Cheney Claims To Be Defending Interrogators, But They Worried His Torture Policy Put Them At Risk
Now that Dick Cheney is claiming to speak for the CIA interrogators who will be investigated, defending them by saying they earned our “gratitude,” it’s worth restating a key revelation in the newly-released CIA documents:
The CIA agents themselves worried that the Bush/Cheney torture policies were putting them at legal risk.
In his statement responding to the news that agents will be investigated, Cheney said: “The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions.”
As Ben Smith notes, Cheney is “explicitly defending their actions.” Indeed, he’s going farther: He’s claiming to speak for them and positioning himself as their brave and lonely defender. So it’s worth recalling that some agents worried that they were being put at risk by policies Cheney championed. From page 94 of the CIA torture report:
During the course of this Review, a number of Agency officers expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of recrimination or legal action resulting from their participation in the CTC program….One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some “wanted list” to appear before the World Court for war crimes…
That Cheney is now claiming to speak for, and defend, the same class of officers who worried his policies were putting them at risk is only the latest sign of how absurd Cheney’s stance has been throughout. It’s a key part of the story that risks getting lost in the noise.
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Greg, I think you missed something that could be significant by not talking about the secret hidden agenda that Republicans have been keeping from the public for all this time – They love Medicare! And seniors! And want to increase funding for seniors! And they’ll do it with tax cuts (ok, I’m just guessing on that part). I think this post sums up the idiocy of this approach quite well
Recall when the elderly were purchasing their prescriptions from Canada, at much lower prices than they would have to pay in the USA.
What did the Republican congress and administration do about it. They rushed through a bill that made Medicare pay for those prescriptions, and forbid them from using their purchasing power to negotiate volume purchase price breaks, such as Canada has done.
Remember how Tom Delay held the vote open for hours, while he bullied a retiring Ohio congressman to switch his vote, in order to pass a bill that Pharma wanted.
Notice how Pharma turned around and hired Congressman Billy Tauzin(R),soon after,and gave him a multi-millions, annual salary. That is how the bribe was paid to the key Republican who allowed Pharma to write the bill they wanted, and drove Medicare prescription costs through the roof.
At the Nuremberg Trials, we ruled that “we were just following orders” was not an acceptable defense, and we hung people who used that justification for their deeds.
We have to have a consistent legal and moral stance, on the world stage. We can not go around the world, lecturing all other nations about rule of law, and human rights, while exempting ourselves from those same standards.
“That Cheney is now claiming to speak for, and defend, the same class of officers who worried his policies were putting them at risk is only the latest sign of how absurd Cheney’s stance has been throughout.”
Greg, I think Cheney is crazy – for real. For years he has been declaring that black is white over and over. The only thing crazier has been the willingness of the media to go along with him. WHY? I wish you’d try to find out how Cheney did this – you’re well-placed to investigate.
Tena — I don’t know. I don’t understand the power he wields…more coming on that in a sec…
Mr. Sargent:
“The CIA agents themselves worried that the Bush/Cheney torture policies were putting them at legal risk.”
Maybe you should organize a candlelight vigil for the poor exploited CIA torturers who tortured on Cheney’s orders.
You people really don’t know if you’re coming or going, do you?
“I don’t understand the power he wields…”
He is your bogeyman…a hobgoblin you created that bedevils your collective mind.
You made him up, and therefore, his power is superhuman.
What he IS is an old man, successful in the oil business, who has a live grenade in his chest.
He’s had at least 5 heart attacks, were you aware of this?
Do you really think that he NEEDS this kind of stress?
For a dude who had better things to do than serve his nation during the Vietnam War (5 deferments), Cheney has really proven himself to be a weenie on this one! If he had put the uniform on for only a moment during his formal years, Cheney would have realized the folly of his hypotheticals. He and Rumsfeld will go down in the annals of history as the greatest buffoons of our nation during the years 2000 – 2009, and the greatest threats to our way of life established and developed over the preceding 200 years.
They have earned our collective scorn! -Kevo
Greg – perhaps a call to Ron Suskind. He might help you understand Cheney’s ability to get himself placed prominently in media outlets whenever he chooses. Cheney will have a staff expert in communications but this doesn’t answer the question of why the producers called constantly facilitate.
“Do you really think that he NEEDS this kind of stress?”
ROFLMAO!
It made my life when it was reported some months back that Cheney was depressed and felt lonely. Absolutely made my life.
Boogy man – yeah, Uncle Dick is all cuddly and ****. Whooeee!
