committed.

http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/Mark%20Nickolas/blog/&blogId=7178

Copyright 2008, Whiskey Media

Best Argument For A Formal Investigation Of The Bush Torture Policy

The Bush Torture Policy

Thomas de Zengotita
Contributing Editor at Harper’s Magazine
MAY 6, 2009

Mark Danner continues to serve us as the best source out there on the issue of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But his latest piece for the NYRB goes beyond informing us. It offers the most compelling argument I know of against Obama’s “let’s look forward not backwards” position. I have always wanted a day of reckoning for Bush officials who were behind the torture policy, of course, but I’ve been a bit squishy about it. Until now.

Squishy why? Well, first of all, as so many on the traditional left have come to realize – it’s hard to oppose Obama with sustained energy. It’s easy to register disagreement, but you can’t really go after him; he means so much to so many disenfranchised and discouraged people. A more specific source of squishiness? When Obama called for “reflection, not retribution” before those cheering CIA employees I understood why he felt he needed to do that. At the same time, I had to admit that I do want retribution. Not so much against the grunts who did the deeds, but against, say, Rumsfeld? Hell yeah.

That realization distracted me, made it more difficult to think it through as a policy question. Not at the level of moral outrage but in practical terms, at the level of – would a formal investigation be good or bad for the Obama administration in particular and the country in general? I used to shy away from that question precisely because of moral outrage. Without actually putting it into words I was thinking “these bad men ought to be accountable regardless of the broader consequences, justice must be blind,” etc. At the same time, I was rooting for Obama overall and he obviously didn’t want this, so the net effect was – squishy.

Danner set me straight. He explains why a formal investigation would be good for Obama and good for the country. He focuses on another question I have always shied away from, to wit: did torture “work?” As in, did it yield intelligence that helped foil another attack? Why did I shy away from that question? Same moral outrage reason. That torture policy was wrong whether it happened to “work” or not in some particular case. But this issue is at the heart of the Cheney position and Danner shows how carefully and cleverly he is putting it out there. First the claim that the torture did work followed by a call for the release of mysterious classified documents that he says will back him up. The fact that FoxNews pops up first on a google search for this story only buttresses Danner’s point.

Cheney and Fox (and Friends) are setting us up. They are gambling that another attack on American soil, perhaps a very serious one, is highly likely in the next few years. Are they hoping for it? I’ll report, you decide. But in any case, they are right. It is highly likely. And if and when it happens, then Cheney and Fox (and Friends) are going to be in a position to lead a Rightist Renaissance based on the claim that Obama Democrats have been soft on terror whereas, after 9/11, Bush and Company were tough on terror – and so prevented attacks. Movement conservatives and the Republican Party will be redeemed at a stroke.

Unless.

Unless a full investigation of the whole torture issue yields a credible official conclusion, graven in the historical record, a conclusion that says: torture did not in fact yield any information that prevented another attack. That has to become the conventional wisdom before there’s another attack – or it will be game over.

Danner provides solid reasons for believing that torture did not “work,” that there is no evidence for Cheney’s claim (what else is new?). But he also argues convincingly that, as long as there is no official conclusion to that effect, this groundless claim will continue to be reported on by journalists mindlessly committed to telling “both sides” of a story so long as it remains in play. It will be out there as a possibility. And then, when the shit hits the fan, it will be too late.

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