Who Signed the Explicit Authorization to Torture?
The WaPo reveals that in June 2003, and again in July 2004, the CIA sought and got a memo explicitly authorizing the torture methods used in interrogation.
The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency’s use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects — documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public.
The article explains that Tenet felt he needed such memos to make sure the CIA had "top cover" for its actions.
The repeated requests for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the CIA that the administration might later distance itself from key decisions about the handling of captured al-Qaeda leaders, former intelligence officials said.
[snip]
A. John Radsan, a lawyer in the CIA general counsel’s office until 2004, remembered the discussions but did not personally view the memos the agency received in response to its concerns. "The question was whether we had enough ‘top cover,’ " Radsan said.
[snip]
The CIA’s anxiety was partly fueled by the lack of explicit presidential authorization for the interrogation program.
[snip]
By the spring of 2004, the concerns among agency officials had multiplied, in part because of shifting views among administration lawyers about what acts might constitute torture, leading Tenet to ask a second time for written confirmation from the White House.
But at that point, the story gets all vague. What the CIA was seeking, obviously, was a document signed by someone other that John Yoo, someone whose ass would be on the line along with the CIA if the torture program became public. That document would presumably implicate at least top aides to Bush, if not Bush himself. But the WaPo doesn’t describe who that person is.
Days later, he got what he wanted: a brief memo conveying the administration’s approval for the CIA’s interrogation methods, the officials said. Administration officials confirmed the existence of the memos, but neither they nor former intelligence officers would describe their contents in detail because they remain classified.
[snip]
Finally, in mid-July, a memo was forwarded to the CIA reaffirming the administration’s backing for the interrogation program. Tenet had acquired the statement of support he sought.
I’ve updated the torture timeline, and the timing is fascinating (the second memo came, for example, just after Goldsmith and Olson left DOJ, as well as–as the story makes clear–at the same time as Tenet’s departure; plus, this correlates closely with the CIA IG’s report on torture). But that doesn’t really clarify the big question raised by the WaPo article, either.
Did George Bush sign a memo authorizing torture?
Update: See Marty Lederman’s musings on the legal necessity (or not) of having the Commander-in-Chief’s signature on a piece of paper. He provides one potential explanation of something I was wondering about: the claim that DOJ opposed issuing a memo in June 2004, when presumably Comey and Goldsmith were actively part of the discussion.
Wow, that would be a big one if W actually signed it.
I was intrigued by this passage in the article:
All along, there has been a very hard to follow cat and mouse game between the Bushies and the CIA, with both sides spreading lots of disinformation. This particular passage consists of the Bushies accusing the CIA of using the Bushies’ favorite tactic. I really have no idea which side to believe on this one, as both make good sense. The White House could merely be projecting their own tactics onto CIA or, in delicious irony, CIA could have used the White House’s favorite tactic against them.
Yeah, there’s a whole narrative in teh article of whether or not people questioned the efficacy of torture.
Condi’s name is mentioned a lot, which fascinates me. Surely that wouldn’t count as “top cover” for the CIA, would it? And she’s too good at CYA to sign something like that.
I’ll bet the Torture Authorization Memo spent a lot of time in Gonzo’s Briefcase Safe, too.
LOL
Ya think?
I would doubt that Bush or Cheney signed a memo authorizing torture, even though they are probably the ones who authorized it. I would bet it was one of their underlings or someone else who signed it to provide Bush and Cheney cover. I would guess that we won’t find out until the Bush presidency is over, if then.
No coincidence, I’m sure, that PBS can’t find a national slot within which to broadcast a new documentary on US torture before, um, January 21, 2009.
Absolutely no relationship at all.
How’s this looking now?
Yes, EW…who DID sign that memo? Who was the authorizing figure? George — or the Dickster?
What was Stephen Hadley’s position at the time? I heard a report a few weeks ago (can’t remember where) that, in his present position, President Bush let Hadley make almost all of the critical decisions. It sounded like when a tough decision came up, Bush would run and hide, and leave Hadley to decide.
Early on, it would have been Cheney to sign off on it. Later, it might well have been Hadley.
Bob in HI
It’s irrelevant who signed it.
Whoever did sign it, was not subsequently fired for signing it. That’s on W.
You’re right, if we didn’t live in a Banana Republic.
Hopefully none of this becomes just “water under the bridge” on January 21st, and these actions turn out to have had real consequences. We’ve got to keep these things alive. You are definitely doing your part, EW. Thanks.
