Torture, 'Meet the Press' and Cheney's Quest for Revenge - The Intercept

Dan Froomkin comments on Dick Cheney's Meet the Press Interview yesterday, Torture, 'Meet the Press' and Cheney's Quest for Revenge

"Cheney’s most telling response was to Todd’s questions about people who were detained completely by mistake but who were nevertheless tortured — in at least one case to death.

You have to be something other than a normal human being not to be troubled by that.

But Cheney’s response was: ‘I’m more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent.’

And he would famously do it all again. ‘I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective,’ he said. ‘‘I’d do it again in a minute.’

What Cheney was saying is basically: If you have a goal and you kill innocent people while you’re at it, tough shit. That is how terrorists think; it’s not how moral people think — or at least are supposed to think."

I still would like to see him tried for war crimes.

The Torture Report

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is out, aka The Torture Report. It's actually the 500+ page summary of the 6,000+ page report.

The summary begins with the following 20 findings and conclusions:

1. The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.
2. The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.
3. The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.
4. The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.
5. The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.
6. The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program.
7. The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.
8. The CIA's operation and management of the program complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies.
9. The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA's Office of Inspector General.
10. The CIA coordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.
11. The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.
12. The CIA's management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the program's duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003.
13. Two contract psychologists devised the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.
14. CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters.
15. The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. The CIA's claims about the number of detainees held and subjected to its enhanced Interrogation techniques were inaccurate.
16. The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques.
17. The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious and significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systemic and individual management failures.
18. The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.
19. The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorized press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns.
20. The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States' standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.

I'll sum up those as:

• Torture didn't get good intelligence
• The CIA lied about its effectiveness
• The CIA was far more brutal to detainees than they said they were
• The CIA lied to the DOJ, Congress, the White House, the media, and the CIA's Office of Inspector General. about the program
• The CIA was bad at running it's own program and outsourced it and managed it badly

The New York Times does a good job explaining a few specific examples, Does Torture Work? The C.I.A.’s Claims and What the Committee Found.

Senate Report on CIA Torture Leaked

McClatchy got a leaked copy of the Senate Torture Report, CIA’s use of harsh interrogation went beyond legal authority, Senate report says.

Spencer Ackerman covers the politics of it, CIA and White House under pressure after Senate torture report leaks.

If this were a West Wing episode, The White House would already being to take the lead in this.

Chris Hayes Calls Susan Collins a Disgrace

"It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture," according to a bipartisan commission and Chris Hayes looks at how reaction to the Boston Marathon bombings includes suggestions that are just as reactive and unconstitutional, like Senator Susan Collins saying a foreign national should be held by a military tribunal.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11

U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes

"A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that ‘it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture’ and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.

The sweeping, 577-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war, there never before had been ‘the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.’ The study, by an 11-member panel convened by the Constitution Project, a legal research and advocacy group, is to be released on Tuesday morning.

Debate over the coercive interrogation methods used by the administration of President George W. Bush has often broken down on largely partisan lines. The Constitution Project’s task force on detainee treatment, led by two former members of Congress with experience in the executive branch — a Republican, Asa Hutchinson, and a Democrat, James R. Jones — seeks to produce a stronger national consensus on the torture question."

"While the Constitution Project report covers mainly the Bush years, it is critical of some Obama administration policies, especially what it calls excessive secrecy. It says that keeping the details of rendition and torture from the public “cannot continue to be justified on the basis of national security” and urges the administration to stop citing state secrets to block lawsuits by former detainees.

The report calls for the revision of the Army Field Manual on interrogation to eliminate Appendix M, which it says would permit an interrogation for 40 consecutive hours, and to restore an explicit ban on stress positions and sleep manipulation.

The core of the report, however, may be an appendix: a detailed 22-page legal and historical analysis that explains why the task force concluded that what the United States did was torture. It offers dozens of legal cases in which similar treatment was prosecuted in the United States or denounced as torture by American officials when used by other countries."

Reckoning with Torture

Reckoning with Torture "Doug Liman, director of the The Bourne Identity and Fair Game, teams up with the ACLU and Pen American Center on a collaborative film project to fight torture." You can participate.

UN Torture Chief Says Bradley Manning's Treatment Was Cruel and Inhuman

The Guardian wrote Bradley Manning's treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules.

"The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.

Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier's arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture."

And I learned a new word, rapporteur: "a person appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings."

Court case lifts lid on secret post 9/11 flights

The Associated Press: Court case lifts lid on secret post 9/11 flights

"A hidden network of U.S. companies, coordinated by a prominent defense contractor, played a key role in the covert airlift that transported terrorism suspects and their American minders, according to newly disclosed documents in a New York business dispute between two aviation companies.

