Posts

Abu Zubaydah: Waterboarded 83 Times for 10 Pieces of Intelligence

/120 Comments/in /by

The torture apologists are out in force, insisting that torture produces useful information. Cheney’s even promising to release information from CIA cataloging all the useful information that came from torture.

But we don’t have to wait for Cheney to make good on his promise. We already have a way to assess how much intelligence we got directly from torturing Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: the 9/11 Report. After all, the 9/11 Report integrates a huge amount of information from interrogation reports, and cites them all meticulously. As early as June 6, 2003, the 9/11 Commission asked for, "“all TDs and other reports of intelligence information obtained from interrogations” of forty named individuals, including Abu Zubaydah and (apparently) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and they used what they got in return to write their report. So if there was useful information in those reports, they presumably got it.

Here was a bipartisan group–including many staffers and members with extensive national security backgrounds–attempting to learn everything it could about al Qaeda, poring through interrogation reports produced as a result of torture, tracking inconsistencies in the intelligence, corroborating that intelligence where possible with documents and other testimony, and ultimately selecting what it felt was useful in telling the story of al Qaeda. While certainly not a perfect assessment of what was useful (I’ll explain why below), it provides one of the best unbiased ways to measure how useful this intelligence was.

And in the case of Abu Zubaydah, such an assessment is horrifying. 

In the entire 9/11 Report, just ten pieces of information are sourced to Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation reports.

Ten.

And there are several other damning details that come from this analysis. One of the ten pieces of intelligence that appears in the 9/11 Report–regarding Abu Zubaydah’s role running terrorist training camps–came from July 10, 2002, before the CIA first received oral authorization to use torture. Thus, it either came from persuasive, rather than coercive, techniques. Or it came from treatment that had not been legally approved.

In addition, the 9/11 Report doesn’t cite interrogation reports addressing [the lack of] ties between Iraq and al Qaeda directly; it cites a 2003 memo from Doug Feith that in turn cites 2003 interrogations of AZ and KSM. It’s unclear whether AZ’s and KSM’s earlier denials of links between al Qaeda and Iraq simply don’t show up in the earlier interrogation reports, or whether such information was deemed not credible in earlier reports. But the absence of such references, when we know interrogators were pushed to ask about them, raises questions about the integrity of the interrogation reports.

Of the ten pieces of information that appear in the Report, just one comes from the month when AZ was under most intensive interrogation. As it pertains to Rahim al-Nashiri, who had not yet been captured, it might be said to have an influence on his capture. Though appears to be background on who he was rather than details about how to find him. 

Read more →

Share this entry

Did Cheney Order Up Abu Zubaydah’s 83rd Waterboarding?

/93 Comments/in /by

McClatchy reports that one of the reasons Khalid Sheikh Mohammed got waterboarded 183 times and Abu Zubaydah got waterboarded 83 times is that Cheney and Rumsfeld refused to believe they had no information on ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq. (h/t Hmmm)

The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

[snip]

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that intelligence agencies and interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

This suggests that when Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded an additional time–perhaps his 83rd–against the judgment of the interrogators working with him directly, the "elements with CIA Headquarters" that ordered up the additional torture were being pushed by Cheney and Rummy (a suggestion JimWhite made here).

This is not to say that the interrogation program has worked perfectly. According to the IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have the information. See IG report at 83-85. On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in what might be deemed in retrospect to have been the unnecessary use of enhanced techniques. On that occasion, although the on-scene interrogation team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements with CIA Headquarters still believed he was withholding information. [Redaction of more than one full line] See id, at 84. At the direction of CIA Headquarters interrogators, therefore used the waterboard one more time on Zubaydah. [Redacted] See id, at 84-85. [my emphasis]

I’ll have more to say on the intelligence they got from Abu Zubaydah in a later post. But if Cheney can be tied–presumably through Tenet–to waterboarding sessions that even the torturers Read more →

Share this entry

Cheney Plans to Continue to Manufacture Intelligence

/55 Comments/in /by

By now you’ve heard Cheney’s claim that he asked the CIA to declassify all the great intelligence we got from waterboarding and Greg Sargent’s earlier report that Cheney hadn’t asked the CIA directly for those documents.

Greg Sargent has an update that explains how the former Fourth Branch intends to get them, now that he’s a withering vine.

