White House To Declassify Holy Grail Torture Report That Could Undercut Cheney »
Posted By tehranchik 6 months ago in Political NewsGovernment officials familiar with the CIA’s early interrogations say the most powerful evidence of apparent excesses is contained in the “top secret” May 7, 2004, inspector general report, based on more than 100 interviews, a review of the videotapes and 38,000 pages of documents. The full report remains closely held, although White House officials have told political allies that they intend to declassify it for public release when the debate quiets over last month’s release of the Justice Department’s interrogation memos…
Although some useful information was produced, the report concluded that “it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks,” according to the Justice Department’s declassified summary of it.
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hyperbola5 months, 4 weeks ago
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If the torturer is appointed by Bush, does that make it not torture?
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If the torturer is appointed by Obama, does that make it not torture?
Obama Appoints Torturer as Afghanistan Commander
As President Obama taps Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to run the Afghan war, do these revelations, divulged to Esquire at great personal risk by an elite Army interrogator two and a half years ago, imply the new commander's aiding and abetting of torture?
....Garlasco works for Human Rights Watch, a group that started in 1978 to monitor the Soviet Union and recently expanded its mission to include America's war on terrorism. With a partner named John Sifton, in the past year he has helped expose the secrets of CIA prisons and extraordinary renditions and discovered Captain Ian Fishback, the decorated West Point graduate whose account to the Senate Armed Services Committee last fall pushed the Congress to pass a historic and politically charged amendment banning torture. Now Garlasco is chasing after a fresh story of prisoner abuse committed by members of the United States military. ...
...But at the very same time the Army was cleaning up Abu Ghraib under scrutiny, Jeff arrived at an elite secret interrogation facility near Baghdad where nudity and hooding and stress positions were still routine, where ranking officers knew exactly what was going on and promised to protect the interrogators at all costs.... This was Camp Nama, the home of Task Force 121, ...
...It was a point of pride that the Red Cross would never be allowed in the door, Jeff says. This is important because it defied the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to military prisons. "Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will they ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in — they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators."... Given Task Force 121's history, that was a remarkable promise. Formed in the summer of 2003, it quickly became notorious. By August the CIA had already ordered its officers to avoid Camp Nama....
.... This means that a full-bird colonel and all his support staff knew exactly what was going on at Camp Nama. "Do you know where the colonel was getting his orders from?" he asks.
Jeff answers quickly, perhaps a little defiantly. "I believe it was a two-star general. I believe his name was General McChrystal...
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/05/12/obama-ap...
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Endoscopy6 months ago
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Dionys5 months, 4 weeks ago
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And yet Reagan's DOJ prosecuted Texas sherriffs and their deputies for waterboarding people calling it torture. And yet the US has participated in prosecution of people during just about every war for waterboarding, calling it torture and characterizing them as war crimes.
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Huh. -
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Will13135 months, 4 weeks ago
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YOUR TWISTED OPINION OF THE LAW.. doesn't make it so...
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come over an let me waterboard you....
I'll donate 10,000 to your church.. if I can't get you to confess to having homo sex with Rush Limbaugh.. within 1 hour...
we'll video tape it and post the results right here on Propeller.. DEAL...or NO DEAL.. -
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NoWayMan5 months, 4 weeks ago
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so if we find out that some al qaeda operatives are waterboarding american soldiers they've captured, those soldiers are not being tortured according to you?
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see how you can't have it both ways? se how you've opened the door for our soldiers to be tortured under a legal framework and we can't say sh*t about it?
(I'm sure you don't see it, but just thought I'd ask) -
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Charlson5 months, 4 weeks ago
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m-simon5 months, 4 weeks ago
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simonsez5 months, 4 weeks ago
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On 9/12, it was clear our intelligence capabilities were p!ss poor. Yeah, there were clues out there, but no entity could tell us what, where, when, who and how. We had no clue as to how many sleeper units were in the country what the next target might be LA or Chicago; bridges, nuclear plants, grid, what?