The court files of more than 1,700 pages shed new light on the U.S. government's reliance on private contractors for flights between Washington, foreign capitals, the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and, at times, landing points near once-secret, CIA-run overseas prisons. The companies included DynCorp, a leading government contractor that secretly oversaw a fleet of luxury jets, and caterers that unwittingly stocked the planes with fruit platters and bottles of wine, according to the court files and testimony.

The business dispute stems from an obscure four-year fight between a New York-based charter company, Richmor Aviation Inc., which supplied corporate jets and crews to the government, and a private aviation broker, SportsFlight Air, which organized flights for DynCorp. Both sides cited the government's program of forced transport of detainees, or "extraordinary rendition," in testimony, evidence and legal arguments. The companies are fighting over $874,000 awarded to Richmor by a New York state appeals court to cover unpaid costs for the secret flights."

Activism

I'm still on a moveon.org mailing list. I'm on a couple of others too and I mostly just ignore them. They do tend to send out too much email and they basically just ask for money. A few do campaigns to get you to call your representative to take a stand on an upcoming vote. Normally this is dull for me as my representatives mostly do what I want. Now that Scott Brown is my senator I've called his office a few times. It feels good, but I don't think it does much.

Barney Frank is my congressman and he has an office a few block from my home, I drive by it often. Moveon sent email out a day or two ago saying to meet at his office today at noon to thank him for standing strong on his support for the social programs during the deficit talks. See they're not just about complaining. I didn't think such a thing would be particularly useful and I had lunch plans.

My lunch plans fell through at the last minute so I walked down, mostly to see what such an event would look like. It turns out it looks like about 15 people, almost all with grey hair, meeting out front of a four story office building. One or two people knew each other, I assume from other moveon.org events. A few printed out 8.5 x 11 signs that said "Thanks for Standing Strong" or something like that. We stood at the steps for a few minutes. One guy said he could have worn an Obama t-shirt but it's hard to still believe in Obama. Another was saying a few things about how annoyed he was at Republicans and how they're just so wrong. That the freshman tea party congressman just don't understand that their policies are not in their own self interest. If they studied their history they'd know that Marx said...and I trailed off. One woman said rather than small groups we should have a big rally on the common to tell the country that we have an alternative view. I said I think most of the country already believes that Massachusetts has an alternative view.

So someone went up stairs to tell them that we were there. There's one young staffer that, Frank is in DC. So eight of us went up to his office and stood at the reception desk. We stood in mostly silence not being at all organized. The staffer said why I don't I take your names and addresses and any statements. So we went around saying the info as he wrote it down. A few more came into the office and a few of us made sound bite statements. "Don't cut social security or medicare" or "The debt isn't the real issue it's jobs". I said I cared mostly about the debt ceiling and would most like a clean vote or the McConnell plan. Not raising the ceiling isn't an option.

We then funneled out and went our separate ways. It all felt rather depressing. Lack of organization in any sized group is always bad. It turns out even people with similar general beliefs have differences on the details, imagine that. The woman who said jobs were the important thing mentioned the WPA and a gentleman said "or the army, that's a good job" and she said "well not the army, we want to be shrinking that and bringing people home."

I don't think showing up meant any more than calling him (my understanding is that phone calls count much more than email messages as far as influencing congressmen). I also think that showing up in some way added to the kabuki theater of the negotiations with press conferences and cable news interviews while everything real happens behind closed doors. As was said months ago, no matter what it will all come down to the 11th hour. That's a week to go.

The CIA Weighs In: Torture Did Not Help Find Bin Laden

I agree with everything in this ACLU post, The CIA Weighs In: Torture Did Not Help Find Bin Laden

Bin Laden’s Death and the Debate Over Torture

John McCain (yes him) wrote a pretty surprising op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post, Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture.

"Former attorney general Michael Mukasey recently claimed that “the intelligence that led to bin Laden . . . began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information — including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden.” That is false.

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

In fact, the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means."

Guantanamo Teen Was Tortured, Asked To Spy On Other Detainees

Guantanamo Teen Was Tortured, Asked To Spy On Other Detainees "Another former victim of U.S. torture, a child kidnapped and sold to the Americans to be exploited for propaganda and intelligence purposes, drifts off into the misty haziness of neglect and forgetfulness that obscures the truths of our time, courtesy of a President and Congress insistent on burying U.S. crimes as deeply out of public consciousness as possible."

P.J. Crowley Resigns Over Condemning Abuse of Manning

Glenn Greenwald wrote WH forces P.J. Crowley to resign for condemning abuse of Manning.

"On Friday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denounced the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as 'ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid,' forcing President Obama to address those comments in a Press Conference and defend the treatment of Manning. Today, CNN reports, Crowley has 'abruptly resigned' under 'pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments he made last week about the Bradley Manning case.' In other words, he was forced to 'resign' -- i.e., fired.

