McCain’s Tortured Briefing Memory
I guess it’s "why can’t Glenn Thrush read? day."
In addition to finally getting schooled on facts that have been in the public record for three weeks, Thrush gives John McCain a soapbox from which to scold Nancy Pelosi for not doing more when she learned–in 2003, reportedly via a staffer–that CIA was engaging in torture.
"If she felt it was wrong she should have acted," the former GOP Presidential hopeful said on his way into the Republican Senate lunch on Tuesday.
"Let me just tell you — I was briefed on it — and I vehemently objected to it. We did the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. So we felt, I certainly felt, I could act on it."
He dismissed her claim she was barred from acting on what she learned in the briefings with a shrug.
"I’m sure she has her argument and we’ll see if the American people agree."
Set aside, for the moment, McCain’s completely erroneous premise, that Pelosi should have responded to "what she learned in the briefings." Pelosi’s entire point (not one I’m entirely sympathetic with) is that since she wasn’t briefed that waterboarding was being used, but instead learned that CIA was torturing detainees through a staffer and not the CIA, it would have been inappropriate for her to intervene directly.
“She felt that the appropriate response was the letter from Harman, because Jane was the one who was briefed,” said the person. Pelosi “never got briefed on it personally, and when Harman got a ‘no response’ from the CIA, there was nothing more that could be done.”
Maybe McCain just doesn’t get Pelosi’s point; or maybe Thrush didn’t understand what he earlier reported on Pelosi and botched his own question. So for the moment set aside McCain’s faulty premise.
But look at what McCain claims about his own actions. McCain suggests that he was briefed on torture and then, because he objected so strenuously to what he learned in the briefing, he passed the Detainee Treatment Act. Briefing, then DTA, McCain tells the tale.
Yet according to the CIA briefing list the Republicans are so intent to use to attack Pelosi, John McCain was briefed on torture in "late October 2005" (in the chronology, McCain’s briefing appears after Thad Cochran and Ted Stevens got their briefing on October 18, 2005).
The Senate passed its version of the DTA on October 5, 2005.
The chronology, at least according to CIA’s admittedly questionable timeline, went DTA, then briefing.
In fact, the only thing that happened subsequent to McCain’s briefing was the conference (in December 2005), McCain’s capitulation to White House demands for insertion of a clause making an "obedience to orders" defense acceptable in cases of torture, and Bush’s signing statement reserving the right to interpret McCain’s amendment however he–Bush–deemed necessary as Commander in Chief. In particular, McCain got briefed on torture and then assented to the inclusion of this language in the DTA.
it shall be a defense that such officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful. Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful.
So while McCain makes himself out to be a hero subsequent to his sole reported torture briefing, at least according to the CIA, McCain got briefed and then agreed to water down the DTA that had already been passed.
I’m sure McCain has his argument and we’ll see whether the Ameican people agree whether McCain’s capitulation after his briefing was really all that heroic. But I don’t really think he’s the one who should be lecturing Nancy Pelosi about proper responses to torture briefings.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
There. Fixed it for you.
see it from mcstain’s point of view …
Hey, EW, nice props in Sam Stein’s article over at HuffPo.
O/T
Via Greg Sargent: Turns out Yoo has been on contract with the Philidelphia Inquirer since late 2008:
Bit of a conflict of interest there, eh?
Oh good, since McCain clearly recalls his briefing, would you mind asking him who exactly briefed him and what was discussed? Then we can go ask the other Republicans briefed in 2005 (and 2006) about those pesky mystery briefings… Who actually did them, what was briefed, and what did they need from those Republicans specifically? And then maybe we can ask that since they were briefing willy nilly in the fall of 2005, what excuse the CIA had for not briefing the Gang of 8 at that time. Oh, and then we can ask the CIA for the Presidential findings… You know, since McCain is ready to come clean about everything…
You know, now that you mention it, we know these discussions took place between McCain and Dick. So it’s likely that Dick was in those briefings (the same way he did the briefing on the illegal wiretap program), and that that’s why the information is “not available.”
That would not surprise me one bit. They are clearly hiding someone(s) with this “not available” nonsense. Of course, it would beg the question of why The Vice-President would be giving a CIA briefing. Perhaps he was in attendance with others (to twist arms to get the funding/legislation he needed I expect), so in order to not cover-up his presence alone, they had to hide everyone… Somebody really needs to ask Panetta about the “not available” thing…
Most likely Dick was there to guide wording on/ direction of funding and where the funding should be funneled in order to make it “off the books”.
