Sheldon Whitehouse: “No Further Actionable Intelligence Was Obtained” from Abu Zubaydah by Waterboarding

Sheldon Whitehouse gave a barnburner of a speech last night, in which he described how egregious Dick Cheney’s lies about torture have been.

The speech goes further than President Obama’s and Russ Feingold’s and Carl Levin’s calls on Cheney’s lies in two ways. First, those other calls focused on whether the documents Cheney wants declassified actually say what he claims they say; Whitehouse focused on whether Cheney’s more basic claims about torture are true. And second, Whitehouse here focuses not on whether we needed waterboarding to get intelligence (Obama, for example, said, "the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques — which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques — doesn’t answer the core question, which is:  Could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques?), but whether we actually got any useful intelligence from the methods at all. 

Whitehouse says that no further actionable intelligence was gained through the torture used on Abu Zubaydah after he was turned over to the CIA contractors for good. [Note: this transcript is my own–I found the Congressional Record copy after I did this. I’ve edited in response to Andersonblogs’ comment to take out ellipses and put in emphasis.]

So for a third time he was returned to the FBI and CIA agents, again for professional interrogation, but by now he had been so compromised by the techniques that were applied to him that even they were unsuccessful in getting further information. And as best as I have been able to determine, for the remaining sessions of 83 waterboardings that have been disclosed as being associated with his interrogation, no further actionable intelligence was obtained. And yet the story has been exactly the opposite. The story over and over has been that once you get these guys out of the hands of the FBI and military "amateurs" and into the hands of these "trained CIA professionals" who can use these tougher techniques, that’s when you get the information. In this case at least, the exact opposite was the truth. And this was a case cited by the Vice President by name. 

From that, Whitehouse makes appeals to his colleagues not to believe they’ve been told, just as Bob Graham appealed to his colleagues not to believe what they’d been told about the Iraq intelligence.

I want my colleagues and the American public to know that, measured against the information I’ve been able to gain access to, the story-line that we have been led to believe, the story-line about waterboarding that we have been sold, is false in every one of its dimensions, and I ask that my colleagues be patient and be prepared to listen to the evidence when all is said and done before they wrap themselves in that storyline.

One more point about this. Whitehouse (and Feingold, and possibly Levin) are speaking as people who have been involved in SSCI’s apparently meticulous review both of what was done to these detainees and what intelligence we got from that torture. Whitehouse’s statement–his list of the kinds of questions the SSCI is asking and his description of the difficulties Senators have in declassifying important information–suggest these views come at least partly out of that SSCI review.

At the heart of all these falsehoods lies a particular and specific problem: The "declassifiers” in the U.S. Government are all in the executive branch. No Senator can declassify, and the procedure for the Senate as an institution to declassify something is so cumbersome that it has never been used. Certain executive branch officials, on the other hand, are at liberty to divulge classified information. When it comes out of their mouth, it is declassified because they are declassified. Its very utterance by those requisite officials is a declassification. What an institutional advantage. The executive branch can use, and has used, that one-sided advantage to spread assertions that either aren’t true at all or may be technically true but only on a strained, narrow interpretation that is omitted, leaving a false impression, or that sometimes simply supports one side of an argument that has two sides–but the other side is one they don’t want to face
up to and don’t declassify.

This suggests Whitehouse has learned something, probably in that SSCI review, that totally debunks the claims that the Bush Administration made, but which he is prevented from revealing.

It sort of makes you wonder–particularly with his statement that he hopes and believes Obama will be better–whether this speech wasn’t designed to pressure Obama to make this information available now?


Update: thanks to RH, here’s the full speech via CSPAN:

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86 replies
  1. Leen says:

    Great clip ew thanks
    Whitehouse “I want my colleagues and the American public to know that, measured against the information I’ve been able to gain access to, the story-line that we have been led to believe, the story-line about waterboarding that we have been sold, is false in every one of its dimensions, and I ask that my colleagues be patient and be prepared to listen to the evidence when all is said and done before they wrap themselves in that storyline.”

