CIA Has 3,000 Docs on Torture Tapes

[L. Coyote]

Source: Consortium News

By Jason Leopold
March 21, 2009

The CIA has about 3,000 documents related to the 92 destroyed videotapes that showed “war on terror” detainees being subjected to harsh interrogations, the Justice Department has disclosed, suggesting an extensive back-and-forth between CIA field operatives and officials of the Bush administration.

The Justice Department said the documents include “cables, memoranda, notes and e-mails” related to the destroyed CIA videotapes. Those tapes included 12 that showed two “high-value” prisoners undergoing the drowning sensation caused by waterboarding and other brutal techniques that have been widely denounced as torture.

The number of documents – but not their contents – was mentioned Friday in a Justice Department letter from Lev Dassin, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Dassin told Judge Hellerstein that unredacted versions of the materials would be available for only him to review “in-camera” on March 26. The CIA also refused to provide the ACLU with a list of individuals who watched the videotapes prior to their destruction because that information “is either classified or otherwise protected by statute.”

........

Read more: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/032109a.html

[EFerrari]

1. Remember all that denial of knowledge the week the destroyed tape

scandal broke? Only 1 lawyer might have known anything. Yeah, right.

[L. Coyote]

2. TORTURE Tape Gate: "The Official Story Unfolds" by Scott Horton

Deja DU:

TORTURE Tape Gate: "The Official Story Unfolds" by Scott Horton
Jan-19-08 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2722565

Harman (D-CA) Told CIA Not to Destroy Torture Tapes = Feb. 2003 Letter
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2591296

LA TIMES: The facts behind the CIA tape inquiry = Torture Evidence Destroyed
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2437114

BUSH DID IT?? Negroponte Warned CIA Against Destroying the Torture Tapes
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2483457

Torture Tapes Destroyed to Cover Gonzales Perjury?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2496074

[EFerrari]

3. Wow! You're good!

:applause:

[L. Coyote]

6. Tip of the iceberg!

Deja DU: Who is Jose A. Rodriguez? CIA Operative has Lawyered Up = Torture Evidence Destroyed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2469227

[malaise]

27. Excellent

:yourock:

[BlooInBloo]

60. Nice.

[formercia]

4. "classified or otherwise protected by statute.”

How convenient.

[L. Coyote]

64. Here is the 43 page LEAKED Red Cross Report: = @nybooks.com

Placing this near the top of the thread. MUST READ:

Volume 56, Number 6 · April 9, 2009
Mark Danner, US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites
ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody by the International Committee of the Red Cross
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22530

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[Gregorian]

7. Thank you. There is always a trail. See Nixon.

Of course there are documents. And of course there will be witnesses. And eventually there will be convictions.

No matter how much they tried to cover their asses, this crime was far to big for any kind of complete coverup.

[L. Coyote]

8. Disentangling Torture TapeGate

We know today that much of these article is a cover-up, and a fall-back.
In fact, the destruction is part of a broader cover-up for higher officials,
including covering up after perjury in testimony before Congress.

Did BUSH direct Water Torture via live video feed? The CRIME is always proportional to the cover up
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2458482

============================
by Larry Johnson
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/12/10/disentangling-torture-tapegate/


After querying former intelligence officers and reviewing the letter from the U.S. Attorney’s in Richmond, Virginia, I can clarify some issues surrounding what’s what with respect to the question of the “destruction” of interrogation tapes and speculate on others.

The bottom line is: Jose Rodriguez, the recently retired Deputy Director of Operations, has been fingered as acting unilaterally, but that is not true. He did check with both the IG and the DO’s assigned Assistant General Counsel before destroying the DO’s copies of the tapes. Although Jose is a lawyer, he made the mistake of trusting fellow lawyers, and now is likely to get chopped up in the political meat grinder ....

........

Why destroy the tapes? It appears that the June 2005 decision of the Italian judge to issue arrest warrants for C.I.A. officers and contractors involved in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in 2003 may have been the precipitating incident .......

Let’s follow the timeline:

March 2002–Abu Zubaydah is captured in Pakistan. George Bush is briefed regularly by George Tenet ...................

===========================
Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Paper Trail Dec 11, 2007
http://www.newsweek.com/id/76574


Who authorized the CIA to destroy interrogation videos?

The CIA repeatedly asked White House lawyer Harriet Miers over a two-year period for instructions regarding what to do with "very clinical" videotapes depicting the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques on two top Al Qaeda captives, according to former and current intelligence officials familiar with the communications (who requested anonymity when discussing the controversial issue). The tapes are believed to have included evidence of waterboarding and other interrogation methods that Bush administration critics have described as torture.

Senior officials of the CIA's National Clandestine Service finally decided on their own authority in late 2005 to destroy the tapes .....

[L. Coyote]

10. Bush War Crime: TPM's Timeline of the CIA's Torture Tapes

TPM's Timeline of the CIA's Torture Tapes
By Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel - December 11, 2007 - http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/004872.php


For years, the CIA denied recording any interrogations of al-Qaeda detainees. For years, the Bush administration denied issuing any legal authorization for torture. And for years, members of Congress claimed ignorance of what the CIA and the Bush administration had in store for detained members of al-Qaeda. All of these denials have proven false.

.....

February 7, 2002: President Bush signs an executive order that says Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not apply to al-Qaeda detainees.

..... As early as the spring of 2002, the CIA began using "harsh interrogation methods" on Zubaydah, including waterboarding. ....

September, 2002: The leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees receive a CIA briefing on interrogation techniques considered for al-Qaeda detainees. The content of that briefing is highly disputed. .........

..........

[L. Coyote]

16. Timelines are instructive, so here's another detailed one.

..... here's a detailed one. http://www.slate.com/id/2179607/sidebar/2179658 /

[Supersedeas]

107. Bybee Haynes and Miers all Bush nominees to the Federal Bench--coincidence?

[originalpckelly]

9. Did George Bush or Dick Cheney ever see these videos?

What did they say or do in reaction if they did?

I think they ought to be glad there are no recorders in the White House like there were during Nixon's time.

[L. Coyote]

11. There may have been a LIVE feed. That may be the evidence that had to be destroyed!!

We know for certain there was electronic transmission of copies later, and these may still exist.

[L. Coyote]

12. Bush Junta Lied About War Crimes to The World, the Courts, ALL Except Pelosi - That's LOL Moranic

Deja DU: Bush Junta Lied About War Crimes to The World, the Courts, ALL Except Pelosi - That's LOL Moranic
Dec-10-07 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2444290

I think I found THE way of summing up the torture revelations.

It really is this simple. Bush has been lying, lying, and lying some more. He lied to the American People, to the World, denying the USA tortures and his war crimes.
The Junta has been busy lying too, to the courts about torture and about the evidence of the war crime, about the existence of video tapes of waterboarding.

What are the legal consequences of the perjury to the courts and the obstruction of justice. These revelations may overturn the cases against Zacarias Moussaui and Jose Padilla, not a small consequence, and the repercussions just spread from there to all cases where interrogations occurred.

So, Bush's lies were covering up perjury and obstruction of justice, and evidence of torture and war crimes. What else? The evidence was also sought by the 9/11 Commission. No doubt there is more to come still. Major players like Harriet Meirs were involved.

That is a brief summary of the import of what this newest scandal entails. Very serious and numerous crimes leading right to the President of the United States, and very impeachable crimes at that.

NOW, who would like to claim that, with all this lying going on, someone was running over to Capital Hill to fully inform Dem leaders about all this impeachable criminality? Come on, step right up and claim this moranic distinct. Own this idea! Anyone? Oh, come on. WA Post? Anyone at all?

I just transcends all reason to think that the Bush Junta, like faithful Catholics, were confessing their crimes against humanity to Dem leaders, admitting their perjury, obstruction of justice, war crimes, admitting all the lying, admitting impeachable offenses to Pelosi, Harman, Rockefeller.

Anyone falling for this scenario truly, truly deserves the distinction of being called a moran. :rofl:

[noise]

13. The use of torture is admitted

After all Qahtani's charges were set aside because he had been tortured.

AG Holder calls the torture a "policy difference." Some members of Congress claim the OLC opinions demonstrate that the CIA had reason to believe their actions were legal. So I'm not sure how the tapes change anything. There still seems to be no interest in pursuing legal action against officials who knowingly sanctioned torture.

Will we learn why the CIA resorted to torture in the first place? If torture is an unreliable method of interrogation then why were the White House and CIA so determined to use it? I can see why a panicky CIA would destroy evidence of torture sessions which demonstrated that the torture was used for ulterior purposes, for example to get false confessions.

[L. Coyote]

15. The cover-up says CIA's Rodriguez destroyed the tapes. More lies I'm sure.

[noise]

17. What is the concern about the tapes?

AFAIK, both the White House and CIA admitted using waterboarding. So if the DOJ truly wanted to prosecute they appear to have enough evidence without the tapes.

So is CIA concern about the tapes related to video proof of torture or is there another issue?

[L. Coyote]

18. Good question. What did the prisoners say? Will we ever now?

Who knows what they said? With cover-ups, the crime of obstructing justice is always a lessor offense than the one covered up, or why do it.

[L. Coyote]

51. WA POST Sunday A01: Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots

Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots
Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say

By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 29, 2009; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066_pf.html

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations.

.....................

[tritsofme]

14. The tapes will reportedly be released, in 24 business hours.

[L. Coyote]

19. Sen. Levin's investigation: The CIA's torture teachers

The CIA's torture teachers
Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics -- likely with the approval of the Bush White House.
By Mark Benjamin - June 21, 2007 - WASHINGTON - http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/21/cia_sere/index.html


There is growing evidence of high-level coordination between the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military in developing abusive interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects. After the Sept. 11 attacks, both turned to a small cadre of psychologists linked to the military's secretive Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program to "reverse-engineer" techniques originally designed to train U.S. soldiers to resist torture if captured, by exposing them to brutal treatment. The military's use of SERE training for interrogations in the war on terror was revealed in detail in a recently declassified report. But the CIA's use of such tactics -- working in close coordination with the military -- until now has remained largely unknown.