For Saddam/Adolf/Bush/Chaney..McLiar…what’s a little torture among friends? Fascism in..fascism out?
“We do not torture”… spoken in anger by CIA Director George Tenet no less on prime time TV 2005 after both memos had approved the practrices that the CIA had been doing who knows how many decades.
And he went on to justify torture by re relating the horror of 911 and his fiends who had perished. The intent to justify torture to the American people was not a wink it was palpable. When Bushco waves the American flag you know a crime is in progress. When he invokes god it is a completed crime with more on the way.
Impeach now and find out what Bushco has done to our country. Bill Moyers will break the story EW ask him.
We are not at war we are at occupation. No country has attacked us. If we were at war torture is still not allowed. AS I have stated many times Geneva and other international conventions protect prisoners of war and humans in general from theses crimes. Will the ACLU be able to go forward with this.
Another deep throat out there?
I know this is already known but must be pointed out on every post where this excuse is made;
there is no “top cover” for torture, there are no valid orders to commit the crime and a soldier must defy any order to commit torture, they are criminals with or without that order and the order means nothing.
I am hoping each and every person who “followed orders” are brought to the same bar of justice we brought ciminals who made the same claim in the past.
I also want those who endorsed these practices to face the same bar of justice, john yoo must defend himself and face repercussions if convicted for his role in these crimes.
I also want to remind everyone, these are not only crimes against those being tortured, they are crimes against our country and crimes against our national security.
They create enemies against our state, they provoke acts of terrorism, they prevent surrender, they destroy our ability to conduct our business.
That point is hardly ever made, that torture is not only a crime against the individual being tortured, it is a crime against our country.
Well said. The result of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal established that following criminal orders from a superior, makes the subordinate just as liable as the superior . This has been taught to every Navy, Air Force, Marine and Army recruit in basic training since WWII. I doubt that the CIA was exempted from such training.
Ah, the closing chapters of the Bush Administration has them reviving the Nuremburg Defense as government policy.
What a f*cking shame on this nation.
-G
At one time the WaPo was known for following a story even if it lead directly to the WH. Today’s WaPo would seem to take the story only so far. This time it would seem they don’t want to “offend” the powers that be.
Dollars to doughnuts Congressional intelligence committees were briefed on this practice too. I’ll be very surprised if that great defender of human right, Babs Mikulski, didn’t know all about it.
I think it’s very relevant. In March 2003, Gonzales and Card visited Ashcroft in the hospital. Aschroft refused to authorize the wiretap program, as did Comey and Goldsmith. President Bush continued the program without Justice Department authorization. In December 2003, Goldsmith told Rummy that he is going to withdraw the Yoo memorandum. So here we have a second instance of the JD refusing to authorize a Bush program. Do we also have a second instance of the Bush Administration continuing a program without JD authorization? Does this mean that the “they” in the last sentence of this paragraph is Bush/Cheney/Addington/Gonzales?
OT – but:
Colin Powell about to endorse Obama?
A much as I personally dislike Powell, such an endorsement might seal the deal. Better Commander-in-Chief, better Iraq/world view goes to Obama?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..34777.html
Well, he did just endorse Ted Stevens last week so no one can question his judgment.
I wonder whether Gonzales signed off. President’s counsel was in the habit of taking over controversial OLC decisions from back in March, so he was a precedential fall guy for the President.
OT.
Looks grim in SE Asia.
Shots fired between Cambodia and Thailand.
-G
It was in the summer of 2003 that Rice then National Security Adviser made her famous statement to the CIA re torture: “This is your baby. Go do it.”
So she is one candidate. The others are Bush and then AG Ashcroft. I would think that Tenet being the CYA kind of person that he was would want a sign-off from either one of these last two or the whole council.
Cheney on his way to the hospital with an irregular heart rhythm. Is this the part where he fakes his own death and hooks up with Ken Lay on the Bush spread in Paraguay?
He may as well enjoy himself now before he sets up shop permanently in the Bush Wing of Hell.
The Black House?
(((Dick)))
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/s
Atrial fibrillation is not a big deal. Daddy Bush had it occasionally when he was president. I’ve had it. Cardiac arrhythmia is common among senior citizens and is not life threatening, unless left untreated.
Bob in HI
Oh and the link to the Condi quote:
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/L…..038;page=4
Only traitors are involved in torture !
Eli up at FDL with the mythbusters.
See ondelette’s great post: Does the US Torture Women?
I wonder if anything really damning got signed during the ‘Regnum’ – the time period from March 11, 2004 until Comey got back on-board with the Program a couple of weeks later?
