You think it’s a dead horse? I see Cheney's mug all over the media. One way to shut him up is to prosecute.
If Obama Is President, Would He Forget About The Bush Crimes?
- Thread starter thoughtone
- Start date
You think it’s a dead horse? I see Cheney's mug all over the media. One way to shut him up is to prosecute.
No,I was just kidding with Lamarr about keeping this thread going that started in 07'.
I still stand by what I said in the beginning of this thread.
Last edited:
Thought always askin me where was I, when W was doin all his dirt, so I was just voicing my opposition. He claims I'm some kind of right-winger or somethin'
President Obama veering away from his campaign issues, thus his poll numbers are down.
How is that decline related to the subject of this thread; and what campaign issues do you contend he is "veering away" from that is causing the slide ???
QueEx
Investigating Bush/Cheney and charging them.
True, but I wouldn't say that is the reason for the decline. I'd just say its typical of most recent Presidents.
I wanna make an amendment to the quote: Bush/Cheney/Paulson Gotta include Paulson!
I don't recall Barack Obama campaigning on a prosecution of Bush/Cheney platform
QueEx
<font size="5"><center>
GOP Leader Calls CIA Probe 'Witch Hunt';
Democrats Say It's Too Narrow</font size></center>
Washington Post
By Paul Kane and Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Senior Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill voiced their dissatisfaction Tuesday with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to examine CIA interrogators' alleged abuse of terrorism suspects earlier this decade.
Leading Republicans denounced the appointment of John H. Durham, a career prosecutor, saying it will hinder intelligence-gathering in the fight against terrorists, while top Democrats criticized the investigation as too limited. They renewed calls for an independent review of most of the controversial anti-terrorism policies adopted by George W. Bush's administration.
Holder had no new comment Tuesday on the matter. The attorney general issued a lengthy statement Monday explaining his decision and acknowledging that it could engender "controversy." But he concluded that he had no other choice than to order a preliminary review of about 10 cases of alleged detainee abuse.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) decried that in a statement Tuesday, saying: "The men and women who protect this country should never have to worry that they will face criminal prosecution as a result of a political election. The Obama administration's decision smacks more of a witch hunt designed to satisfy political allies than a strategy to keep the American people safe." Boehner added that the inquiry will "have a chilling effect on the ability of our intelligence professionals to do their jobs."
His words echoed the sentiments of senior Senate Republicans, eight of whom wrote a letter of protest to Holder on Monday evening. "We fear that the true cost of this endeavor will ultimately be borne by the American people, who rely on the intelligence community, operating without distraction, to protect them from the many threats, known and unknown, that our country faces in this post-9/11 world," the group wrote.
Those signing the letter included Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.); Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee; and Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. They also questioned why the case was handed to Durham instead of an internal Justice Department lawyer, saying that previous independent prosecutors have taken "an expansive view of their investigative authority."
Democrats largely applauded Durham's appointment, but some urged that the inquiry extend beyond the actions of the interrogators who were accused of going further than the Bush administration's guidelines allowed when questioning detainees. A key area of concern for many Democrats is learning what Bush's most senior advisers knew about the interrogation policies.
"The abuses that were officially sanctioned amounted to torture, and those at the very top who authorized, ordered or sought to provide legal cover for them should be held accountable," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a senior member of the intelligence and judiciary panels.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) cited Monday's release of a 2004 report from the CIA inspector general on the treatment of detainees in renewing his call for a "commission of inquiry," an independent review of all Bush-era policies against alleged terrorists.
"Who justified these policies? What was the role of the Bush White House? How can we make sure it never happens again?" he said.
Leahy's proposed commission has been opposed by Republicans and has divided Democrats, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) endorsing the approach and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) opposing it. President Obama rejected the call for such a panel in the spring, saying he wanted his administration to "look forward" and not spend time in a partisan dispute about the previous administration.
Liberal legal scholars and activists also said Holder did not go far enough in pushing the investigation, leaving off the hook top Bush advisers as well as Justice Department lawyers whose legal memos created the foundation for the harsh techniques employed in the interrogations.
"It's pretty clear that his intention is not to investigate the lawyers and Cabinet-level officials who approved the program in the first place," said Georgetown University law professor David Cole, referring to Holder. "If that's what's done, then it's really a matter of scapegoating rather than true accountability."
Cole, who wrote a book that looks at the Justice Department's "torture memos," gave the attorney general credit for bucking the president's desire to move forward. But he added, "It seems to me a good-faith application of the law would go much farther."
"It's a good first step, but it's not, in and of itself, enough," said Tom Parker, the policy director for terrorism and human rights at Amnesty International, referring to the preliminary inquiry. "We're certainly pleased to see the most egregious cases getting attention, but we don't think it goes far enough."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/25/AR2009082503073.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
GOP Leader Calls CIA Probe 'Witch Hunt';
Democrats Say It's Too Narrow</font size></center>
Washington Post
By Paul Kane and Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Senior Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill voiced their dissatisfaction Tuesday with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to examine CIA interrogators' alleged abuse of terrorism suspects earlier this decade.
Leading Republicans denounced the appointment of John H. Durham, a career prosecutor, saying it will hinder intelligence-gathering in the fight against terrorists, while top Democrats criticized the investigation as too limited. They renewed calls for an independent review of most of the controversial anti-terrorism policies adopted by George W. Bush's administration.
Holder had no new comment Tuesday on the matter. The attorney general issued a lengthy statement Monday explaining his decision and acknowledging that it could engender "controversy." But he concluded that he had no other choice than to order a preliminary review of about 10 cases of alleged detainee abuse.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) decried that in a statement Tuesday, saying: "The men and women who protect this country should never have to worry that they will face criminal prosecution as a result of a political election. The Obama administration's decision smacks more of a witch hunt designed to satisfy political allies than a strategy to keep the American people safe." Boehner added that the inquiry will "have a chilling effect on the ability of our intelligence professionals to do their jobs."
His words echoed the sentiments of senior Senate Republicans, eight of whom wrote a letter of protest to Holder on Monday evening. "We fear that the true cost of this endeavor will ultimately be borne by the American people, who rely on the intelligence community, operating without distraction, to protect them from the many threats, known and unknown, that our country faces in this post-9/11 world," the group wrote.
Those signing the letter included Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.); Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee; and Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. They also questioned why the case was handed to Durham instead of an internal Justice Department lawyer, saying that previous independent prosecutors have taken "an expansive view of their investigative authority."
Democrats largely applauded Durham's appointment, but some urged that the inquiry extend beyond the actions of the interrogators who were accused of going further than the Bush administration's guidelines allowed when questioning detainees. A key area of concern for many Democrats is learning what Bush's most senior advisers knew about the interrogation policies.
"The abuses that were officially sanctioned amounted to torture, and those at the very top who authorized, ordered or sought to provide legal cover for them should be held accountable," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a senior member of the intelligence and judiciary panels.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) cited Monday's release of a 2004 report from the CIA inspector general on the treatment of detainees in renewing his call for a "commission of inquiry," an independent review of all Bush-era policies against alleged terrorists.
"Who justified these policies? What was the role of the Bush White House? How can we make sure it never happens again?" he said.
Leahy's proposed commission has been opposed by Republicans and has divided Democrats, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) endorsing the approach and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) opposing it. President Obama rejected the call for such a panel in the spring, saying he wanted his administration to "look forward" and not spend time in a partisan dispute about the previous administration.
Liberal legal scholars and activists also said Holder did not go far enough in pushing the investigation, leaving off the hook top Bush advisers as well as Justice Department lawyers whose legal memos created the foundation for the harsh techniques employed in the interrogations.
"It's pretty clear that his intention is not to investigate the lawyers and Cabinet-level officials who approved the program in the first place," said Georgetown University law professor David Cole, referring to Holder. "If that's what's done, then it's really a matter of scapegoating rather than true accountability."
