"Conformed Their Conduct To That Advice"

Holder also stressed that intelligence community officials who acted reasonably and relied in good faith on authoritative legal advice from the Justice Department that their conduct was lawful, and conformed their conduct to that advice, would not face federal prosecutions for that conduct.

Statement from Attorney General Eric Holder concerning the release of OLC memos and any potential prosecutions of CIA personnel.


Yesterday ABC News posted a breaking a story about an intelligence report released by the CIA on the briefings that took place going back to 2002 and beyond of the members of Congress on the enhanced interrogation torture techniques authorized by the now infamous OLC memos. The focus of the ABC News story was on whether or not Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was briefed on Abu Zubaydah being waterboarded, something she previously denied had happened during one of the briefings. Now personally reading the report, to me, doesn't refute Speaker Pelosi's story at all. There is no notation of a specific mention of waterboarding during this briefing as there are in subsequent briefings to other members of Congress. And about the only thing it does say is that she was briefed on the techniques used against Abu Zubaydah. But I think the focus of the article is totally off, perhaps intentionally or perhaps not. But here is the thing to keep in mind. This briefing took place accordiing to the intelligence report on September 4th of 2002. The OLC memo authorizing EITs was dated August 1st of 2002.

Why do those dates matter? Well allow me to quote from that August 1, 2002 memo:

You have informed us that the use of these techniques would be on an as needed bases and that not all of these techniques will necessarily be used. The interrogation team would use these techniques in some combination to convince Zubaydah that the only way he can influence his surroundings is through cooperation. You have, however, informed us that you expect these techniques to be used in some sort of excalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.

Now to go back to the dates. The OLC memos authorizing 10 torture techniques to be used against Abu Zubaydah including waterboarding was dated on August 1, 2002. Thats just 34 days before the September 4, 2002 briefing to Speaker Pelosi. So if we are to believe that the CIA briefed Speaker Pelosi and told her that waterboarding had already been used on Abu Zubaydah on Sept 4th, how does that square with using the 9 other techniques in escalating fashion from just 34 days earlier? Now obviously perhaps the truth is that the intelligence report just confirms that Speaker Pelosi was telling the truth. But then there is also the evidence that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in the month of August. Now if in fact the CIA had employed the techniques prior to August 1st and or they did not use waterboarding as a last resort, wouldn't that imply that they hadn't "conformed their conduct to that advice" the litmus test that Attorney General Holder put forth as to whom would be open to prosecution for torture?

I have posted before about the timeline discrepancy with respect to Khalid Sheik Muhammed. From all the public reports it would seem that in the same month that KSM as captured he was waterboarded 183 times. That would lead a reasonable person to believe that waterboarding wasn't the last resort but the first resort of these CIA interrogators. But thats not the bill of goods that has been sold to the public at large. Lets just go to Dick Cheney's words a few days ago in an interview published on Politico:

Cheney: Well, I don’t believe that’s true. That assumes that we didn’t try other ways, and in fact we did. We resorted, for example, to waterboarding, which is the source of much of the controversy ... with only three individuals. In those cases, it was only after we’d gone through all the other steps of the process. The way the whole program was set up was very careful, to use other methods and only to resort to the enhanced techniques in those special circumstances.

I personally believe that Cheney and the rest of the pro torturists are framing the issue this way so as to get people to believe that we waterboarded only when we had no other choice. In fact he specifically wants you to believe that the CIA had tried "all other steps" before resorting to waterboarding. Now reasonable people might hear that and think "Well gee, they tried everything they could but the detainees wouldn't talk so they felt they had to do something drastic". This plays into the "24" ticking time bomb mindset that is prevalent in our country these days. I have seen and heard many people say stuff like "You have to do what you have to do to protect the homeland" or some version of that. But what if it was shown that we DIDN'T have to use these techniques to get the information as FBI interrogator Ali Soufan has asserted several times? What if it was shown that we didn't even try to get the information any other way and went straight to torture. And bigger than that, if these people didn't follow the advice of the OLC memos? Do you think that would affect public opinion? I do.

The intelligence reports should actually be furthering the push towards prosecutions for torture, but our MSM is instead going to use it to push a flame war. We deserve better and we should demand better!