Torture seems to be an issue So Foul, that Bush was never able to Dupe anyone on the side of the Rule of Law, the Constitution, into endorsing it. It appears that Bush’s entire play on Torture was with ‘insider’ Loyalists.
No sane, rational and sensible person could be found who would go down Bush’s Dark Path of Fighting Immoral Terror with Immoral Terror. Only the Loyalists, who had Suspended Any Sense of Ethical Character in Service to Bush, would go with him on Torture.
As a Nation, Our History is one of Doing the Right Thing – it’s one of the Great Benefits of the Constitution, given to US by the Founders. The Constitution is beautifully crafted to temper the forces that impulsively drive people to make short-term decisions in the face of temporary shocks to the fabric of Our America.
So, while the Nation was in Shock after 911, Bush grabbed All the Power – and on March 11th, he even authenticated his grab – and said, “I’ll take care of everything,” and then he proceded to Misuse the Vast Power and World-wide Reputation of Our USA, and A Lot of Good People, too – in Secret – to Conduct an Immoral and Unethical ‘War’ against the Ideology of Terror – Using Terror to Fight Terror – when Our History has always been to Do Right when Challenged by Fear.
The Country didn’t go crazy in Response to 911 – Bush, claiming unlimited Power, did. And, only his Minions would say that Bush did The Right Thing.
The Country didn’t go crazy in Response to 911 – Bush, claiming unlimited Power, did.
Sorry, but this is just not so. Troops in Afghanistan were beating and abusing prisoners from the get-go in November 2001. “Liberal” columnists like Jon Alter were recommending torture for terror suspects in November 2001. Bush took advantage of the extent to which a great many people went crazy from fear, and stoked it. But this country didn’t have clean hands wrt torture before Bush.
He took it up a fatal step, one that implicates us all no matter how strongly or how vocally we opposed it: he made torture official policy. But it’s a little late and the wrong environment for the We Are Such a Great Nation rhapsody. Save it for the people who need to believe that to do anything about torture. Most of us here can handle the truth.
Neil, I think our experience bases must be different.
My experience tells me that We Are Such A Great Nation – one that has Tragically Suffered the Presidency of the Morally Unconscionable Bush – but, he didn’t Un-Do all the Good that our Forebears handed down to US.
When I was in the Army (no wars during my time), I would issue Operations Orders to my Soldiers, and those orders would include not only things like the Mission Objective, Plan of Attack and Logistics, but also Rules of Engagement, Handling of POW’s, and Treatment of Civilians, too.
I was not unique. All the Officers I knew did the same thing. We all supported the UCMJ. We all counted on Our Observance of the Geneva Conventions to keep US alive, too. Our Honor as Professional Military Soldiers was On the Line all the time. Without it, none of us would have expected our guys to go over the wall with us.
Bad Soldiers, and even occassionally a Bad Unit, are bound to have ‘mad moments’ in a War Zone, but there is No Way that the actions of the few Dishonor the Military as a Whole. Nobody I knew would have stood for any of that – even though we all knew it could happen – we would have expected Justice to be done through the UCMJ.
From my experience, Our Military stands on a Tradition of Honor that can’t, and won’t, be Robbed by Bush – no matter how many Memos he or his Flunkies sign.
I recognize that you are speaking to a scope larger than just the Military’s involvement – for instance, including members of the ‘liberal’ press – who could be said to have gone crazy after 911, and whom Bush would have gladly taken advantage of to further his ambitions. But I’m certain that the US Military didn’t go crazy with Bush – they Endured him and his Ethically-Weak Political Appointments, until they could push back effectively – which is Really Hard to Do when you are Pushing Back against the CIC and the Secretary of Defense…
…but – so far as I can tell, and it’s jmho – they did it.
There were a number of military leaders (and continue to be) with moral courage and a sense of honor who pushed back against the Bush-Cheney-Addington-Yoo-Gonzales-Rumsfeld-Cambone policy of torture. Many were JAGs, some were interrogators, some were just decent officers.
And the behavior of some grunts shouldn’t tar the whole military. But there was too much torture by GIs in Viet Nam and waaay too much torture and abuse by troops in Afghanistan and Iraq — in all the prison camps, not just Abu Ghraib — for me to believe that the culture in which you operated in the Army was still operative.
Troops in Afghanistan in 2001 and early 2002, and in Iraq in 2003, saw themselves as avenging the attacks of September 11. I’m not going to let them all off the hook because people at the top were promoting that belief.
