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The Scope of the (Hypothetical) Torture Investigation

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It was just last night that Newsweek floated the notion of a torture investigation, and we’re already into a hot debate about the scope of any (thus far still hypothetical) investigation. Here are the posts you should read:

  • Tim F @BalloonJuice arguing that an investigation of just the torturers who exceeded guidelines would be worse than no investigation
  • Spencer@Attackerman arguing that focusing on the CIA–rather than the decision-makers–would be wrong
  • Glenn@Salon cataloging the different stories about scope–and arguing that if the investigation focuses on CIA it’ll be Abu Ghraib redux

Glenn and Spencer both point to Scott Horton–reporting that there is unlikely to be such a limit on scope–in an article I’ll look at in some detail below.

My take–one derived from some weeds–is that if Holder approves an investigation, it’ll be unlikely to just take on low-level CIA interrogators.

First, consider who we’re talking about. We’re not, actually, talking about low level CIA interrogators. We’re talking about contractors. James Mitchell, to be exact. And if James Mitchell is not the psychologist/interrogator who acknowledged he had exceeded the limits set by John Yoo’s Bybee Memo, but justified it by saying he had exceeded those limits (by using way more water, for longer time, and pressing on the detainee’s gut) because those things make the simulated drowning technique "for real–and … more poignant and convincing," then it’s almost certainly someone who works for James Mitchell and probably used to work for the DOD entity that administers SERE.

I, frankly, have no problem with prosecuting Mr. Poignant the sadist torturer and, given his acknowledgment that he exceeded Yoo’s guidelines, that’s probably where an investigation would start.

Now, as I said, Mr. Poignant is either James Mitchell or someone associated with him–the "psychologist/interrogator" strongly suggests this person is a contractor, not a CIA employee.

That means that going after Mr. Poignant gets you, in either one step or two, to the contractors who worked from the start to profit off torture.

And that gets you, almost immediately, to the process that the torture architects used to authorize their torture. That’s because there is a paper trail showing that the torture architects knew and intended the torture to exceed even Yoo’s memo. This is a document that both Jim Haynes and John Rizzo had and–between the two of them–gave to John Yoo during the drafting process for the Bybee Memo as the basis for his description of waterboarding.

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You Think Alberto Gonzales Knows There’s Not a “Department of Law”?

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Let’s hope so, because Texas Tech just hired Gonzales to teach what appears to be a PoliSci course. (h/t Wonkette)

Alberto Gonzales, who resigned as the Bush administration’s embattled attorney general nearly two years ago, has lined up a fall-semester teaching spot at Texas Tech University, the university confirmed today.

Gonzales, who was Gov. George W. Bush’s lawyer and Texas secretary of state before joining Bush in Washington, will be working in the university’s political science department, teaching a “special topics” course on contemporary issues in the executive branch, according to Dora Rodriguez, a senior business assistant in the department.

Maybe Sarah Palin can use her soon-to-be-abundant free time and go learn how the guy running the Department of Law can protect the President from any legal consequences for his actions.

One important detail: note that Texas Tech is not employing AGAG to teach law. I guess in this day and age, even Texas schools want to avoid having John Yoo problems.

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John Rizzo Pre-Empts the OPR Report

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As we speak, the CIA–including, by all appearances, John Rizzo–is reviewing the Office of Professional Responsibility’s report on OLC’s torture memos.

As if on cue, the LAT has a story profiling him. (Also, as if on cue, I take up Spencer’s bait.)

Given its scope, the OPR report must focus on two different periods: the months leading up to the August 2002 OLC memos, and the months leading up to the May 2005 OLC memos (as well as, probably, the time leading up to the March 2003 OLC memo, but that was a DOD memo, not a CIA one).

Those are, not surprisingly, the two years, at least, that appear in this story. We are told–with no sourcing–that Rizzo never dealt with legal questions about torture before the capture of Abu Zubaydah.