Try selling that one to America. Cheney has approvals all the way up in the teens. Has had for years. Nice old man – hahahahahahahahahaha
Tena:
“It made my life when it was reported some months back that Cheney was depressed and felt lonely. Absolutely made my life”
That says a LOT about the howling wilderness of your personal life, y’know.
I bet it irks you at no end that for all your vitriol, Cheney could care less about you.
Maybe if you cleaned up your act, you could get yourself a significant other to fill the long empty nights with, and put away your Dick Cheney voodoo doll.
How to misunderstand a statement,they were concerned that some parties would deliberately stigmatize necessary action,
specially if their identities much revealed, that’s no reflection on Cheney. Then again, you were concerned we were actually going to kill terrorists, overseas.
How can you tell when Dick Cheney is lying.
Answer; when ever his sneer is moving.
Cheney, and his backers, keep trying to tell us that torture worked. Who are you going to believe; Dick Cheney, and the “Slam Dunk” CIA crowd. What a joke.
The bottom line. They tortured people who were close to Bin Laden, and they never were told where he and his top lieutenants were in hiding. They never came close to getting him, so either they did not get those they tortured to spill the beans, or else they were too incompetent to use the information they extracted, to go and get the Bin Laden and his right hand man.
@Liam
We live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use them as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said “thank you,” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest that you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a d@mn what you think you are entitled to.
Two words: Archibald Cox.
Oh, what the heck, three more: Evidence capitulates expansion.
@Colonel Jessup
So your entire comment is to quote lines from a fictional movie.
I guess that is fitting, that you are now using fiction, to defend the fiction that Cheney and the CIA have relied on to piss away the lives of thousands of brave young Americans in the sands of Iraq.
What a shower of delusional Chicken Hawks you lot are!!!
From The Weekly Standard’s “The Blog”
August 25, 2009
Plumming The Depths
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent is worked up about the fact that “big news orgs” have not declared Dick Cheney a liar for claiming that EITs were effective. (For the record, many people still consider the Washington Post a big news org.) Sargent argues that “the docs themselves don’t actually prove Cheney’s claims” that the EITs were effective, he suggests that those who believe otherwise don’t live in “the real world,” and he calls the coverage “embarrassing.”
So why the reluctance? Maybe it’s because of the mainstream media’s well-known pro-Cheney bias. We all remember the endless stream of flattering pieces about Cheney’s ability to keep secrets, his willingness to listen quietly in meetings, and his eagerness to sacrifice his own personal popularity to defend unpopular policies that he believed kept the nation safe. . . .
In another post, Sargent chastises Cheney for defending the interrogators and “claiming to speak for them and positioning himself as their brave and lonely defender.” Sargent notes that some interrogators were worried that their participation in the program put them in legal jeopardy and cites a passage on page 94 of the IG report. Here is how Sargent reported it:
During the course of this Review, a number of Agency officers expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of recrimination or legal action resulting from their participation in the CTC program….One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some “wanted list” to appear before the World Court for war crimes…
He concludes: “That Cheney is now claiming to speak for, and defend, the same class of officers who worried his policies were putting them at risk is only the latest sign of how absurd Cheney’s stance has been throughout.”
Why the ellipses? What did Sargent cut out? Here is the passage in full:
During the course of this Review, a number of Agency officers expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of recrimination or legal action resulting from their participation in the CTC program. A number of officers expressed concern that a human rights group might pursue them for activities [redacted]. Additionally, they feared that the Agency would not stand behind them if this occured.
One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some “wanted list” to appear before the World Court for war crimes. Another said, “Ten years from now we’re going to be sorry we’re doing this…[but] it has to be done.”
So Sargent cut out two important passages to make his point. The first had to do with concerns among interrogators that they would not be supported if they were later targeted for their work — exactly the kind of support Sargent scolds Cheney for providing. And second, in his effort to portray CIA officers as victims, Sargent deliberately omits the view of the Agency officer who told the IG, “it has to be done.”
And whose policies were these? Sargent calls them the “Bush/Cheney torture policies.” Did he read the IG report? The EITs were conceived and developed by senior intelligence officers who wanted to find additional ways to extract information from terrorists. From page 3: “The Agency was under pressure to do everything possible to prevent additional terrorist attacks. Senior Agency officials believe Abu Zubaydah was withholding information that could not be obtained through then-authorized interrogation techniques. Agency officials believed that a more robust approach was necessary to elicit threat information from Abu Zubaydah and possibly from other senior al Qaeda high value detainees.”. . .
Posted by Stephen F. Hayes on August 25, 2009 11:17 PM
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/not_so_mysterious.asp