Cole, who wrote a book that looks at the Justice Department's "torture memos," gave the attorney general credit for bucking the president's desire to move forward. But he added, "It seems to me a good-faith application of the law would go much farther."
"It's a good first step, but it's not, in and of itself, enough," said Tom Parker, the policy director for terrorism and human rights at Amnesty International, referring to the preliminary inquiry. "We're certainly pleased to see the most egregious cases getting attention, but we don't think it goes far enough."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/25/AR2009082503073.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
Hopefully this will result in something major. Remember Clinton's impeachment started with a wild, willy nilly investigation of an obscure failed housing development that Hilary lost money in.
Cheney being brought up on charges of treason.
You know, I'd like to try Cheney myself. Seriously.
But, does your thirst extend to Bush and, if so, (1) what would be the charge(s) and (2) would that really be good for the country ? ? ?
Is this "Revenge Politics" a good thing ? ? ?
Can either party or a third party or an independent ever really deal with trying to solve some of our problems if the "Out-of-Power Party" is hell bent on ruining shit -- in the name of setting up a win at the next election ???
On the other hand, I understand the argument that criminals (if crime has been committed) shouldn't just get off because it might be bad for the country to bring them to trial.
What do you (or anyone else) say ? ? ?
QueEx
\
Without meandering, my earlier post "Democratic Battered Wife Syndrome" is what I truly believe in. The fact that every administration can get away with undeclared military actions, leads to an endless escalation of madness. This latest foray into the Arab and Persian lands has busted the nation’s budget for sure. If Obama feels he is above the law, let him be investigated. This last administration just shitted on the law. If they get away with this with impunity, the next administration will use any and all excuses to go even farther. This not about principle, it is about justice.
On the torture report, a confrontation looms
On the torture report, a confrontation looms
By Matt Bai
8 hours ago
Sometime this summer, probably when as many Americans as possible are tanning on a beach and not paying attention, the White House is expected to release a version of a classified report on torture during the Bush years. Actually, what's likely to become public is only the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report; the entire thing, five years in the making, clocks in at about 6,700 pages, making it the most exhaustive account yet of what really went on in secret CIA prisons around the world.
President Obama has repeatedly said he favors declassifying the report, which the public really ought to see. And should he release the summary in something close to the form in which it was sent to him, then his decision will likely end an unusually public standoff between top senators and the CIA, each of whom accused the other of spying illegally as the report was being compiled and written.
If, on the other hand, Obama delays the release much longer, or bows to the intelligence community and decides to black out the report's most damaging findings, then we may find ourselves on the brink of a serious escalation between the legislative and executive branches in Washington — a war over what kind of secrets the government should be allowed to keep and, more to the point, who gets to decide.
The doomsday device in this fight, which the Senate has rolled out a few times in the past but has never actually used, is an arcane, almost 40-year-old provision known as Senate Resolution 400. (Not the catchiest name ever, but you know, Hollywood thrillers have worked with less.) It's a drastic measure that's now being openly discussed as a serious option inside the Senate. But before we get to all that, let's take a step back and consider what's really going on here
Remarkably, given the nature of modern Washington, almost nothing specific from the Senate's report has actually leaked into public view. But according to insiders and some published accounts, there are two main headlines that emerge from it, both scathingly critical of the CIA. The first is that, contrary to the agency's assertions, torture as an interrogation tactic — that is, the infamous waterboarding, among other "enhanced" techniques — didn't actually work very well. The second is that intelligence officials lied outright to Congress, repeatedly, about this.
Those who have worked on or read the report sent to the White House say it contains explosive details, even given what we already know about the interrogation program. "I think the American people are going to be profoundly disturbed and genuinely shocked by the content of this," Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, an intel committee member, told me this week.
Obama, you may recall, came to office vowing to overturn Bush-era secrecy, and at the end of his first year in office he issued clear guidelines (by Washington standards, anyway) for declassifying documents. One of the more interesting provisions in that order, half-buried in Section 1.7, was that the government would not be allowed to keep information classified in order to "conceal violations of law" or "prevent embarrassment to a person, organization or agency."
It seems like a pretty good bet, considering what's in the report, that the CIA has some concerns about violations of law and potential embarrassment to a person, organization or agency. Maybe even all three.
But of course that's not what the agency's director, John Brennan, has told the president in arguing against declassification. According to people briefed on the issue, Brennan has argued that the report is deeply flawed and might lead to unrest around the world, jeopardizing agents in the field and national security. (The agency has written a detailed rebuttal, which is also likely to be made public.)
Obama could reject this argument, of course, and follow through on his repeated vows to lead the most transparent administration in history. But there's not a lot of optimism about that inside the committee or among open government groups, given Obama's past deference to intelligence officials on issues like secret wiretaps and drones. The expectation seems to be that the White House will approve some version of the report that's kind of like those maddening Eminem songs you hear on FM — faithful enough to get the basic point across, but with enough skips to be sure it doesn't shock anyone.
It's easy enough to fault Obama if that's what comes to pass, but really, we have a structural problem when it comes to trusting the executive branch with declassification. In the age of terrorism, more than at any time in the past, a president is always hearing that the risk of any disclosure is dire and immediate — that releasing painful and embarrassing truths might trigger the next attack or ruin our chance to stop it. And if there is an attack, even if it isn't at all connected to that disclosure, the president knows he will be squarely blamed. There's tremendous pressure to err on the side of secrecy.
And as you might expect, the only intelligence the president is generally urged to declassify is that which exonerates the intelligence agencies or proves their point —and often in instances when congressional overseers know there's more to the story and aren't allowed to say so publicly. When you control the information that gets into the public domain, you also control the debate.
This is where Resolution 400 potentially comes into play. When the Senate passed that resolution in 1976, creating the Select Committee on Intelligence, it gave itself the extraordinary power to declassify information without the president's approval — albeit with considerable exertion.
Basically, in order to invoke that provision successfully, the intel committee, chaired by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, would first have to vote to bring the report before a rare closed session of the full Senate. If the president didn't object in writing within five days, the full Senate would then weigh the report in closed session and vote on whether to unilaterally declassify it.
Senators have gone through the initial process of invoking Resolution 400 in the past, the last time during George W. Bush's second term, but it's generally been considered a way of getting the president's attention rather than a realistic option. That's probably the main reason it's being trotted out now, too. No doubt some senators were willing to talk with me about it openly this week because they're trying to pressure the White House.
But there's also a growing sense among senators that, if Obama doesn't disclose the summary more or less as is, Feinstein might be exasperated enough to actually ramp up the doomsday device, with the backing of some senior members. "I am going to use whatever tools it takes, including Senate Res 400, to declassify the torture report," Wyden told me flatly, more than once.
And there's compelling reason to do that, provided, as the committee says, the report has already been redacted to protect CIA operatives. The truth is that America has never been exceptionally adept at safeguarding basic values in the face of new and unfamiliar threats. The government imprisoned more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. It terrorized intellectuals at home and sanctioned assassinations abroad in those early, ominous years of the Cold War.
What we've learned is that sooner or later you have to acknowledge those transgressions in order to transcend them. As Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, a former intel committee member, puts it, "This report gives our country the best chance to reconcile ourselves to what we've done, and then move on."
If Obama won't make the most of that chance, the Senate just might, and probably should.
https://news.yahoo.com/on-the-torture-report--a-confrontation-looms-085034400.html
On the torture report, a confrontation looms
By Matt Bai
8 hours ago
Sometime this summer, probably when as many Americans as possible are tanning on a beach and not paying attention, the White House is expected to release a version of a classified report on torture during the Bush years. Actually, what's likely to become public is only the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report; the entire thing, five years in the making, clocks in at about 6,700 pages, making it the most exhaustive account yet of what really went on in secret CIA prisons around the world.