So, in Barack Obama's administration, it's perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing 'suicide watch' restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade. But speaking out against that abuse is a firing offense. Good to know. As Matt Yglesias just put it: 'Sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning.' And as David Frum added: 'Crowley firing: one more demonstration of my rule: Republican pols fear their base, Dem pols despise it.'"

I think between Manning and Guantanamo, one of Obama's biggest failing has been on toture and unlimited detainment. On the face of it, Crowley is right and Obama's statement that the Pentagon assured him its for Manning's own good is moronic.

Bradley Manning's Forced Nudity To Occur Daily

Glenn Greenwald has been following the WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning stories. His latest, Bradley Manning's forced nudity to occur daily is disturbing.

"Let's review Manning's detention over the last nine straight months: 23-hour/day solitary confinement; barred even from exercising in his cell; one hour total outside his cell per day where he's allowed to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards' inquiries literally every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and awakened at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards' full view. Is there anyone who doubts that these measures -- and especially this prolonged forced nudity -- are punitive and designed to further erode his mental health, physical health and will? As The Guardian reported last year, forced nudity is almost certainly a breach of the Geneva Conventions; the Conventions do not technically apply to Manning, as he is not a prisoner of war, but they certainly establish the minimal protections to which all detainees -- let alone citizens convicted of nothing -- are entitled."

"And I'll say this again: just fathom the contrived, shrieking uproar from opportunistic Democratic politicians and their loyalists if it had been George Bush and Dick Cheney -- on U.S. soil -- subjecting a whistle-blowing member of the U.S. military to these repressive conditions without being convicted of anything, charging him with a capital offense that statutorily carries the death penalty, and then forcing him to remain nude every night and stand naked for inspection outside his cell. Feigning concern over detainee abuse for partisan gain is only slightly less repellent than the treatment to which Manning is being subjected."

Bush's Swiss Visit Off After Complaints on Torture

Reuters reports Bush's Swiss visit off after complaints on torture "Former President George W. Bush has canceled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday."

"President Bush has admitted he ordered waterboarding which everyone considers to be a form of torture under international law. Under the Convention against Torture, authorities would have been obliged to open an investigation and either prosecute or extradite George Bush," Brody said.

Swiss judicial officials have said that Bush would still enjoy a certain diplomatic immunity as a former head of state.

Dominique Baettig, a member of the Swiss parliament from the right-wing People's Party, wrote to the Swiss federal government last week calling for the arrest of Bush for alleged war crimes if he came to the neutral country.

Creeping Tyranny

Kevin Drum summed Creeping Tyranny up nicely.

"Go read this Glenn Greenwald post and this followup from Nick Baumann about Gulet Mohamed, an American citizen who was recently arrested in Kuwait, brutally tortured (I think it's OK to use the word since it's someone else's police we're talking about), and then put on a no-fly list so he can't return to America. This is not the first time this has happened, and if you're really worried about an increasingly tyrannical government, this is the kind of thing to worry about. If a crime has been committed, then let him come home and charge him. If not, then he's an American citizen, and no American government should be allowed to unilaterally strand its own citizens overseas. This whole affair is revolting."

Still the Torture Thing

Dahlia Lithwick wrote in Slate The baby steps that have taken the United States from decrying torture to celebrating it

"We keep waiting breathlessly for someone, somewhere, to have a day of reckoning over the prisoners we tortured in the wake of 9/11, without recognizing that there is no bag man to be found and that therefore we are all the bag man.

President Barack Obama decided long ago that he would 'turn the page' on prisoner abuse and other illegality connected to the Bush administration's war on terror. What he didn't seem to understand, what he still seems not to appreciate, is that what was on that page would bleed through onto the next page and the page after that."

U.S. Has Now Lost 75 Percent of Guantanamo Habeas Cases

McClatchy reports U.S. has now lost 75 percent of Guantanamo habeas cases "A federal judge has ordered the release of another Yemeni captive at Guantanamo, the 37th time a war on terror captive in southeast Cuba has won his unlawful detention suit against the U.S. government."

Closing down Guantánamo

This week's Economist (yes I'm caught up) has a good article on the current state of Closing down Guantánamo: Out of court.

The Worst of the Worst

With Guantanamo detainee review completed, political implications remain "About 10 percent of the 240 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when President Obama took office were 'leaders, operatives and facilitators involved in plots against the United States,' but the majority were low-level fighters, according to a previously undisclosed government report. About 5 percent of the detainees could not be categorized at all."

"The final report by the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommends that 126 of the detainees be either transferred home or to a third country; that 36 be prosecuted in either federal court or a military commission; and that 48 be held indefinitely under the laws of war. A group of 30 Yemenis was also approved for release if security conditions in their home country improved."

I'm so embarrassed by my government.

And then there's this New defeat for detainees.