According to congressional sources and mental healthcare professionals knowledgeable about the secret program who spoke with Salon, two CIA-employed psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, were at the center of the program, which likely violated the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. The two are currently under investigation: Salon has learned that Daniel Dell'Orto, the principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense, sent a "document preservation" order on May 15 to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top Pentagon officials forbidding the destruction of any document mentioning Mitchell and Jessen or their psychological consulting firm, Mitchell, Jessen and Associates, based in Spokane, Wash. Dell'Orto's order was in response to a May 1 request from Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who is investigating the abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody.

.............

[spanone]

20. maybe eventually the weight of the evidence will shame us into investigating?

maybe :shrug:

[L. Coyote]

21. Panetta Lacks Courage to Reform CIA

Panetta Lacks Courage to Reform CIA PDF Print E-mail
Written by Melvin A. Goodman
Saturday, 21 March 2009 - http://www.pubrecord.org/commentary/770-panetta-lacks-courage-to-reform-cia.html


President Barack Obama’s CIA director, Leon Panetta, needed only one month to establish that he lacks the courage, contrariness, judgment, and political and intellectual independence to reform the Central Intelligence Agency.

It certainly appears that Obama’s admonition to look forward and not look behind, if applied to CIA, means that his administration is not interested in examining the errors and corruption of the past in order to reform the intelligence community in the future.

Even before receiving confirmation from the Senate intelligence committee, Panetta used his hearings to indicate that he was more than willing to do the company’s bidding. In telling the intelligence committee that he was a “creature of Congress,” Panetta reminded us of two other “creatures” of Congress who poorly managed the affairs of the CIA—former representative Porter Goss (R-FL), who politicized the institution, and intelligence staffer George Tenet, who told the president in 2002 that it would be a “slam dunk” to provide the White House with intelligence to justify going to war against Iraq.
The CIA’s politicization of intelligence has been authoritatively established, but Panetta signed on to the canard that CIA analysis was no different than the intelligence produced by other intelligence services around the world. Panetta thus ignored the Senate’s own investigation of CIA intelligence on Iraq ...........

[L. Coyote]

68. Is Leon Panetta Covering Up Torture? by John Sifton

Is Leon Panetta Covering Up Torture?
by John Sifton - http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-08/the-cia-torture-cover-up/2/


footnote 9 reveals that the ICRC was informed by the then-director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, that interrogation plans for detainees were submitted to the “CIA headquarters” for approval and as of 2007 were approved by “the Director or Deputy Director of the CIA.” It is likely that this approval process existed at earlier points in 2002-2006.

This is more than an interesting detail. In fact, it could implicate several high-level CIA officials in torture, including previous CIA directors George Tenet (resigned 2004) and Porter Goss (resigned 2006), as well as deputy directors John McLaughlin (resigned 2004) and Albert Calland (resigned 2006). These CIA officials are no longer serving. Kappes, Sulick and others are still there.

Panetta’s refusal to endorse investigations and prosecution is based in part on opinions issued in memos in 2002 to 2003 from the Bush administration’s Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel to the effect that the CIA’s interrogation tactics were legal.

The OLC memoranda, however, were highly controversial even within the Bush administration, and today there are almost no attorneys or academics in the United States who defend their reasoning. Parts of the memoranda were withdrawn in 2005 and the Obama administration has repudiated their contents. But the memos were on the books for a time and conventional wisdom among academics as well as some Obama officials is that it would be difficult to prosecute a CIA officer who relied on legal assurances contained in them. In criminal law there are legal defenses to prosecution when a government agent, in good faith, relies on an official legal interpretation as to what is or is not legal and then commits otherwise illegal activity.

............

[L. Coyote]

22. Coming Soon: Declassified Bush-Era Torture Memos

Coming Soon: Declassified Bush-Era Torture Memos
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball | NEWSWEEK
Published Mar 21, 2009 = From the magazine issue dated Mar 30, 2009


Over objections from the U.S. intelligence community, the White House is moving to declassify—and publicly release—three internal memos that will lay out, for the first time, details of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration for use against "high value" Qaeda detainees. The memos, written by Justice Department lawyers in May 2005, provide the legal rationale for waterboarding, head slapping and other rough tactics used by the CIA. One senior Obama official, who like others interviewed for this story requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said the memos were "ugly" and could embarrass the CIA. Other officials predicted they would fuel demands for a "truth commission" on torture.

Because of an executive order signed by President Obama on Jan. 22 banning such aggressive tactics, deputies to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. concluded there was no longer any reason to keep the interrogation memos classified. But current and former intel officials pushed back, arguing that any public release might still compromise "sources and methods." According to the administration official, ex-CIA director Michael Hayden was "furious" about the prospect of disclosure and tried to intervene directly with Obama officials. But the White House has sided with Holder. Faced with a court deadline in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit regarding the memos filed by the ACLU, Justice lawyers asked for a two-week extension "because the memoranda are being reviewed for possible release." (White House, Justice and CIA spokesmen all declined to comment.)

The debate about torture ramped up again last week with an account in the New York Review of Books about a secret International Red Cross report that was delivered to the CIA in February 2007.

................

================================
US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites
By Mark Danner
ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody
by the International Committee of the Red Cross
Volume 56, Number 6 · April 9, 2009, 43 pp., February 2007
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22530

We think time and elections will cleanse our fallen world but they will not. Since November, George W. Bush and his administration have seemed to be rushing away from us at accelerating speed, a dark comet hurtling toward the ends of the universe. .....................

=================================
VIDEO: US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites by Mark Danner = C-SPAN
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x285111

[L. Coyote]

23. RAW STORY: CIA reveals it has 3,000 pages of documents relating to destroyed interrogation tapes

CIA reveals it has 3,000 pages of documents relating to destroyed interrogation tapes
John Byrne - March 20, 2009 - http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CIA_reveals_it_has_3000_pages_0320.html

The CIA says they incinerated the tapes to protect the identities of agents involved in the interrogations. Their destruction came at the same time a federal judge was seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of alleged al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah.

The CIA also refused to publicly disclose any witnesses who may have viewed the destroyed tapes or had custody of them prior to their destruction.

“The government is still needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIA's use of torture is well known,” Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU, said in a release. “Full disclosure of the CIA's illegal interrogation methods is long overdue and the agency must be held accountable for flouting the rule of law.”

The CIA could not be reached for comment.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the information came to light late Friday ...............

[L. Coyote]

24. Amnesty International: CIA tapes show need for full investigation into war on terror

I have followed this story all day. So far, Google News search only produces
about 52 articles for "torture tapes" and about 137 for "CIA torture."
I know this came out late Friday, but this is an abysmal response to war crimes.
It serves to illustrate how controlled the media really is, especially when one
looks carefully at who is writing about it and who is ignoring the story.

Google BLOG search is about 16,193 for "CIA torture" and about 5,507 for "torture tapes" by comparison!!!!

=======================
CIA tapes show need for full investigation into war on terror
Posted: 03 March 2009 - http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18093


The destruction of almost 100 tapes containing potential evidence of torture and ill treatment of detainees held in secret detention by the CIA illustrates the urgent need for a full independent commission of inquiry into human rights abuses committed by the USA in the name of 'countering terrorism', said Amnesty International today.

Susan Lee, Americas Director at Amnesty International, said:

'President Obama's moves to end secret detention and his reassurance that the USA will not torture again are very positive. But the destruction of the tapes is an alarming sign of a lack of commitment to accountability which cannot be overlooked.

'Investigations must be thorough, and those responsible for ordering and carrying out torture and ill treatment must be brought to justice.

'The only way to end torture is to make it clear, in law and policy, that it will never be accepted or go unpunished no matter where, when, why or against whom it is used.'

Amnesty International's statement comes in response to reports that the CIA had destroyed 92 tapes depicting interrogations of detainees held in secret detention.

[upi402]

25. Was it changed to Hypocritical Oath sometime when I wasn't looking?

Or is it still Hippocratic Oath and lots of Docs need to lose their license?

[Senator]

26. Kick To The Top

[pleah]

28. K&R

Bookmarked in several ways.

[L. Coyote]

29. Emptywheel's Blog: CIA Refuses to Turn Over Torture Tape Library

LOTS of LINKS in the article to follow.

=========================
CIA Refuses to Turn Over Torture Tape Library
By: emptywheel Friday March 20, 2009 - http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/03/20/cia-refuses-to-turn-over-torture-tape-library/#more-3817

The CIA has been making an inventory of its torture tape library ... CIA says the ACLU can't have any of these lists.

Here's the letter DOJ gave Judge Hellerstein explaining the CIA's reasons why ACLU can't have the torture library ... which identifies roughly 3,000 documents, including cables, memoranda, notes and emails, that can be produced at this time. All of the information on the list of witnesses covered by Point 3 is either classified or otherwise protected by statute. Accordingly, the CIA is not producing either list to Plaintiffs in redacted form. .....

In spite of the fact they've given us a hugely redacted copy of the CIA OIG report on torture and a torture tape inventory itself, they claim they can't reveal any of the 3,000 documents discussing the torture tapes. None of them......

What I'm most fascinated by, though, is the explanation that CIA can't turn over the list of those who watched or retained the torture tapes because the list "is either classified or otherwise protected by statute." That suggests they're invoking FOIA exemptions other than classification to withhold the identities of people who watched those tapes.