    Whitehouse almost has me believing that “no one is above the law” only time will tell

  2. BoxTurtle says:

    I really wish these “shocked and appalled” senators who cannot discuss anything because of classification would use their senate floor privileges and read into the record what they’re so upset about.

    Or would that be too much like putting their money where their mouth is?

    Boxturtle (Whitehouse is doing more than most, to his credit)

    • emptywheel says:

      Frankly, I think Whitehouse does a very good job of pointing to what he has seen–as he did with Pixie Dust.

      I am willing to trade him and Russ FEingold remaining on SSCI for their need to be oblique when they talk about this stuff.

  3. AZ Matt says:

    Does Obama want to be part of the cover-up of the Cheney Lies? Only if he is drinking the koolaid.

    • BoxTurtle says:

      Obama clearly DOES want BuchCo’s torture and evesdropping activities covered up. He’s said as much and the lack of action at DOJ speaks louder than words.

      IMO, he must either pardon them or prosecute them. He can no longer ignore them.

      Boxturtle (And if you don’t prosecute, you inherit)

      • freepatriot says:

        IMO, he must either pardon them or prosecute them. He can no longer ignore them.

        Obama don’t have the power to pardon them for Crimes Against Humanity

        Obama represents The United States Of America, not HUMANITY

        so there’s that

        hi BT, workin on an emaily thingy 4 u

        (waves)

        • MarkH says:

          Does that mean then that he could, at least, turn them over to the ICC for prosecution? In some cases that could be a very valuable option.

          First you read them their rights in Urdu. Then you laugh at them in French!

  4. klynn says:

    The second paragraph which you have quoted is a loaded one. The point about “declassifiers” and how they tip the balance of power is enlightening.

  5. orionATL says:

    whitehouse is as straight a talker as anyone in the senate, even the well-loved russ feingold.

    calling out cheney now on his propaganda campaign is essential lest the public discourse about torture get so skewed toward falsity that it can never be a productive discourse.

    alas, what our democratic senators seem reluctant to do is to use their senatorial positions to take action beyond speeches.

    • klynn says:

      Oh yeah.

      Thanks for this post (and all your posts this week).

      I wonder what kind of Constitutional Amendment will come from Whitehouse to address the declassifiers to restore the balance of powers?

    • acquarius74 says:

      For a ref to this, may I suggest the book ‘Takeover’ by Charlie Savage, pages 162-175. Pg 162: “On 03/25/2003 …GWB signed an executive order making sweeping changes to federal guidelines for classifying information.”

      Pg 163, para 2: “Bush’s March 2003 executive order also gave the vice president, for the first time in U.S. history, the highest power to classify and declassify documents across the entire government.” “… – but now Cheney had been made the full equal to the president when it came to deciding whether to make something secret or to selectively release such information.”

      Then, regarding the Plame/Wilson/Libby/Judy Miller matter, on page 165: “He [Libby] said Cheney told him it was “very important” for this information to come out, instructing his Chief of Staff to give it to Miller. Libby said he told Cheney that he could not have such a conversation with Miller because the excerpts were classified, but the vice president told him that he had spoken with Bush about the matter, and both agreed that the information should come out. Libby said he then spoke with Addington, who told him that such high-level permission to leak classified information “amounted to a declassification.”

      Thank you, Marcy, for this grand video and link. [I just had to get in one more blow to Addington.}

      Note the date of Bush’s EO, 03/25/2003 – just 6 days after invading Iraq. hmmmm, could that have anything to do with hiding info as to the build-up of lies that “justified” the invasion. Vital to keep all that secret. (/s)

      • emptywheel says:

        Except that Savage’s reporting there is, uncharacteristically, wrong. The plain language of the EO doesn’t give Cheney the power to classify information. And as I have reported, as late as 2005, the WH Counsel did not believe that the EO had given Cheney that power.

        It took a threat to defund Cheney in 2007 for Bush to sort of kind of pixie dust his intent to have given Cheney declassification power back in 2003.