President Obama has repeatedly said he favors declassifying the report, which the public really ought to see. And should he release the summary in something close to the form in which it was sent to him, then his decision will likely end an unusually public standoff between top senators and the CIA, each of whom accused the other of spying illegally as the report was being compiled and written.
If, on the other hand, Obama delays the release much longer, or bows to the intelligence community and decides to black out the report's most damaging findings, then we may find ourselves on the brink of a serious escalation between the legislative and executive branches in Washington — a war over what kind of secrets the government should be allowed to keep and, more to the point, who gets to decide.
The doomsday device in this fight, which the Senate has rolled out a few times in the past but has never actually used, is an arcane, almost 40-year-old provision known as Senate Resolution 400. (Not the catchiest name ever, but you know, Hollywood thrillers have worked with less.) It's a drastic measure that's now being openly discussed as a serious option inside the Senate. But before we get to all that, let's take a step back and consider what's really going on here
Remarkably, given the nature of modern Washington, almost nothing specific from the Senate's report has actually leaked into public view. But according to insiders and some published accounts, there are two main headlines that emerge from it, both scathingly critical of the CIA. The first is that, contrary to the agency's assertions, torture as an interrogation tactic — that is, the infamous waterboarding, among other "enhanced" techniques — didn't actually work very well. The second is that intelligence officials lied outright to Congress, repeatedly, about this.
Those who have worked on or read the report sent to the White House say it contains explosive details, even given what we already know about the interrogation program. "I think the American people are going to be profoundly disturbed and genuinely shocked by the content of this," Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, an intel committee member, told me this week.
Obama, you may recall, came to office vowing to overturn Bush-era secrecy, and at the end of his first year in office he issued clear guidelines (by Washington standards, anyway) for declassifying documents. One of the more interesting provisions in that order, half-buried in Section 1.7, was that the government would not be allowed to keep information classified in order to "conceal violations of law" or "prevent embarrassment to a person, organization or agency."
It seems like a pretty good bet, considering what's in the report, that the CIA has some concerns about violations of law and potential embarrassment to a person, organization or agency. Maybe even all three.
But of course that's not what the agency's director, John Brennan, has told the president in arguing against declassification. According to people briefed on the issue, Brennan has argued that the report is deeply flawed and might lead to unrest around the world, jeopardizing agents in the field and national security. (The agency has written a detailed rebuttal, which is also likely to be made public.)
Obama could reject this argument, of course, and follow through on his repeated vows to lead the most transparent administration in history. But there's not a lot of optimism about that inside the committee or among open government groups, given Obama's past deference to intelligence officials on issues like secret wiretaps and drones. The expectation seems to be that the White House will approve some version of the report that's kind of like those maddening Eminem songs you hear on FM — faithful enough to get the basic point across, but with enough skips to be sure it doesn't shock anyone.
It's easy enough to fault Obama if that's what comes to pass, but really, we have a structural problem when it comes to trusting the executive branch with declassification. In the age of terrorism, more than at any time in the past, a president is always hearing that the risk of any disclosure is dire and immediate — that releasing painful and embarrassing truths might trigger the next attack or ruin our chance to stop it. And if there is an attack, even if it isn't at all connected to that disclosure, the president knows he will be squarely blamed. There's tremendous pressure to err on the side of secrecy.
And as you might expect, the only intelligence the president is generally urged to declassify is that which exonerates the intelligence agencies or proves their point —and often in instances when congressional overseers know there's more to the story and aren't allowed to say so publicly. When you control the information that gets into the public domain, you also control the debate.
This is where Resolution 400 potentially comes into play. When the Senate passed that resolution in 1976, creating the Select Committee on Intelligence, it gave itself the extraordinary power to declassify information without the president's approval — albeit with considerable exertion.
Basically, in order to invoke that provision successfully, the intel committee, chaired by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, would first have to vote to bring the report before a rare closed session of the full Senate. If the president didn't object in writing within five days, the full Senate would then weigh the report in closed session and vote on whether to unilaterally declassify it.
Senators have gone through the initial process of invoking Resolution 400 in the past, the last time during George W. Bush's second term, but it's generally been considered a way of getting the president's attention rather than a realistic option. That's probably the main reason it's being trotted out now, too. No doubt some senators were willing to talk with me about it openly this week because they're trying to pressure the White House.
But there's also a growing sense among senators that, if Obama doesn't disclose the summary more or less as is, Feinstein might be exasperated enough to actually ramp up the doomsday device, with the backing of some senior members. "I am going to use whatever tools it takes, including Senate Res 400, to declassify the torture report," Wyden told me flatly, more than once.
And there's compelling reason to do that, provided, as the committee says, the report has already been redacted to protect CIA operatives. The truth is that America has never been exceptionally adept at safeguarding basic values in the face of new and unfamiliar threats. The government imprisoned more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. It terrorized intellectuals at home and sanctioned assassinations abroad in those early, ominous years of the Cold War.
What we've learned is that sooner or later you have to acknowledge those transgressions in order to transcend them. As Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, a former intel committee member, puts it, "This report gives our country the best chance to reconcile ourselves to what we've done, and then move on."
If Obama won't make the most of that chance, the Senate just might, and probably should.
https://news.yahoo.com/on-the-torture-report--a-confrontation-looms-085034400.html
The report should be released, fully un-rredacted.
Obama: Senate report will show ‘we tortured some folks’
Obama: Senate report will show ‘we tortured some folks’
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo News
19 hours ago
Yahoo News
President Barack Obama somberly warned on Friday that a forthcoming Senate Intelligence Committee report will show that the United States “tortured some folks” before he took office. But he dismissed “sanctimonious” calls to punish any individuals responsible and rejected calls for CIA Director John Brennan’s resignation.
“When we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques — techniques that I believe, and I think any fair-minded person would believe, were torture — we crossed the line,” Obama declared in the White House briefing room.
“And that needs to be understood. And accepted. And we have to, as a country, take responsibility for that so that hopefully we don’t do it again in the future,” the president said.
Obama said the White House and CIA process of declassifying portions of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Rendition, Detention, Interrogation was complete and that the document would now be made public “at the pleasure” of the committee.
The report is expected to lay out in grim, unprecedented detail how the United States questioned suspected terrorists using techniques such as waterboarding that meet international definitions of torture.
Obama ordered an end to such practices upon taking office — but he angered liberals by setting aside calls to prosecute or otherwise punish those who ordered the use of such techniques or carried out those commands. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. launched a criminal probe into the interrogations program in 2009, but the prosecutor assigned to the investigation declined to bring any charges.
“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks,” Obama explained on Friday.
“I understand why it happened,” he said. “People did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law-enforcement and our national security teams” to prevent any follow-on strikes.
“It’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had,” Obama said.
“A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots. But having said all that we did some things that were wrong,” he said. “And that’s what that report reflects.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee could within days make public the declassified executive summary of the 6,200-page report — as well as dissenting views from the panel’s Republicans and the CIA.
While Obama does not appear willing to reopen the question of prosecuting those responsible for the policy, or those who carried it out, the angry debate could have an impact on trials of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, who could now argue that any confessions are inadmissible because they were obtained through torture.
The process of crafting the report led to an unprecedented feud between the CIA and Senate IntelligenceCommittee Chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who publicly accused the agency in March of improperly interfering with her panel’s investigation.
Brennan had loudly denied Feinstein’s charges that agency officials had broken into computers used by Senate staff at a CIA facility to sift through agency documents. On Thursday, a CIA inspector general report confirmed Feinstein’s charges, prompting some congressional Democrats to call for Brennan’s removal.
“I have full confidence in John Brennan,” Obama said during his hastily arranged Q&A session on Friday.
“He has acknowledged and directly apologized to Sen. Feinstein,” the president said, faulting the CIA staff involved for their “very poor judgment.”