Take a look at this list of FOIA exemptions, and you'll see why that may be rather interesting. .... There are law enforcement exemptions they might invoke if DOJ had reviewed these torture tapes in 2004 in response to a criminal referral by CIA's Inspector General.

Or the truly interesting possibility--that CIA might claim some identities are exempt from FOIA because they are presidential records .....

[L. Coyote]

69. Cheney Lies, Obstruction Of Justice & Torture Tape Destruction

Cheney Lies, Obstruction Of Justice & Torture Tape Destruction
By: bmaz Sunday March 29, 2009 - http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/03/29/cheney-lies-obstruction-of-justice-torture-tape-destruction/
digg it

.... it was crystal clear at the outset the explanation initially given by the Bush/Cheney Administration - that they had researched the matter completely and the tapes had no evidentiary value in any possible proceeding whatsoever and they were concerned about privacy of hard working investigators - was totally bogus. ....

........ us and criminal decision to go full tilt torture having direct reason to know both that abu-Zubaydah was cooperating through traditional interrogation and he was of very marginal use as an information source to start with. ...

Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft. Means, motive and opportunity. Who could have imagined?

This certainly explains why it was top White House lawyers including Gonzales, Addington, Bellinger and Miers, with "vigorous sentiment", assisted the CIA in the decision and process to destroy the torture tapes .....

[L. Coyote]

30. Michael Chertoff Played Integral Role in Authorizing Torture

Another person who may face felony charges for lying to Congress,
and who may have been protected by the destruction of evidence.

=====================
Michael Chertoff Played Integral Role in Authorizing Torture
16 March 2009 - Jason Leopold - http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/760.html?task=view


In the summer of 2002, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, offered assurances to the CIA that its interrogators would not face prosecution under anti-torture laws if they followed guidelines on aggressive techniques approved by the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ....

Those guidelines stretched the rules on permissible treatment of detainees by narrowly defining torture as intense pain equivalent to organ failure or death......

Four years ago, when Chertoff was facing confirmation hearings to be Homeland Security chief, the New York Times cited three senior-level government sources as describing Chertoff’s Criminal Division as fielding questions from the CIA about whether its officers risked prosecution if they employed certain harsh techniques .... Chertoff appears to have green-lighted the technique known as “waterboarding,” which has been regarded as torture since the days of the Spanish Inquisition

.... Chertoff denied providing the CIA with legal guidance on the use of specific interrogation methods, such as waterboarding .... evidence continues to build that Chertoff’s assurances gave CIA interrogators confidence they would avoid prosecution ...

[WillyT]

31. Big K & R !!!

:kick:

[BuyingThyme]

32. kcik

[L. Coyote]

33. Rights Groups Call for Prosecutions of Bush Officials Before International Commission

Rights Groups To Call for Prosecutions of Bush Officials Before International Commission
Daphne Eviatar - 3/20/09 - http://washingtonindependent.com/34982/rights-groups-to-call-for-prosecutions-of-bush-officials-before-international-commission


Human Rights USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union are expected to make their case why the United States must prosecute former Bush administration officials for war crimes and grave violations of international law before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights this afternoon in Washington.

At a special hearing, leaders of each organization will present evidence and testify about why the commission — which is a body of the Organization of American States (and includes the United States) — should issue a recommendation that the United States appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute war crimes such as torture and abuse of prisoners committed and authorized by senior U.S. officials in the Bush administration.

Although these organizations have called on the United States to appoint a special prosecutor before, this hearing takes that request to the international level by seeking a recommendation from a respected international commission that has frequently recommended such investigations and prosecutions in Latin American countries.

.............

===========================
HEARING VIDEO (Spanish and English): http://www.oas.org/OASpage/videosasf/2009/03/134CIDH_30mar_2_ddhhUSA.wmv.wmv

[defendandprotect]

34. Release it all ---

[Supersedeas]

35. wonder if Gonzalez and Mukasey had a chance to review the tapes before the evidence was destroyed?

[L. Coyote]

38. The destruction may be covering up Gonzales' perjury.

[Supersedeas]

40. heckuva precedent to set by the Nation's Chief Law Enforcement officers, eh?

[L. Coyote]

36. Support a Truth & Reconciliation Commission = 87,856 signatures so far... keep it going!

http://bushtruthcommission.com/

[L. Coyote]

53. 90,637 signatures so far... keep it going!

[L. Coyote]

72. 92,399 signatures so far... keep it going!

http://bushtruthcommission.com/

[wildbilln864]

37. k&r! nt

[L. Coyote]

39. The Long and Sadistic History Behind the CIA's Torture Techniques

The Long and Sadistic History Behind the CIA's Torture Techniques
By Darius Rejali, Slate. Posted March 21, 2009. = http://www.alternet.org/rights/132743/the_long_and_sadistic_history_behind_the_cia%27s_torture_techniques/


Sleep deprivation, extremes of temperature, noise, and beatings are some of the nastier methods the U.S. employed in the Bush era.

In the 20th century, there were two main traditions of clean torture -- the kind that doesn't leave marks, as modern torturers prefer. The first is French modern, a combination of water- and electro-torture. The second is Anglo-Saxon modern, a classic list of sleep deprivation, positional and restraint tortures, extremes of temperature, noise, and beatings.

All the techniques in the accounts of torture by the International Committee of the Red Cross, as reported Monday, collected from 14 detainees held in CIA custody, fit a long historical pattern of Anglo-Saxon modern. The ICRC report apparently includes details of CIA practices unknown until now, details that point to practices with names, histories, and political influences. In torture, hell is always in the details.

The ice-water cure. "On a daily basis during the first two weeks I was made to lie on a plastic sheet placed on the floor which would then be lifted at the edges. Cold water was then poured onto my body with buckets. ... I would be kept wrapped inside the sheet with the cold water for several minutes. I would then be taken for interrogation," detainee Walid bin Attash told the Red Cross.

In the 1920s, the Chicago police used to extract confessions from prisoners by chilling them in freezing water baths. This was called the "ice-water cure." ......

..........

[CLG_News]

41. Um- it's a *Jason Leopold* item - take w. 6 grains of salt. n/t

[L. Coyote]

52. 'Torture' Haunts Bush Officials = 608 articles, MI5 575, Judge orders release 160 ...

NEWS Results about 22,000 for torture
http://news.google.com/news?um=1&q=torture

'Torture' Could Haunt Bush Officials
... John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who wrote the so-called "torture memo" that justified waterboarding and other extreme ...
Spanish Court Weighs Inquiry on Torture for 6 Bush-Era Officials New York Times
Tracking torture Salt Lake Tribune
Six Former Bush Aides Face Prosecution In Spain For Torture At Gitmo AHN
608 news articles »

New York Judge Orders Release of CIA 'Torture' Documents
FOXNews - ‎Mar 28, 2009‎ ... Federal judge sets timetable for reports on CIA torture tape ... World War 4 Report
NY judge orders release of CIA 'torture' documents The Associated Press
all 160 news articles »

Abu Zubaydah and the Futility of Torture ... Seattle Times Examiner.com CBS News
Atlantic Online - Daily Times
all 53 news articles »

New claim of MI5 involvement in torture
Independent - guardian.co.uk .... secret agents working for MI5 and MI6 watched and encouraged the torture ...
Binyam Mohamed: MI5, torture and terrorism Telegraph.co.uk
Torture inquiry goes to Yates of the Yard First Post - Reuters - BBC News
all 575 news articles »

[L. Coyote]

42. The Atlantic: The GOP's Cheney Problem

24 Mar 2009 12:14 pm
The GOP's Cheney Problem
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/the-gops-cheney.html

The least popular vice-president in memory ... Cheney ... it is beginning to dawn on him that he is in very serious trouble - legally, politically, historically. As the full details of his obsession with the torture program emerge, ....

What Panetta and Rudman need to do is to find out and publish as much as possible about the facts of the torture .... Right now, we just have blanket assurances from the accused .....

Cheney is out there hurting his party, helping the president, and sowing fear - because he has to if he is to survive as anything but a pariah. The one thing he cannot stand is sunlight. So let it in, Mr President. Let it in.

[L. Coyote]

43. Raw Story: Turley: Cheney war crimes probe would be 'shortest in history'

Turley: Cheney war crimes probe would be 'shortest in history'
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Tuesday March 24, 2009
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Turley_Obama_get_low_grade_on_0324.html


President Barack Obama said all the right things on 60 Minutes, according to Jonathan Turley. But no mere verbal rebuff to the former vice president will see the law upheld.

If Obama would step out of the way and allow prosecutors to look at evidence of alleged Bush administration war crimes, "it would be the shortest investigation in history," Turley said on a Monday episode of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show.

President Obama, appearing Sunday on the CBS news program, said the former vice president's policies on the treatment of prisoners captured in President Bush's terror war are "unsustainable" and had caused "incredible damage to our image and position in the world."

"The reason Obama seems very irritated ..................

...........VIDEOS............

[L. Coyote]

44. Consortium News: Bush's 'Lawyer-Shopping' for Torture

Bush's 'Lawyer-Shopping' for Torture
By Jason Leopold - March 24, 2009
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/032409a.html


In 2005, after pushing out the Justice Department lawyer who had overturned President George W. Bush’s claimed authority to abuse “war on terror” prisoners, his administration reinstated key elements of the memos granting Bush virtually unlimited powers over the detainees, according to a list of still-secret documents.

I obtained the list of legal memos about Bush’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” from the ACLU, and the Obama administration is expected to declassify and release three of them from May 2005, which reasserted Bush’s authority, Newsweek reported over the weekend.

According to Newsweek, one senior Obama administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the memos as “ugly.”

Steven Bradbury, who headed the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during Bush’s second term, signed the May 2005 memos to reverse efforts led by former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith in 2003 and 2004 to scrap earlier OLC memos asserting Bush’s powers.