        • acquarius74 says:

          Thank you, Marcy. Charlie Savage does not give the EO number. I’m really disappointed to learn that he published something on which I cannot rely.

          I figured you had covered the matter. I’ll try to find your 2005 posts.

          Do you know the status of that EO now? Has Obama struck it down, modified or clarified it?

      • Mary says:

        and 23

        One thing I want to point out on that, something that gets overlooked all the time bc it doesn’t show up as a separate EO, is that Clinton gave Gore (and others, like his COS) classification authority under EO 12958. So in addition to EW’s point, I try to raise this whenever I can so that people don’t go down a road that Bush was the first to do this or that his change to EO 12958 was the “first time” a vp was given certain authority

        http://www.fas.org/sgp/clinton/oca.html

        Pursuant to the provisions of Section 1.4 of Executive Order No. 12958 of April 17, 1995, entitled “Classified National Security Information,” I hereby designate the following officials to classify information originally as “Top Secret,” “Secret,” or “Confidential”:

        TOP SECRET

        Executive Office of the President:

        The Vice President
        The Chief of Staff to the President
        The Director, Office of Management and Budget
        The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
        The Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy
        The Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

        emph added

        By contrast, Bush’s 13292 put in the VP reference outside of a Fed Reg run

        Sec. 1.3. Classification Authority. (a) The authority to classify information originally may be exercised only by:

        (1) the President and, in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President;
        (2) agency heads and officials designated by the President in the Federal Register; and

        (3) United States Government officials delegated this authority pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.

        (c) Delegation of original classification authority.

        (1) Delegations of original classification authority shall be limited to the minimum required to administer this order. Agency heads are responsible for ensuring that designated subordinate officials have a demonstrable and continuing need to exercise this authority.
        (2) “Top Secret” original classification authority may be delegated only by the President; in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President; or an agency head or official designated pursuant to paragraph (a)(2) of this section.

        (3) “Secret” or “Confidential” original classification authority may be delegated only by the President; in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President; or an agency head or official designated pursuant to paragraph (a)(2) of this section; or the senior agency official described in section 5.4(d) of this order, provided that official has been delegated “Top Secret” original classification authority by the agency head.

        (4) Each delegation of original classification authority shall be in writing and the authority shall not be redelegated except as provided in this order. Each delegation shall identify the official by name or position title.

        • acquarius74 says:

          Thank you for all your work on this, Mary. I went back to Marcy’s old post she linked to at # 25 (great post, great comments).

          One thing led to another and I tracked the Whitehouse/Feingold bill S 3405 of 07/31/2008 entitled, ‘Executive Order Integrity Act’. On senate site it is shown as “active”; Status: Read twice and referred to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

          Latest major action: 07/31/2008

          How can we raise a ruckus and demand it be moved out of committee for a floor debate and vote?

          Thanks again, Mary, for all you do; and keep beating the drum about the child victims of these psychopathic sob(s). When Sen. Whitehouse visited FDL I asked him if he had any new info on the children of KSM and Aafi Siddiqui. He didn’t choose to answer.

          • Mary says:

            Way epu’d. I saw your effort and that he didn’t answer one way or the other, or even to say that he can’t discuss classified info.

            It might almost be easier to put pressure on non-Intel committee guys for this, bc they won’t have to worry about not referencing things they were given classified briefings about.

            • acquarius74 says:

              Thank you, Mary. The thought of the FBI capturing a 6-month old baby and separating it from its mother is near unbearable for me.

              My senators and rep are useless (all repubs and Bushites). I think I’ll make a contribution to ACLU and/or Human Rights Watch and enclose a ’strongly worded letter’ that they pursue the matter of these lost children.

              It is beyond me to equate capturing babies and children with the America I believed in for over 70 years.

    • Synoia says:

      Parliamentary Privilege.

      He can discuss what he like on the floor of the Senate. Classified or not.

      • emptywheel says:

        Sure.

        And as soon as he does, he’ll be bounced from the SSCI (like Richard Shelby was when he was leaking) and some shill will replace him.