“Keep in mind, though, that John Brennan was the person who called for the IG report,” Obama said. “And he has already stood up a task force to make sure that lessons are learned and mistakes are resolved.”
http://news.yahoo.com/obama--senate-report-will-show--we-tortured-some-folks-204712041.html
Obama: Senate report will show ‘we tortured some folks’
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo News
19 hours ago
Yahoo News
President Barack Obama somberly warned on Friday that a forthcoming Senate Intelligence Committee report will show that the United States “tortured some folks” before he took office. But he dismissed “sanctimonious” calls to punish any individuals responsible and rejected calls for CIA Director John Brennan’s resignation.
“When we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques — techniques that I believe, and I think any fair-minded person would believe, were torture — we crossed the line,” Obama declared in the White House briefing room.
“And that needs to be understood. And accepted. And we have to, as a country, take responsibility for that so that hopefully we don’t do it again in the future,” the president said.
Obama said the White House and CIA process of declassifying portions of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Rendition, Detention, Interrogation was complete and that the document would now be made public “at the pleasure” of the committee.
The report is expected to lay out in grim, unprecedented detail how the United States questioned suspected terrorists using techniques such as waterboarding that meet international definitions of torture.
Obama ordered an end to such practices upon taking office — but he angered liberals by setting aside calls to prosecute or otherwise punish those who ordered the use of such techniques or carried out those commands. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. launched a criminal probe into the interrogations program in 2009, but the prosecutor assigned to the investigation declined to bring any charges.
“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks,” Obama explained on Friday.
“I understand why it happened,” he said. “People did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law-enforcement and our national security teams” to prevent any follow-on strikes.
“It’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had,” Obama said.
“A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots. But having said all that we did some things that were wrong,” he said. “And that’s what that report reflects.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee could within days make public the declassified executive summary of the 6,200-page report — as well as dissenting views from the panel’s Republicans and the CIA.
While Obama does not appear willing to reopen the question of prosecuting those responsible for the policy, or those who carried it out, the angry debate could have an impact on trials of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, who could now argue that any confessions are inadmissible because they were obtained through torture.
The process of crafting the report led to an unprecedented feud between the CIA and Senate IntelligenceCommittee Chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who publicly accused the agency in March of improperly interfering with her panel’s investigation.
Brennan had loudly denied Feinstein’s charges that agency officials had broken into computers used by Senate staff at a CIA facility to sift through agency documents. On Thursday, a CIA inspector general report confirmed Feinstein’s charges, prompting some congressional Democrats to call for Brennan’s removal.
“I have full confidence in John Brennan,” Obama said during his hastily arranged Q&A session on Friday.
“He has acknowledged and directly apologized to Sen. Feinstein,” the president said, faulting the CIA staff involved for their “very poor judgment.”
“Keep in mind, though, that John Brennan was the person who called for the IG report,” Obama said. “And he has already stood up a task force to make sure that lessons are learned and mistakes are resolved.”
http://news.yahoo.com/obama--senate-report-will-show--we-tortured-some-folks-204712041.html
“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks,” Obama explained on Friday.
We also took "Executive Actions" against people that defected, but were openly critical of the US.
We also took "Executive Actions" against people that defected, but were openly critical of the US.
He did all this for things that happened 13 years ago under another president, breaking into computers and redacting reports. Imagine what would happen if some real shit was to be investigated about him, like what I am dealing with?
Anything that exposes/disrupts US propaganda will get attacked.
Anything that exposes/disrupts US propaganda will get attacked.
source: Raw Story
Liz Cheney: ‘Despicable’ Obama slanders ‘patriots’ when he admits to post-9/11 torture
Speaking with guest-host Monica Crowley on the Fox’s Hannity, Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice President Dick Cheney, called President Barack Obama a “disgrace” and “despicable” for admitting that America tortured detainees following the attack on 9/11.
In a segment boldly titled, ‘Enhanced interrogation,’ Crowley asked the former Wyoming U.S. Senate candidate about Obama’s remarks earlier this week when the president said, “We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”
“You know Monica, this president is an utter disgrace. He’s got a situation where, as your last two reports showed, you’ve got crises erupting around the world, ” a fired-up Cheney complained. “And he is expending more time, more energy, more passion, more aggressive activity in targeting and going after patriots, heroes. CIA officers and others who kept is safe after 9/11. He’s lying about what they did, he’s slandering them, he went to Cairo and did it in 2009.”
Cheney added, “Today he did it from the podium of the Oval Office. It’s a disgrace. It’s despicable.”
In 2002 the Bush/Cheney administration authorized the use of so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ of detainees in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. A U.S. Senate report, due to be released, is purported to conclude that the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques following 9/11 attacks was ineffective and yielded no critical intelligence.
Contrary to Cheney’s comments, the Obama administration has failed to aggressively prosecute anyone associated with the interrogation program.
Crowley continued by asking Cheney if President Obama was bring up issues relating to the Bush/Cheney administration because, “his plate is now full of scandals and international crises in large part a direct result of his immediate weakness as Commander in Chief.”
“Absolutely,” an animated Cheney replied. “He really would like to change the subject. That press conference today… was an amazing and stunning display of a president, a leader, a Commander in Chief who seems to take no responsibility for anything that’s happened on his watch.”
Watch the video below, uploaded to YouTube by NewsNow:
<iframe src="http://videos.rawstory.com/video/Liz-Cheney-Obama-Going-After-Am/player?layout=&read_more=1" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" height="321" width="416"></iframe>
Liz Cheney: ‘Despicable’ Obama slanders ‘patriots’ when he admits to post-9/11 torture
Speaking with guest-host Monica Crowley on the Fox’s Hannity, Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice President Dick Cheney, called President Barack Obama a “disgrace” and “despicable” for admitting that America tortured detainees following the attack on 9/11.
In a segment boldly titled, ‘Enhanced interrogation,’ Crowley asked the former Wyoming U.S. Senate candidate about Obama’s remarks earlier this week when the president said, “We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”
“You know Monica, this president is an utter disgrace. He’s got a situation where, as your last two reports showed, you’ve got crises erupting around the world, ” a fired-up Cheney complained. “And he is expending more time, more energy, more passion, more aggressive activity in targeting and going after patriots, heroes. CIA officers and others who kept is safe after 9/11. He’s lying about what they did, he’s slandering them, he went to Cairo and did it in 2009.”
Cheney added, “Today he did it from the podium of the Oval Office. It’s a disgrace. It’s despicable.”
In 2002 the Bush/Cheney administration authorized the use of so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ of detainees in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. A U.S. Senate report, due to be released, is purported to conclude that the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques following 9/11 attacks was ineffective and yielded no critical intelligence.
Contrary to Cheney’s comments, the Obama administration has failed to aggressively prosecute anyone associated with the interrogation program.
Crowley continued by asking Cheney if President Obama was bring up issues relating to the Bush/Cheney administration because, “his plate is now full of scandals and international crises in large part a direct result of his immediate weakness as Commander in Chief.”
“Absolutely,” an animated Cheney replied. “He really would like to change the subject. That press conference today… was an amazing and stunning display of a president, a leader, a Commander in Chief who seems to take no responsibility for anything that’s happened on his watch.”
Watch the video below, uploaded to YouTube by NewsNow:
<iframe src="http://videos.rawstory.com/video/Liz-Cheney-Obama-Going-After-Am/player?layout=&read_more=1" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" height="321" width="416"></iframe>
“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks,” Obama explained.
"This report will show that capturing and detaining terrorists for interrogation is pointless," Obama stated
"We now utilize drone strikes to kill, rather than engaging in enhanced interrogation techniques that provides little intel", Obama stated on Friday.
This is what he really wanted to say...
"This report will show that capturing and detaining terrorists for interrogation is pointless," Obama stated
"We now utilize drone strikes to kill, rather than engaging in enhanced interrogation techniques that provides little intel", Obama stated on Friday.