The CIA’s use of torture goes way back beyond this administration — and torture was taught by our military to Latin American troops for decades at the School of the Americas (in Panama and then at Ft. Benning). Our hands haven’t been clean for a long time, which does not diminish in any way the massive war crime of this regime in making it official policy.
The memos that are the topic of this post were, I agree with Mary, not to legalize the torture but to provide ass-covering and insurance: “If I go down for this, I’m not going down alone.”
Neil – It sounds like you and I can agree that even one Torture event is too many, and that it has gone on too much. To think that Bush authorized a Policy of Torture is, to me, Depraved – making him Extremely Unfit for Command.
I can tell you from my time in the Military that a Unit takes on the Character of its Leader.
When a Leader demonstrates Honorable Character, Clear Vision and Has Faith in the Rightness of Our Cause – that Unit will be a high-performing Warrior-machine that can’t be stopped.
However, when a Leader is Immoral, Angry and Self-Righteous – that Unit will have All Kinds of Discipline and Motivation issues – performance will be low and erratic.
This is why it’s so important who We choose to be Our President – the Commander in Chief of Our Military.
When the Pentagon Papers disclosed that Nixon was Lying to Congress and the Country about the War in Vietnam – imvho, the Military lost its Motivation and Discipline.
When Abu Ghraib was exposed, at a time when Bush was still proclaiming our Moral Mandate to be in Iraq – imvho, the Military lost its Motivation and Discipline.
Soldiers won’t follow an Immoral Leader.
I say the Culture of the Military – at any given time – contains the potential for either high-performance or dereliction. What We get, in terms of which team shows-up to the fight, has everything to do with the Quality of Its Leadership.
Our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Air Force are just like US – they are, by and large – Good People.
And, like the Rest of US, they’ve been Mis-led by Bush.
The Two Hs: Helgerson and Hamdi (with a limited shout out to Harman)
I think for the question being posed, who signed, this is the key part of the article:
emph added
If the demand was to have policy, not legality, spelled out, then it had to have been signed by someone who could either make that policy or speak with authority on behalf of whoever did make the policy.
If that really was what they were looking for, it wasn’t an olc/legality memo they wanted (and let’s face it, without a facts section that most legal memoranda have, those break down fast anyway) it was a pocket pardon.
As to the sub-issue, which Marty is musing over as well, over resistance to putting the policy in writing in 2004, I think the fact that Marty wasn’t a litigator and Comey, coupled with the “on the ground” developments, probably accounts for the difference more easily than Marty’s stretch that DOJ by then didn’t want to give the appearance of suppporting in writing a position that the President could actively dictate breaking the law as policy and it became magically “not breaking teh law” bc of his status as titular head of the dept and man whose interpretation superceded all.
That position is one that even in the accounts of Comey’s dispute over the illegal, unconstitutional massively felonious wiretap program, Comey isn’t ashamed to come out and support – he affirms that his conversation with the President acknowledged that the President gets to be the one to say whether it is illegal or not – he just didn’t want to hang around to see if any court would buy into that same concept that he was giving lip service to when he was face to face with Bush.
In any event – by June of 2004, you already had several lawsuits where there were requests for production of info related to torture. Maher Arar was suing Ashcroft and Thompson directly by then. Clement had gone to the Sup Court and as a lawyer and as a representative of the President had made positive affirmations in open court about torture, not just torture but “things like” torture too. April/May of 2004 was when el-Masri’s case was being discussed and the CIA was making plans to dump him and hope he didn’t make it out alive. If he did, though, and with all the witnesses to the snatch in Macedonia, there might be a lawsuit there as well.
Not only were the Abu Ghraib pictures coming out (and apparently we still haven’t seen all there is there) but those showed the possiblity of at least one homicide. But there was more. In Nov of 2002 the CIA had stripped and frozen to death a “young” detainee at the salt pit. By 2004, the list of children disappeared was mounting as well, not only KSM’s but Aafia Siddiquis – and military interrogation whistleblowers (mi never having had the investigation that Taguba gave the mp) indicated that use of abuse of children was an interrogation tactic that the MI were using (and presumably got from somewhere) By then the CIA and/or its contractors were also implicated in the sleeping bag killing of the Iraqi General.
Also by then, it was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that hundreds of those shipped to GITMO and thousands detained and abused in Afghanistan and Iraq, where simply civilians.
