Cheney Will Appeal “Obama Admin’s” Decision To Deny Him Torture Intel
Dick Cheney’s transition office sends over a statement vowing to appeal the CIA’s decision to deny his request for declassification of the docs he said would prove torture worked:
The Obama Administration has denied Vice President Cheney’s request for the declassification of two documents that provide information about the effectiveness of the detainee program. Vice President Cheney is preparing his appeal to this denial.
Keep an eye on this one — Cheney is moving to make this about Obama’s alleged unwillingness to release information that will prove Cheney was right all along about torture. In fact, the CIA made the decision for straightforward legal reasons.
How long until Dick and Liz Cheney are all over the airwaves, saying that the CIA’s decision proves that Obama is hiding proof of torture’s effectiveness and isn’t willing to make good on his vow of transparency?
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Delores Nelson for the CIA: As you are aware, a request for Mandatory Declassification Review is governed by Executive Order 12958, as amended, which was signed and executed by the President on March 25, 2003.
Heh. Whine and pout will no doubt be Cheney’s reaction, but it’s ironic that he’s a victim of Dubya’s executive order.
“How long until Dick and Liz Cheney are all over the airwaves, saying that the CIA’s decision proves that Obama is hiding proof of torture’s effectiveness and isn’t willing to make good on his vow of transparency?”
Greg: Are you sure, legally speaking, that Obama cannot release these documents? Are you sure that Obama can’t ‘revoke’ the previous executive order and release the Cheney docs? Are you sure that President Obama does NOT have the legal authority to declassify the documents ‘with a wave of his hand’? Do you know if the legal memos previously released were also subject to this FOIA?
In other words, if Cheney does make the argument that you are preemptively mocking and accusing him of making, might it just be possible that he could be correct?
OLC Memos were released IN RESPONSE to an FOIA request from the ACLU. That was the whole point. The ACLU won in court and the administration negotiated to control how many were released. And now you want someone to overturn one of Bush’s Executive Order just to appease Dick Cheney. Wow. Just. Wow.
sbj, even their hero BoB “Hollywood” Baer is saying release the docs. Of course OBama can release them. He is the POTUS. he decided to release the OLC memos remember?
He’s just NOT releasing them because 1) they will show that pelosi is lying through her teeth and it will hurt the democrat brand and 2) Cheney knws what the memos say, and his position will be vindicated.
Although, I would guess that the CIA is pretty po’d right about now, so expect this stuff to be leaked.
And the sooner the better.
SG: I don’t ‘want’ someone to overturn an exec order just to appease Cheney. I want Sargent to check and see IF Obama can release the documents before Sargent asserts that he can not. I believe that sargent is wrong and that Obama could release the docs in question, therefore the hypothetical argument that Sargent is putting in Cheney’s mouth and calling false could actually be true, you dirty hippie.
*sigh*
How long before someone asks Colin Powell to explain his failure to say one damn thing about this when he left the administration? He knew when he quit that the war was all based on lies that he’d told the UN and that a lot of them were lies that Cheney and Bush got from detainees through torture – they tortured them for BAD INTEL and LIES ON PURPOSE! They didn’t want the truth – ever. Yeah, it works for forcing people to say what you want to hear.
All of the rest of this are red herrings. Where is Colin Powell? He knows!
Nelson is a CIA employee who’s held the post from a period prior to the Obama administration taking office. The phrase “Obama administration refuses to release documents” is a framing which has an obvious political goal, and I should think it more likely than not that Cheney (and his legal advisors) were quite aware that this response would be legally necessary.
The “Bloche vs DoD” is likely a typo…more likely it is Bloch, as in Scott J., OSC and loyalist Bushie fox in henhouse.
The Amnesty International FOIA request is interesting in that when you asked us a couple of weeks ago, greg, to see what we could find re Cheney’s request for document release, one of those document dates followed the day after Amnesty International released a significant indictment of the treatment of prisoners held by the US forces.
He almost certainly can. But does Cheney want to argue that Dubya’s E.O. was a mistake?
First he says
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Are you sure that Obama can’t ‘revoke’ the previous executive order and release the Cheney docs?
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Then he says
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SG: I don’t ‘want’ someone to overturn an exec order just to appease Cheney.
.
Please make up your mind or get your thoughts straight.
“Does Cheney want to argue that Dubya’s E.O. was a mistake?”
Sure, why not? He could just say, “I never could have imagined that the incoming administration would so threaten our national security with such reckless poitical manuevering that this would be necessary.” Or some other drivel. Bush doesn’t care, Cheney’s got nothing to lose. Who the heck even knows what the heck that EO even means? (I don’t believe Obama has to revoke the order to release the docs.)