This is what he really wanted to say...
Last edited:
UN officials demand prosecutions for US torture
UN officials demand prosecutions for US torture
Associated Press
By JOHN HEILPRIN 19 hours ago
GENEVA (AP) — All senior U.S. officials and CIA agents who authorized or carried out torture like waterboarding as part of former President George W. Bush's national security policy must be prosecuted, top U.N. officials said Wednesday.
It's not clear, however, how human rights officials think these prosecutions will take place, since the Justice Department has declined to prosecute and the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said it's "crystal clear" under international law that the United States, which ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1994, now has an obligation to ensure accountability.
"In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture — recognized as a serious international crime — they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency," he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hopes the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques at secret overseas facilities is the "start of a process" toward prosecutions, because the "prohibition against torture is absolute," Ban's spokesman said.
Ben Emmerson, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said the report released Tuesday shows "there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration, which allowed (it) to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law."
He said international law prohibits granting immunity to public officials who allow the use of torture, and this applies not just to the actual perpetrators but also to those who plan and authorize torture.
"The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability," Emmerson said.
Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth echoed those comments, saying "unless this important truth-telling process leads to the prosecution of officials, torture will remain a 'policy option' for future presidents."
The report said that in addition to waterboarding, the U.S. tactics included slamming detainees against walls, confining them to small boxes, keeping them isolated for prolonged periods and threatening them with death.
However, a Justice Department official said Wednesday the department did not intend to revisit its decision to not prosecute anyone for the interrogation methods. The official said the department had reviewed the committee's report and did not find any new information that would cause the investigation to be reopened.
"Our inquiry was limited to a determination of whether prosecutable offenses were committed," the official said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an investigation. "Importantly, our investigation was not intended to answer the broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct."
The United States is also not part of the International Criminal Court, which began operating in 2002 to ensure that those responsible for the most heinous crimes could be brought to justice. That court steps in only when countries are unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The case could be referred to the ICC by the U.N. Security Council, but the United States holds veto power there.
In one U.S. case mentioned in the report, suspected extremist Gul Rahman was interrogated in late 2002 at a CIA detention facility in Afghanistan called "COBALT" in the report. There, he was shackled to a wall in his cell and forced to rest on a bare concrete floor in only a sweatshirt. He died the next day. A CIA review and autopsy found he died of hypothermia.
Justice Department investigations into his death and another death of a CIA detainee resulted in no charges.
President Barack Obama said the interrogation techniques "did significant damage to America's standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies." CIA Director John Brennan said the agency made mistakes and learned from them, but insisted the coercive techniques produced intelligence "that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives."
The Senate investigation, however, found no evidence the interrogations stopped imminent plots.
European Union spokeswoman Catherine Ray emphasized Wednesday that the Obama administration has worked since 2009 to see that torture is not used anymore but said it is "a commitment that should be enshrined in law."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted as telling the Bild daily that Obama had clearly broken with Bush policies and, as a result, Washington's "new openness to admitting mistakes and promising publicly that something like this will never happen again is an important step, which we welcome."
"What was deemed right and done back then in the fight against Islamic terrorism was unacceptable and a serious mistake," Steinmeier said. "Such a crass violation of free and democratic values must not be repeated."
Bush approved the program through a covert finding in 2002 but wasn't briefed by the CIA on the details until 2006. Obama banned waterboarding, weeks of sleep deprivation and other tactics, yet other aspects of Bush's national security policies remain, most notably the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sweeping government surveillance programs.
U.S. officials have been tried in absentia overseas before.
Earlier this year, Italy's highest court upheld guilty verdicts against the CIA's former Rome station chief Jeff Castelli and two others identified as CIA agents in the 2003 extraordinary rendition kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. The decision was the only prosecution to date against the Bush administration's practice of abducting terror suspects and moving them to third countries that permitted torture.
All three had been acquitted in the original trial due to diplomatic immunity. They were among 26 Americans, mostly CIA agents, found guilty in absentia of kidnapping Milan cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003.
In Geneva last month, a U.N. anti-torture panel said the U.S. government is falling short of full compliance with the international anti-torture treaty. It criticized U.S. interrogation procedures during the Bush administration and called on the U.S. government to abolish the use of techniques that rely on sleep or sensory deprivation.
The word "torture," meanwhile, wasn't mentioned in U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power's statement Wednesday for Human Rights Day in which she criticized countries including North Korea and South Sudan.
https://news.yahoo.com/un-expert-calls-prosecution-over-us-torture-111549876.html
UN officials demand prosecutions for US torture
Associated Press
By JOHN HEILPRIN 19 hours ago
GENEVA (AP) — All senior U.S. officials and CIA agents who authorized or carried out torture like waterboarding as part of former President George W. Bush's national security policy must be prosecuted, top U.N. officials said Wednesday.
It's not clear, however, how human rights officials think these prosecutions will take place, since the Justice Department has declined to prosecute and the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said it's "crystal clear" under international law that the United States, which ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1994, now has an obligation to ensure accountability.
"In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture — recognized as a serious international crime — they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency," he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hopes the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques at secret overseas facilities is the "start of a process" toward prosecutions, because the "prohibition against torture is absolute," Ban's spokesman said.
Ben Emmerson, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said the report released Tuesday shows "there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration, which allowed (it) to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law."
He said international law prohibits granting immunity to public officials who allow the use of torture, and this applies not just to the actual perpetrators but also to those who plan and authorize torture.
"The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability," Emmerson said.
Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth echoed those comments, saying "unless this important truth-telling process leads to the prosecution of officials, torture will remain a 'policy option' for future presidents."
The report said that in addition to waterboarding, the U.S. tactics included slamming detainees against walls, confining them to small boxes, keeping them isolated for prolonged periods and threatening them with death.
However, a Justice Department official said Wednesday the department did not intend to revisit its decision to not prosecute anyone for the interrogation methods. The official said the department had reviewed the committee's report and did not find any new information that would cause the investigation to be reopened.
"Our inquiry was limited to a determination of whether prosecutable offenses were committed," the official said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an investigation. "Importantly, our investigation was not intended to answer the broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct."
The United States is also not part of the International Criminal Court, which began operating in 2002 to ensure that those responsible for the most heinous crimes could be brought to justice. That court steps in only when countries are unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The case could be referred to the ICC by the U.N. Security Council, but the United States holds veto power there.
In one U.S. case mentioned in the report, suspected extremist Gul Rahman was interrogated in late 2002 at a CIA detention facility in Afghanistan called "COBALT" in the report. There, he was shackled to a wall in his cell and forced to rest on a bare concrete floor in only a sweatshirt. He died the next day. A CIA review and autopsy found he died of hypothermia.
Justice Department investigations into his death and another death of a CIA detainee resulted in no charges.
President Barack Obama said the interrogation techniques "did significant damage to America's standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies." CIA Director John Brennan said the agency made mistakes and learned from them, but insisted the coercive techniques produced intelligence "that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives."
The Senate investigation, however, found no evidence the interrogations stopped imminent plots.
European Union spokeswoman Catherine Ray emphasized Wednesday that the Obama administration has worked since 2009 to see that torture is not used anymore but said it is "a commitment that should be enshrined in law."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted as telling the Bild daily that Obama had clearly broken with Bush policies and, as a result, Washington's "new openness to admitting mistakes and promising publicly that something like this will never happen again is an important step, which we welcome."
"What was deemed right and done back then in the fight against Islamic terrorism was unacceptable and a serious mistake," Steinmeier said. "Such a crass violation of free and democratic values must not be repeated."
Bush approved the program through a covert finding in 2002 but wasn't briefed by the CIA on the details until 2006. Obama banned waterboarding, weeks of sleep deprivation and other tactics, yet other aspects of Bush's national security policies remain, most notably the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sweeping government surveillance programs.