 That whole question of whether Dick Cheney asked the CIA to declassify and release intelligence supposedly proving that the torture worked? Turns out Cheney made the request through the National Archives, a spokesperson for the archives confirms.

That means that we may, in fact, see the documents that Cheney claims will demonstrate that the Bush torture program collected a whole bunch of useful intelligence, though it may take awhile.

National Archives spokesperson Susan Cooper confirms that Cheney did submit a request for unspecified documents on March 31st. Cooper said that the National Archives had asked the relevant agency — she wouldn’t say which one, but there’s little reason to doubt that it’s the CIA — for the relevant documents this morning.

Cooper confirmed that the docs Cheney asked for were in fact classified. Keep in mind we have no way of knowing what Cheney actually asked for or whether they really say what Cheney claims. It’s now up to the CIA to make the determination whether to declassify the docs Cheney wants. So this could get very, very interesting in various ways.

Remember why Cheney and the National Archives have been in the news of late–the report that, contrary to plan, Cheney decided to keep all his materials at the Archives rather than send them to Dallas to put in Bush’s Library. He needs the materials close, you see, so he can access them for his memoirs.

Now, the date of Cheney’s request for CIA documents–March 31, well before it was clear whether the OLC memos would be declassified–suggests Cheney’s request has everything to do with his memoirs and nothing to do with the release of the OLC memos.

So Cheney’s call to declassify these documents has nothing to do with a real debate about the torture. It is Cheney’s attempt to use those documents to continue creating a myth that his torture did anything to keep this country safe.

Share this entry

The Dead-Enders Do Dallas

/71 Comments/in /by

There are two notable details about this article on the reunion of the Bush dead-enders in Dallas to plan W’s legacy.

Dick Doesn’t Do Dallas

The first is the absence Peter Baker does note; apparently, Dick’s not doing Dallas.

Not coming to next week’s session is former Vice President Dick Cheney, who in the final days of the administration argued with Mr. Bush about his failure to pardon Mr. Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was convicted of perjury and other counts for his role in the leak of Valerie Wilson’s employment with the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Cheney later went on television to air his grievances with Mr. Bush, while also accusing Mr. Obama of endangering the country.

That is an approach Mr. Bush has rejected, telling aides that for now he is intent on giving his successor room to govern without criticism from him. Besides, he says, he is too busy in his own new life.

While I’m all in favor of flogging the "Cheney in a huff over Scooter" story (maybe it’ll spark some interest in why Cheney feels so strongly?), Cheney’s absence is more interesting, IMO, given his apparently recent decision to keep his records–and the loot he received as gifts while serving as the Fourth Branch–in the National Archives in DC rather than in the Bush Library.

Last fall, an architect for Bush’s library indicated that Cheney’s records and artifacts would be coming soon, but that apparently was a mix-up. Cheney wants them to remain in Washington as he writes his memoirs.

[snip]

During talks last year, the National Archives suggested that Cheney’s artifacts – like a set of gold Murano glass candlesticks and bowls from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – be sent to the Bush library. That way they could be displayed with Bush’s items, including the 9 mm pistol that Saddam Hussein held when captured by American soldiers in Iraq.

"The VP preferred to have the VP artifacts remain with the records," said Sharon Fawcett, assistant archivist for presidential libraries.

Plans for the Bush library at SMU include space for new collections, including Cheney’s archives. His official and personal records would need an estimated 6,000 cubic feet, according to the National Archives.

Last fall, e-mails between Bush architects and the archives, which ensures that the library meets federal standards, signaled that Cheney’s records would be coming to Dallas.

Read more →

Share this entry

Cheney’s Stay Behind

/76 Comments/in , /by

By now, you’ve heard Sy Hersh’s explanation for why he hasn’t yet gotten the flood of revelations about the Bush Administration he had expected.

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence. [my emphasis]

This is not remotely surprising. We discussed the likelihood this was happening just days after Obama took over, as dead-enders tried to spike Obama’s promise to withdraw from Iraq. And there has been a ton of reporting on the burrowing of loyal appointees that Cheney accomplished before leaving.

But Hersh’s report that such stay behind includes NSA is of particular concern.