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Three weeks later, military grade anthrax was moving through the mail system endangering thousands more lives. Who was doing it; where was it coming from?
The number one job of the President is to protect the American citizens from attack on our own soil. We apprehended three individuals who we knew were part of the plot from day one. He did what he had to do to get every shred of information he could out of these animals. He knew that a free ipod and a few brilliant speeches was not incentive enough to get them to spill the beans.
So ... thank you President Bush and Vice President Cheney for taking every step necessary to protect American lives. You saved the lives of some great Americans and a few p!ssants as well because now they want your blood.
Torture is when you're standing on the 101st floor debating whether to burn to death or jump.
Torture is when you're on the 75th floor telling your wife goodby and the floor collapses beneath your feet.
Torture is when you're flying over PA. and your wife tells you on the cell phone that your pilot intends to crash your plane into the White House and you have to muster the courage to stop him knowing you'll probably die in the process.
Torture is when you find out you just handled a letter filled with anthrax and you and your fellow employees may be dead in an hour or so.
To go against your President in favor of these three disgusting animals is below pond scum.-
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GWHayduke5 months, 4 weeks ago
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-"So ... thank you President Bush and Vice President Cheney for taking every step necessary to protect American lives. You saved the lives of some great Americans and a few p!ssants as well because now they want your blood"-
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Indeed!
Good job W administration for pursuing STAR WARS and the completely ineffective missile defense shield program!
All the while ignoring intelligence that indicated a terrorist strike or dirty bomb was FAR more likely than an ICBM being lobbed from Russia.
And while we're at it......thank you W administration for making the world a far more dangerus place by invading a country that had NOTHING to do with the 9/11 attack and posed NO THREAT to the US. Please dont bring up the illegal NFZ, Endo.
And you sure do know a lot about torture Simon. But you left out being bombed into oblivion by cluster bombs and 'SHOCK & AWE".
You also forgot the torture of completely disintegrating a country's infrastructure to the point that 6 years after the campaign many Iraqis still dont have continuous electricity or water supplies.
Or how about the torture of leaving your occupied country's borders undefended allowing the widespread infiltration and terrorist bombings?
All for what?
Being reactionary fools because we were outsmarted by a primitive group of terrorists?
That gives you the right to treat humans worse than we allow animals to be treated?
Because the Administration failed, you approve of their insane reaction? -
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skyking2p5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Simonsez
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" The number one job of the President is to protect the American citizens from attack on our own soil. We apprehended three individuals who we knew were part of the plot from day one. He did what he had to do to get every shred of information he could out of these animals. He knew that a free ipod and a few brilliant speeches was not incentive enough to get them to spill the beans."
The number one job of the president is to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States. In this your heroes bush and cheney failed us all. This is a nation of laws and bush/cheney to the shame of us all broke so many of our laws to "protect us" and lying to us about it that they made a mockery of the DOJ.
If there is another attack on this country I'm sure you will be the first in line to shout how it is Obama's fault but can we ever be sure that it wasn't caused by hate for this country by others because of this torture ? You reap what you sow. -
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Natureboy5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Blah, blah, blah.
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Hitler used the Reichstag fire and the allied "terror raids" (as the Germans referred to them) to justify his inhuman actions. You are no different.
Newsflash - what the other guy did never justifies torture. Torture is not about the other guy, it is about the one who advocates it and the one who performs it - both sniveling, cowardly, disseased little maggots who get their nut off by inflicting pain on helpless prisoners. -
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sinophil495 months, 4 weeks ago
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simon - "...our intelligence capabilities were p!ss poor."
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On the contrary, there was ample evidence that Hussein did not have WMD's. Those aluminum tubes supposedly for ultra-centrifuges were NOT weapons grade. The Pentagon used the interpretation of a military engineer who had no nuclear experience. When nuclear engineers in the Department of Energy examined the evidence, they immediately made the right conclusion.
