Cheney Calls On Obama To Declassify Torture Intel He Wants
One key moment from the national security speech Dick Cheney wrapped up moments ago: He called on Obama to use his presidential powers to declassify the intelligence that Cheney says will prove torture worked, ensuring that this debate will continue.
Cheney’s bid for that intel, you’ll recall, was denied by the CIA, because it’s at the center of a separate legal battle. From Cheney’s speech today:
I saw that information as vice president, and I reviewed some of it again at the National Archives last month. I’ve formally asked that it be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained, the things we learned, and the consequences for national security. And as you may have heard, last week that request was formally rejected.
It’s worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the President himself. President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen, thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.
This seems like an effort to try and keep this debate going beyond today and to keep the “Obama versus Cheney showdown” meme alive in the media. It’s only a matter of time before Cheney starts saying that Obama’s failure to declassify this info shows that the President has broken his vow of transparency and is refusing to release the info because it proves Cheney is right that torture works.
It’s kind of remarkable that in a speech that spent so much time attacking Obama as dangerous for our country Cheney also asked Obama for help in salvaging his legacy.
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One of the things that struck me in the Cheney speech, aside from his incredible tunnel vision, is something that any regular reader of this blog had to be aware of. His facts aren’t reliable. Among other things, he’s still claiming Saddam had terrorist ties and that waterboarding maybe saved hundred of thousands of lives. Who protects him from information?
The politics of division, personified. There aren’t many people whom I’d like to see beneath a falling cartoon safe, but Cheney tops that list. This was a classic propaganda exercise designed to make citizens less intelligent, less thoughtful and less capable of operating as effective democratic agents. He is a truly despicable character.
I don’t know anyone who opposes release of these memos. I would like to read them, as well as the 2004 CIA Inspector General report on interrogation that reportedly made some contradictory findings.
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One thing to watch for when the memos Cheney references eventually do surface: Are they hard, raw facts, or are they conclusory generalizations and inferences? Recall that Cheney was quite adept at cooking the intel books when he was in office (See Iraq, WMDs, Saddam-Al Qaeda, etc), and these memos might well be crafted and planted for purposes of slanting the legacy. Perhaps we’ll see.
My hope here is that even more voices from within the Bush administration, the military and the intel communities will, after seeing what Cheney did today and after the disasters of his tenure in office, step forward, openly oppose his tactics and reveal far more damaging information on his operations and his secrets. Powell and others like him need to ramp up their courage and sense of civic duty.
i dont see much difference between the two administrations – one just talks better than the other. Policies seem about the same.
Release the memo’s – release all of them, not just the cherry picked ones – otherwise this won’t go away, it’s just he said/ she said.
Just wondering–as citizens of the US, do we have a moral responsbility to pay for Cheney’s PTSD?
strange how we dont hear about Iraq andymore, i guess no news is good news
Cheney is so dammed crazy – he’s trying to win a popularity contest with Barrack Obama. I don’t care what the issue is – that’s just insane.
Its sad that the media is still trying to paint the speeches as a debate. The President was trying to explain to the American people what his plans are for closing GITMO, keeping us all safe and moving forward with transparency. Dick Cheney was trying to convince people that he shouldn’t be in jail. They were not even talking about the same subject.
Check out Lawrence O’Donnell on Dick Cheney’s speech. MSNBC needs to give him his own show.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7YuB6O1BAU
sgwhite – you nailed it down, had it stated and framed.
It’s not the same subject.
Tena and SG – It’s worth combining your points. Cheney is delusionally trying to be more popular than Obama by making the case for torture (so he’s not indicted for it) while Obama is explaining, clarifying, and setting a strategy on national security and how to effect transparency in government. It’s a pretty clear choice here. We have two diametrically opposed views of America. We get to pick whether to cower in fear or to believe we can attend to national security without abandoning our founding documents, which make it a country worth keeping. Who wants to live in that dark world Cheney has conjured for us? It’s a smaller and smaller place.