Not only does this raise concerns about the warrantless wiretap program and its use (particularly given reports that the NSA was segregating contacts with journalists, like Hersh, who has lots of contacts in the Middle East). But it raises concerns about whether or not Cheney sustains the practice–publicized during the John Bolton confirmation hearings–of getting the US person end of NSA intercepts (I have no idea whether Cheney would do this through dead-enders, whether he’s getting that much more directly, or whether he’s getting help from Israelis involved in our wiretap programs). A number of people suspected that Bolton had used NSA intercepts to undermine North Korean diplomacy (among other things). Such a practice obviously fits Cheney’s MO.

Yet more reason we need to reassess our use of electronic wiretapping  within the US.

Share this entry

John Hannah: Unitary Executives Can Assassinate Enemy Leaders

/39 Comments/in /by

In his appearance tonight on Wolf Blitzer, Sy Hersh said the same thing I said about his "revelation" that JSOC had assassination squads that bypassed normal reporting channels–Hersh pointed out that he had reported all that previously, last July. The biggest news in that part of his appearance is that Hersh revealed the number of countries–twelve–in which JSOC could work its assassination teams.

After Hersh appeared, Wolf had John Hannah, Cheney’s replacement Scooter and by far the biggest hack witness at the Libby trial, to try to rebut Hersh’s reporting.

Though Hannah didn’t really do that.

Instead, he dismissed Hersh’s concerns about the legality of the operations by insisting that the Chairs of the Intelligence and Armed Services committees, and Congressional leadership, could learn about these operations. Aside from the fact that Hannah admitted he didn’t actually know that to be true, he’s working on the assumption that they’ll come and ask about something that Hannah admits is a very close hold. 

Wolf: And when he says this JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command has this authority that they don’t even tell Congress about?

Hannah: It is extremely hard for me to believe, I, I, don’t know exactly what the consultations are with the Congress but it’s hard for me to believe that those committee chairmen and the leadership on the Hill involved in intelligence and armed services, if they want to know about these operations, cannot get this information from the Defense Department.

Wolf: And so this would be, from your perspective–and you worked for the Bush Administration for many years–it would be totally constitutional, totally legal to go out, find these guys, and to whack them. 

Hannah: There’s no question, in a theater of war, when we are at war–and there’s no doubt, we are still at war against Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. and on that Pakistani border–that our troops have the authority to go out after and capture and kill the enemy, including the leadership of the enemy. 

Ultimately, though, Hannah resorts to the Cheneyesque justification for all abuses of power, the AUMF, arguing that troops "in the theater of war" can capture and kill the enemy. 

Of course, we’ve already seen that, until last November at least, the Bush Administration considered the US to be in the theater of war.  And Hannah pretends these assassinations are only going on in Iraq (if you’re Nuri al-Maliki or Read more →

Share this entry

Darrell Issa Fears Michelle’s Triceps, But Not Dick’s Guns

/38 Comments/in /by

I’m honestly not surprised that Darrell Issa is so insecure in the face of Michelle Obama’s buff triceps that he is now trying to regulate her.

Under Issa’s amendment, any government policy group that Mrs. Obama or another first spouse regularly participates in would be subject to a law requiring meetings to be announced in advance and, in most instances, public.

At the March 10 markup, Issa’s proposal triggered more than 35 minutes of impassioned debate. I’ve linked video of the exchange below, but Democrats clearly seemed to be recoiling at what some viewed as an effort to target Mrs. Obama.

[snip]

“We are trying actually to protect the historic role of the first lady,” Issa insisted, repeatedly invoking the “transparency” mantra of the Obama administration. “I believe this is open government at its finest.”

[snip]

“We should have a set of rules that future presidents, vice presidents, first ladies and spouses of vice presidents, understand what their do’s and don’t’s are. Can they have an open meeting? Can they have a closed meeting?” Issa said. “Perhaps we need to get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for an opinion.”

(Nor am I surprised that the Politico has titled this article as, "GOP transparency push seen as attack on Michelle O.")

But I want to know where the fuck Darrell Issa was when we were trying to protect "the historic role of the Vice President" for the last eight years?!?!? I mean, Issa had no problem with Mr. Fourth Branch conducting major policy work in hiding. But apparently he has decided now is the time to regulate Veeps and First Ladies. 