That yellow cake uranium? A complete hoax by an expatriate Nigerian. Ambassador Joseph Wilson (who had been to Nigeria) found no evidence of sales of yellow cake to Iraq. The consortium of 5 nations (Nigeria, Spain, Germany, France, Japan) that owned the uranium mines reported no sales to our government. All such sales had to approved by ALL 5 nations to take place. Note that all 5 are our allies. Even British intelligence knew this was a hoax. When the IAEA got hold of the supposed bill of sale of the yellow cake, it took them less than a day to conclude it was a forgery.
Then the supposed meetings between Iraqi and al Qaeda officials in Prague to prove a conspiracy of terrorism - never happened. A total fabrication. I do not know who thought this up.
The intelligence services of Egypt, Syria, France, and Russia all were in touch with Iraqi intelligence and they reported no WMD's.
Hans Blix was the former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and then head of the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission. He was the world's most experienced WMD inspector. He found no evidence of WMD's. Cheney famously scolded Blix in public for being duped by Saddam.
So there was NO EVIDENCE OF WMD'S. PERIOD. To be sure, Saddam did have WMD's and did use them in his wars against the Kurds and against Iran. When the UN sanctions came down on him, he did destroy the WMD's, but feared exposing the truth because of the threat of attack by Iran.
To sum it up, there was NO EVIDENCE of WMD's. Bush and Cheney had already made their minds up to invade, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THERE WERE WMD'S OR NOT. They simply wanted evidence conjured up to add a false sense of justification for the invasion.
So, damn Bush and Cheney for letting Osama bin Laden (the real terrorist) get away to plot more terror against our country. Damn B for plunging our country into an immoral, useless, expensive, poorly managed war. Damn B for having 4200 of our brave troops die needlessly in Iraq. Damn B for the 600,000 innocent civilian deaths and 4 million refugees.
Damn B for destroying our international prestige and creating so many more enemies in the Muslim world. -
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NoWayMan5 months, 4 weeks ago
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"To go against your President in favor of these three disgusting animals is below pond scum."
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see, this is (just one of the many places) where you have it dead wrong.
no one is choosing the "disgusting animals" over the US or our persident.
we're choosing to champion our sacred values instead of abandoning them out of fear, as you are so willing to do.
if we become the monster we castigate, we have lost.
why do you want america to lose?
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simonsez5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Charlson5 months, 4 weeks ago
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What an asinine thing to say. Brutalized ... not tortured? According to the dictionary, torture is the infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion. To afflict with great physical or mental pain. I didn't know you could be brutalized without inflicting mental or physical pain. You must be an expert, huh?
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sinophil495 months, 4 weeks ago
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simon - Oh the North Vietnamese tortured him all right. They wanted to know information about military units and who the commanding officers were. McCain recited to them the defensive lineup of the Green Bay Packers.
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Why do you think McCain has been so outspoken against torture all these years (up to the election campaign last year, sad to say). -
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unome2Comment removed: Spam
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lloydm655 months, 4 weeks ago
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Obama are you trashing Cheney for saying what he believes,or do you believe that revealing all our secrets will some how soothe the hostility of the terrorist,so he will go home to his family learn to love them more than he hates us.
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Klarissa5 months, 4 weeks ago
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The release of more photographs show that Obama cares more about foreign countries, some of whom already hate us, than he does about the welfare of the United States.
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I thought he was going to improve our image??
I wanted to send Obama a note on my opinion about this, but in order to do that I would have to give up a lot of personal information and be on his mailing list.
Now Obama is going to Nevada to save Harry Reid.
Next he is going on an "alas, woe is me", pity tour to foreign countries.
One of these days Obama will realize that he represents the personality of Americans. He is brown-nosing foreign countries that have said they hate Americans.
Since when does kow-towing to the school-yard bully achieve respect. -
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flyonthewallzz5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Klarissa I do not disagree with you.
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I think it is valid to consider where the pressure is coming from.