So in the context of all that – no right minded litigator (not that I am one) is going to want to have their clients (the AG and/or President) put in writing their conspiracy to torture. Writing about crimes you are committing generally is something your lawyer will discourage you from doing. I’m not sure if Goldsmith would have gotten that or not, but as much as I don’t think highly of him in other respects, Comey was a very good lawyer at protecting his client. He made sure that the Plame investigation would take place without any reports ever being issued and charmed Schumer into completely disenfranchising Congress. There’s no way he would have wanted to have people putting, in writing, what would be a de facto confession to conspiracy to torture. And there’s no way with the lawsuits existing and potential on the home front that he would have wanted that kind of paper to be floating around. Even if Comey wasn’t invovled in the decision process, with Ashcroft a named defendant in suits by then – and in Arar’s case a suit that Ashcroft new was being brought by an innocent man, tortured because of Ashcroft if not at his direct order, even Ashcroft’s own legal exposure has to have eventually gone into self preservation mode and become resistant to putting the policy of torture in writing – discoverable writing.
Another sterling example from WaPo of the shining light to all of humanity that the Bush United States comprises:
how about a RICO indictment for these criminals-in-office ..
shame on us for lacking the courage of our convictions ..and our forefathers …
death before dishonor … that’s the creed .. imo ..
37 – In Grey’s book, apparently even the CIA “picture taker” was shocked when they followed the, by then SOP, and made sure to strip him in front of a woman who took his pictures. Apparently no one clued her in on the the specifics of the use of scalpels and cutting instruments on him.
On the shining beacon front and further to 32 on torturing women and to Suskind above, this piece from August by the BBC on Siddiqui
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7544008.stm
That’s the BBC, not the Karachi Times.
Folks, George Tenet would have never accepted the Torture Authorization from anyone but Junya himself.
Forget Condi, forget Fredo, forget Deadeye!
While one can despise Tenet’s rah-rah role, his never-ending
lyingshading of the truth, his continual brown-nosing for cheetos, he was nobody’s fool in taking personal responsibility for Torture.Junya signed it! No, zero, nada, zilch doubt about it!
W signed it, then authored a “signing document” to absolve himself.
I have to agree that this appears to be a certainty. In any event such a document will be leaked or come out somehow.
And Mary has, instead of being cute like me, actually fleshed out what I was getting at in @35 above. There were all kinds of head on attacks coming legally right at that time period, both of them. Initially, Helgerson started inquiry and, then, in May 2003, goes to the black site and actually reviews the torture tapes that were later destroyed. I think the tapes were likely some of the more damning physical evidence of direct war crimes and crimes against humanity ever known to man short of the few film snippets discovered of the Holocaust sites in operation. What’s the next significant event? That’s right, Tenet suddenly needs “top cover”. No shit George.
Then, as Mary delineates, there are all the various in your face litigations. And Hamdi, while not looking quite as critical in this as it really is, was in play. Clement makes his fraud upon the court moment on April 28, 2004 and has a VERY uncomfortable rest of the day. Ooops. Hamdi Decision issued on June 28. Administration undoubtedly knew it was coming at least a few days ahead of time. Hamdi for being oriented factually different was a HUGE blow to the unitary CinC and AUMF baloney. And what do you know, suddenly more “top cover” is needed. Again, no shit.
Oh, and do you wanna bet that “one” of the intel officials anonymously quoted in the WaPo article was none other that Robert “Destroy that video” Rodriguez, Deputy Director of Operations?
Might he have a vested interest right now in surfacing this “evidence” because of a long over-due DOJ/CIA OIG investigation into a certain destroyed set of torture porn vids?
Condi’s testimony seems a bit skewed. She claims it was the White House who was uncomfortable with the program, and that she started an investigation. That doesn’t seem to jibe at all with the story from the anonymous sources in this article.
Bush can’t pardon himself, right?
Why is all of this coming out right now? Is it pre-pardon season?
I am going to make the following assertion. On or about July 13, 2004, President George W. Bush signed a Presidential finding specifically authorizing the use of
tortureenhanced interrogation techniques in the CIA’s secret detention system. I believe that this is true because in the CIA’s Vaughn index for the ACLU, et. al. secret detention FOIA case there is a mention of a document, prepared by a “senior agency official” and described thusly:This would have been an odd time to brief the intelligence committees. The SSCI report on pre-war intelligence had just come out (July 9), Tenet had just resigned (effective July 11). But if Tenet had managed to get a Presidential finding signed (and he needed one badly because in June his golden shield had been revoked by Goldsmith), the agency would have had to brief the Gang of Eight.