Share this entry

Cheney’s Assassination Squads and Iran-Contra and Findings

/91 Comments/in , /by

Sy Hersh’s recent discussion at University of Minnesota included a number of tidbits, two of which are pertinent to this post. Hersh explained that the Joint Special Operations Command was doing operations that directly reported to Cheney, up to and including assassination. And Hersh revealed that Cheney had convened a meeting not long after 9/11 where he and other alumni of Iran-Contra brainstormed how to avoid the legal problems they had with Iran-Contra. A recent Congressional Research Service article on covert ops and presidential findings helps to show how these two revelations relate to each other.

The Assassination Squads Were Revealed Because CIA Demanded a Finding

While the assassination revelation got all the press, much of what Hersh said was not new. Hersh had described much of what was going on in a July 2008 article describing operational tensions between JSOC and CIA surrounding a presidential finding authorizing covert ops in connection with Iran’s alleged nukes program. The Gang of Eight had reviewed (to the extent they do) the finding, but the JSOC went beyond the scope of that finding.

United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year [2007]. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said. [my emphasis]

There were two ways in which the JSOC operations went beyond the finding: they involved offensive lethal action that Cheney argued was authorized under the AUMF (which is where you get to assassination squads, as I pointed out when the article first came out).

Senior Democrats in Congress told me that they had concerns about the possibility that their understanding of what the new operations entail differs from the White House’s. Read more →

Share this entry

AG “Paunch” Sulzberger Fellates Dick

/37 Comments/in /by

Over at County Fair, Jamison Foser takes the NYT to task for regurgitating Cheney’s appearance on CNN yesterday, almost verbatim:

Dick Cheney isn’t Vice President any more, but the New York Times is still treating his comments as so newsworthy they must be presented without rebuttal. The Times devotes 558 words to Cheney’s appearance on CNN yesterday – 501 of which are devoted to simply quoting or paraphrasing Cheney. The 57 words that weren’t devoted to amplifying Cheney’s arguments didn’t include even a word of rebuttal:

[snip]

That’s it — those are the only words in the article that were spent on anything other than simply telling readers what Cheney said.  There was no effort to present the other side, or give readers any indication of whether what Cheney said was true, or misleading, or incomplete.

 But Jamison ignores one critical detail (though NY Magazine does not)–the byline:

By A. G. SULZBERGER

The son of Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr, AG Sulzberger, is the author of this masterpiece of hard-hitting journalism. 

So the son of the NYT’s publisher was tasked to write a ridiculously solicitous article regurgitating the former Vice President’s propaganda for daddy’s paper.

That’s troubling for a number of reasons. Paunch’s daddy (I’m taking liberties with the family’s naming conventions), after all, was the guy who delayed a story reporting Cheney’s illegal wiretap program for over a year–up until the time James Risen threatened to scoop the NYT with his book. And, at precisely the same time Pinch Sulzberger was bowing to Cheney’s request not to expose the illegal wiretap program, Sulzberger was actively shielding Scooter Libby’s perjury in the name of reporter privilege. From October 2004–just before the Presidential election–until late 2005, Daddy Sulzberger was helping Cheney hide two incidences of egregious law-breaking.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see Paunch taking up the family trade, then, protecting Dick Cheney?

And consider, too, what a departure this is from Paunch’s work on Daddy’s paper thus far. The NY Observer has catalogued Paunch’s extensive work in the (now) four weeks he has worked at the paper–articles on snow and a purim party thrown by one of John Stewart’s writers. And from that, he has graduated so quickly to covering the former Vice President?

It’s hard to imagine this assignment was anything other than an attempt, on Daddy’s part, to make sure Cheney’s appearance yesterday got favorable coverage. Like I said, the Sulzberger trade, protecting Dick.

So now Read more →

Share this entry

Dear W,

/52 Comments/in /by

I’m still angry that you did not pardon Scooter. "I don’t think was appropriate," for you to have ordered Libby–on the morning of June 9, 2003, to respond to Joe Wilson’s assertions about our case for war against Iraq, and to have told me it was okay to "get the whole story out," just before Scooter tried to launder this through Judy Miller on July 8, 2003 and then Novak on July 9, 2003, only to let him take the fall for you when Patrick Fitzgerald started investigating who leaked Valerie Wilson’s name.

You asked Scooter to "stick his neck in the meat-grinder" to rebut Joe Wilson’s criticisms, and now you have "in effect left Scooter hanging in the wind" for something you ordered.

Let this be a warning to you. I consider this fair game [oh wait–that’s Rove’s word] for my memoir, which I’m currently shopping.

Love,

Dick

Share this entry