U.S. officials have been tried in absentia overseas before.
Earlier this year, Italy's highest court upheld guilty verdicts against the CIA's former Rome station chief Jeff Castelli and two others identified as CIA agents in the 2003 extraordinary rendition kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. The decision was the only prosecution to date against the Bush administration's practice of abducting terror suspects and moving them to third countries that permitted torture.
All three had been acquitted in the original trial due to diplomatic immunity. They were among 26 Americans, mostly CIA agents, found guilty in absentia of kidnapping Milan cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003.
In Geneva last month, a U.N. anti-torture panel said the U.S. government is falling short of full compliance with the international anti-torture treaty. It criticized U.S. interrogation procedures during the Bush administration and called on the U.S. government to abolish the use of techniques that rely on sleep or sensory deprivation.
The word "torture," meanwhile, wasn't mentioned in U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power's statement Wednesday for Human Rights Day in which she criticized countries including North Korea and South Sudan.
https://news.yahoo.com/un-expert-calls-prosecution-over-us-torture-111549876.html
No,I was just kidding with Lamarr about keeping this thread going that started in 07'.
I still stand by what I said in the beginning of this thread.
Is this person still around?
source: CNN
Senate report: CIA misled public on torture
<iframe src="http://www.cnn.com/video/api/embed.html#/video/us/2014/12/09/ath-feinstein-senate-floor-cia-torture-report.cnn" frameborder="0" height="234" width="416"></iframe>
Washington (CNN) -- The CIA's harsh interrogations of terrorist detainees during the Bush era didn't work, were more brutal than previously revealed and delivered no "ticking time bomb" information that prevented an attack, according to an explosive Senate report released Tuesday.
The majority report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a damning condemnation of the tactics -- branded by critics as torture -- the George W. Bush administration deployed in the fear-laden days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The techniques, according to the report, were "deeply flawed," poorly managed and often resulted in "fabricated" information.
The long-delayed study, distilled from more than six million CIA documents, also says the agency consistently misled Congress and the Bush White House about the harsh methods it used and the results it obtained from interrogating al Qaeda suspects.
The report is reigniting the partisan divide over combating terrorism that dominated Washington a decade ago. Democrats argue the tactics conflict with American values while leading members of the Bush administration insist they were vital to preventing another attack.
It contains grisly details of detainees held in secret overseas facilities being subjected to near drowning, or waterboarding, driven to delirium by days of sleep deprivation, threatened with mock executions and threats that their relatives would be sexually abused.
The central claim of the report is that the controversial CIA methods did not produce information necessary to save lives that was not already available from other means. That is important because supporters of the program have always said that it was vital to obtaining actionable intelligence from detainees that could not be extracted through conventional interrogations.
CIA Director John Brennan strongly disagreed with the finding.
"Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees (subject to enhanced interrogation) did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives," he said. "The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al Qaeda continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day."
Brennan said the agency had learned from its mistakes, but refuted the idea that it systematically misled top officials about its tactics and results.
But President Barack Obama said in a statement the report reinforced his view that the harsh interrogation methods "were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests."
"I think overall, the men and women at the CIA do a really tough job and they do it really well," Obama said later Tuesday in an interview with Telemundo. "But in the aftermath of 9/11, in the midst of a national trauma, and uncertainty as to whether these attacks were gonna repeat themselves, what's clear is that the CIA set up something very fast without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be."
The Senate report also reveals new information that former president George W. Bush was not briefed by any CIA officer on the extent of the interrogations until April 2006.
When he finally was told, Bush expressed discomfort about the "image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself," according to the report, a declassified 525 page summary of a still-confidential 6,000 page document.
Graphic details
In its most graphic details, the report finds that conditions for detainees at top secret overseas interrogation sites were much harsher than the CIA has previously admitted. It finds that high value detainees were subjected to methods like waterboarding and sleep deprivation "in near nonstop fashion for days or weeks at a time."
"In many cases, the most aggressive techniques were used immediately, in combination and nonstop," the report says. "Sleep deprivation involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in painful stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads."
In one facility, a detainee was said to have died of hypothermia after being held "partially nude" and chained to a concrete floor, while at other times, naked prisoners were hooded and dragged up and down corridors while being slapped and punched.
Multiple CIA detainees subjected to the techniques suffered from hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia and tried to mutilate themselves, the report says.
On one occasion, high-value al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah became completely unresponsive after a period of intense waterboarding. He had "bubbles rising through his open full mouth," the report says.
Meanwhile, the confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was subjected to a "series of near drownings."
The report finds that at least 119 detainees went through the CIA detention program and at least 26 were held "wrongfully," partly because there was no information to justify their detention.
Previously, the CIA had said only 100 prisoners had been processed through the program, Democratic Senate aides said.
No information
The report challenges CIA claims in 2011 that enhanced interrogation of al Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul produced unique information which led them to Osama bin Laden's "courier" Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti. The breakthrough, which eventually helped the agency track down the al Qaeda leader's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was extracted before Ghul was subjected to harsh treatment, the report said.
But the CIA said in its own report published Tuesday that Ghul spilled intelligence that was "more concrete and less speculative" after he was subject to more coercive interrogation.
The agency says the conclusions of the report contained "too many flaws" for it to "stand as official record of the program" and said many of the charges were "based on authors' flawed analysis of the value of the intelligence obtained from the detainees."
Obama outlawed enhanced interrogation techniques soon after becoming President in 2009 and admitted in August "we tortured some folks." As commander in chief, he faces many of the same dilemmas on how to fight terrorism as his predecessor. But the tone of his response to the report was nevertheless critical.
He acknowledged in his statement that the Bush administration had faced "agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country."
"Our nation did many things right in those difficult years. At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values. "
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said that the CIA's actions in the aftermath of 9/11 were a "stain on our values and on our history."
"The release of this 500-page summary cannot remove that stain, but it can and does say to our people and the world that America is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes," she said.
Republicans
In April, three Republicans on the Intelligence Committee voted to declassify the report. But Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the committee's top GOP member, also released a minority rebuttal to the document, taking issues with its methodology and findings.
The rebuttal said the report created the "false impression that the CIA was actively misleading policy makers and impeding the counterterrorism efforts of other federal government agencies during the Program's operation."
Thousands of marines at U.S. diplomatic posts and military bases around the world are on alert amid fears the graphic details of how detainees were treated could spark a violent backlash.
But there was little initial interest on Jihadi forums about the report, said Laith Alkhouri, a senior analyst at Flashpoint Partners, a U.S. organization that tracks Jihadi websites.
Retaliation
Intelligence sources told CNN's Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr, however, that the threat of retaliatory attacks could come in days rather than hours, as information filters across the world. Those sources added that currently, there is no specific threat.
According to a federal law enforcement official, a joint FBI/DHS bulletin was issued this afternoon to federal, state and local law enforcement officials as a cautionary measure. The bulletin warned the report could spark online reaction, influence homegrown violent extremists and that terrorist groups may exploit the findings for recruitment purposes.
Bush told CNN's Candy Crowley last week that the United States was "fortunate to have men and women who work hard at the CIA serving on our behalf. These are patriots."
"These are good people. Really good people."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney told the New York Times that claims that the CIA was out of bounds or that the interrogation program was a rogue operations were "a bunch of hooey."
"The program was authorized. The agency did not want to proceed without authorization, and it was also reviewed legally by the Justice Department before they undertook the program," Cheney said.
Countries that cooperated with the CIA, hosting black site prisons and assisting in transferring detainees, are identified only obliquely and not by name.
CIA employees, referred to by pseudonyms in the report, aren't being identified. However, the agency pushed for the pseudonyms to be redacted because other information in the report could be used to determine who the employees are.
