Happy Hour Open Thread: Cheney Mystery Solved!
* That whole question of whether Dick Cheney asked the CIA to declassify and release intelligence supposedly proving that the torture worked? Turns out Cheney made the request through the National Archives, a spokesperson for the archives confirms.
That means that we may, in fact, see the documents that Cheney claims will demonstrate that the Bush torture program collected a whole bunch of useful intelligence, though it may take awhile.
National Archives spokesperson Susan Cooper confirms that Cheney did submit a request for unspecified documents on March 31st. Cooper said that the National Archives had asked the relevant agency — she wouldn’t say which one, but there’s little reason to doubt that it’s the CIA — for the relevant documents this morning.
Cooper confirmed that the docs Cheney asked for were in fact classified. Keep in mind we have no way of knowing what Cheney actually asked for or whether they really say what Cheney claims. It’s now up to the CIA to make the determination whether to declassify the docs Cheney wants. So this could get very, very interesting in various ways.
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* A related thought: Republicans have to be in despair over the fact that Cheney has inserted himself into this fight. It redefines the battle as one over the Bush legacy, rather than one about whether Obama has what it takes to keep us safe, which is what Republicans currently in power want it to be about. Related thoughts from Steve Benen.
* Josh Marshall says we should call Cheney’s bluff.
* Jameson Foser asks an awfully good question about Cheney’s claim that he’s asked for the CIA torture intel:
If there exist documents that prove that torture prevented attacks on the US, and those documents can be released without jeopardizing national security, why didn’t the Bush administration release them before leaving office?
* More broadly, the coverage of Cheney on this has been falling short in numerous ways.
* Markos Moulitsas calls for the resignation of Jane Harman to resign over her role in trying to spike the Times’s big wiretapping story.
* TPM has a terrific and very useful time-line of the whole Harman affair.
* Senator Russ Feingold says the torture memos offer grounds for the impeachment of memo author and Judge Jay Bybee.
* Which makes Feingold the highest-ranking elected official to make the claim that there’s an existing basis for impeachment, says Josh Orton.
* Feingold sounded the alarm about Bybee on torture way back in 2003.
* In an interview with Sam Stein, pundit Stu Rothenberg concedes that the “100 days” metric is a “silly” one for judging the performance of presidents. But then he adds this:
“But we did it for Bush, Clinton, Bush etc., so how can we NOT do it for Obama without looking as if we are giving him a break?”
Shorter Stu: We pundits have condemned ourselves to an eternity of silly seasons, and we’re powerless to do anything about it.
Update: Cheney’s use of intel for political ends is giving David Kurtz painful flashbacks.
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So the question still remains Greg, if Cheney and all his cronies are saying that President Obama made America less safe by releasing the OLC memos, then what exactly was Cheney doing asking for a release of memos which would have exposed much the same thing a month prior to President Obama acting? By their own metric that means that Dick Cheney, after being out of office, is trying to make us less safe. Imagine if it was the ACLU requesting whichever top secret documents we have on this issue. Remember now, torturing would have had to come out in any memo that talked about the fruits of torture.
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By the way I think its appropriate to go back and ask GOP lawmakers to apologize to Dick Durbin for villifying him when he brought the torture issue up some years back.
On sleep deprivation as torture
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/04/21/a-third-doctor-objects-to-cia-misuse-of-science/
greg–why did he make this request in march? isn’t that very strange?
you guys are right. the timing is very interesting. lots more here, I wager.
I’ll make a guess as why he requested this in March – all that spring shredder trucks pulled up next to the VP’s residence weekly. Maybe they always do but it was reported as if it was out of the ordinary. Not only was he getting rid of everything he could, it seems to me he felt he was going to need the information he claims exists because he is and has been scared he was going to need the information to launch a defense of his actions because the chain of action vis-a-vis those memos goes right to Cheney/Bush -
Greg. I think the National Archives answer is just to cover for Cheney’s lie. They don’t keep CIA records. They threw out the National Archives answer because he had made a request in connection with his book. Check it out.
I think Cheney still has his moles on the inside of DOJ and he knows something is in the works. He’s trying to try his case in the court of wing nut opinion. Either that or taint the future jury pool with memo’s that might never get put into evidence.
Hmm, did not Cheny resist giving documents to the National Archives? Maybe they don’t have the one’s he’s asking for…because he already has them.
Is it just me, or is this whole thing weirder than weird?–the ex-VP interjecting himself into major national security and policy matters in such a public way. What’s up with Dick? Does he know he’s ex? Do the people he’s talking to realize it? Maybe this is self protective for him, but it seems delusional.
Mary – that is an interesting angle, the timing of the request makes no sense.
Isnt’t this request kind of hysterically ironic considering the measures that both Chaney and Bush has sought to keep all their records out of the public view?
WaPo: “Lawsuit to Ask That Cheney’s Papers Be Made Public” (9/8/08)
The National Archives does hold old CIA records
http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/263.html
We just might have to wait 10 years…
OK. But you know i’m right anyway. He lied and they covered it with a National Archives fib.