        As I said above, both Whitehouse and Feingold do a good enough job at getting this stuff out that I’ll take their respect for classification rules in exchange for knowing two of the Dems in the SSCI are stright shooters.

  6. Becca says:

    I worry that we’re losing sight of the essential core of all this:

    EVEN IF they’d gotten ‘actionable’ information out of these prisoners, torturing them is still wrong 100% of the time, and furthermore a violation of U.S. law, the Constitution, and numerous international treaties.

    The laws state that the intentional infliction of pain, suffering, and even psychological torment, for any reason whatsoever (even if in the course of interrogation) is illegal. Every time Cheney or these others say in public that they were involved in discussions to authorize these methods — stress positions, sleep deprivation, dietary punishment, extreme cold and heat, and water-torture — they are essentially confessing to crimes against humanity.

    I really wish we would stop ignoring that basic fact.

    • emptywheel says:

      “we” are not ignoring that fact.

      But given that the political elite in this country is largely complicit with our illegal torture because of the lies that Dick Cheney told them, it is necessary (particularly if we have any hope of holding these people legally accountable) to unpack the lies, onion skin by onion skin.

      • Becca says:

        Good point that, emptywheel.

        I just get so frustrated when I see endless reporting now on whether information was gainfully extracted through torture. It moves the whole argument several yards down field towards the “maybe we should torture, if we come up with methods that actually do work” side.

        • klynn says:

          That’s the “24″ mindset we must fight against. Like EW wrote, we must unpack this package of lies onion skin by onion skin.

        • bmaz says:

          The devil is in the details; the point you are concerned about is a starting baseline assumption on any torture post I have seen on this blog. And I see them all.

        • emptywheel says:

          That’s a problem, I agree. But we’re also faced with the problem of looking for ways to hold Dick accountable–holding a bunch of Charles Graner isn’t going to do it, and it’s not going to prevent it from happening again.

          So the question is where is the area of leverage to actually get at Dick or at least those he was mobilizing to do his will. Exposing Cheney’s lies may either get him in trouble directly, or give the torture apologists an excuse–and cover–to turn on him.

  7. AZ Matt says:

    Weren’t some Republcian Representatives talking openly about classified materials last week?

    • Becca says:

      Pretty much, AZ Matt. Closed-door session, and as soon as it was over the GOP Reps began blabbing about it to reporters outside.

      I firmly believe that a core part of Republican culture (which, sadly, is also bleeding over to the Democratic side) is a near total contempt for the law, as it could apply to them personally. And no mercy for anyone else.

    • emptywheel says:

      To be exact, what appears to have happened is that Pete Hoekstra claimed he had been told that classified information and that it supported Cheneys point, and he went and got the Hill to turn it into a story.

      There’s no evidence the GOopers ever had to risk their committee seat to go seed that story.

  8. hary3hve says:

    Obama has strongly committed to the suppression of US war crimes evidence, therefore he is now complicit in those crimes. He has created a safe haven for war criminals within our country and provided guaranteed refuge assurances to his co-conspirators within the major political parties that dominate our govt. His willful violations of our constitution, fed laws, and treaties in order to protect the criminality of our elected officials should, in a real democracy lead to his removal from office. Unfortunately, ours is a made for TV, staged reality show of what a democracy should be. I’m ashamed to say that I believed in and voted for this unabashed fraud. One other thing: it won’t happen again – my voting for him that is.

  9. Loo Hoo. says:

    Whitehouse didn’t leave dick & baby a lot of room to maneuver, did he? Wonder how soon they’ll be on FOX to dig deeper.

  10. Andersonblogs says:

    Why does the post insert ellipsis marks in the first blockquote from Whitehouse?

    Looking at the link to the speech, the passage doesn’t have those and there are no omissions, which is what the ellipses make it look like — that the quotation’s edited.

    Given the importance of the phrase, the ellipses give the impression that it’s been edited to look better than it was — which is an unfortunate impression to give, since it seems to be exactly what he said!