I can not figure out if the ploy is incredibly clever or incredibly stupid.
I do know that it is destructive, and that appears to be the sole intent.
From my perspective it appears that Cheney is forcing the administrations hand in this.
His statements are equally infuriating to the enemy.
I believe it is fair to say that there have been 10's of thousands of people who have been detained and held by our forces. I think a percentage where innocent, and I think a percentage of them would consider there treatment abusive and would not hesitate to voice it.
Especially after our former Vice President publicly states nauseatingly that it was vital to the security of this country.
This is not the way to win in a counter insurgency.
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nostalgia5 months, 4 weeks ago
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This is about releasing the "inspector general report" not the actual memos
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I thought the initial discussion was about releasing the actual CIA memos?
According to Gibbs at the press briefing today, they haven't decided if they are going to release anything -
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Klarissa5 months, 4 weeks ago
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NEW YORK - In a letter addressed to a federal court today, the Department of Defense announced that it will make public by May 28 a "substantial number" of photos depicting the abuse of prisoners by U.S. personnel. The photos, which are being released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2004, include images from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan at locations other than Abu Ghraib.
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"These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib," said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU. "Their disclosure is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse."
The letter follows a September 2008 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit requiring disclosure of the photos and the court's subsequent refusal in March 2009 to rehear the case. The Defense Department has indicated that it will not ask the Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit's ruling. -
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Klarissa5 months, 4 weeks ago
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The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.
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"We have no plans to release them," an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.
The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.
"The photos . . . are classified -- that's ridiculous," Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.
The photos have not technically been "classified," a White House aide said, but they are being kept from public view.
New Yorkers said they could not understand how a president who shares intimate snapshots from the White House could justify keeping these secret.
"So we're not gonna see the fruits of this cruel joke?" said Frank Antonelli, 39, one of the Wall Street traders spooked by last week's flyover.
"I'm not surprised. Obama . . . wouldn't further all the bad publicity by putting out those pictures."
YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings-
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sinophil495 months, 4 weeks ago
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Oh, Klarissa, get off of this photo rant of yours. It means nothing other than a waste of taxpayer's money. So the whole incident is an embarrassment to Obama and he sees no value in these photos. There is no military value, no security risk to these photos.
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They are now simply useless photos.
So Obama kills the release of the photos. Nothing sinister, nothing underhanded, nothing secret.
Just - useless.
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truthiness5 months, 4 weeks ago
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"yes your honor, I robbed that bank, but look at all these bills I paid."
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-Wanda Sykes, 2009
it doesn't matter what your reason. it doesn't matter why you did it. it doesn't matter what orwelian newspeak you come up with to label it (enhanced interrogation my ass).
torture is a crime against humanity. when you have someone held prisoner, therefore helpless to do you harm, and you make them suffer in order to gain any objective, that is torture.
it is against our laws. it is against our treaties, which have the force of law according to the constitution, and it is immoral.
fck you for defending it. you are a criminal too.-
sonofreasonComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply
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Wolfie20075 months, 4 weeks ago
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So if the memos Cheney is asking for will not show that the harsh interrogations were effective, then why not release them and prove Cheney is blowing smoke? It's obvious it was effective and as usual the Obama administration is playing politics, again.
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FairNBalanced5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Whatever the verbal fencing over the meaning of the word "torture," there is a fundamental difference between simply inflicting pain on innocent people for the sheer pleasure of it-- which is what our terrorist enemies do-- and getting life-saving information out of the terrorists by whatever means are necessary.
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The left has long confused physical parallels with moral parallels. But when a criminal shoots at a policeman and the policeman shoots back, physical equivalence is not moral equivalence. And what American intelligence agents have done to captured terrorists is not even physical equivalence.
If we have reached the point where we cannot be bothered to think beyond rhetoric or to make moral distinctions, then we have reached the point where our own survival in an increasingly dangerous world of nuclear proliferation can no longer be taken for granted. -
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