CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks

[EFerrari]

Source: McClatchy

WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.

The risks and effectiveness of waterboarding and other enhanced techniques are at the center of an increasingly heated debate over how thoroughly to investigate the CIA's secret detention and interrogation programs.

"It is difficult to quantify with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program," Steven G. Bradbury, then the Justice Department's principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in a May 30, 2005, memo to CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, one of four released last week by the Obama administration.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html

[NYC_SKP]

1. I'm beginning to think that some of our own people in government were fibbing, a little.

I'm just glad I've lived long enough to see some of what I KNEW was going on here come to light.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Ain't that the truth

Just last night my DH said "Oh, did you hear Condi lied about torture?"

I wanted to reply "Yes, Dear, I heard that about 4 years ago" but I smiled and said "Yes, no surprise to me"

[Birthmark]

2. Anyone with any familiarity of the subject...

...told them the same thing. That is, torture is useless if you want good information. Now, if you want a FALSE confession, to say, start a war with Iraq...well, it's perfectly suited to that. In fact, that is the most logical conclusion of what they were after, given the facts.

[tomm2thumbs]

3. McCain & Leahy on Meet the Press Sunday - should prove very interesting

How McCain can support the idea of stopping torture but ignoring how it came about is beyond ridiculous - it's like walking past a rape in progress and covering your ears while humming. If he really wants to prevent this in the future, he should realize you need to know how it got there in the first place.

Ignorance is not bliss

[yowzayowzayowza]

21. Thx for the MtP headzup!!

Should be VERY interesting.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[PNutt]

5. Just Have To Wonder.......

What the next bunch of lies will be?

1st-Waterboarding is not torture.........and everybody calls bullshit.

2nd-It worked....we saved Los Angeles........and everybody calls bullshit.

3rd-It's legal, we have memos...........yep, predetermined ones while any opposition ones are shredded....more bullshit.

4th-Liz Cheney says "Daddy says it's OK, and he is always right".........and everybody calls bullshit.

5th-Congress was informed....well, sort of.............and everybody calls bullshit.

6th-We don't really know what it will be exactly, but........I call bullshit before it even happens.

[EFerrari]

6. I think you're onto something there.

Welcome to DU, PNutt.

[PNutt]

7. Thanks...

I've been here for over a year, just never got around to registering and posting here........have a site where I school the Re-Pube-Lickers on a daily basis. Get loads of ammo here.....and this is a really great place to visit.....Pubes stand out like a whore in church.

[No Elephants]

14. Yes, they do. Yet, they think we don't know what they are. Welcome.

[ldf]

20. welcome, pnutt

nothing wrong with being a pube licker , but republicOns do need to be schooled.

and don't denigrate whores in that way. at least THEY provide a needed service...



edit to add, if i'm pickin' hair out of my teeth, HOPEFULLY they are pubic...

[The Magistrate]

8. Of Course There Is No Such Evidence, Ma'am

It is abundantly clear the principal effort of the torture program was to extract false statements linking Saddam Hussien to al Queda, to be used in selling the invasion of Iraq, and descriptions of fantasy plots to provide pretext for phony 'terror alerts' to manipulate the news cycles.

[EFerrari]

9. Good to see you, Your Honor. If I may ask, what is Cheney hoping

to accomplish at this moment? He can't win. The president is releasing information that will win over the public.

[The Magistrate]

10. Without Pushing The Comparison Too Far, Ma'am, Mind

There hovers about Cheney to my mind at present an air reminiscent of Hitler in the bunker, ordering the Umptieth Panzer division to support of the Munchausens in the Hermanstrasse, declaring they would hold off the Guards Armies handily, when in fact even if the order got through the units numbered no more than a platoon of tanks and a couple of companies of infantry, barely able to constitute a speed-bump in the path of the oncoming steam-roller. In short, the man is playing out the string of an auto-hypnotic delusion, still convinced reality is what he wills it to be, and believing that it will remain so if his will only holds strong enough. His record as a strategist is pretty poor, taken as a whole....

[EFerrari]

12. It's fascinating, in a sort of horrible way.

There is no one else at his level out there so, there is a gulf between what he is doing and what House Republicans, for example, and their media monkeys are doing. He comes off as isolated and somewhat out of place.

I myself hope Mr. Cheney keeps exercising his First Amendment rights as often as possible.

[Karenina]

22. Perfect description!

[genaldar]

11. Anybody see Thursday Daily Show?

They had a great clip of Shep Smith of Faux News calling out torture. As much as I hate that network, once or twice Smith or Chris Wallace say something that makes you think they aren't total idiots.

[PNutt]

13. I Would Much Rather Watch

Shephard Smith on Fixed Noise than Joe Scumsucker on MSNBC. Every morning I turn that jerk on just to see Mika....and then he opens his piechute, and all I can see is Harold Hill.(Glenn Beck) Vomiting ensues, and my day is off to a wonderful start.

[olegramps]

15. Torture has been shown to be very effective.

The Holy Office of the Inquisition use of torture over a period of some three hundred years was effective in detecting witches, including not only women, but also men and children. From 1484 to 1554 the Holy Office reported that over 30,000 has been detected. They were soon joined by the Protestants and estimates range as high as 200,000 vicious Devil worshipers who brought untold suffering to their fellow Christians had been burnt. Henry Kramer and James Sprenger produced a document similar to that produced by the CIA for obtaining intelligence. Their torture methods detailed in their document, Malleus Maleficarum (Witches Hammer)produce starting evidence. Here is just one example of hundreds that attest to the value of torture in getting to the truth of the matter:

"And what, then, is to be thought of those witches who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together, and put them in a bird's nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many and is a matter of common report? It is to be said that, it is all done by devil's work and illusion...For a certain man tells that, when he had lost his member, he approached a known witch to ask her to restore it to him. She told the afflicted man to climb a certain tree, and that he might take which he liked out of a nest in which there were several members. And when he tried to take a big one, the witch said: You must not take that one; adding, because it belonged to a parish priest." I,q.3.

[Sanity Claws]

LOL

Do you have a cite? I'd love to read more about the confessions elicited during the Inquisition.

[mbperrin]

18. Here's a link to the text itself

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/index.htm
Malleus Maleficarum (1486)

translated by Montague Summers <1928>

This is the best known (i.e., the most infamous) of the witch-hunt manuals. Written in Latin, the Malleus was first submitted to the University of Cologne on May 9th, 1487. The title is translated as "The Hammer of Witches". Written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer (of which little is known), the Malleus remained in use for three hundred years. It had tremendous influence in the witch trials in England and on the continent. This translation is in the public domain.

The Malleus was used as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judically murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerence takes over a society.

[Sanity Claws]

16. LOL

Do you have a cite? I'd love to read more about the confessions elicited during the Inquisition.

[InfiniteThoughts]

17. Why isn't this surprising?

what else did we expect - Astounded that Obama Admin is still trying to beat around the bush when it comes to prosecuting Cheney & co ...

[EFerrari]

23. Welcome to DU, Infinite Thoughts.

[Duer 157099]

24. Now go back and read those three 2005 memos by Bradbury

The ones just released. You'll find that a good percentage of his effort in those memos is precisely to refute that 2004 IG report.

To summarize, he claims that they (in the IG report) used a slightly different technique than the one he was defending and advocating for.

It's nonsense, of course, but it puts the 2005 memos in perspective -- I read them before realizing this, and could not quite understand his nuancing and defensive stance. Now I get it.

HOWEVER, it's still wrong to argue about effectiveness, in any context whatsoever, because that's completely and totally besides the point.