Since Dick is in such an accountability mode and made requests for docs as evidence that the “enhanced techniques worked” perhaps he can make “the information” easily “available” and put an end to all the she-said he-said.
He’s quick to give GOP “cover” and platforms. Didn’t he “cover” for Cantor last week?
What did you expect out of a THRUSH? Everybody knows that:
THRUSH stands for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesireables and the Subjugation of Humanity
Actually sounds like a Cheney front group eh? Better call in the Man From UNCLE!
Where’s Maxwell Smart when we need him?
Bob in HI
One more point on this.
On the House side, the Republicans (led by CW Young) tried to scuttle an attempt by Murtha to instruct the conferees to support the McCain amendment. Young called for a voice vote, and said the had defeated Murtha’s amendment. Murtha called for a recorded vote, and the yeas won 308-122 (with all but one of the nays being Republicans). Jane Harman and Ellen Tascher had submitted a House version of McCain’s language earlier. And one of the people to speak out in favor of Murtha’s amendment? Nancy Pelosi:
Surely, Nancy’s support wasn’t decisive (Murtha probably deserves the props for preventing the House side from stripping this, and he was of course leading the Dems in conference). Still. McCain wouldn’t have ahd his DTA without people like Harman and Pelosi.
…and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful.
!f the word would just keep getting out about the grizzly inhumanity of it all
That is a remarkable statement, isn’t it?
If word would just get out about the Second World War, for starters. The principles that emerged from the Nuremberg processes were about precisely that — what any person of ordinary sense and understanding should know — and they apply to all of us, presidents, officers, soldiers in the ranks, bureaucrats, every citizen, all of us.
It is stunning that that understanding should have been twisted to mean the opposite of what we thought we’d learned sixty years ago.
The legislative history minutiae are a turn beyond my notes taken October 5, 2005; however, there was an interesting CharlieCarp comment on obsidianWings hilzoy’s place actively then, October 5, describing McCain’s concomitant efforts at the time in conjunction with Sen LGraham, to give nominal senate validation to the CSRT “process”, and to compromise on the designation ‘unlawful enemy combatant’; the link presents several excerpts from the unnumbered draft paragraphs seemingly hours before the amendment vote in the senate itself.
what they didn’t pull off in the DTA, they did in the MCA. That made a kangaroo ct CSRT finding dispositive on the issue of whether someone was or was not an unlawful enemy combatant (and thereby, together with changes to the War Crimes Act, attempted to do away with all the Article 147 problems at GITMO and elsewhere)
MCA included the select list of torcha modalities, even easier to circumvent because of the itemization’s narrowness; plus, as the original diary begins to enumerate, there was the signing statement(s) factor, of which I wonder how many might remain secret still.
You know its amazing that McCain was trying to usurp the Conventions Against Torture and nobody has pointed that out. In fact its amazing to me that so many Dems are invoking the Geneva Conventions rather than the CAT when it comes to pushing for investigations. Article 2 of the Conventions would seem to knock down every single excuse put forth so far by the Bush administration for torture.
So no ticking time bomb, no “they said it was legal”, no “they told me to do it”, and not “it worked” will do to combat war crimes charges for torture. And I don’t think McCain’s amendment would have held up anyway to SCOTUS scrutiny.
My offhand guess is that, while what you cite is true, you need to also read Common Article 2 in conjunction with the exceptions/reservations the US made prior to signing.
And BabyDick makes another round of media appearances in PapaDick’s wake.
http://voices.washingtonpost.c…..id=topnews
And PapaDick will deliver an AEI speech on May 21 on “keeping America safe.” Yay.
OT – They finally convicted the Miami defendants
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..estigation
Apparently we went through the three trials bc the USA’s office was having self esteem issues:
Vindictive, vindicate, whichever, whatever.
But one juror was replaced because he (she?) refused to deliberate.
Veni, vidi, vindictive. And the poor fuckers STILL probably couldn’t locate the Sears Tower on a map if their lives depended on it. At least the governmental detention center probably finally gave them the tennis shoes they asked the mole to help them buy.
O/T, more on McChrysta
Tillman’s Parents Want
General’s Record Reviewed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin……html?_r=2
Whitehouse will be on KO.
