Flashback: Bush’s FBI Director Said Torture Didn’t Foil Any Terror Plots
Now that Bush administration officials have launched a major campaign to persuade us that torture “worked,” perhaps it’s worth recalling that George W. Bush’s own FBI director said in an interview last year that he wasn’t aware of a single planned terror attack on America that had been foiled by information obtained through torture.
Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Bush in 2001 and remains FBI director under Obama, delivered that assessment at the end of this December 2008 article in Vanity Fair on torture:
I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?
“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”
That stands in direct contrast to Dick Cheney’s recent claim that torture has been “enormously valuable” in terms of “preventing another mass-casualty attack against the United States.”
You’d think that this sort of thing would throw a bit of a wrench into the Bushies’ campaign. But as Charles Kaiser notes, these types of statements haven’t really broken through the media din.
On that score, it’s worth asking why the White House and its allies aren’t pushing back a bit harder on the Bushies’ claims. Yes, this is a debate that the White House would like to avoid. But Cheney and other Bush administration officials have launched a major campaign here that shows no signs whatsoever of abating.
Whatever downsides Cheney’s constant public appearances hold for the GOP, the Bushies seem to be having some success shifting the debate onto the narrow question of whether torture “worked.” Shouldn’t we be seeing more push-back from the White House or its outside allies?
Update: Mueller is not backing off his views.
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The Obama administration does not, nor should not want the debate to be whether torture works. It’s illegal. It’s immoral. It’s the job of the executive branch to enforce the laws regardless of how beneficial it may or may not be to break them.
There is reason to believe that the administration is allowing the pro torture GOPers to get enough rope to hang themselves. Remember that just last week the pro torturists were saying that President Obama was imperiling the country by releasing the 4 OLC memos. Now because of Cheney the pro torturists are asking for MORE memos to be released. If the administration waits for them to keep calling for declassifying these memos then when they do so and truly expose what happened it wont be them that catch hell for releasing the memos. It will be Cheney and the rest of the pro torture Republicans who asked for it to begin with.
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Now to be clear, I am NOT saying thats whats going on. Just that it COULD be.
Well I still maintain that whether or not it “works” is totally beside the point.
And the reason I think Blair said what he did is that he was trying to deflect this excuse before it got started cause that’s what he said. It maybe worked, but that doesn’t matter cause it’s wrong.
“It will be Cheney and the rest of the pro torture Republicans who asked for it to begin with.
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I think the GOP and Cheney have provided excellent political cover for Obama to turn this mess over to the people who have the responsibility of prosecuting any wrong doing. It’s just going to be a hell of an argument over whether or not what they were doing was torture because that’s where they are trying to take the argument -redefine torture. Bush tried that from the start.
Well, when there is a front page NYT story that SPECIFICALLY asks if the point is “whether torture works,” you know the idiocy of the mainstream media.
And the reason why the WH probably has not gone as far as saying bluntly that torture is illegal is bc they know the follow up question will be “then should people be prosecuted?”
And that’s a debate they do not want to have.
The NYT is precisely the place to have the argument of whether torture works. The White House, Congress, or courts are the wrong places to do it. One is behavioral science. The other is law.
It’s times like these (when Neocons are struggling to change the conversation on torture) that I think we actually need more political ads on TV. “Former Vice President Cheney said torture has been enormously valuable. But Cheney’s own FBI head said it has not, just 3 months ago. And anyways, shame on you Dick–haven’t you forgotten that America doesn’t torture? Dick Cheney – wrong about torture. Wrong about everything.”
Zarik
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I fully endorse that message! lol
Hey Greg. Get an exclusive with Colin Powell. I’d like to hear what he has to say about all this.
Mike from Arlington
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Rachel Maddow already asked him and he was VERY uncomfortable but said he wasn’t briefed on torture.
Yeah. I saw that interview. But since you said he wasn’t briefed on torture, I’m confused. If Condolezza Rice showed up as approving them, whatever that means, I’m surprised Powell wasn’t involved.
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I’m not saying he is lying but I’m surprised with such an important issue they would leave him out. He was there until ‘04 which is after the date much of this stuff happened.
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Not saying Cheney isn’t able to squash himself but if Powell came out with an opinion of say, he didn’t feel releasing the documents endangered American’s, it would go a long way with a lot of people. Even though many Republicans threw him under the bus after Limbaugh decided Powell voted for Obama because he is black, there are still a big number of Republicans that hold Powell in high esteem.