Just a brief follow-up on my earlier posting. That July 13, 2004 document is the only one in the entire set that describes the subject of the document as “Congressional notification”. Notifying Congress is what happens when there is a Presidential finding. Somebody needs to ask the Jane Harman what they told her in mid-July, 2004.
Wow, this is a good thread!
The ‘Policy’-angle pick-up by Mary was Really Sharp!
One look in this person’s eyes says she knows who signed that Memo. And she was a ‘Policy’ person, too.
By the time this was going on, Gonzo’s career path was surely DoJ-bound to put-down the Rebels who were Fighting For the Rule of Law. With that in mind, I don’t think he’s neccessarily the one who signed-off on a Policy of Torture Memo.
However, it would be ‘in-keeping’ with Bush’s “Okay, I’m looking the other way now” style to express his ‘policy’ verbally to a Minion, who then “shows their Loyalty.”
So, while Bush May have signed the Torture Authorization Memo, it would be ‘of a kind’ with Gonzo’s ‘witnessing’ Bush’s Self-Declaration of Power Above the Rule of Law on the March 11th Re-Certification, for him to have an “all-in” and “Bully-able” Surrogate do the Dirty Work.
jmo, however, it could very well turn-out that Bush couldn’t find anyone to ’sign’, and so he did it himself…we’ll just have to ’see.’
Apologies to Godwin’s Law, but aside from the scale of the atrocities unleashed, it is hard to distinguish Tenet seeking “top cover” for “enhanced interrogation techniques”, and the issuance of directives based on dubious legal theories and euphemisms for war crimes and crimes against humanity from the bureaucratic “banality of evil” that was at the heart of the Final Solution. From the Nuremberg judgment against Martin Bormann, eliciting the signed documents from Bormann putting the legal basis for the Holocaust in place:
“Bormann was extremely active in the persecution of the Jews, not only in Germany but also in the absorbed and conquered countries. He took part in the discussions which led to the removal of 60,000 Jews from Vienna to Poland in co-operation with the SS and the Gestapo. He signed the decree of 31st May, 1941, extending the Nuremberg Laws to the annexed Eastern Territories. In an order of 9th October, 1942, he declared that the permanent elimination of Jews in Greater German territory could no longer be solved by emigration, but only by applying “ruthless force ” in the special camps in the East. On 1st July, 1943, he signed an ordinance withdrawing Jews from the protection of the law courts and placing them under the exclusive jurisdiction of Himmler’s Gestapo.”
“Ruthless force”. “Withdrawing Jews from the protection of the law courts…”
There is a story that Himmler and Bormann had a telephone call once where Himmler referred to the extermination of the Jews, and Bormann chastised him for not using the code term “resettlement” on an open line. As even Ashcroft has said, history will not look kindly on these people.
Sorry, link to the Bormann judgement: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judborma.asp
Jello Jay weighs in…
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..o_wapo.php
Is Jello Jay exhibiting unbelievable ignorance or unbelievable mendacity?
Nah, JJ is just trotting out the usual strong words such as “unacceptable” in a front of a reporter. Now that he’s done his job of appearing affronted, he’ll go home and tuck himself in bed with a glass of warm milk and his teddy.
PHRED!!
Hiya {she said sheepishly : } — sorry for being such a stranger, couple of things have been keeping me off-line recently, should be back to my regular antics in a few weeks (hopefully before the football season is over!) but for the moment couldn’t resist an opening to take an easy pot shot at Mr. Jello himself ; ) Hope all is well in these parts… more later…
Thanks for the link.
Well, what’s he going to do about it? Write another toothless letter?
Congress has steadfastly refused to use the big guns at its disposal, so the WH thumbs their collective noses at them.
Bob in HI
Yeah, I dunno on all this speculation about who signed the memos. If the spooks were looking for “top cover” on something that was supposedly based on the President’s power as CinC, then I think you would want something from, you know, the President/CinC. I bet Bush signed at least one if not both.
A couple of thoughts.
I agree with MadDog, it had to be signed by Bush, but maybe not only Bush. I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Cheney would ever sign off on something like that. He thinks his doodles are top secret. And Tenet’s greatest skill has always been covering his own ass.
The use here of “the principals” brings to mind the reporting of the meetings of “The Principals”. Could the whole damn group have signed off on this?
Also agree that Rodriguez is a very likely source. He has been the number one pusher of the “everyone in their right mind thought torture was our only choice “it would be irresponsible not to” meme.
It is really quite sickening how many people knew, said nothing, ignored, condoned, authorized, planned and participated in this absolutely systematic perpetration of humanity’s most unforgivable crime.