    • emptywheel says:

      Sorry–fair criticism.

      I found the transcript after I did my own on the passage. I put the ellipses in to indicate the emphasis Whitehouse gave them. (I considered putting in periods after each word). I’ll try to futz with it to make it understandable.

    • freepatriot says:

      I’m thinkin My Muse is poking the gop senators with a stick here

      if ya listen to the complains about the Sotomayor confirmation schedule, you might get the idea that repuglitards are really SLOW readers, cuz they’re bitchin about how much reading they have to do, an how little time they have to do it

      so I’m thinkin Marcy decided to let em know that along with reading thousands of documents per day, and posting several well supported and researched articles about the bush administration reign of terror, she transcribes speeches in her spare time

      or maybe she’s hinting that people should click the link, an donate to hire an assistant

      either way, it works for me …

      (wink)

      • stryder says:

        here’s a Whitehouse quote you can use on your next troll confrontation

        “It is worse when people are misled
        and don’t know the whole truth and so can’t form an informed opinion
        and instead quarrel over irrelevancies and false premises”

        • WarOnWarOff says:

          and instead quarrel over irrelevancies and false premises

          But then, what would FOX do?

        • Petrocelli says:

          That was a brilliant quote ! Whitehouse’s speech seemed more like the opening statement of the Prosecution.

  11. plunger says:

    At the heart of all these falsehoods lies a particular and specific problem: The “declassifiers” in the U.S. Government are all in the executive branch. No Senator can declassify, and the procedure for the Senate as an institution to declassify something is so cumbersome that it has never been used. Certain executive branch officials, on the other hand, are at liberty to divulge classified information. When it comes out of their mouth, it is declassified because they are declassified. Its very utterance by those requisite officials is a declassification. What an institutional advantage. The executive branch can use, and has used, that one-sided advantage to spread assertions that either aren’t true at all or may be technically true but only on a strained, narrow interpretation that is omitted, leaving a false impression, or that sometimes simply supports one side of an argument that has two sides–but the other side is one they don’t want to face
    up to and don’t declassify.

    Behold the Valerie Plame example – a flashback from my own archives:

    Actually, McClellan Acknowledged that the information was released SPECIFICALLY TO REFUTE THE DEMOCRATS CLAIMS that the administration had cherry picked intelligence information to lead us into war.

    McClellans use of the term “Public Good” must only have been for the good of Republicans, as no Democrats were helped by the LEAKING OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION WHICH SERIOUSLY DAMAGED INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES ON THE MOST RELEVANT SUBJECT (MIDDLE EAST WMD) DURING WAR TIME IN THE MIDDLE EAST…and he even CHERRYPICKED the information that was leaked, leaving the balance of the report which refuted the information that was leaked, CLASSIFIED.

    McClellan ADMITS that this was done for POLITICAL REASONS, and then claims that if it’s good for the republican Party, it’s good for the ENTIRE PUBLIC, half of whom did not vote Republican.

    “Post-Leak Declassification?”

    When King George begins to form a thought in his mind about the prospect of declassifying information, even if during sex or while sleeping, the Classified Information in question begins to change status. The more he thinks about it, the less Classified the information becomes.

    The instant the thought takes form in his mind and manifests itself to the world in words, even if it occurs while he’s alone, say, taking a dump or shaving in the morning, at the very moment that he hears himself say the words: “I think I’ll declassify that” – the Classified Information comes flying back into the universe as “Officially Declassified.”

    The King’s minions then run frantically to go through the quaint details of preparing the burdensome documentation necessary to create a good cover story for the media about how and when the information changed form, but really it’s just window dressing.

    “It’s good to be King…it’s good to be an anus!”

  12. Mary says:

    And for KSM and Nashiri, since they started out the gate with torture, there’s not much of a baseline for what you could or couldn’t have gotten from torture. That’s probably where Cheney is trying to claim some cover – that they got “something” out of KSM (who should have been a trove) and since all we did was torture him, what they got they got through torture. Boofreakinyah.