For some Republicans and CIA supporters, there's still a dispute about whether techniques such as waterboarding constitute torture.
The Justice Department twice has investigated the conduct of CIA employees involved in the program and decided not to bring charges.
Senate report: CIA misled public on torture
<iframe src="http://www.cnn.com/video/api/embed.html#/video/us/2014/12/09/ath-feinstein-senate-floor-cia-torture-report.cnn" frameborder="0" height="234" width="416"></iframe>
Washington (CNN) -- The CIA's harsh interrogations of terrorist detainees during the Bush era didn't work, were more brutal than previously revealed and delivered no "ticking time bomb" information that prevented an attack, according to an explosive Senate report released Tuesday.
The majority report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a damning condemnation of the tactics -- branded by critics as torture -- the George W. Bush administration deployed in the fear-laden days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The techniques, according to the report, were "deeply flawed," poorly managed and often resulted in "fabricated" information.
The long-delayed study, distilled from more than six million CIA documents, also says the agency consistently misled Congress and the Bush White House about the harsh methods it used and the results it obtained from interrogating al Qaeda suspects.
The report is reigniting the partisan divide over combating terrorism that dominated Washington a decade ago. Democrats argue the tactics conflict with American values while leading members of the Bush administration insist they were vital to preventing another attack.
It contains grisly details of detainees held in secret overseas facilities being subjected to near drowning, or waterboarding, driven to delirium by days of sleep deprivation, threatened with mock executions and threats that their relatives would be sexually abused.
The central claim of the report is that the controversial CIA methods did not produce information necessary to save lives that was not already available from other means. That is important because supporters of the program have always said that it was vital to obtaining actionable intelligence from detainees that could not be extracted through conventional interrogations.
CIA Director John Brennan strongly disagreed with the finding.
"Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees (subject to enhanced interrogation) did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives," he said. "The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al Qaeda continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day."
Brennan said the agency had learned from its mistakes, but refuted the idea that it systematically misled top officials about its tactics and results.
But President Barack Obama said in a statement the report reinforced his view that the harsh interrogation methods "were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests."
"I think overall, the men and women at the CIA do a really tough job and they do it really well," Obama said later Tuesday in an interview with Telemundo. "But in the aftermath of 9/11, in the midst of a national trauma, and uncertainty as to whether these attacks were gonna repeat themselves, what's clear is that the CIA set up something very fast without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be."
The Senate report also reveals new information that former president George W. Bush was not briefed by any CIA officer on the extent of the interrogations until April 2006.
When he finally was told, Bush expressed discomfort about the "image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself," according to the report, a declassified 525 page summary of a still-confidential 6,000 page document.
Graphic details
In its most graphic details, the report finds that conditions for detainees at top secret overseas interrogation sites were much harsher than the CIA has previously admitted. It finds that high value detainees were subjected to methods like waterboarding and sleep deprivation "in near nonstop fashion for days or weeks at a time."
"In many cases, the most aggressive techniques were used immediately, in combination and nonstop," the report says. "Sleep deprivation involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in painful stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads."
In one facility, a detainee was said to have died of hypothermia after being held "partially nude" and chained to a concrete floor, while at other times, naked prisoners were hooded and dragged up and down corridors while being slapped and punched.
Multiple CIA detainees subjected to the techniques suffered from hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia and tried to mutilate themselves, the report says.
On one occasion, high-value al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah became completely unresponsive after a period of intense waterboarding. He had "bubbles rising through his open full mouth," the report says.
Meanwhile, the confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was subjected to a "series of near drownings."
The report finds that at least 119 detainees went through the CIA detention program and at least 26 were held "wrongfully," partly because there was no information to justify their detention.
Previously, the CIA had said only 100 prisoners had been processed through the program, Democratic Senate aides said.
No information
The report challenges CIA claims in 2011 that enhanced interrogation of al Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul produced unique information which led them to Osama bin Laden's "courier" Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti. The breakthrough, which eventually helped the agency track down the al Qaeda leader's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was extracted before Ghul was subjected to harsh treatment, the report said.
But the CIA said in its own report published Tuesday that Ghul spilled intelligence that was "more concrete and less speculative" after he was subject to more coercive interrogation.
The agency says the conclusions of the report contained "too many flaws" for it to "stand as official record of the program" and said many of the charges were "based on authors' flawed analysis of the value of the intelligence obtained from the detainees."
Obama outlawed enhanced interrogation techniques soon after becoming President in 2009 and admitted in August "we tortured some folks." As commander in chief, he faces many of the same dilemmas on how to fight terrorism as his predecessor. But the tone of his response to the report was nevertheless critical.
He acknowledged in his statement that the Bush administration had faced "agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country."
"Our nation did many things right in those difficult years. At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values. "
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said that the CIA's actions in the aftermath of 9/11 were a "stain on our values and on our history."
"The release of this 500-page summary cannot remove that stain, but it can and does say to our people and the world that America is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes," she said.
Republicans
In April, three Republicans on the Intelligence Committee voted to declassify the report. But Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the committee's top GOP member, also released a minority rebuttal to the document, taking issues with its methodology and findings.
The rebuttal said the report created the "false impression that the CIA was actively misleading policy makers and impeding the counterterrorism efforts of other federal government agencies during the Program's operation."
Thousands of marines at U.S. diplomatic posts and military bases around the world are on alert amid fears the graphic details of how detainees were treated could spark a violent backlash.
But there was little initial interest on Jihadi forums about the report, said Laith Alkhouri, a senior analyst at Flashpoint Partners, a U.S. organization that tracks Jihadi websites.
Retaliation
Intelligence sources told CNN's Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr, however, that the threat of retaliatory attacks could come in days rather than hours, as information filters across the world. Those sources added that currently, there is no specific threat.
According to a federal law enforcement official, a joint FBI/DHS bulletin was issued this afternoon to federal, state and local law enforcement officials as a cautionary measure. The bulletin warned the report could spark online reaction, influence homegrown violent extremists and that terrorist groups may exploit the findings for recruitment purposes.
Bush told CNN's Candy Crowley last week that the United States was "fortunate to have men and women who work hard at the CIA serving on our behalf. These are patriots."
"These are good people. Really good people."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney told the New York Times that claims that the CIA was out of bounds or that the interrogation program was a rogue operations were "a bunch of hooey."
"The program was authorized. The agency did not want to proceed without authorization, and it was also reviewed legally by the Justice Department before they undertook the program," Cheney said.
Countries that cooperated with the CIA, hosting black site prisons and assisting in transferring detainees, are identified only obliquely and not by name.
CIA employees, referred to by pseudonyms in the report, aren't being identified. However, the agency pushed for the pseudonyms to be redacted because other information in the report could be used to determine who the employees are.
For some Republicans and CIA supporters, there's still a dispute about whether techniques such as waterboarding constitute torture.
The Justice Department twice has investigated the conduct of CIA employees involved in the program and decided not to bring charges.
“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks,” Obama explained.
"This report will show that capturing and detaining terrorists for interrogation is pointless," Obama stated
"We now utilize drone strikes to kill, rather than engaging in enhanced interrogation techniques that provides little intel", Obama stated on Friday.
This is what he really wanted to say...
Shit is a joke. I said on the main board around 7 years ago that neither Hillary or Obama could do shit about Bush's 'crimes' because most the democrats were complicit(Dennis and Cynthia were basically the only ones on the right side).
Hillary was there for the Iraq vote. Obama lied while campaigning for Senate about funding Bush's war. If this were Boyz In The Hood, Bush would be the one shooting Ricky in the back, while Obama and Hillary are in the car(Hillary helped dude cop the gun, and Obama helped get rid of it).
Hands were dirty. Hands getting dirtier(those drone strikes are nasty and some want Obama catching his own case for war crimes).