Senior Bush administration officials were furious ...............

[L. Coyote]

45. Abu Ghraib. Torture Suit Against Defense Giant CACI

Abu Ghraib. Torture Suit Against Defense Giant CACI
by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, March 26, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12907


In a blow to defense contracting giant, CACI International Inc., U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee ruled on March 18 that a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of torture victims held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq can proceed.

Denying CACI's motion to dismiss the former prisoners' claims, which allege multiple violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes and conspiracy, Judge Lee ruled that "he fact that CACI's business involves conducting interrogations on the government's behalf is incidental; courts can and do entertain civil suits against government contractors for the manner in which they carry out government business. CACI conveniently ignores the long line of cases where private plaintiffs were allowed to bring tort actions for wartime injuries." According to CCR:
.................

[L. Coyote]

46. Results for "torture tapes"

March 26. This story remains largely hidden!!

Google Results 1 - 10 of about 38,800 for "torture tapes".

Google News "Results 1 – 10 of about 49"

For "bush torture" about 105,000, about 98 in Google News.
And about 141,000 for "bush war crimes". Click often and drive it up! LOL.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22bush+war+crimes%22

===================
Guest column: Prosecute Bush for his crime: Allowing torture
InjuryBoard.com - ‎Mar 25, 2009‎ - http://desmoines.injuryboard.com/toxic-substances/guest-column-prosecute-bush-for-his-crime-allowing-torture.aspx
Today we are reprinting with permission a guest column by an Iowa attorney. I have long advocated that the Bush Administration's policy of ....

..... Torture is illegal under the laws of the United States and under international law. A crime. A serious crime. A crime that has been committed in the name of the United States. A crime that cannot be ignored. A crime that cries out for prosecution and time in the slammer.

We've all heard it before, and we're starting to hear it again, that we should be forward-looking .....

===================
US to publish torture details
Macau Daily Times - ‎Mar 24, 2009‎
President Barack Obama is moving to publish three Bush-era memos that detail interrogation methods .....

[L. Coyote]

47. SALON: NY judge orders release of CIA 'torture' documents

Mar 27th, 2009 | http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/us/2009/03/27/D976N5600_cia_videotapes_aclu/index.html


NEW YORK -- A judge has given the CIA a month to begin releasing documents related to the destruction of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court says the CIA should start turning over the information and a list of witnesses to the American Civil Liberties Union within 30 days or explain why the agency should be exempt.

The judge ... gave the agency until April 9 to produce a schedule for releasing them.

An ongoing criminal probe is exploring why the CIA destroyed videotapes ...........

===================
Discuss DU Mar-27-09 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3804241

[L. Coyote]

48. Andrew Sullivan: The former vice-president fears being held to account on torture

The Sunday Times - March 29, 2009 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article5992569.ece
Scared Cheney puts his head in the noose
The former vice-president fears being held to account on torture and is lashing out
Andrew Sullivan


Barack Obama’s most underrated talent is his ability to get his enemies to self-destruct. It takes a lot less energy than defeating them directly, and helps maintain Obama’s largely false patina of apolitical niceness.

Obama is about as far from apolitical as you can get; and while he is a decent fellow, he is also a lethal Chicago pol. His greatest achievement in this respect was the total implosion of Bill Clinton around this time last year: Hillary was next. Then came John McCain, merrily strapping on the suicide bomb of Sarah Palin. With the fate of all these formidable figures impossible to miss, one has to wonder what possessed Dick Cheney, the former vice-presi-dent, to come lumbering out twice in the first 50 days of the Obama administration to blast the new guy on national television.

Growling and sneering, Cheney accused the new president of actively endangering the lives of Americans by ending the detention and interrogation programmes of the last administration, and vowing to close Guantanamo Bay. It’s hard to overstate how unseemly and unusual this was.

It is fine for a former vice-president to criticise his successor in due course. But there is a decorum that allows for a new president not to be immediately undermined by his predecessor. To be accused of what amounts to treason – a willingness to endanger the lives of Americans – is simply unheard of. .............

[L. Coyote]

49. ABC: 'Torture' Could Haunt Bush Officials

'Torture' Could Haunt Bush Officials
Spanish Judge Who Went After Pinochet Considers Charges for Gonzales, Others
By HILARY BROWN
March 29, 2009 - http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7203966&page=1


In what may turn out to be a landmark case, a Spanish court has started a criminal investigation into allegations that six former officials in the Bush administration violated international law by creating the legal justification for torture in Guantanamo Bay.

The officials named in the 98-page complaint include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who once famously described the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and "obsolete."

Others include John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who wrote the so-called "torture memo" that justified waterboarding and other extreme interrogation methods for terror suspects.

Also named are: former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; former General Counsel for the Department of Defense William Haynes II; Jay S. Bybee, formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David S. Addington, former chief of staff and legal advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

[L. Coyote]

50. CBS: Spain Looks To Prosecute Bush Officials

Spain Looks To Prosecute Bush Officials
Court Will Consider Criminal Case Against Alberto Gonzales, Others For Torture
MADRID, March 28, 2009 - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/28/world/main4900114.shtml?source=related_story


..... Spanish law allows courts to reach beyond national borders in cases of torture or war crimes under a doctrine of universal justice, though the government has recently said it hopes to limit the scope of the legal process.

.... Boye said he expected the National Court to take the case forward, and dismissed concerns that it would harm bilateral relations between the two countries.

He said that some of the victims of the alleged torture were Spaniards, strengthening the argument for Spanish jurisdiction.

"When you bring a case like this you can't stop to make political judgments as to how it might affect bilateral relations between countries," he told the AP." It's too important for that."

..... The judge's decision to send the case against the American officials to prosecutors means it will proceed, at least for now. Prosecutors must now decide whether to recommend a full-blown investigation, though Garzon is not bound by their decision. .....

[L. Coyote]

54. Center for Constitutional Rights RELEASE March 30: CCR Applauds Spanish Efforts ....

CCR Applauds Spanish Efforts to Hold US Torture Conspirators Accountable

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE = March 30, 2009, 10:55 AM
CONTACT: Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) @ccrjustice.org

CCR Applauds Spanish Efforts to Hold US Torture Conspirators Accountable
Rights Group Vows to Continue Similar Efforts in Other Jurisdictions, Says Prosecutions Are Necessary to Deter Torture in Future

WASHINGTON - March 30 - According to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), yesterday's announcement that a Spanish judge has initiated a criminal investigation into the actions of John Yoo and other Bush administration lawyers is an important step forward in holding these officials and others accountable for their crimes. The case may well lead to investigations of top officials, including Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales. Spain, like many other countries in Europe, has a special interest in these cases as five of its citizens and residents were tortured or abused at Guantanamo. CCR expressed hope that other countries in Europe whose citizens and residents were subject to torture and cruel treatment at Guantanamo and elsewhere will likewise initiate such investigations.

CCR President Michael Ratner and Executive Director Vincent Warren are available for comment.

Ratner, author of the book, The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld, said, "The importance of this investigation can not be understated. Contrary to statements by some, the Spanish investigations are not ‘symbolic.' Just ask Augusto Pinochet, who was stranded under house arrest in England and who ultimately faced criminal charges in Chile because of the pressure of the Spanish courts. If and when arrest warrants are issued, 24 countries in Europe are obligated to enforce them. The world is getting smaller for the torture conspirators."

CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren said, "The Spanish investigation should send a message to the Obama administration that it can no longer evade the question of accountability for officials who played a role in shaping and implementing a policy of torture. President Obama must recognize that the prosecution of serious crimes is neither ‘looking backward' nor ‘a criminalizing of policy differences.' Accounting for past crimes is looking forward to a future without torture."

Since the first days of the public revelations regarding the Bush administration's torture program, the Center for Constitutional Rights has made efforts to hold high level officials and their lawyers accountable for their crimes. CCR, along with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), has tried three times, twice in Germany and once in France, to bring criminal cases in Europe against former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet as well as the lawyers who were part of the conspiracy that authorized the torture program in Guantanamo, Iraq, secret CIA sites, and elsewhere. The German case is still pending.

###

[L. Coyote]

55. Democrats Duck Bush Torture Probe By Jason Leopold March 30

Democrats Duck Bush Torture Probe
By Jason Leopold - March 30, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/033009b.html


Despite now overwhelming evidence that ex-President George W. Bush and many top aides engaged in a systematic policy of illegal torture, national Democrats appear to be shying away from their recommendation last year for a special prosecutor to investigate these apparent war crimes.

Last June, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and 55 other congressional Democrats signed a letter to then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey demanding a special prosecutor ......... Not a single signer of last year’s letter has stepped forward to renew the demand for a special prosecutor to the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder.

The loss of Democratic interest in a special prosecutor suggests that the signers made the recommendation last year knowing that Mukasey would ignore it ............

[L. Coyote]

56. Jason Leopold: Bush Aides Changed Justice Department Watchdog Report

And Republicans are currently obstructing Obama appointments to the Justice Department, including the head of the OLC!

==============
Bush Aides Changed Watchdog Report
By Jason Leopold
April 1, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/040109a.html


Before leaving office, senior Bush administration lawyers secured changes in a Justice Department watchdog agency’s report that reportedly was sharply critical of legal opinions granting President George W. Bush sweeping powers ..... changes to the report by the Office of Professional Responsibility followed comments from then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, then-Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip and the Office of Legal Counsel, which was still run by its acting chief, Steven Bradbury, one of three lawyers who had been singled out for criticism in OPR's initial draft.