    • bmaz says:

      Yeah, well, there is that too. Mary, we simply have to stop harshing on Obama; you know he is just trying to move forward!

      • fatster says:

        Right. Just follow the U-turns.

        Pre-presidential 2008 election: “Yes we can.”

        Post-presidential 2008 election: “No we can’t.”

    • plunger says:

      All of the Cheney-directed torture was specifically to induce those who were being subjected to it, to lie. Cheney knew all of the facts, and knew there was absolutely no connection between Iraq and Bin Laden or Saddam and 9/11. He wasn’t torturing them to get them to admit what they knew (as he knew better), he was torturing them to invent false facts.

      The entire effort – all of it – was Cheney ordering people tortured for the sole purpose of scaring the shit out of them until they finally blurt out the lie that Cheney sought to hear from their lips, on video tape, as the threshold “intelligence” required to convince the media and the public of the noble lie.

      Everyone in DC knows this to be true.

      • Badwater says:

        There was another purpose. Torturing people, even indirectly, made the Decider giggle the same way blowing up frogs did when he was a boy.

        • plunger says:

          Actually, I think it was far more fulfilling than that…

          I picture Jeff Gannon as the faux torturer with Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and GW all tied up in a pile in Big Dick’s office, watching live streaming torture on the big screen while Gannon/Guckert submits them to his own particular form of “abuse.”

          “Bark like a dog for me, Karl!”

  13. perris says:

    Whitehouse says that no further actionable intelligence was gained through the torture used on Abu Zubaydah after he was turned over to the CIA contractors for good

    I haven’t watched the speech yet, am letting it load so I can watch it without being interrupted

    in any event, I think people like Whitehouse, feingold, Obama need to say the obvious, in addition to pointing out that we get better information with other techniques they MUST point out the FACT that we CREATE additional terrorist threats when we have policies embracing torture, we create new enemies and new issues

    they need to point out, even if there were a case that information was gained, there are definitely cases where issues are created because of those depraved practices

    • plunger says:

      Using Occams Razor – if they know that torturing Muslims serves to create more terrorists, then it must be their goal to create more terrorists. It must serve their purpose or they wouldn’t do it.

      • perris says:

        Using Occams Razor – if they know that torturing Muslims serves to create more terrorists, then it must be their goal to create more terrorists. It must serve their purpose or they wouldn’t do it.

        clearly correct, the only purpose of engaging in these programs is because you want unrest, you want insurgency, you want everyone to fear your presence, you want everyone to opose your presence

        I remember stories of wwll soldiers who willingly surrendered because they knew there would be no physical repercussins, some of them became sympathetic to our cause our people, our principles and our way of life

        that is deliberately squandered when you embrace torture, the key word there is “deliberate”

    • emptywheel says:

      On video? His staffers are working on it. It may also be availeble at CSPAN2–he gave it at about 7:30 last night, so it’d be a late day thing for the channel if it was still looking at the Senate.

      • dmvdc says:

        Thanks. I’ve been trying to look through C-Span’s website, which isn’t exactly the best organized site in the world. Hopefully’ll find something.

        For the record, I <3 Senator Whitehouse. And not just because his name is Senator Whitehouse. :D

  14. freepatriot says:

    occam’s razor only applies to SIMPLE answers

    when you’re dealing with george bush, ya gotta look for the STUPIDEST answer

    they’re completely different

  15. JimWhite says:

    the story-line about waterboarding that we have been sold, is false in every one of its dimensions

    Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.

    I’m thinkin’ this would make a good T-shirt for June 26, International Day Against Torture.

  16. dmvdc says:

    Damn.

    Senator Whitehouse’s speech just utterly demolishes the apologists’ case. I reiterate, I <3 this dude. Man-crush much.

  17. tjbs says:

    My ass will be in front of the White House tomorrow.

    I’ll be the guy with the scalpel cutting penis worded poster.

    • Mary says:

      Good for you.