Rizzo had never dealt with legal questions about interrogation until officials from the agency’s Counterterrorism Center approached him in 2002 with a list of techniques they wanted to employ to get a suspected Al Qaeda captive, Abu Zubaydah, to talk. Among them was waterboarding, in which a prisoner is strapped to a plank and doused to make him feel he is drowning.

This would suggest the War Council–David Addington, Jim Haynes, John Yoo, and Rizzo–weren’t already talking about torture in December 2001, when Mitchell and Jessen first started developing their torture program. It would also suggest that Rizzo never weighed in on the treatment of Ibn Sheikh al-Libi and others rendered to torture. It would repeat the same myth the Cheney apologists like to tell–that these ideas bubbled up from CTC, rather than were imposed from the top.

It’s an interesting story. If true, then I wonder why it’s taking CIA so long to review that OPR report?

And then there are the 2005 dates. As Spencer describes, at some point in 2005 Rizzo personally observed the Salt Pit.

Rizzo kept close watch on the interrogation program. Once, during a 2005 trip by senior CIA executives to Kabul, Afghanistan, Rizzo disappeared from the crowd after dinner with Afghan intelligence officials.

It wasn’t until the next day, one participant remembered, that Rizzo revealed he had arranged a midnight trip to the Salt Pit, a secret CIA prison on the outskirts of the city, to see detention operations up close.

A CIA detainee had died at the site in 2002. But Rizzo came away newly assured that the operation was well-run, former officials said.

The story would have you believe that Rizzo thought, in 2005, that the torture we were conducting at the Salt Pit was all hunky dory. Read more →

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CIA Now Reviewing OPR Report on Yoo, Bybee, and Bradbury

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Sheldon Whitehouse revealed raised during today’s Department of Justice oversight hearing that the CIA is now reviewing the results of the Office of Professional Responsibility report on John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and Steven Bradbury’s role in authorizing torture.

Whitehouse: CIA was given a opportunity for substantive comment and classification review. Is it now the CIA that is holding up the release of the report?

Eric Holder claimed that the CIA’s review was not holding up the report. But when asked whether or not DOJ was ensuring that those at CIA reviewing the document had clean hands on torture, Holder twice did not answer, and ultimately said he wasn’t worried whether those involved in torture get to make substantive comment on the OPR report.

Whitehouse: Role of CIA in substantive comment and in classification review, interesting conflicts of interest. What assurances from CIA that those who seek to influence OPR report through substantive comment or those who have effect of delaying report are not complicit or involved in underlying conduct. Have you got a clean scrub of those at CIA who are involved in program?

Holder: As complete a report as we can. Declassify as much as we can. Full feeling of what it is that OLC lawyers dealt with. Pushing to declassify as much as we can. 

Whitehouse: Doesnt’ address question of whatever assurances from CIA that in discharge of review role the people involved in that had clean hands WRT this program and are giving untainted advice.

Holder: We haven’t gotten anything yet. This may not be an issue at all.  Will interact with Panetta. Want to have as much declassified as possible.

Whitehouse: And on question of substantive comments? Is it not important that CIA should be doing so in manner that keeps agencies hands clean.

Holder: I’m actually less worried about substantive comments.

Whitehouse: Would they be likely to look at substantive comments differently if CIA had not kept report from people with clean hands.

Holder: Fact-driven. Conclusion that one draws from the facts, Justice Department’s view of facts that we have uncovered.

In other words, no, Holder doesn’t find it problematic that someone like John Rizzo–who remains the Acting General Counsel at CIA and who made apparently false declarations to OLC in 2002 when it first approved torture–gets a chance to review the OPR report.

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ACLU’s Latest Lawsuit: Suing to Get the 2002 Convention Against Torture Opinion

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The ACLU sued the CIA and other government agencies today for still more documents relating to torture. They’re basically suing to enforce a FOIA request they submitted last year that amounts to … everything they haven’t already gotten. 

