Connecting The Dots

There is a great Washington Post story today about those torture briefings to members of Congress. Several times in listing of the briefings there is a notation of "not available" in the category of who actually led the briefing. Well reporters Paul Kane and Joby Warrick have discovered that these briefings were led by none other than Dick Cheney:

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about the controversial interrogation program, part of a secretive and forceful defense he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used on detainees.

The Cheney-led briefings came at some of the most critical moments for the program, as congressional oversight committees were threatening to investigate or even terminate the techniques, according to lawmakers, congressional officials, and current and former intelligence officials.

Cheney's role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush administration -- particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists -- has been well documented. But his hands-on role in defending the interrogation program to lawmakers has not been previously publicized.

The CIA made no mention of his role in documents delivered to Capitol Hill last month that listed every lawmaker who had been briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques" since 2002. For meetings that were overseen by Cheney, the agency told the intelligence committees that information about who oversaw those briefings was "not available."

Now why is this important?

In the CIA intelligence report there is a briefing on 7-13-2004 for Jane Harman and Porter Goss. At that meeting the notes say the information from the “Holy Grail” IG report on interrogations was put forth. Here is the actual notes on it.

1 IG presented report on interrogations.

2. Status update on interrogation process.

3. General Counsel informed of legal/policy
issues.

EITs were discussed, including a specific mention of waterboarding as one of the EITs. Discussion of CIA currently seeking reaffirmation from DOJ on use of EITs as well as renewed policy approval from NSC principals to continue using EITs.

Now here is how Greg Sargent of The Plum Line blog described the IG report.

Dem Congressional staffers tell me this report is the “holy grail,” because it is expected to detail torture in unprecedented detail and to cast doubt on the claim that torture works — and its release will almost certainly trigger howls of protest from conservatives.

Now take note also of the last line

Discussion of CIA currently seeking reaffirmation from DOJ on use of EITs as well as renewed policy approval from NSC principals to continue using EITs

It would seem after hearing the CIA's Inspector General's report on torture techniques the proverbial shit had hit the fan. What other reason could you imagine that the discussion turned to "seeking reaffirmation from DOJ on the use of" torture?


Now when you go to the documents Dick Cheney wants declassified when do you think the first one is dated?

7-13-2004

Just two days later on 7-15-2004 there is another briefing this time with Pat Roberts and John Rockefeller, but check out what shows up in the notes of that one .

Briefed on Interrogation Techniques, including waterboarding, abdominal slap, and sleep deprivation. Also briefed on actionable intelligence derived from use of EITs.

For the first time in the briefing timeline members of Congress were briefed on "actionable intelligence derived from" torture. I don't think it takes a great leap of logic where that information came from.

This was DEFINITELY propaganda material that Dick Cheney got the CIA to put together to “sell” members of Congress on torture. The second of the reports Cheney requested is dated 6-1-2005 and it just so happens that "not available" under the briefers section starts showing up in March of 2005 and continues through October of 2005. I guess the first iteration of the propaganda report just wasn't convincing enough so Cheney needed to add a few more "facts".

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. The reason why Dick Cheney only wants those two report declassified is because he himself was the one who helped put it together to sell members of Congress on torturing detainees. I can't see how those two reports would have any kind of credibility at this point should they ever be released. But once again the question will turn on how the media examines it. If they continue to perform as they have so far and take it and present it as a serious source of information I fear that they will once again fail the American people.

Demand better!

Ohhhhhhhhhh It Ain't My Fault

Seems like the current CIA officials are just about tired of catching hell because of things done by the former CIA officials in the Bush Administration. Earlier today Congressman David Obey sent the CIA a letter detailing a discrepancy between the CIA's report on the intelligence briefings and the memory of a staffer purported by the report to have attended one of the briefings. The CIA has now responded.

“While CIA’s information has Mr. Juola attending briefings on September 19, 2006 and October 11, 2007, there are different recollections of these events, which Mr. Obey’s letter describes. As the agency has pointed out more than once, its list — compiled in response to congressional requests — reflects the records it has. These are notes, memos, and recollections, not transcripts and recordings.”

So now that they have pretty much admitted that they aren't sure about what in the hell went on back then, isn't it time for the mainstream media to start focusing on the CIA's credibility on the issue instead of focusing on Speaker Pelosi's? Im just sayin.

LIght Bulb Moment

I am reposting a comment here that I made at Greg Sargent's blog. I would love some feedback on it truly. If I am right then most of us have been sucked into a vortex over Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and something that we thought the CIA said about her but on a second look didn't actually explicitly say:

A light bulb just went off for me and I feel like the world’s biggest dumbass. It was in front of us the whole time basically all from Greg’s reporting but none of us really noticed it.

What exactly did the CIA intelligence report say about Nancy Pelosi’s briefing? Lets take a fresh look.

Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.

Now at first glance it would seem this statement is definitely saying that Speaker Pelosi and Porter Goss were told that EITs were used on Abu Zubaydah. But remember that this is the CIA so lets look at what its really says and what it doesn’t. Probably what most gives this impression is this part.

including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah

Now again at first glance it looks straight forward. But it really isn’t. It doesn’t say “including the fact that we used EITs on Abu Zubaydah”. It just employs the ambiguous term “use” in this context. Does that mean prior use or future use or current use? It doesn’t really say. There is also a redundancy in the statement that doesn’t add up. Why would you need to come back and say

and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed

How could you possibly brief someone on the fact that you used EITs if you didn’t describe the EITs at the same time? “Yeah we whupped this guy’s ass but I can’t tell you how until I explain why it was legal to whup his ass” Nah don’t think so. But you CAN tell them that you are thinking about using EIT’s in general, and then explain what legal opinions you have sought out on the subject, and then come back and describe the EITs in detail. That would make a lot more sense right? So basically if you were in a court of law and you were trying to prove that the CIA report refuted Nancy Pelosi’s assertion you couldn’t do it. Because in essence its exactly what she said. She said they told her they were thinking about using EITs and that they thought certain techniques were legal and they described them to her. And the report never states unequivically that they told her that they HAD used the EITs or that they told her that they HAD used waterboarding. It simply doesn’t say that. And in that vein Panetta’s statement doesn’t go any further than that either. But here is the thing about Panetta’s statement today that actually turned on the light switch for me. He doesn’t go through that whole passage from the report. Instead he just quotes what I think is the most relevant passage.