      Sometimes I wonder if something like KSM’s children could be segregated out as an issue and just hammered for one or two days by all kinds of different groups, blogs and protestors and it might get some kind of national attention. Even from pretty die hard Republicans in KY and IN, I never seem to haveanyone who isn’t ooged out over disappearing children, although several won’t believe it happened bc, “I would have heard that on the news”

  18. Rayne says:

    Dammit, I cried again. My 11-year-old just listened to Sen. Whitehouse’s speech with me, and he said, “Wow, I can understand that, we didn’t even torture people like this during the American Revolution, even though things had been really bad like they were at Valley Forge.”

    How absolutely ridiculously criminal is this situation, that even a grade-school boy understands this is wrong and not a part of our American values?

    Dammit, dammit, dammit.

      • Rayne says:

        I only wish the rest of us were smart enough not to give the keys to the nuclear arsenal to old men who aren’t as bright as a school boy, though.

        Really, I wish I could feel proud about the head on the boy’s shoulders, instead of disgusted to the point of nausea by the horrors of the last eight years and the miserable wretches who delivered them to us.

        Ugh. Watching ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ this morning before watching Whitehouse’s speech this afternoon was probably toxic overload for the day. Guess I better plan to take the boy to get an ice cream after his grade school graduation tonight, to purge this disgust.

        There’s nothing quite like explaining to your son he is watching history being made as a senator reads into Congressional record that the former vice president and the Bush administration lied to us, but we the people cannot see this for ourselves because they obstructed our view.

        • bmaz says:

          Hey, at least he isn’t already asking for a new Volt like my soon to be 14 year old daughter is. So, you got that going for you!

          • Rayne says:

            Oh yeah, I’ve got that going for me, he’s not asking for a Volt.

            No, he’s already telling me he wants a Porsche. He’ll settle for a Mustang, he says.

            Jeebus. At least the 15-year-old is willing to settle for my decrepit Honda CR-V.

  19. Mary says:

    OT but sideways related

    Newsweek has a story up, in part from it’s Russian affiliate/sub, about Russian police torture.

    Newsweek dubs the piece, “In Russia, A Different Sort Of Torture Debate” but as best I can tell, the main thing that makes it “different” is that there is no reference to enhanced interrogation techniaques – just “torture.”

    While forcible kidnapping, stripping, hooding, anal assault, drugging, disappearing combined with half decade or longer isolation detention including beatings, head smasshings, waterboarding, hypothermia, stress positions and sleep deprivation lasting day after day after day are “enhanced interrogation techniques” here is something that Newsweek and the Russian justice system seems to call torture:

    Four years ago, the entire criminal-investigation division of the Krasnoyarsk District Police Department in Samara found itself on trial. The officers had tried to torture detainees into confessing to a robbery of nonferrous metal and then demanded a bribe of 90,000 rubles [$2,900] not to file charges. “I was forced to stand immobile and spread-eagled for an hour and a half in the anteroom of the district department,” recalls Ivan Panfilov, one of the victims. “When they walked by, the police officers would ask, ‘want another swig of beer?’—and then hit me in the kidneys.” The police officers were convicted. The longest sentences were meted out to the head of the division, his deputy and an especially zealous detective—eight years each.

    emph added

    Bad bad Putin for not having a Leon Panetsky show up with a letter promising no investigations or prosecutive from Ericsky Holder. He just can’t lead like Obama, eh?

  20. perris says:

    At the heart of all these falsehoods lies a particular and specific problem: The “declassifiers” in the U.S. Government are all in the executive branch. No Senator can declassify, and the procedure for the Senate as an institution to declassify something is so cumbersome that it has never been used. Certain executive branch officials, on the other hand, are at liberty to divulge classified information. When it comes out of their mouth, it is declassified because they are declassified. Its very utterance by those requisite officials is a declassification. What an institutional advantage. The executive branch can use, and has used, that one-sided advantage to spread assertions that either aren’t true at all or may be technically true but only on a strained, narrow interpretation that is omitted, leaving a false impression, or that sometimes simply supports one side of an argument that has two sides–but the other side is one they don’t want to face
    up to and don’t declassify.