“Attorney General Mukasey, Deputy Attorney General Filip and OLC provided comments , and OPR revised the draft report to the extent it deemed appropriate based on those comments,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Faith Burton in a March 25 letter to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, and Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

....... the OLC’s judgments regarding President Bush’s powers rest at the heart of the Bush administration’s defense of its “enhanced interrogation” techniques that have been widely denounced as torture ....... Durbin and Whitehouse added that they are “concerned” that the final OPR report – when it is delivered to Attorney General Eric Holder and to Congress – will have “undergone significant revisions at the behest of the subjects of the investigation without the benefit of reviewing OPR’s initial draft report.” .....

.... OPR draft report ... reached “damning” conclusions about numerous cases of “misconduct” in the advice from Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury that was provided to the White House about interrogations and domestic surveillance.

[L. Coyote]

57. Jason Leopold April 3, 2009: 'Torture Memo' May Finally Go Public

'Torture Memo' May Finally Go Public
By Jason Leopold - April 3, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/040309b.html


The world may finally get to read the Bush administration’s infamous “torture memo,” the Aug. 1, 2002, document that provided legal cover for the brutal and humiliating treatment of detainees in George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”

Though the general contents of that memo have been described in books, congressional reports and news articles, the document itself was kept as a highly classified secret by the Bush administration.

In its first two months in office, the Obama administration has released several other legal memos relating to Bush’s expansive views of his powers, but has withheld key memos on the “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

On Thursday, the Justice Department said it had negotiated an extension to a court deadline in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU seeking interrogation-related documents, in part, by agreeing to add the “torture memo” to other documents that might be released within two weeks.

...............

Two weeks ago, the ACLU called on Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to launch a probe into the Bush administration's torture practices.

[L. Coyote]

58. Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web: ‘Holy Hell’ Over Torture Memos

‘Holy Hell’ Over Torture Memos
By Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web Exclusive - Apr 3, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/192314


Attorney General Eric Holder wants to release classified Bush-era interrogation memos. But U.S. intel officials are fiercely lobbying the White House to block him from moving forward.

A fierce internal battle within the White House over the disclosure of internal Justice Department interrogation memos is shaping up as a major test of the Obama administration's commitment to opening up government files about Bush-era counterterrorism policy.

As reported by NEWSWEEK (http://www.newsweek.com/id/190362), the White House last month had accepted a recommendation from Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify and publicly release three 2005 memos that graphically describe harsh interrogation techniques approved for the CIA to use against Al Qaeda suspects. But after the story, U.S. intelligence officials, led by senior national-security aide John Brennan, mounted an intense campaign to get the decision reversed, according to a senior administration official familiar with the debate. "Holy hell has broken loose over this," said the official, who asked not to be identified because of political sensitivities.

Brennan is a former senior CIA official ...... succeeded in persuading CIA Director Leon Panetta to become "engaged" in his efforts to block release, according to the senior official.

......... Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer who is overseeing the litigation, said he still remains hopeful that the Justice Department will release the memos later this month. He added, "This is arguably the most important test thus far of the Obama administration's commitment to transparency."

[L. Coyote]

59. Conyers Wants Holder to Appoint a Special Counsel to Probe Bush Crimes

Conyers Wants Holder to Appoint a Special Counsel to Probe Bush Crimes
Saturday, 04 April 2009
By Jason Leopold - http://www.pubrecord.org/law/815-conyers-calls-for-doj-to-appoint-a-special-counsel-to-probe-bush-crimes.html


On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers quietly released the final draft of an extensive report (http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/111th/IPres090316.pdf) he first unveiled in January documenting the Bush administration’s “unreviewable war powers” and the possible crimes committed in implementing those policies.

In order to determine whether Bush officials broke laws, Conyers has recommended that Attorney General Eric Holder appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry to investigate, among other things, whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against alleged terrorist detainees violated international and federal laws against torture.

“The Attorney General should appoint a Special Counsel to determine whether there were criminal violations committed pursuant to Bush Administration policies that were undertaken under unreviewable war powers, including enhanced interrogation, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless domestic surveillance,” .......

==================


REINING IN THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
Lessons and Recommendations Relating to
the Presidency of George W. Bush
House Committee on the Judiciary Majority Staff
Final Report to Chairman John Conyers, Jr.
March 2009


........ The Bush Administration’s approach to power is, at its core, little more than a
restatement of Mr. Nixon’s famous rationalization of presidential misdeeds: “When the
president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” Under this view, laws that forbid torturing or
degrading prisoners cannot constrain the president because, if the president ordered such acts as
Commander in Chief, “that means it’s not illegal.” Under this view, it is not the courts that
decide the reach of the law – it is the president – and neither the judiciary nor Congress can
constrain him. And where statutory law or the Constitution itself appear to impose obstacles to
presidential whim, creative counselors can be relied upon to reach whatever result the president
desires.
This dismissive approach to our system of checks and balances was exemplified when
the Vice President’s Chief of Staff, David Addington, appeared before the House Judiciary
Committee on June 26, 2008. As much as any individual in the Bush Administration, David
Addington is considered the architect of the concept of unchecked and unreviewable presidential
powers known as the “unitary executive” (in a New Yorker profile, a former Pentagon attorney,
Richard Schiffrin, said that he left one meeting with Mr. Addington with the impression that he
“doesn’t believe there should be co-equal branches”). Yet when I questioned Mr. Addington
about the unitary executive theory of government during our Judiciary Committee hearing, he
responded, “I frankly, don’t know what you mean by unitary theory of government.”
Perhaps nowhere was the range and scope of this most recent version of the Imperial
Presidency more apparent than within the United States Department of Justice, the cornerstone
of law enforcement in our country. ......

[L. Coyote]

61. Cowardice in the Time of Torture by Ray McGovern, April 5, 2009

Cowardice in the Time of Torture
By Ray McGovern - April 5, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/040509c.html


I used to take a certain pride by association with prominent Bronxites who have “made it.” Cancel that for Attorney General Eric Holder and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

......... Cheney endorsing waterboarding; Holder labeling it torture; and — Hello? Anyone home? Deafening silence.

Never mind that Holder, like President Barack Obama, took a solemn oath to faithfully execute the laws of the land. .............

[L. Coyote]

62. Sunday's Torture Roundup.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/5/716908/-Torture-News-Roundup:-DoD-to-Jail-Gitmo-Attorney

[L. Coyote]

63. VIDEO: Rachel Maddow Show: CIA Black Sites Torture Exposed = Danner

From The Rachel Maddow Show April 7, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc_NziwvMvo

[L. Coyote]

65. How Many Others Were Tortured?

Interesting article. Oddly (lol), Wa Post writers don't link Consortium News articles.
This is a good review of some of the recent journalism:

================
How Many Others Were Tortured?
By Dan Froomkin | April 7, 2009
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/looking-backward/007how-many-others-were-tortured.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

... journalist Mark Danner, who last month recounted its gruesome descriptions .... authoritative conclusion that their treatment amounted to torture.

News stories this morning dwell on the report's finding that medical personnel at the prisons took part in the torture ....

But the report, which was based on interviews with the 14 "high value" detainees transferred from the secret prisons to Guantanamo in September 2006, also raises and expresses "grave concerns" about a very significant unanswered question: What happened to all the other detainees who passed through the secret CIA prisons who we still don't know about?

In 2006, President Bush himself acknowledged ..........

[L. Coyote]

66. April 6, 2009 · “Investigate and Punish the Perpetrators” - Scott Horton

“Investigate and Punish the Perpetrators”

April 6, 2009 - Scott Horton - http://harpers.org/archive/2009/04/hbc-90004701


The Red Cross apparently thinks that a number of senior Bush Administration figures belong in jail. ....

.... A stand-out among the conclusions:

…That the US authorities investigate all allegations of ill-treatment and take steps to punish the perpetrators, where appropriate, and to prevent such abuses from happening again.

As we know, the treatment of the sixteen high-value detainees was reviewed and approved at a very high level. The specific regimen for these detainees was presented to and approved by the Principals Committee of the National Security Committee, chaired by Condoleezza Rice. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a recent interview with Rachel Maddow, properly focused our attention on the fact that an extensive paper trail exists which has not yet become public. Powell said it should be public and the participants should be questioned about it. ...

The question, however, is for the Obama Administration: why has Eric Holder blocked the criminal investigation that a proper understanding of his duties would lead him to initiate?

[L. Coyote]

67. WA POST: Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment 'Inhuman'

Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment 'Inhuman'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040603654.html
Joby Warrick and Julie Tate - April 7, 2009; Page A06


Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a confidential report that labeled the CIA program "inhuman."

Health personnel offered supervision and even assistance as suspected al-Qaeda operatives were beaten, deprived of food, exposed to temperature extremes and subjected to waterboarding, the relief agency said ....

In addition to the coercive methods -- which the ICRC said "amounted to torture" and a violation of U.S. and international treaty obligations -- the report said detainees were routinely threatened with further violence against themselves and their families. Nine of the 14 prisoners said they were threatened with "electric shocks, infection with HIV, sodomy of the detainee and . . . being brought close to death," it said.

.........

The CIA declined yesterday to comment on the report .... "Director Panetta has taken decisive steps to ensure that the CIA abides by the president's executive orders. That means CIA will not use interrogation techniques outside the Army Field Manual," ... Panetta also has stated repeatedly that "no one who took actions based on legal guidance from the Department of Justice at the time should be investigated, let alone punished."

Previously, top Bush administration officials defended the interrogation methods, saying they were legal ...

[L. Coyote]

70. America, Torture and Hypocrisy = by Robert Parry April 9, 2009

America, Torture and Hypocrisy by Robert Parry
April 9, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/040909.html


The International Committee of the Red Cross’s torture report should be required reading for all Americans not just because its contents are shocking – which they are – but because it reveals that the United States is not the special nation that it often pretends to be, and won’t be as long as it chooses to look away from such crimes.

