Jose Rodriguez’ Mushroom Cloud of Torture

I suspect it will be a full time job keeping up with all the Jose Rodriguez’ lies we’ll hear as he sells his book and his excuse for torture. But for the moment, look at this detail:

Jose Rodriguez: We were flooded with intelligence about an imminent attack. That al Qaeda had an anthrax program, and that they were planning to use it against us. And that they were seeking nuclear materials to use in some type of nuclear weapon. So we were facing a ticking, time bomb situation and we were very concerned.

I’ll come back to the anthrax later. But note that Rodriguez claims that we had to use torture because Al Qaeda was seeking nukes to use in some type of weapon.

In part, Rodriguez is doing the same thing Maureen Mahoney did when trying to protect Jay Bybee: pointing to intelligence Abu Zubaydah gave up under torture–regarding a Jose Padilla dirty bomb plot–as justification for the torture of AZ to get that same information.

But it also highlights how this program was designed to obtain false confessions. Here is Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri’s description of how his torturers invited him to give a false confession about nukes.

Number six. Usama bin Laden having a nuclear bomb. [REDACTED]. Then they used to laugh. Then they used to tell me you need to admit to those information. So I used to invent some of the stuff for them to say Usama bin laden had a, had a nuclear bomb. And they use to laugh and they were very happy. They were extremely happy because of the news. Then after that I told them, listen. He has no bomb. [my emphasis]

Jose Rodriguez says we had to torture because there were rumors of nukes (the same apparently unfounded claim the current Administration uses to justify drone strikes). Nashiri reveals that his torturers told him he had to confirm that rumor.

When he did, they laughed.

Did they need to torture because they had rumors of nukes? Or did they need to torture because they needed claims of nukes?

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15 replies
  1. pdaly says:

    If only Rodriguez were behind bars right now, we could be spared his annoying book tour.

    Is there any way to apply editorial/artistic license to the video window above so that we can watch Rogriguez spout his spew… behind bars?

  2. OL says:

    I’d argue drone strikes based on perceived behaviors are forms of both cultural and social tortures. And with some authority.

  3. OL says:

    Good luck getting an entire continent to coerce-confess its own self out of existence.

    We love you, Marcy.

  4. Frank33 says:

    Advance warning about the Anthrax attacks? Yeah because it was just another CIA False Flag Op using US Government weapons grade anthrax.

  5. Rayne says:

    He’s doing a full-court press, making the rounds of newly-released-book circuit. I may have missed him on CBS This Morning, will have to look to see if there’s video later on This Morning’s website.

    More of the conservative/military-industrial complex remaking of history, recounted often enough to be deemed “The Truth.” ~sigh~

    EDIT: I’m wondering if CBS is being used as central point of dissemination as I haven’t see Jose yet on ABC, NBC–ironic, yes? Anybody seen him on those two other networks?

  6. emptywheel says:

    @Rayne: Schuster (aka Mary Matalin) published his book. So there’s no reason for the other networks to have him on.

  7. emptywheel says:

    @Rayne: Besides, NBC is prepping for their “reenactment” of the Situation Room view of the killing of OBL. I imagine they’re required to be on their best pro-Admin behavior.

  8. Rayne says:

    @emptywheel: Feels like a game of “Musical Kneepads” in progress. Oops, music stopped, everybody switch to the next set of kneepads! And one, two, three, BLOW!!

  9. Bay State Librul says:

    Charlie Pierce’s commentary of Jose burns down the house

    “We begin with Jose Rodriguez on 60 Minutes. Rodriguez once headed the CIA counter-terrorism office and was also its director of operations. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, based on his interview with Lesley Stahl, I’m pretty convinced that Rodriguez is both a sociopath and a maniac. (That he is obviously a war criminal is the least of my problems with him.) I once sat in a courtroom for a week and watched people debate whether Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed and ate people, was crazy enough to spend his life in a hospital rather than in a jail, and Dahmer was not half so frightening in his aspect as Rodriguez was on Sunday night. There were moments in that interview where Stahl seemed genuinely concerned that Rodriguez was going to leap from his chair and bite her on the neck.

    The sociopath is touring a book, Hard Measures, wherein he explains that we all likely would be dead if a bunch of pet lawyers in the Bush Administration hadn’t greenlighted his efforts to drag the country down to into the cellars of the Lubyanka. He will make a nice piece of change on this book, which, thanks in part to the efforts of this administration, he never will have to spend on lawyers. Hence, Jose Rodriguez is free to roam the landscape….”

  10. insular areas says:

    Hearing Rodriguez’s prevarications on sixty mins last night, I got to thinking about the limited sovereignty of certain territories in the US orbit – including Puerto Rico. Point of information: What parts of the Constitution don’t apply in inhabited unincorporated island spots such as (I guess) Gitmo? How far does Congress’s sovereignty extend? Often ponder how there are disputed shadowy areas near the “truth” but not belonging to the truth just like this geographic metaphor, sadly.

  11. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Or did they torture because they falsely claimed that some “unapproved” nation possessed nuclear and other WMD (besides the US and those to whom we sell our own).

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