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Of course if Powell came out and stated he shouldn’t have done it then it would look horrible I think but Powell is a sane individual I feel and can come at this from a non partisan point of view.
Mike
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I believe he said he wanted it to all get out in the open and he was confident it would but I don’t think he mentioned the memos.
“For many in the United States, torture still stands as a marker of political commitment—of a willingness to “do anything to protect the American people,” a manly readiness to know when to abstain from “coddling terrorists” and do what needs to be done. Torture’s powerful symbolic role, like many ugly, shameful facts, is left unacknowledged and undiscussed. But that doesn’t make it any less real. On the contrary.”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22614
I hope you guys are reading Danner’s reporting on all of this as I don’t think there is anything around that surpasses it in detail and in clarity of thought.
Greg…in answer to your rhetorical question there…yes, though to the degree that they can have advocates do this task, the better.
Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if they cut Powell out of some of the key meetings. They’d probably be concerned that he’d go rogue on them. We had something very similar to this in the Adscam scandal of the Chretien government, where the finance minister (and main Quebec lieutenant) of the PM was kept out of the loop about the marketing money and party kickbacks in his backyard of Montreal, as he’d have been likely to have stopped it and/or exposed it.
Torture didn’t foil any plots – and the TSA has not prevented any hijackings.
So – why do I have to participate in that stupid security theater at every blessed airport?
The TSA stupidity surely costs a lot of money.
Hey – why is Gitmo still open?
There were reports this morning that neither Rumsfeld nor Powell were in on the conversation about torture till very late in the game.
Bernie Latham quoted:
“For many in the United States, torture still stands as a marker of political commitment—of a willingness to “do anything to protect the American people,”
Remember when that “willingness to do anything to protect the American people” meant being willing to BE tortured?
I’m still left puzzled by Cheney’s actual position.
On the one hand he constantly claims that “enhanced interrogation techniques” are NOT torture (don’t forget that he actually still BELIEVES all the **** John Yoo wrote) while…
…on the other hand, he seems to be making the implicit argument that it IS torture, but that it’s okay because sometimes it supposedly works.
Cheney can’t have it both ways.
Is it, or is it not, torture?
(Maybe we fall into the trap of thinking that Cheney & Co. actually accept that it is torture, and are just scrambling with these excuses – their argument still rests on claiming that what happened at Guantanamo, and CIA black sites around the world is NOT torture. That is what this argument is about, and Cheney doesn’t have a leg to stand on.)
Maybe we should let the Jordanians or the Turks or maybe the Egyptians have these people.
and Hey – why is Guantanamo’s prison camp still open? Also – hey Bob – I’m with you on the TSA – what a bunch of fricking autobots.
Murder works too. Does that mean we engage in illegal behavior because it might work? That means Bernie Madoff shouldn’t have been prosecuted for stealing his investor’s money. Because it really worked for him. Crime only works if you don’t prosecute the criminal.
The ends NEVER justify the means, period.
I believe the supporters of torture will sonn be swallowed up by the simple facts. Water boarding is torture. The USA has prosecuted people for waterboarding. This fact will be repeated the more the usbjesct is discussed. The POTUS should not lead this fight. It is up to the citizens to demand accountability.
Write your reprensentatives. I am writing mine.
if you think this is the way to roll the dice. Then you’ve got another thing coming. You digg?
First of all, I think the missionary aspect to all this. Is a gloomy procedure of some kind of likeness to seeing living things suffer.You understand what I’m saying? Not recognizing the fact that, terrorists are trained to deal with torture. They don’t care nothing about dying. They are trained to be martyrs.Everything that has happened to them, they’ve already been through it through drill practice. In a matter of fact, they will thumb their nose at you, spit in your face, and everything. Them people act like they like pain. You digg? so how are you going to get some info. out of somebody like that? They want to die. Cause their belief, is that they are going to a better place. Until you give them life in Prison without any possibility for Parole. Then thats when they are ready to start fighting and trying to break out the Courtroom
But if you want to interrogate somebody do it humanely.And it will teach them how to revert their attitudes and cooperate. But torture will not do it. They are so trained to deal with torture, till they love it.
And check this out. As long as you have torture, and a nasty attitude, like Bush had.. You will always bave War. A War that will never end. And continuing to break our Economy.You understand?
So Lets have some common sense, and treat these people with some respect.So that their remaining crew won’t keep all this confusion going on.