As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.”

Now the operative word here is “describing”. But its easy to get side tracked by the “that had been employed” part of the sentence. But look at what Panetta is really saying here. He is saying they described something to Speaker Pelosi. He isn’t saying now, nor did the original report say, that they told her that the techniques HAD BEEN used. They just described what had been used.

If you still aren’t getting it let me give you an analogy. I say to you that I plan on going to the store and buying some bbq chips and cheese dip and lite beer. Unbeknownst to you I already went to the store and bought the chips, dip and beer. But later I can say truthfully that I described to you the items that I had already bought at the store. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t tell you that I had already bought them. Timing isn’t the issue, the description is. And you have to know that the CIA is going to cover their asses to a tee when it comes to parsing what they say and making sure that they don’t overreach in their assertations. Remember they already admitted to Greg Sargent that they didn’t have enough info to say that Pelosi was actually briefed on waterboarding in particular. However today they came back and said that the report was truthful which if we were actually reading the report right because we know Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded before the briefing happened and we also know the CIA can’t attest to Pelosi having been briefed on waterboarding. But the reality is it WAS truthful, it was just us rubes reading more into it than what was actually there with a major assist from the mainstream media.

I realize that at this point this is probably long and rambling however the truth is this story may have been pushed for over a week now on a false premise and I feel like I totally missed it. Or maybe I am just all wrong. What do you guys think?

Whip It Whip It Real Hard

Fresh off Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying the CIA lied to her yesterday, today Senator Ron Wyden upped the ante when he said the CIA broke the law in not keeping Congress informed.



CIA director Leon Panetta released a statement today that many cable news talking heads are reading as a refutation of Speaker Pelosi. But it looks like more and more Democrats are now speaking out against how the CIA handled their briefings of the torture program. It might be time for Panetta to just lay low since he wasn't in charge back when all of this went down. Otherwise he is attaching his credibility to actions taken by Bush Admininstration officials and that might just end his career as director quite prematurely.

Barry Goldwater And The CIA

If you go over to the "Morning Joe" website and look at the clips for today you wouldn't know that Lawrence O'Donnell was even on the show today. The reason why might be the fact that O'Donnell pointed out that Barry Goldwater, like Pelosi did yesterday, said the CIA lied to him back in 1984. Because Joe Scarborough and the rest of his yes men and women had spent all morning trying to convince the world that the CIA NEVER lies this was probably an inconvenient truth for them.

Thank God for MediaMatters




Now notice that in order to support torture Joe Scarborough is willing to defame one of the major players in the conservative movement, Barry Goldwater, by saying he was crazy. That is the state of Republicans and wingnuts today. They will throw anybody, even their most revered icons, under the bus in order to protect the Republican brand. Disgusting.

Fixt

ABC News Should Post A Retraction

All day today the cable news shows have been buzzing over an ABC News story about the CIA intelligence report on the briefings given to Congressional leaders over the torture program. To hear ABC News tell it the report proved that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was lying when she said she wasn't briefed on Abu Zubaydah having been waterboarded. And dutifully all of the cable news shows repeated this throughout the day. Well Greg Sargent over at the Plum Line Blog (did I mention his blog is awesome) actually did some REAL investigative reporting and he called the CIA and came up with this.

In the newly-released documents detailing the torture briefings given to members of Congress, the portion describing Pelosi’s single briefing says she was told about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in general, but doesn’t specify whether she was told about the use of waterboarding. That was specified about some briefings given to others.

I asked CIA spokesperson Paul Gimigliano why. His answer: Because the notes and memos on the Pelosi meeting that form the basis for the docs didn’t allow them to go that far, meaning that they didn’t specify that she’d been briefed on waterboarding in particular.

In a statement to me, he explained that that “the language in the chart” is “faithful to the language in the records.”

“Nothing is being hidden or hyped,” he continued. “CIA is simply being true to the records. That’s all there is to it.”

Now to be clear this doesn't qualify as proof that Speaker Pelosi wasn't briefed on waterboarding, but what it does do is prove that the CIA didn't have any information that showed that she WAS briefed on Abu Zubaydah having been waterboarded and thus no such information could have been in or inferred from the report. I will now patiently await the retraction from ABC News that I know will not be forthcoming.

The Cheney Document

Greg Sargent over at The Plum Line got his hands on the actual CIA intelligence report detailing the briefings that were given to members of Congress on EITs. But I just noticed something about one briefing in particular.

Briefed on Interrogation Techniques, including waterboarding, abdominal slap, and sleep deprivation. Also briefed on actionable intelligence derived from use of EITs.

That is from the 7-15-2004 briefing which was attended by Republican Pat Roberts and Democrat John Rockefeller. I thought that date sounded familiar so I went back through some of Greg's older posts and found the one where he got his hands on the documents Dick Cheney used to ask the CIA to declassify information that he said will prove that torture worked.(Greg has a way of getting his hands on important documents that has lead me to nickname his blog the scoop factory) And interestingly enough the date of he document Cheney requested is from 7-13-2004. Coincidence? I think not. I would say that its time for some journalists to give Rockefeller a call to see if he will say what they were told in 2004 about the efficacy of the CIA detainee torture program.

"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!