WHitehouse is on KO now. VERY interesting. Hope to see bmaz and ew’s take on it any moment now.
first, the quote from the mcclatchy article;
even though;
plunger makes a great point and clear as day once told;
or else what, nobody knows, but it’s clear from the mcclatchy article these interrogators are being threatened
in other words, cheney not only knew there was no association between saddam and al-qaeda but he then went on to ask;
SO?
Umm…we know that Hitler and Stalin were enemies…but they coooperated and were allies against the West. All intelligence agencies in the world were convinced Saddam had nukes and was cooperating with Osama
WHAT?
Where’s our freep?
The Jordanian secret service confirmed the Mossad in Israel when they told us that Osama’s best bud had gotten treatment from Saddam in Kirkuk. This was documented and verified by the British and the French all of whom believed that Saddam was close to, if he already didn’t have WMDs, particularly of chemical and biological, and within a year of the nukes. If you recall, Saddam was of the Ba’ath party which had cousins in Syria. It was thought that the contacts were being done through Syria and the recent Israeli raid against Syria is evidence that the Israelis thought they had the nuclear material too…
Well, yeah, and Sadaam was conspiring with those mean Martians from Mars Attacks too!
lol… weren’t Hitler and Stalin on opposite sides?
Yeah. Only 20 million Russians died in that conflict, as I recollect.
Not at the beginnning they weren’t…in September, 1939 Hitler and Stalin allied to carve up Poland and the Baltic states. Why do you think they are among the States that are still loyal to the USA?
DLoerke May, I don’t know what you’re talking about, nobody thought Saddam and AL-Qaeda were linked, nobody, and everyone said they weren’t linked
of course if you count the fact that other countries actually though bush/Cheney wouldn’t lie to them about something so grave that can be your only point
the entire world was against our attack on Saddam, he posed no threat, the entire anti terror league told the bush administration he posed no threat, the whole of his entire intelligence gathering agencies told him there was no threat and no association
and nobody thought he had nukes, every single report showed his capabilities were destroyed, every single inspector said there are not only no facilities there are no means to create facilities
don’t know where you came up with the data for your post but I would look for other sources in the future, it seems you’re counting on the very people we know as a fact lied to us
read the report again, every single agency told the administration there was NO link except that they were enemies
sorry
when the intel agencies and interrogators told cheney there was no association he litteraly said;
“I don’t care, get me a confession”
or;
“so?”
Great Marci, as usual.
I just watched the Liz Cheney v. Eugene Robinson “debate” from MSNBC. It’s maddening that they don’t have someone like Jane Mayer or Marcy to shoot down the bullsh*t being spun by the Cheneys.
Eugene’s stuttering speaking style – and his inability to speak to the legal issues – does our side such a disservice against these polished and professional liars. How ’bout letting Liz speak to Jonathan Turley about how “legal and responsible” the OLC memos were?
Tuesday Eli is upstairs at the Mothership!
Republican Charm Offensive Gets It Half Right
McCain fails to also point out that his brave fellow Senators who were actually briefed on torture prior to “his act” failed to vote for it.
Amongst the Nays: Bond (R-MO) Cochran (R-MS) Roberts (R-KS) Stevens (R-AK)
Only Shelby amongst those briefed to that point voted “for” McCains bill….and if he was given the same briefing as Pelosi and Graham…he got inaccurate information.
Well, Bond wasn’t briefed until 2006, and Cochran and Stevens, like McCain, were briefed after the DTA passed the Senate.
I thikn what happened is that Cheney and the CIA briefed Stevens and Cochran–who had already voted against and had already been named as conferees (Stevens, as Approp Chair, was in in any case)–and got a commitment that they would hold up hte DTA in conference. And then they briefed McCain and began getting his capitulation, knowing they had conferees Stevens and Cochran in their pocket. They then went to Fristie. DOn’t know what they got out of him (it took two briefings). But they were working this hard.
And McCain…who I believe as author was one of the few entitled to add the compromise amendment (Compromise with the WH…not the House version)…need not have done so. The Senate vote on his original Bill would have easily surmounted a veto. The original bill had 91 members in support, with a handful of Republican hard-liners.
McCain could have looked evil in the eye and not flinched…instead..he blinked….even after he learned what the extent of the torture was.
flinched isn’t really the word, he was seduced by the offer of a presidential run
and as far as I can see, he really only wanted to run, he would have been happy to have won the race for president was enough for him
if the man showed the balls it would have taken to win the party would have abandoned him anyway
he needed to go after bush with all guns, bush even gave him “permission” to do it, mccain listened to his handlers and layed off