    I have a problem with his supposition though, the fact that this is what has happened does not make it legal

    I refuse to allow that cheney was allowed the ability to declassify at will

    I grant he did declassify at will and I even grant there is a possibility the president thought he authorised that declassification

    but even if the president authorised cheney for insta declassification that does not mean he has that authority, it simply means he did it and did not face any challenge against that authority

    I will maintain forever that even if the president authorised cheney an ability to insta declassify at will, that does not mean cheney had that ability anyway

    for instance

    if congress gives me a top secret clearance, that does NOT mean I can proxy that clearance to anyone I want

    and for those same reasons, neither can the president

    ianal

    • Rayne says:

      The question I don’t think we have yet discussed — and I don’t think Whitehouse has yet really approached, although he’s flirting with it — is the legality of classifying content for the purposes of obstructing justice.

      If it can be proven that content was classified for this purpose, is it legal? Are we bound to observe the classification? If the president obstructs justice (or delegates the ability to do so to his vice-president), is it legal?

      And would this current president declassify enough content to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the previous administration misused executive privilege in the course of criminal acts?

      • 1boringoldman says:

        That is a central point, and may speak to the essential “sin” of the Bush White House – the political misuse of secrecy. Bill Leonard, the recently retired Director of the Information Security Oversight Office was candid in a recent interview about the abuses of classification in the Bush administration.

  21. behindthefall says:

    I know I’m repeating myself, and I’m ‘way too late — but — Whitehouse for the White House.

    • MarkH says:

      No way. We need him to be a senator. His passion for justice and fair play are sorely needed and his temperment isn’t quite right for the presidency.

      I like it when he shows his emotion, but I love it more when he becomes the prosecutor and has his logic and facts nailed down. Then he’s devastating!

      It’s a strange thing…who is fit to be the top leader. In Ukraine they might have a new female leader soon. In Israel they elected a female (Livni), but here in America we picked not Hillary, but Barack. The qualities we want/need are hard to pin down. In a given time you might need a steady hand and cool head or a fiery fighter. It’s hard to know until you see the right person. That’s one reason I liked the scene(s) in the West Wing t.v. show where Josh goes to bring a friend onto the campaign and he just says “He’s the one.” and that’s it. Unfortunately there are times when none of the candidates seems to have it. The UK is a bit like that now. Brown is awkward and Cameron is lackluster. We’re lucky here in America to have Obama in this hour of need.

  22. Nell says:

    Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs … How can we raise a ruckus and demand it be moved out of committee for a floor debate and vote?

    Lieberman’s the chair. Enough said.

    What brilliant strategery to keep him in the caucus. He’s being so helpful, teaming up with Lindsey Graham on the photos to front for this ever-more-Bushian executive office.

    • acquarius74 says:

      Thank you, Nell. I had not taken the next step to search out the Senate Homeland….committee. As you say, “Lieberman, enough said”. Is that Harry Reed’s scheming to shut up Sen. Whitehouse and Feingold?

      How in the world do Whitehouse and Feingold keep their composure when they have to deal with such weasels as Reed?

      Very discouraging; Lieberman will never let it out of committee.

  23. Robt says:

    Ok, Now that it is verified what most rational Americans realized some time ago.

    Where does this confirmed iota of torture that has been solidified throughout history that it does not realistically provide intelligable intel.

    Where does this GO ?

  24. johnhkennedy says:

    Since Torture is So Sickening and everyone with a functioning brain is aware that Bush, Cheney and appointee Lawyers did in fact
    Violate our Federal Anti-Torture Laws

    Why haven’t our Congressional Democrats
    pushed President Obama and AG Holder to

    Appoint a Special Prosecutor for Torture Crimes
    and create an investigatory
    Congressional Commission?

    Are they Soft On Crimes
    committed by their
    fellow Politicians?

    If you do nothing else for your Country today,

    SIGN THE PETITION To Prosecute Them For Torture

    http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

    Over 250,000 have signed
    Join them and call yourself a Patriot

    .

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