“We have two diametrically opposed views of America. We get to pick ”
I think we have. And it appears more of us are choosing every day.
\”New Pew Poll Shows Major Democratic Gains, GOP Deteriorating”
from Huffpo’s front page.
I thought the Dems supported a Truth Commission?
“House Democrats on Thursday defeated a Republican push to investigate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that the CIA misled her in 2002 about whether waterboarding had been used against terrorism suspects. The House voted 252-172 to block the measure that would have created a bipartisan congressional panel.”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98AOBGO0&show_article=1
First of all sbj, you should read the entire context, it was an amendment that was placed onto an FAA funding bill and was deemed out of order, even Republican’s howled at the idea (see link)…however, besides all that, here’s the thing, the truth commission should involve EVERYONE, not just Pelosi, which is the way the GOP is attempting to frame it and limit the probe…I know the GOP is use to having it both ways, but not anymore – if a probe is opened, EVERYONE is on the table, not just Pelosi, sheesh, talk about cherry picking!!!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0509/Two_GOPers_buck_leaders_on_antiPelosi_vote.html?showall
Jenn – you have no comprehension. The Republicans howled BECAUSE it was at first deemed out of order. The Dems were FORCED to vote and ONLY two Repubs defected while 172 did not.
“Republicans howled in protest as the resolution was ruled out of order. Bishop appealed and Democrats were forced to hold a vote on tabling the appeal.”
C’mon now!
Like it or not, Jenn, “Congress gives Obama cover for not closing GITMO and Obama’s forward-looking-but-blaming-everything-on-Bush speech gives Congress cover for not pursuing the spurious charges of its Democratic members.”
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=14937
It’s business as usual in Washington.
“Like it or not, Jenn, “Congress gives Obama cover for not closing GITMO and Obama’s forward-looking-but-blaming-everything-on-Bush speech gives Congress cover for not pursuing the spurious charges of its Democratic members.””
Dude or dudette – you are so going to eat those words when Obama closes Gitmo. The entire reason he was so pissed off today is because Harry Reid betrayed him in the Senate.
Duh! You don’t really get half of what is happening and that half you don’t get right. Jenn D said what you turned around and repeated. She put the whole context in. You left it out again.
Tena:
The link indicates that the Repub resolution was deemed out of order, then the Repubs appealed, forcing the Dems to uphold the deeming of the resolution as out of order. Hence, in effect, the Dems voted against a resolution to create a Truth Commission while the Repubs voted to support one.
I won’t eat those words as they are not mine – that’s why you see the quotes.
“Harry Reid betrayed him in the Senate.”
Ha! Harry and 55 other Senate Dems!
sbj,
It wasn’t a truth commission. It was a Pelosi commission. An absolutely politically motivated and asinine bill.
Also, wrong, only 49 other senate dems betrayed the President.
(Harkin, Durbin, Whitehouse, Reed, Leahy, and Levin supported the president and Kennedy, Byrd, and Rockefeller were absent)
Watching Cheney today it was easy to see how he took over Bush’s presidency because of his self-described years of experience and supreme knowledge of defense, until Cheney screwed up so bad that finally Bush started limiting Cheney’s access to the oval office. Now Cheney is trying to push another elected president, Obama, out of the way, or at least into following his unlawful methods for national security that even Bush rejected during the last term.
Somebody really should remind Cheney that he was never the president and never the commander-in-chief. He was nothing more than an adviser until Bush wisely quit listening.
“Hi, my name is Dick Cheney, and by demanding the release of secret documents that will prove me right, I’m creating a conspiracy theory that such documents exist. If they don’t, my flying monkeys will forever believe that the government is just withholding them.”
I think Cheney is playing a game he is going to lose. I see fear on his face. I think he may feel he may be charged with a crime. If I was the president I would put everything on the table and let the chips fall where the may.