A sad lesson from 9/11 is that the United States, which has long lectured the rest of the world about human rights, is no different than any other place after some shocking attack on its national security.

Washington will sink to levels of paranoia and barbarism just as fast as others will, especially if its leadership already has those inclinations as it did under President George W. Bush.

Arguably, the only real differences between the United States and some other government that debases itself with torture and vengeance are that the U.S. can inflict far more damage due to its unprecedented military power and that it is more prone to self-delusion from its sophisticated national PR.

...............

[L. Coyote]

71. WA Post: Crimes That Deserve Punishment By Eugene Robinson

Crimes That Deserve Punishment - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/09/AR2009040903523.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
By Eugene Robinson - Friday, April 10, 2009; Page A17


It's no longer possible to mince words, or pretend we didn't know. The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's so-called "enhanced" interrogation methods, used on "high-value" terrorism suspects, plainly constituted torture. The time for euphemisms is over, and the time for accountability has arrived.

The Red Cross report -- published this week in its entirety for the first time by the New York Review of Books -- is a stunning account of how the Bush administration spat on our laws, traditions and ideals. I realize that many Americans, given the scope of the economic crisis and the ambitions of the new administration, would rather look forward than revisit the past. The business of torture, however, is too unspeakable to be left unresolved.

After years of stonewalling, the Bush administration in October 2006 allowed the Red Cross to interview 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held and interrogated in the CIA's secret prisons. Among them were several men who almost certainly played major roles in planning and executing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshib. Others, such as Abu Zubaydah, now seem to have had less involvement in the attacks than once believed.

The 14 men told remarkably similar stories. After being arrested ....

I have believed all along that we urgently need to conduct a thorough investigation into the Bush administration's moral and legal transgressions. Now I am convinced that some kind of "truth commission" process isn't enough. Torture -- even the torture of evil men -- is a crime. It deserves not just to be known, but to be punished.

From George W. Bush on down, individuals decided to sanction, commit and tolerate the practice of torture. They took pains to paper this vile enterprise with rationalizations and justifications, but they knew it was wrong. So do we.

[seemslikeadream]

73. Thank you

[Snazzy]

74. indeed

:bounce:

[L. Coyote]

75. Chris Floyd: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

April 10 / 12, 2009 - http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd04102009.html
Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos
Hope Abandoned
By CHRIS FLOYD

It was obvious from the moment that Barack Obama appointed Leon Panetta to head the CIA that there was going to be no serious investigation -- much less prosecution -- of the high crimes of torture committed by the agency at the order of the Bush White House. Panetta, a Clinton retread (who actually began his career in the Nixon administration .....

The appointment was very typical of the Obama operation. Panetta had made a few very mild statements over the years that would allow him to be passed off as some kind of "progressive" in the witless, substanceless "process stories" that the corporate media do for new government appointees. This would be enough to keep the progressive "base" -- which was overwhelmingly inclined to give Obama every benefit of every doubt -- lulled long enough to get the patsy into the job. Of course, to actually get the job, Panetta had to make it clear to Congress that he wasn't going to stir up any trouble on the torture front, and was willing to play along with anything the Unitary Executive ....

....... the remarkable story by investigator John Sifton, detailing Obama's retention -- and promotion -- of Bush's willing torturers. From Sifton, at The Daily Beast:

.....

"The New York Times reported that Leon Panetta, the current CIA director, has taken the position that “no one who took actions based on legal guidance from the Department of Justice at the time should be investigated, let alone punished.” Yet a number of CIA officials implicated in the torture program not only remain at the highest levels of the agency, but are also advising Panetta. Panetta’s attempt to suppress the issue is making Bush’s policy into the Obama administration’s dirty laundry ......


Sifton also makes a very important point about the Red Cross report on torture that has been almost entirely ignored (which is not surprising, given that the Red Cross report itself has been almost entirely ignored by the corporate media that gives us the "news" of the day):

.... the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture; they are not some kind of "foreign devilment" messing with our sacred sovereignty: they are the law of the land. But it is clear that the Obama Administration does not have and never had the slightest intention of obeying the law and instigating ...

... There is no hope to be found in the Obama Administration: no hope for genuine change, no hope for a clean break (or any kind of break) from the relentless and ruthless promotion of empire, oligarchy and militarism. By his own choices -- his appointments, his policies, his court actions, his rhetoric -- Barack Obama has demonstrated beyond all doubt his sincere and abiding commitment to "continuity" in the most pernicious and corrosive elements of America's lawless hyper-state ........

Chris Floyd is an American writer and frequent contributor to Counterpunch. His blog, Empire Burlesque, can be found at www.chris-floyd.com.

[misanthrope]

78. In short, they might as well burn them for all the good it will ever do...

...and we should all fall prostrate and just be glad the ruling class allows us to keep what meager rights they dole out.

[G_j]

76. K&R!

[L. Coyote]

77. CIA Videos Predated Bush Legal Memo by Jason Leopold

CIA Videos Predated Bush Legal Memo
by Jason Leopold - April 11, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/041109a.html


The CIA began videotaping interrogations of two alleged “high value” terrorist detainees in April 2002, four months before Bush administration attorneys issued a memo clearing the way for CIA interrogators to use “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the Justice Department disclosed in court documents.

However, In a letter to a federal court judge Thursday, the Justice Department only agreed to provide details on the harshest interrogations of prisoner Abu Zubaydah that occurred in August 2002 – after the Bush administration's lawyers had provided the legal cover for waterboarding and other brutal tactics.

.... Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff attorney, said the government’s “motivations in confining its (latest) response to the month of August are highly suspect.” .........

Singh, the ACLU attorney, said Friday she could not speculate whether videotapes made prior to August 2002 might have depicted “enhanced” methods such as waterboarding. Those techniques were cleared for use by an Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion that narrowly defined torture, thus enabling the Bush administration to claim that its harsh tactics didn’t qualify as torture.

Last year, Dick Cheney admitted in several interviews that he “signed off” on the waterboarding of three “high-value” prisoners and personally approved the harsh interrogations of 33 other detainees. .... “There are questions as to who was authorizing what for the CIA before August,” Singh said. “Those facts need to be made public and that’s why we need to have an investigation.”

=================
On edit: Discuss in LBN forum: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3826910

[G_j]

79. **

[CLG_News]

80. Jason Leopold, so take w. 6 grains of salt. n/t

[L. Coyote]

81. Hello! .... Same can be said of everyone. That does not change the facts.

Same should be said of "everything" posted on a place like this! Like who the hell is CLG_News? We know Robert Parry and Jason Leopold!

[L. Coyote]

82. Bush, Torture, Guantanamo Bay and British Involvement

VIDEO: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x295805

BBC. Press TV's Between the Headlines discussing torture allegations against British Government.

[L. Coyote]

83. Bush's Torture Prisons = by Eugene Robinson

April 10, 2009 - http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/time_for_accountability_on_tor.html
Bush's Torture Prisons
By Eugene Robinson


WASHINGTON -- It's no longer possible to mince words, or pretend we didn't know. The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's so-called "enhanced" interrogation methods, used on "high-value" terrorism suspects, plainly constituted torture. The time for euphemisms is over and the time for accountability has arrived.

The Red Cross report -- published this week in its entirety for the first time by The New York Review of Books -- is a stunning account of how the Bush administration spat on our laws, traditions and ideals. I realize that many Americans, given the scope of the economic crisis and the ambitions of the new administration, would rather look forward than revisit the past. The business of torture, however, is too unspeakable to be left unfinished.

After years of stonewalling, the Bush administration in October 2006 allowed the Red Cross to interview 14 Guantanamo detainees ....

[EFerrari]

84. Kick

[L. Coyote]

85. Upholding the Red Cross by Scott Horton

Upholding the Red Cross
by Scott Horton - http://harpers.org/archive/2009/04/hbc-90004767


On February 14, 2007, the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered a confidential report to John Rizzo, then as now the acting general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency. It contained the results of the Red Cross’s intensive study of the operations at CIA black sites constructed on the basis of detailed interviews with detainees who were held there. The conclusions it reached are compelling and essentially beyond dispute—the prisoners were systematically tortured, and the process of torture was carried out with explicit approval of high-level CIA officials. It is noteworthy that, although the report constitutes an indictment of serious criminal conduct, the CIA has not made a serious attempt to dispute these conclusions, nor has any other official government spokesman. Any such effort could scarcely be credible and it would only draw attention to an embarrassing fact: the high-level CIA officials who approved torture are by-and-large still running the agency. ..............

[L. Coyote]

86. CourtWatch: Feds Need Torture Commission Now

Feds Need Torture Commission Now
CourtWatch: The President And Congress Should Set Up Bipartisan Panel To Understand Why Torture Occurred, If It Reached Goals
April 12, 2009 | by Andrew Cohen - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/12/opinion/courtwatch/main4937888.shtml


Like the good politician that he is, Attorney General Eric Holder last week evaded a point-blank question about the advisability of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" that would broadly investigate America’s descent into torture both as a technique and as a policy in the war on terrorism. Even in the immediate wake of a shockingly-detailed Red Cross report on America’s post-Sept. 11 torture practices, Holder deftly tossed the potato not to his boss in the White House, but to the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

Sen. Leahy is famously on the record as favoring such a commission - but only if the Republicans play along. Leahy blames the GOP for labeling any sort of official review of our torture policies as a post-hoc witch hunt. But he also blames human rights organizations for pushing too loudly for criminal charges for former officials. And therein lays the genius of a blue-ribbon, bipartisan panel on torture ..........