1. "Any indices, tables, or logs that list or otherwise identify legal memoranda produced by the Office of Legal Counsel (‘OLC’) after September 11, 2001, relating to the detention, interrogation, treatment, or prosecution of suspected terrorists, or the transfer of suspected terrorists to foreign countries, including any indices, tables, or logs produced in response to the subpoena issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on October 21, 2008.

2. "All legal memoranda produced by the OLC after September 11, 2001, relating to the detention, interrogation, treatment, or prosecution of suspected terrorists, or the transfer of suspected terrorists to foreign countries.

3. "All records issued after September 11, 2001 by the Defense Department, Justice Department, State Department, or CIA, in which any of those agencies, or personnel at those agencies, sought guidance, advice, or analysis from the White Housel with respect to the detention, interrogation, treatment, or prosecution of suspected terrorists, or the transfer of suspected terrorists to foreign countries.

4. "All records, including directives and memoranda, that were issued after September 11, 2001 by the White House to the Defense Department, Justice Department, State Department, or CIA, or to specific personnel at those agencies, and that relate to the detention, interrogation, treatment, or prosecution of suspected terrorists, or the transfer of suspected terrorists to foreign countries.

But in their press release announcing the suit, the ACLU describes three documents in particular they’re seeking.

  1. Documents between the White House and CIA concerning the use of the CIA’s so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques"
  2. A legal memorandum or letter dated July 22, 2002 from Yoo to Alberto R. Gonzales regarding the applicability of the Convention Against Torture
  3. A 2007 opinion by Bradbury analyzing the legality of the interrogation techniques authorized for use in the CIA program under Common Article 3, the Detainee Treatment Act and the War Crimes Act

Item one would include the discussions about approval for individual techniques (and might catch David Addington chatting up John Rizzo).

Item three is one of the two remaining torture memos we’re missing, where Bradbury tried to authorize things SCOTUS had already ruled were illegal. This is the memo, remember, that justified Bush’s July 2007 Executive Order on torture.

I’m particularly interested in item two, though. I noted yesterday that I think we’re going to learn that the Bush Administration claimed to have exempted CIA from complying with the Convention Against Torture’s prohibition on cruel and inhuman treatment. This opinion–which was mentioned in John Yoo’s 2003 torture memo for DOD–apparently claims to exempt everyone from complying with Article 16 of CAT. 

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Whitehouse: Laying the Groundwork for the Torture Case

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KeithO had Sheldon Whitehouse on this evening to set up his torture hearing tomorrow (10 AM, and yes, I’m liveblogging it). Here’s what Whitehouse said he hopes to accomplish tomorrow.

I hope what America will learn is that the facts that were alleged in the torture memos are very likely not true, the legal theories were contested even by Bush Administration lawyers who weren’t in on the fix, and a little bit about what the consequences are for lawyers who commit professional malfeasance.

I explained how Ali Soufan has (and will) shown that "the facts that were alleged in the torture memos" are not true here:

Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator described in the DOJ IG report on interrogation as the interrogator (whom they call "Thomas") who called CIA’s tactics on AZ, "borderline torture," has an important op-ed in the NYT. He writes,

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. 

I pointed this out myself, in a post on why the debate over whether these techniques were necessary and effective is so heated.

Check out what the second paragraph of the Bybee Memo says:

Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us. We also understand that you do not have any facts in your possession contrary to the facts outlined here, and this opinion is limited to these facts. If these facts were to change, this advice would not necessarily apply. Zubaydah is currently being held by the United States. The interrogation team is certain that he has additional information that he refuses to divulge. Specifically, he is withholding information regarding terrorist networks in the United Stares or in Saudi Arabia and information regarding plans to conduct attacks within the United States or against our interests overseas. Zubaydah has become accustomed to a certain level of treatment and displays no signs of willingness to disclose further information. Moreover, your intelligence indicates that there is currently level of "chatter" equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks. In light of the information you believe Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described as an "increased pressure phase." [my emphasis]

Here’s what Ali Soufan says:

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Read more →

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When Did John Yoo Start the Bybee Memo?