“Please make up your mind or get your thoughts straight.”
As if I would take orders from an overfed long haired leaping gnome!
This is fairly simple. Greg implies that Obama cannot release the docs. I provide a hypothetical way to do it as a means to question Greg’s ‘assertion.’ How does that equate to ‘wanting’ the EO to be overturned?
1. Funny how conservatives only solution to everything is ignore the rule of law and use executive power to solve their problems. ie have Obama ignore the law and release information that Cheney wants
2. I am sure these will be released but only after the whole process gets exhausted, as it should be.
3. I am going to be contrarian and say that this is actually very good politically for Obama, because it keeps Cheney front and center frothing at the mouth in the public eye for longer and then when these get released and he looks like the paranoid fool he is the harder he will fall.
Earlier I put a comment on the Liz Cheney thread to the effect that the Cheney offense on all this was about Liz Cheney 2012. I meant it as a joke, albeit a scary one. But the more I think about this, the more I wonder. I’ve never bought it that Cheney is all over the airwaves just because he’s afraid of being prosecuted. In spite of the fact that he spent so much time in undisclosed locations and took five draft deferments, I don’t think he’s so much about bad things happening to him personally. With all his skirmishes with death, he has to be a little philosophical about the possibilities. What I think is more relevant is that he’s utterly, single-mindedly convinced that everything he did as vice president was warranted and right for the country and that his vision of things can’t be supplanted by something as minor as a new administration being in power. And he’s still fanatical about it.
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Enter Liz Cheney. How many adult children devote themselves feverishly to their parents’ legacy and world view just out of filial loyalty? Not many, I think. Parents may fight to the death for their kids but the reverse isn’t normally true. If Dick Cheney wants to keep the country going in the direction he’s held to so tenaciously, what better way to do that than to attack Obama as imperiling the country, all the while pushing his daughter forward as his main surrogate–and political heir? Liz Cheney is eerily like both her parents–confidant, single-minded, a skilled puncher and infighter, and ambitious. With her State resume, she’s actually the real Sarah Palin. In fact, if we want to get conspiratorial, we could even assume that people like Bill Kristol championed Palin as a stalking horse in a lost cause election just to see how a Republican woman with far right views and five kids would do. That done, they bring on Liz Cheney for Act II from the dark side in 2012.
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I hope I’m crazy, but I suspect all this posturing and trying to frame the debate is about more than defense.
ABC–this is a mystery to me and the ‘he is scared’ only goes so far in explaining why he is so out there. what you say makes some sense. Another thing–he may think there is some sort of institutional backing for his undermining Obama (hey I come from South America we always think of coups)
Whast are the legal reasons you cite that the CIA used to deney Cheney’s request?
Here’s a little mental exercise for you people. Occam’s Razor. Who wants the memos to see the light of day, and who doesn’t?
Pelosi is a liar, and Obama does not want Cheney’s 2 memos released because he knows what they say. If the memos proved the Pelosi/Obama case, they would already be out there.
Case Closed. Now, enjoy pissing in the wind if you like…
“Pelosi is a liar, and Obama does not want Cheney’s 2 memos released because he knows what they say. If the memos proved the Pelosi/Obama case, they would already be out there.
Case Closed. Now, enjoy pissing in the wind if you like…”
Says you – that’s an assumption you pulled right out of your azzzz.
It’s far more likely according to Occam’s Razor, that Pelosi and Obama are telling the truth – that’s the cleanest solution and that’s what Occam’s Razor is about – you phukwit.
No dear Tena. Because if they were telling the truth, they would immediately produce the evidence, and embarrass Cheney.
Have they? No.
Maybe you should go back and review Occam’s Razor. Political bias and blind faith have no place in logical examinations.
The funny thing is that if Cheney in fact tries to rope Obama into this as hindering the release, that can blowback on to Cheney himself. “So you’re saying that a president can manipulate the CIA? Very interesting.”
Cheney is running into a buzzsaw. He’s a reckless man and he’s in a hurry because he doesn’t have much time left. He will never be vindicated. Not in this life or any other.
Ifo – I’m sure Cheney always thinks of coups as well. So far at least part of the Constitution has had him checkmated.
correction on something I wrote earlier…I suggested that the “Bloche” of Bloche vs DoD was likely Block, Scott J. Emptywheel has correct data, it is Bloche and the case relates to bioethics questions related to med professionals complicit in interrogation… http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/