Jose Rodriguez: Dem Critics "Knew Exactly What We Were Doing"
Jose Rodriguez: Dem Critics "Knew Exactly What We Were Doing"
CHRIS WALLACE: The Senate report is very strong in saying that the CIA misled Congress. Now, you in many cases for all I know all the cases were the man who was briefing members of Congress, dozens of times, including Nancy Pelosi when she was one of the top people on the House Intelligence Committee and Dianne Feinstein.
How specific were you in what you told them about these enhanced interrogation techniques and did they ever raise any concerns?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: I remember very clearly briefing Nancy Pelosi in September of 2002. The Congress had been on break. As soon as they got back from break in September, the first thing I did is I went to brief her and Porter Goss, who was the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at the time.
We briefed her, and I was not the only one who game from the agency. I had my lawyers with her. We briefed her specifically on the use of the enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah. So, she knew back in September of 2002 every one of our enhanced interrogation --
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Let me ask you specifically, did you tell her about waterboarding? Did you tell her about --
RODRIGUEZ: Yes.
WALLACE: -- about sleep deprivation?
RODRIGUEZ: Yes, yes, we did. Yes, I did.
WALLACE: Did you tell her about slapping or pushing into walls, and all of the techniques?
RODRIGUEZ: I briefed her on all of the techniques. These people were fully aware of all the techniques that were given to us and approved by the Office of Legal Counsel at Justice.
WALLACE: And did -- just to take the example you gave us, Nancy Pelosi, did she ever object to the techniques you mentioned?
RODRIGUEZ: She never objected to the techniques at all.
The only one that ever objected to any of this, and it was more of a caution, was Jane Harman in 2003 when she says, be careful because the perception will be in the future that you did this to hide something. But that was -- she was the only person who ever objected to anything.
WALLACE: And how about Jay Rockefeller who was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Because there have been reports that in fact he urged you to do more to more people. Is that true?
RODRIGUEZ: Yes. You know, it's interesting because I can remember going back to hearings and meetings with the Congress back in 2002. And their biggest -- their biggest thing they told me was, you know, your problem is that you guys are risk averse. You got to go out and use the authorities that you're given to protect America.
All of these people were briefed, Rockefeller in particular. Senator Rockefeller actually was very knowledgeable, even to the point of requesting specific information that was in the 2004 I.G. report. He wanted more information, and he asked for the original cable.
So, all of these people knew exactly what we were doing.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi..._critics_knew_exactly_what_we_were_doing.html
Jose Rodriguez: Dem Critics "Knew Exactly What We Were Doing"
CHRIS WALLACE: The Senate report is very strong in saying that the CIA misled Congress. Now, you in many cases for all I know all the cases were the man who was briefing members of Congress, dozens of times, including Nancy Pelosi when she was one of the top people on the House Intelligence Committee and Dianne Feinstein.
How specific were you in what you told them about these enhanced interrogation techniques and did they ever raise any concerns?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: I remember very clearly briefing Nancy Pelosi in September of 2002. The Congress had been on break. As soon as they got back from break in September, the first thing I did is I went to brief her and Porter Goss, who was the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at the time.
We briefed her, and I was not the only one who game from the agency. I had my lawyers with her. We briefed her specifically on the use of the enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah. So, she knew back in September of 2002 every one of our enhanced interrogation --
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Let me ask you specifically, did you tell her about waterboarding? Did you tell her about --
RODRIGUEZ: Yes.
WALLACE: -- about sleep deprivation?
RODRIGUEZ: Yes, yes, we did. Yes, I did.
WALLACE: Did you tell her about slapping or pushing into walls, and all of the techniques?
RODRIGUEZ: I briefed her on all of the techniques. These people were fully aware of all the techniques that were given to us and approved by the Office of Legal Counsel at Justice.
WALLACE: And did -- just to take the example you gave us, Nancy Pelosi, did she ever object to the techniques you mentioned?
RODRIGUEZ: She never objected to the techniques at all.
The only one that ever objected to any of this, and it was more of a caution, was Jane Harman in 2003 when she says, be careful because the perception will be in the future that you did this to hide something. But that was -- she was the only person who ever objected to anything.
WALLACE: And how about Jay Rockefeller who was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Because there have been reports that in fact he urged you to do more to more people. Is that true?
RODRIGUEZ: Yes. You know, it's interesting because I can remember going back to hearings and meetings with the Congress back in 2002. And their biggest -- their biggest thing they told me was, you know, your problem is that you guys are risk averse. You got to go out and use the authorities that you're given to protect America.
All of these people were briefed, Rockefeller in particular. Senator Rockefeller actually was very knowledgeable, even to the point of requesting specific information that was in the 2004 I.G. report. He wanted more information, and he asked for the original cable.
So, all of these people knew exactly what we were doing.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi..._critics_knew_exactly_what_we_were_doing.html
Instead of prosecuting torturers, Obama prosecuted the guy who revealed the program
Instead of prosecuting torturers, Obama prosecuted the guy who revealed the program
Updated by Timothy B. Lee
on December 9, 2014, 4:00 p.m. ET
The details in the Senate report on Central Intelligence Agency torture, released today, are shocking. But don't expect anyone to be held responsible. The only person the Obama administration has prosecuted in connection with the torture program is a man who revealed its existence to the media.
Much of the information in the report is new to the public, but a lot of it would have been uncovered during a detailed torture investigation Attorney General Eric Holder conducted during President Obama's first term. After carefully examining the evidence, Holder decided not to prosecute anyone for the CIA's torture. "The department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt," Holder said when he dropped investigations into two torture-related deaths in 2012.
That seems consistent with Obama's own views on the subject. Asked about investigating CIA torture in 2009, Obama replied that "it’s important to look forward and not backwards." Obama admitted that "we tortured some folks" earlier this year, but he didn't call for those responsible to be punished.
But the Obama administration has had a different attitude when it comes to those who revealed the existence of the CIA torture program. In 2012, the Obama administration charged former CIA official John Kiriakou for leaking classified information related to the torture program to reporters. Threatened with decades in prison, Kiriakou was forced to plead guilty and accepted a 30-month prison sentence. He's in prison right now.
Obama has vowed to "use my authority as president to make sure we never resort to those methods again." But prosecuting people who revealed the program, instead of the people responsible, makes it more likely that abuses like this will happen again.
http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/12/9/7361667/senate-torture-report-kiriakou
Instead of prosecuting torturers, Obama prosecuted the guy who revealed the program
Updated by Timothy B. Lee
on December 9, 2014, 4:00 p.m. ET
The details in the Senate report on Central Intelligence Agency torture, released today, are shocking. But don't expect anyone to be held responsible. The only person the Obama administration has prosecuted in connection with the torture program is a man who revealed its existence to the media.
Much of the information in the report is new to the public, but a lot of it would have been uncovered during a detailed torture investigation Attorney General Eric Holder conducted during President Obama's first term. After carefully examining the evidence, Holder decided not to prosecute anyone for the CIA's torture. "The department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt," Holder said when he dropped investigations into two torture-related deaths in 2012.
That seems consistent with Obama's own views on the subject. Asked about investigating CIA torture in 2009, Obama replied that "it’s important to look forward and not backwards." Obama admitted that "we tortured some folks" earlier this year, but he didn't call for those responsible to be punished.
But the Obama administration has had a different attitude when it comes to those who revealed the existence of the CIA torture program. In 2012, the Obama administration charged former CIA official John Kiriakou for leaking classified information related to the torture program to reporters. Threatened with decades in prison, Kiriakou was forced to plead guilty and accepted a 30-month prison sentence. He's in prison right now.
Obama has vowed to "use my authority as president to make sure we never resort to those methods again." But prosecuting people who revealed the program, instead of the people responsible, makes it more likely that abuses like this will happen again.
http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/12/9/7361667/senate-torture-report-kiriakou
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