[L. Coyote]

87. ICRC's Damning Exposé of US Torture by Stephen Lendman

April 13, 2009
ICRC's Damning Exposé of US Torture
by Stephen Lendman Page 1 of 10 page(s) - http://www.opednews.com/articles/ICRC-s-Damning-Expose-of-U-by-Stephen-Lendman-090413-638.html


On March 12, Mark Danner, in a New York Times op-ed and The New York Review of Books, wrote about the ICRC's revelations of "US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites." He said George Bush (in 2007) "informed the world that the United States had created a dark and secret universe to hold and interrogate captured 'terrorists,' " - at locations outside America, Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Operated by the CIA, it "used an alternative set of procedures....designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful."

He lied to conceal what this writer called "Torture As Official US Policy" in a July 18, 2008 article. It was authorized at the highest government levels and confirmed by a virtual blizzard of official documents beginning with a September 17, 2001 secret finding empowering CIA to "Capture, Kill, or Interrogate Al-Queda Leaders." It authorized establishing a secret global network of facilities to detain and interrogate them without guidelines on proper treatment. ................

[L. Coyote]

88. Torture inquiry will hit intelligence work, says MP

From The Times April 13, 2009
Torture inquiry will hit intelligence work, says MP
Michael Evans, Defence Editor - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6083259.ece


Britain’s ability to gather intelligence on international terrorist activity will be jeopardised by the police inquiry into the alleged torture of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, according to a senior MP.

Scotland Yard is soon to begin a review of all the documents relating to the detention of Binyam Mohammed at a secret jail in Morocco before he was transferred to the camp in Cuba.

The Attorney-General has asked police to determine whether MI5 officers may have indirectly committed a criminal act by supplying questions to the CIA during the interrogation of Mr Mohammed.

The police inquiry could be widened to include other allegations ..........

... It is recognised in Whitehall that not every country observes the same human rights standards required of British officers and that this grey area makes it difficult to judge whether secret material provided by a nation with a suspect record of handling prisoners should be acted upon. .....

[L. Coyote]

89. Anatomy of Bush's Torture 'Paradigm' By Ray McGovern April 14, 2009

Anatomy of Bush's Torture 'Paradigm'
by Ray McGovern - April 14, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/041409a.html


The prose of the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on torture seems colorless. It is at the same time obscene — almost pornographic.

The 41-page ICRC report depicts scenes of prisoners forced to remain naked for long periods, sometimes in the presence of women, often with their hands shackled over their heads in "stress positions" as they are left to soil themselves.

The report's images of sadism also include prisoners slammed against walls, locked in tiny boxes, and strapped to a bench and subjected to the drowning sensation of waterboarding.

How could it be that we Americans tolerate the kind of leaders who would subject others to systematic torture .....

[seemslikeadream]

90. PUSH COMES TO SHOVE THURSDAY

[L. Coyote]

91. Glenn Greenwald: The differing views of the "rule of law" in Spain and the U.S.

April 14, 2009 - http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/14/torture/index.html
The differing views of the "rule of law" in Spain and the U.S.
by Glenn Greenwald (updated below - Update II)


Scott Horton reports this morning that, in Spain, "prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates ....

.... however, the primary obligation for these prosecutions lies with the country whose officials authorized the war crimes -- the United States: ....

.... why is it that Stephen Kappes was made the number 2 officials at the CIA despite his being in a key CIA position during the implementation of America's torture regime? Because the two most important Senate Democrats on intelligence matters -- Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein -- insisted that he be so empowered as a condition for their supporting Panetta's nomination, after both of them first demanded that Kappes actually be made CIA Director. Here's what Andrea Mitchell reported back in January: .....

......... to give a sense for how our political class thinks about torture, here is what Mitchell appended to the end of her report: "One potential downside for Kappes: Like former counter-terror chief John Brennan, some critics says he had line authority over controversial decisions involving interrogation and detention." So Kappes' connection to the CIA's torture program was a "potential downside" to his becoming CIA Director. A potential downside. Once Obama chose Panetta rather than Kappes, Rockefeller and Feinstein agreed to support Panetta's nomination only once they were given assurances that Kappes would become Panetta's deputy.

This Thursday will be a very significant test for how much influence the anti-accountability camp exerts within the Obama administration and for how serious Obama's pledges of transparency were, as that day is the latest deadline for the Obama DOJ either to release the three key OLC torture-authorizing memos, release them in heavily redacted form, or refuse to release them at all. ............

[L. Coyote]

92. VIDEO: Former Bush Officials Can No Longer Travel Abroad

Former Bush Officials Can No Longer Travel Abroad
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x296643

[L. Coyote]

93. Emptywheel: It’s Not the Water-Boarding, It’s the Blows to the Head

It’s Not the Water-Boarding, It’s the Blows to the Head
By: emptywheel Tuesday April 14, 2009 - http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/14/its-not-the-water-boarding-its-the-blows-to-the-head/


Just to lay out a few details based on this article explaining that Obama continues to waver on what parts of the 2005 Bradbury torture memos to reveal. (h/t Steve)

1. According to the WSJ, it's not the description of water-boarding that the CIA wants to hide. It's the description of how the CIA threw people against the wall.

Among the details in the still-classified memos is approval for a technique in which a prisoner's head could be struck against a wall as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator, according to people familiar with the memos. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123975168816518691-lMyQjAxMDI5MzE5NDcxNTQxWj.html

2. We know from the ICRC report this technique had been used, three years before Bradbury wrote his OLC memos, with Abu Zubaydah. ...............

=============
Discuss ON DU: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5459615

[L. Coyote]

94. Obama Tilts to CIA on Memos

APRIL 15, 2009 - http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123975168816518691-lMyQjAxMDI5MzE5NDcxNTQxWj.html
By EVAN PEREZ and SIOBHAN GORMAN
Top Officials at Odds Over Whether to Withhold Some Details on Interrogation Tactics


WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public, according to people familiar with the discussions.

These people cautioned that President Barack Obama is still reviewing internal arguments over the release of Justice Department memorandums related to CIA interrogations, and how much information will be made public is in flux.

Among the details in the still-classified memos is approval for a technique in which a prisoner's head could be struck against a wall as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator, according to people familiar with the memos. Another approved tactic was waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

A decision to keep secret key parts of the three 2005 memos outlining legal guidance on CIA interrogations would anger some Obama supporters who have pushed him to unveil now-abandoned Bush-era tactics. It would also go against the views of Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Counsel Greg Craig, people familiar with the matter said.

Top CIA officials have spoken out strongly against a full release ...........

[L. Coyote]

95. Democracy Now: Report: Under CIA Pressure, Obama to Withhold Parts of Torture Memos

Headlines for April 15, 2009

Report: Under CIA Pressure, Obama to Withhold Parts of Torture Memos
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/15/headlines

President Obama is reportedly wavering on a pledge to fully reveal Bush administration memos authorizing CIA torture. According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House is leaning toward withholding graphic details of tactics authorized in three classified memos from 2005. The details include approval for striking a prisoner’s head against a wall and the practice known as waterboarding. The issue is reportedly centering around warnings from top intelligence officials that the memos’ full disclosure would anger CIA employees and alienate them from the White House. President Obama faces a Thursday court deadline to act on releasing the memos under a lawsuit brought by the ACLU.

..............

LISTEN
WATCH
Real Video Stream
Real Audio Stream
MP3 Download
More…

[L. Coyote]

96. Hardball: Torture Prosecution of Bush Officials

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x297359

[L. Coyote]

97. Richard Armitage: If I had known, I would've resigned over Bush administration torture

Richard Armitage: If I had known, I would've resigned over Bush administration torture
Jeremy Gantz - April 15, 2009 - http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Richard_Armitage_If_I_had_known_0415.html


Richard Armitage, who was second in command at the State Department during former President George W. Bush's first term, believes waterboarding is torture and says he would have resigned had he known the CIA was torturing suspects.

"I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would've had the courage to resign," Armitage says in an Al Jazeera English interview to be aired tomorrow. The statement makes him one of the highest ranking former Bush administration officials to label the former president's policy torture.

Last month, a leaked report written by the International Committee of the Red Cross stated that the Bush Administration's harsh interrogation techniques "constituted torture." The report strongly implies that CIA interrogators violated international law.

Armitage, who left the Bush administration with his boss Colin Powell after the 2004 presidential election, says that although he and other officials knew that Bush administration officials were departing from the Geneva Conventions.........

[L. Coyote]

98. NPR: Critics Skeptical Of Obama's 'Openness' Vow

Critics Skeptical Of Obama's 'Openness' Vow
by Ari Shapiro
Listen Now - 4 min 19 sec - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103143642


All Things Considered, April 15, 2009 · President Obama came to the White House promising a new era of openness in government. On his first full day in office he said, "The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable, and the way to make government accountable is to make it transparent." Now, some activists say, he has not done enough to keep that promise on the national security front.

A major test of the Obama administration's openness on national security issues is coming on Thursday. The Justice Department faces a court-imposed deadline to say whether it will release some controversial classified memos from the Bush administration.

.....

With all of this as backdrop, another major test of this administration's openness on national security issues is imminent. Thursday is a deadline for the Justice Department to release controversial legal memos that authorized harsh CIA interrogations. The department could release the memos in full, release heavily redacted versions of them or refuse to release them at all.

Jaffer of the ACLU, who sued to get the documents, says, "It'll be very difficult for the new administration to claim that it has made any progress whatsoever toward that promise of transparency if it's withholding these legal memos."

...........

[L. Coyote]

99. Greenwald - Obama's huge test today: do we believe in secret law?

Discuss on LBN: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5468618

===================
April 16, 2009 - Glenn Greenwald
Obama's huge test today: do we believe in secret law?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/16/olc_memos/index.html


... the most significant test yet determining the sincerity of Barack Obama's commitment to restore the Constitution, transparency and the rule of law. After seeking and obtaining multiple extensions of the deadline, today is the final deadline for the Obama DOJ to respond to the ACLU's FOIA demand for the release of four key Bush DOJ memos which authorized specific torture techniques ....