We could really use some truthtellers.
Cookies creamed.
Lots of apt comments here, but IMO you get the center.
After trying to wade through Toby Warrick’s piece, I started into this thread thinking [as ew I think implies]: Why is this coming out now?
Last night I spent an hour starting into the numerous releases of Waxman’s committee. I’m sure the answer to the timing of Warrick’s piece is in there somewhere.
One possibility is that Rodriguez [or whoever; he just near the top of a lot of very good suspects] knew precisey which release to open and what passage to look for, then saw what he was looking for – or its absence – and in any event confirmation of something he and others at the CIA end have suspected, and thus, its off to the parkade for the by-now hackneyed continuing shadowy affair of furtive fumblings between the first amendment and Part II powers.
Another possibility, equally if not more compelling, is that those ‘in the know’ have figured out that the problem presented by an Obama administration is how much muscle that will add to the searchlight in the hands of Wonder Waxman. The man’s as utterly indefatigable as a GOOPer filibuster, and if it were posed to me, I would have to agree there is no reason to believe having a Harvard law review editor and gold medalist in constitutional lawyer in the White House is going to constitute a governor on his determination.
That would also fit with an anxiety that this particular Deep Gargle would share with thousands of others used by the Bush Cheney cabal – that surely the White House, in particular Hadley and Fielding, are perfectly aware of the same thing, such that it’s very likely the shredders are working around the clock at this point.
So the message would be this: Waxman may not find the piece[s] of paper, but many of us asked for them, some of us directly from the source of all things Bushipresidential, and a number of us who demanded to see it/them actually did – and memorized that damn thing[s] right on the spot.
The ranks of those who “actually did” would include Addington, of course, and Hadley [who looks over everything he and Addington put together before it get signed], and Rice; but I would think also Comey & Goldsmith & that crew saw enough to know what it was they were not being shown but nonetheless existed.
Final fun speculation: I think it’s possible someone has surmised that it would not be beyond the capacity of Bush and Cheney and those in their immediate aura to shred presidential directives and findings.
In the end, someone is wanting to convince the person he [or she – why couldn’t this be a certain highly-placed woman-not-Condi?] is feeding on the sly in the parkade, of his [her] bona fides now, rather than wait until the 111th Congress heats up and the revelations pile out like the crap in Barney Google’s closet.
I hope this isn’t all too obvious.
41 – yep, Hamdi was big. The potential fallout on Padilla (and al-Marri) were even bigger, although CIA was somewhat arms length there. That’s why the Comey dog and pony show there. They got the court to go for the technicality on Padilla and kick it back on jurisdictional grounds, but it was pretty clear after Hamdi where it would go if it went up again in the “right” court. And imagine if Kerry had come in a few months after Clement’s fraud on the court?
IMO, the reason something has come out now about the memos is that, while they were issued, none of the players who needs or wants the protection has a copy or original. Before Bush finishes destroying more documents, they want it on the record that those memos existed. So Radsan puts takes the non-anonymous role, with Tenet and I would think Muller and Rodriguez and maybe his deputy who sent el-Masri to torture, all want to get dibs in.
Especially Muller. Again, from a cover your client aspect, he’s more in Comey’s league and Gonzales’ Tenet left before that final memo was issued, but Muller didn’t leave until July 2004 and I bet he put on his Palin Lipstick and made sure it was going to happen before he left.
Interesting that someone who aligns their public face with the Boys and Girls Clubs and the “make the streets safe for children” Center for the Community Interest buries his private face in exploits from blowing up planes with missionaries and their infant children to disappearing infants and children for tactical torture use.
Just about as creepy as it gets. But at least he had a passing interest in keeping his games with little boys and girls “legal” by trying to paper up. Creepy as it is, it’s not as creepy as the complete disregard and lack of care from Gonzales and Haynes and Yoo to even make a good pretense at trying to protect their clients.
46 – From that wiki link, beginning “In 2003, she was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. In November 2004, Bush named her to succeed Alberto Gonzales…” But I trend towards what bmaz says at 53. I think they were looking for something that made pardon inevitable and that would seem to means something from Bush. For Bush’s part, he might have had it co-issued with his WHC or OLC to cross reference that they felt his policy was a legal policy – some self absolution.
Did Rockefeller mention why the Sharon and the DC
BushPBS affilliate don’t have any slot to show the torture documentary, even when he thinks the whole thing is such an important topic?Just in case others did not catch Mary’s reference to “Sharon”:
Sharon Percy Rockefeller, wife to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, is President and CEO of WETA in Washington, DC. WETA being the public broadcasting station in the Washington, DC area.