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I’ve been puzzling over two references in John Yoo’s testimony at the House Judiciary Committee’s Assholes Who Torture hearing last summer regarding the timing of the drafting of the August 1, 2002 Bybee Memos.

The legal issues that concern the Subcommittee today–involving the interrogation of alien enemy combatants–first arose about six months after the 9/11 attacks, in which about 3000 of our fellow citizens were killed in surprise terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

This timing makes a lot of sense. It would put the start of the legal considerations regarding torture techniques at around March 2002, which is when Abu Zubaydah was captured.

But then later, he dates the first request for an opinion much earlier–to a few months after 9/11.

We gave substantially the same advice to both agencies. Both matters at the time where highly classified and the pressures of time and circumstances were high–we received the first request a few months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

[Side note–I wonder if he mentions 9/11 every time he gives dates, as in, "I got married approximately 13 years before terrorists killed 3000 people in New York City and Washington D.C. I moved to Chapman University eight years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks? Update–I guess MadDog’s been puzzling on this point too!]

Now, there are a couple of possible explanations for the seeming discrepancy. 

There’s sloppiness–perhaps in the second reference, Yoo was just interpreting "few" expansively so he could remind his audience of 9/11 and the pressure they were under. I don’t really buy this though, because this statement has to have been incredibly heavily vetter by DOJ and his own lawyers (note the prominence of expressions of "good faith" and  "we tried as best we could"). Given the legal scrutiny Yoo is and was under when he gave this statement in a sworn appearance before Congress, I simply don’t believe that Yoo’s lawyers would permit such an inaccuracy.

There’s the possibility, too, that Yoo is thinking of another detainee-related memo. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that Yoo is thinking of one of the still-unreleased memos published in late 2001 and early 2002, including one of the following:

November 20, 2001: John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales, on "War Crimes Act, Hague Convention, Geneva Conventions, federal criminal code, and detainee treatment"

January 11, 2002: John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales, on the Geneva Conventions

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Did Bybee Say No to Waterboarding on July 24, 2002?

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Earlier today, I showed that Jim Haynes personally pushed the SERE people to come up with some materials on waterboarding on July 25, 2002, just one day after OLC had given CIA clearance to use some–but not all–of the techniques they had asked for. The same day Haynes got that information and forward it to OLC (or had John Rizzo do it, depending on whom you ask), OLC approved the use of waterboarding.

I wish I had read this passage from this Charlie Savage story before I wrote that post.

One thing could change that dynamic, however. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating the work of lawyers who signed off on the interrogation policy, and is believed to have obtained archived e-mail messages from the time when the memorandums were being drafted.

If it turned out that the lawyers initially concluded that aspects of the proposed program would be illegal, then reversed that conclusion at the request of policy makers, then prosecutors could make a case that the officials knowingly broke the law.

This is the second time we’ve heard about emails.

Emails.

Hahahahahaha!

Imagine there were emails between–say, Addington–and Yoo, discussing what it would take to get Bybee to sign off on the torture memos? Imagine those emails were dated July 25, 2002, the same day that Haynes was pushing  JPRA to come up with some description of waterboarding that–since we did it to our own Navy men, could get past the bar of legality.

I want these guys to pay for their crimes. But I’d take special pleasure if they somehow didn’t manage to destroy all the emails. 

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Jim Haynes’ Request: A[nother] List of Techniques–Including Waterboarding

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There’s an interesting footnote in the Senate Report on Torture that suggests Jim Haynes personally went fishing for a description of waterboarding so it could be added to techniques approved by OLC.