It also looks like Cheney has lost control of the CIA and has to rely on a lowly National Archives shill. I think it’s fair to say that his world is crumbling around him. It will be a further blow when they pull his Secret Service…
I’m weeping for this man.
no, there’s something more insidious going on here with Cheney’s request; he’ll try to release selected memos, protecting Addington in some convoluted way.
The legacy is all he has left; they have to protect the myth.
When Cheney loses secret service protection he’ll gain Blackwate…err…Xe protection.
Greg I hope you see this and check on this idea tomorrow–a commenter on another site mentioned that Cheney is working on a book and has been filing with the archives for lots of documents on a very routine basis. so this request of late March may just be a routine request which he is using to simply cover his a**?
Newsweek reported on March 21st that the Obama administration was moving to declassify the memos.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/190362
Cheney’s declassification request was submitted to the National Archives (the proper channel for such a request) on March 31st. Wow, mysterious.
oops I see Mary was already on it. sorry Mary is missed your comment. Maybe now Greg will check it
Whether Cheney was lying or not, he has made an excellent case to declassify all of the memos, such as the dissenting legal opinions, the CIA Inspector General’s report that said the CIA was torturing, etc.
Please, Cheney is a gift that keeps on giving to Democrats. Today he sounded like Darth Vader, his breathing between rants was so labored it was somewhat scary. The man is a walking talking billboard for everything wrong with the GOP.
“If there exist documents that prove that torture prevented attacks on the US, and those documents can be released without jeopardizing national security, why didn’t the Bush administration release them before leaving office?”
Uh huh, along with all the other self-serving documents they released.
Dare we ask another question – if the CIA Inspector General’s report or other reports make it clear that the enhanced interrogation program was *not* effective, why hasn’t Obama released that?
I hope that they release the documents before Sandy (Socks) Berger gets to them.
http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2009/04/21/nbc-news-cia-denies-cheney-made-formal-request/
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Turns out the soldiers at abu ghraib took their cues from Rummy and GITMO
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http://tinyurl.com/cre79u
So why did we torture? Was it to stop a ticking time bomb? Turns out it was moreso to justify going to war with Iraq by establishing links between Iraq and al queda that didn’t exist. I guess that answers the question about why people were waterboarded so many times.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html
What I want to know is why we’re still “torturing” at SERE school. For all Sen Levin’s maunderings about the subject (i.e., SERE is legitimate training, but not designed for use in interrogations), there’s absolutely nothing to explain why it’s perfectly okay to use the same techniques on US servicemen, but “torture” when we do it to Al Qaeda detainees. Does the CAT not apply to servicemen?
“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country.” – DNI Dennis Blair, 16 APR 2009
Cecil Turner
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You have to remember that soldiers have to voluntarily sign on for SERE school and they have the ability to say no if the training is too intense for them. The whole reason behind the SERE school is to prepare those soldiers for what might be done to them by a country that doesn’t have the same “values” that America stands for. And really the training is not so that the soldiers don’t give up critical information. Literally the training is meant to help them to be strong enough that they don’t give false confessions for propaganda purposes. And even at that the SERE training lasts like 2 weeks not years or months.
das
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Notice Blair’s statement said nothing about it saving lives or preventing attacks. Only helping us learn about how al Qaida operates which we could have learned with traditional interrogation techniques.
“Is it just me, or is this whole thing weirder than weird?–the ex-VP interjecting himself into major national security and policy matters in such a public way. What’s up with Dick? Does he know he’s ex? Do the people he’s talking to realize it? Maybe this is self protective for him, but it seems delusional.”
Not delusional – terrified.
sgwhiteinfla, how can that even be predicted?
It is a statement that certain techniques yielded valuable information. If we take that as factual and at face value, doesn’t it follow that such information becomes a component of efforts to prevent attacks and save lives? The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Could information have also been obtained other ways? Would it have been the same information? As much? It’s ridiculous to assert otherwise. It’s a sliding scale: some interrogation techniques are mentally, physically, and psychologically more aggressive. More aggressive techniques can yield greater/different information under varying circumstances. To simply assert without basis that “traditional” techniques would yield the “same” information is fallacious.
The key is: what is the threshold? When/how/where is it appropriate to stop? In what context, and under what circumstances?
By the way, this is the furthest thing from a political issue for me, but I think I made the mistake of wading into what appears to be a highly political discussion for many.
You have to remember that soldiers have to voluntarily sign on for SERE school . . .
It’s a requirement to hold many types of jobs. For example, if you want to be an aviator, gotta go to SERE. But okay, at the basic level, they’re all volunteers. So what? Is “walling” torture? I think that contention is just silly. Ditto for practically every other measure discussed.
Waterboarding is probably arguable. But what possible argument can be made that it’s okay at SERE, but torture elsewhere? We’ve waterboarded thousands of our own servicemen. Ergo . . .
Cheney will need to go through those documents to find what needs to disappear from the CIA files. Spain War Crimes trials are looming for CIA, and then bigger fish like Cheney once the link is legally made. We are talking 27 detainees tortured to death and over 100 detainees who died in custody. Accesory to murder & torture are possibilitys, and te CIA already destroyed 96 video tapes of torture evidence.
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