3 versions of Obama’s Hope and Vision:
A Change Is Gonna Come:
Sam Cooke:
http://current.com/items/89406…..gonna_come
Patti LaBelle:
http://current.com/items/89408…..gonna_come
The Supremes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDpr8wHdhlQ
45 -67 – I think that makes lots of sense. A three page – short to the point, memo and briefing of the finding to “Congress” Do you know if it was the Gang of 8 or just the Unintelligble 4?
Either way, it would certainly be nice to know what individual members of Congress knew about torture while Clement was making the public representations and the affirmations in court on behalf of Gov that we just don’t do those things.
Curious that the SCOTUS has been so silent and accepting of Clement’s duplicity, no?
Legally, it should have been the Gang of Eight, but if they cared about legal niceties we wouldn’t be in this situation. If you made me guess, I’d guess it was the Gang of Eight because the CIA at this point wanted very badly to pull as many politicians as possible down in to the mire with them.
Ummm, whats 1 + 1?
Yeah, its that easy to figure out.
the CIA should have studied International Law more better
the presnit is on the hook for whatever the CIA does, even if the presnit doesn’t know what the CIA is doing
doesn’t anybody read the Nuremberg judgments any more ???
Hitler and his cronies were responsible for all the crimes against humanity
sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander
george bush is guilty of all the crimes against humanity that occured while georege bush was “The Decider” and the “War Presnit”
what part of “Commander in Chief” are they unclear about ???
70 – yep, but apparently is was of the “well loved son” genre for the Congressional committees as well as the Court. It’s different is a whacko pinko commie comes and lies to the court than if it is everybodies’ boy Paul. That nice young man. And Olson wasn’t gone yet when he argued it, was he? It’s not like he didn’t know better too while the case was being prepared.
73 – I just wondered about the timeline aspect – I have to think that it would have been awkward timing to foist off the “approval of torture” briefing to all 8 so near the election and so near Abu Ghraib. That means 4, not 2, Dems sitting on their hands not only while Bush lied his butt off, but also while Taguba was pushing for the Military Intelligence investigation that never happened and, more personally and more direct – while military police from Abu Ghraib were being tried and sentenced for carrying out the policies Bush was embracing and briefing to Congressional members in private, but denying in public.
That is a pretty telling statement of who you are – that you would let those soldiers face that when you know for an absolute fact, based on briefing, that they were carrying out US policies.
Scott Horton looks at the story and pulls out the aspect of Rice having Ashcroft get the Crim Div to “investigate”
http://harpers.org/subjects/NoComment
Not only does he reference the issues of Chertoff’s veracity to Congress, but also the estoppel issue that has been batted around here at times past.
This must be why Dick Cheney had a ‘heart attack’ today. He couldn’t believe this was reported. LOL
OT: if you follow my link (above) to Sharon Percy Rockefeller you will end up at the Forbes website.
There I learned Sharon Rockefeller also serves on the Board of Directors of Pepsi Co., since 1986, along with:
Ray L. Hunt (since 1996) (yes, Chairman and CEA of Hunt Oil, and a director of EDS Corp, King Ranch, Inc), and
Lary D. Thompson (since 2004, Divisional Sr. VP/Secreary , General Counsel), our former Bush Deputy AG in the (B)US(H) Dept. of Justice
“Larry” Thompson, not Lary
The correct answer is Rumsfeld.
From torturingdemocracy:
page 31/52: On Dec 2/02, Rumsfeld signed off on an Action Memo that was prepared by Jim Haynes…15 techniques(one of which was waterboarding)
page 42/52: April 2003, Rumsfeld had secretly given the go-ahead to use 24 harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo
April 16/03…memo from Rumsfeld approving techniques to Commander US Southern Command
page 44/52: late August 2003…on orders from Rumsfeld…Gen. Miller travelled to Baghdad to “gitmoize” the interrogations…Rumsfeld also arrived at Abu Ghraib.
Sept 14/03…Rumsfeld sent a memo to Commander US Central Command (Sanchez).
page 30/52: In regards to torture at Guantanamo..Rumsfeld authorized the Special Interrogation Plan on Dec 2/02. On page 29, it mentions that when the x commander of Guantanamo, MG Mike Dunlavey testified on March 17/05, he said that “his marching orders came from the President”. He met with Bush at the White House once a week, so I doubt that Bush did anything other than give verbal orders.