Footnote 179–describing JPRA (the SERE people) receiving a request for descriptions of SERE techniques from DOD’s Office of General Counsel reads,

Committee staff interview of Lt Col Daniel Baumgertner (August 8, 2007); see also email from Col Moulton to [redacted] (June 30, 2006) ("We [JPRA] initially received a call from OSD General Counscil (sic) requesting information about resistance techniques used against U.S. POWs. I believe this was early in Operation Enduring Freedom. We were requested to provide that information within hours and were authorized by JFCOM to forward it to OSD. … Once we understood what OSD/GC was looking for, we provided a[] list of techniques.")

There are several things about this note. Colonel Randy Moulton, the head of JPRA, presumably in response to a DOD IG request, seems to refer to the December 2001 request from DOD’s General Counsel (since that would have been "early in Operation Eduring Freedom"). He goes on to describe the process by which Jim Haynes’ office asked for a list of techniques, suggesting that JPRA at first didn’t understand what Haynes’ office was looking for. And note the bracket: "a[] list of techniques." That suggests a word beginning with "a" was shortened–the most likely possibility being "another." That suggests that JPRA may have submitted a list of techniques, subsequently learned that Haynes’ office was looking for something else, and then submitted a second set of techniques. 

That’s interesting because there’s a difference of recollection between Richard Shiffrin, then DOD Deputy General Counsel in charge of Intelligence, and Daniel Baumgartner, Chief of Staff for JPRA, that pertains to these requests.

First, the timeline the SASC Report describes surrounding the list of techniques is:

July 25, 2002: Shiffrin requests information  for a "list of exploitation and interrogation techniques" from Baumgartner.

July 25, 2002: Baumgartner writes a memo in response to Shiffrin including lesson plans and describing JPRA’s expertise on exploitation.

July 25, 2002: "Prior to the memo being delivered" to the General Counsel’s office, Shiffrin calls Baumgartner again to ask for additional information, including a list of techniques used by JPRA at SERE school.

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The Torture Memos and the FBI-CIA Dispute

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I wanted to revisit this David Johnston article from September 10, 2006, written shortly after Bush brought the High Value Detainees to Gitmo (the second time, for some of them). At the time, the article served to challenge Bush’s portrayal of a fine-tuned interrogation system and pretty obviously aired the two sides of the FBI-CIA dispute over torture.

But rather than the smooth process depicted by Mr. Bush, interviews with nearly a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials briefed on the process show, the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah was fraught with sharp disputes, debates about the legality and utility of harsh interrogation methods, and a rupture between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the C.I.A. that has yet to heal.

Read now, the article provides a lot of background to details that have been confirmed since the release of the memos–and as such it helps elucidate the information coming from the memos. And, by reading it in conjunction with the torture memos, it shows why the dispute between FBI and CIA has remained so intractable. 

Background Details for the Memos

For example, the article appears to report on something Michael Hayden blurted out the other day (and which Steven Aftergood picked up); the interrogation program started as a covert operation.

For the C.I.A., Mr. Zubaydah was a test case for an evolving new role, conceived after Sept. 11, in which the agency was to act as jailer and interrogator for terrorism suspects.

According to accounts by three former intelligence officials, the C.I.A. understood that the legal foundation for its role had been spelled out in a sweeping classified directive signed by Mr. Bush on Sept. 17, 2001. The directive, known as a memorandum of notification, authorized the C.I.A. for the first time to capture, detain and interrogate terrorism suspects, providing the foundation for what became its secret prison system.

That 2001 directive did not spell out specific guidelines for interrogations, however, and senior C.I.A. officials began in late 2001 and early 2002 to draw up a list of aggressive interrogation procedures that might be used against terrorism suspects. They consulted agency psychiatrists and foreign governments to identify effective techniques beyond standard interview practices.

A memorandum of notification is closely related to a finding. Which, as Aftergood pointed out, should mean that Congress’ intelligence committees were informed.

That timing is important for another reason. As Valtin first pointed out, the Administration was researching how to torture at least as early as December 2001. This article suggests the "research" went back even further, to just days after 9/11. Read more →

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