I want to underscore one vital point about this controversy that is continuously overlooked and will be undoubtedly distorted today in the event of non-disclosure: these documents are not intelligence documents. They are legal documents and, more specifically, they constitute what can only be described as secret law under which the U.S. was governed during the Bush era. Thus, the question posed by the release of these OLC memos is not whether Obama will release to the public classified intelligence programs. The question is whether he will release to the public the legal doctrines under which the U.S. Government conducted itself regarding interrogation techniques he claims are no longer being used.

These memos were not prepared by the CIA or the Pentagon. To the contrary: they were written by DOJ lawyers ....

......... secrecy of OLC memos is justified only in the rarest and most extreme cases, and here, the interrogation policies that are the subject of the memos are ones that the Obama administration claims to have prohibited entirely. Other than redactions to protect the identity of intelligence agents and (arguably) cooperating foreign governments, the only conceivable reason to suppress information of Bush's torture regime is to hide evidence of the crimes committed by government officials. No debate should be necessary to demonstrate that that concern is not a legitimate reason for secrecy.

Put simply, restoration of the Constitution, transparency and the rule of law is impossible if the government continues to maintain a regime of secret laws and if it actively conceals evidence of criminality at the highest levels of government. Given the pressure being brought to bear on him by the intelligence community (which naturally opposes any scrutiny of what it did), Obama will deserve substantial credit, and will take a significant step forward in fulfilling those goals, if he releases these OLC memos more or less in full. If, however, he releases them with substantial redactions designed to hide what OLC decreed and what the U.S. government did when torturing detainees, it will be the most significant blow yet (and that's saying quite a bit) to the principles to which he endlessly committed himself during the campaign.

[L. Coyote]

100. NY TIMES: Holder: Law Not Always Followed in Terror Fight

Bush and Cheney, et. al., will not enjoy the NY Times today! Or tomorrow, this hints!

=======
Holder: Law Not Always Followed in Terror Fight
April 15, 2009 - http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/15/us/AP-Holder-West-Point.html?_r=1


WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) -- Attorney General Eric Holder told a mostly military audience Wednesday that some of those engaged in the battle against terrorism did not always follow the law.

Holder did not mention torture or name the target of his criticism, leveled in a speech for a law conference at the U.S. Military Academy. However, he praised military lawyers in the Judge Advocate General Corps for their work representing terror detainees.

.... The speech came a day before a court deadline for the Obama administration to release all or parts of key Bush administration memos ...

Holder insisted that even when the government must act in secrecy for national security reasons, ''we must be most vigilant in relying on the rule of law to govern our conduct.''

''A need to act behind closed doors does not grant a license to pursue policies, and to take actions, that cannot withstand the disinfecting power of sunlight,'' the attorney general said.

.... Holder told his audience, ''We will not sacrifice our values or trample on our Constitution under the false premise that it is the only way to protect our national security.'' .....

[L. Coyote]

101. Terror memos authorized harsh interrogation techniques - .. 1 hour ago .. 1463 news articles

Terror memos authorized harsh interrogation techniques - ‎1 hour ago‎... all 1463 news articles »

=============
Terror memos authorized harsh interrogation techniques
Obama releases four secret memos detailing detainee treatment under Bush. Human rights groups slam his promise not to prosecute intelligence officials.
By Warren Richey | Staff writer April 16, 2009 - http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0417/p02s04-usgn.html


... the Justice Department released four secret memos used during the Bush presidency offering legal justification for interrogation techniques ....

Many human rights activists have urged the president to authorize an investigation of torture allegations during President Bush's war on terror, with some calling for the appointment of an independent prosecutor.

............. One memo, dated August 2002, authorized 10 special interrogation techniques for use against Al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, including waterboarding. Under this interrogation technique, the suspect is placed on a board or table with his feet above his head, a cloth is draped over the nose and mouth, and water is poured over his face.

The technique, widely considered a form of torture by human-rights experts, triggers an intense, uncontrollable sensation of drowning.

In the memo, then Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee acknowledged that waterboarding came close to violating the US torture statute because it constitutes "a threat of imminent death." But he added that it would not amount to torture unless the experience resulted in "prolonged mental harm" lasting months or years. .............

[L. Coyote]

102. Spain: Judge continues U.S. Torture official inquiry = April 17, 2009

Spain: Judge continue U.S. official query
Published: April 17, 2009 - http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/17/Spain-Judge-continue-US-official-query/UPI-56981240009076/


MADRID, April 17 (UPI) -- A Spanish judge Friday ordered that an investigation remain open into former Bush administration officials in connection with alleged prisoner torture.

Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered that the investigation continue into the actions of six former officials, including former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, El Pais reported online.

Spanish legal officials argued last week that Spain has jurisdiction in the claim because the country is party to the U.N. Convention Against Torture and three Spanish citizens who were imprisoned at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, claimed they were tortured.

.....

[L. Coyote]

103. ACLU: Letter to Attorney General Holder Requesting Appointment of an Independent Prosecutor (3/17/20

Letter to Attorney General Holder Requesting Appointment of an Independent Prosecutor (3/17/2009)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/39054res20090317.html

10 page PDF document:
http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/lettertoholder_independentprosecutor.pdf

[L. Coyote]

104. Feinstein Asks Obama to Reserve Judgment on Torture Prosecutions

Feinstein Asks Obama to Reserve Judgment on Torture Prosecutions
by Jason Leopold, 20 April 2009 -

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein urged President Barack Obama Monday to reserve judgment about whether or not Bush administration officials should be prosecuted for torture until her committee completes its review of the CIA's so-called "enhanced interrogation" program in six to eight months.

“I am writing to respectfully request that comments regarding holding individuals accountable for detention and interrogation related activities be held in reserve until the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is able to complete its review of the conditions and interrogations of certain high value detainees,” Feinstein’s letter says.

“This study is now underway, and I estimate its completion within the next six to eight months. A study of the first two detainees has already been completed and will shortly be before the committee," the California Democrat added.

It’s unclear who the two detainees are that Feinstein referred to in her letter.

.... Feinstein told Newsweek last month in response to the ICRC's findings: “I now know we were not fully and completely briefed on the CIA program.” ........

[L. Coyote]

105. CIA Watchdog Report Says Detainees Died During Interrogations

CIA Watchdog Report Says Detainees Died During Interrogations PDF Print E-mail
Jason Leopold - 20 April 2009 - http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/845-cia-watchdog-report-says-detainees-died-during-interrogations.html


.... some detainees were allegedly killed during interrogations, according to New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer ... last year, Mayer said Helgerson “investigated several alleged homicides involving CIA detainees” and forwarded several of those cases “to the Justice Department for further consideration and potential prosecution.”

CIA Inspector General John Helgerson raised concerns in a 2004 top-secret report his office prepared about the legality of the interrogation techniques ... Helgerson concluded that the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program “appeared to constitute cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, as defined by the International Convention Against Torture” and the interrogation of Mohammed “could expose agency officers to legal liability,” ....

... Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, the same month he was captured. .......

In June 2004, one month after Helgerson concluded his investigation, then CIA Director George Tenet asked the White House to explicitly sign off on the agency's "enhanced interrogation" program with a memo that authorized specific techniques, such as waterboarding. A similar request was also made by the agency at the start of Helgerson's probe in 2003, according to a report published in the Washington Post last October.

"The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding ....... "The classified memos, which have not been previously disclosed (and remain classified), were requested by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, ..........

Mayer said Helgerson “investigated several alleged homicides involving CIA detainees” and forwarded several of those cases “to the Justice Department for further consideration and potential prosecution.”

.............

[L. Coyote]

106. Connecting CIA Torture to Abu Ghraib = by Robert Parry = April 21, 2009

Connecting CIA Torture to Abu Ghraib
Robert Parry - April 21, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/042009.html


By blurring the lines between terrorism and combat – and by linking the 9/11 rationale to groups only tangentially connected to al-Qaeda – the Bush administration spread the policy of harsh interrogations far beyond terror suspects who worked directly for Osama bin Laden, newly released Justice Department memos reveal.

Most significantly, the Bush administration let the interrogation policy spill over into U.S.-occupied Iraq, where ambushes of American and allied troops were regarded as the legal and moral equivalent of terrorist attacks against civilians on U.S. soil, one of the memos, dated May 30, 2005, makes clear. That belief, in turn, appears to have set the stage for the Abu Ghaib prison abuse scandal.

The memo – written by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel – describes the criteria for identifying a “high value” detainee who would be a candidate for “enhanced interrogation techniques.” While describing the supposedly restrictive nature of the criteria, Bradbury actually reveals how broad the category was.

.....

an Iraqi insurgent allegedly linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant who led a particularly violent faction of the Iraqi war against U.S. occupation, could qualify for harsh interrogation if he might know about future attacks on American or allied troops inside Iraq.

Though terrorism is classically defined as acts of violence directed against civilians to achieve a political goal, the Bush administration broadened the concept to include attacks by Iraqis against U.S. or allied soldiers occupying Iraq. So, for instance, a suspected Iraqi insurgent who might know about the location of roadside bombs would fall under these criteria.

Since the Bush administration blamed Zarqawi for much of the violence against U.S. forces in Iraq, that would have opened the door for rough treatment of any number of captured Iraqis. Indeed, that is what some of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib claimed to have thought they were doing, softening up Iraqi detainees for questioning by U.S. intelligence interrogators.

Whistleblower’s Testimony

..................

[L. Coyote]

108. ONE MONTH of CIA Torture News. What a difference a month makes.

This topic is now too hot to compile the headlines properly.
I'll let the thread close now. Keep it linked to keep it afloat in the search world.