White House Backtracking on Torture Prosecution

President Barack Obama has left the door open to prosecution of Bush administration lawyers involved in making torture policy.

"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that. I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there."

Asked about his opinion of a congressional investigation into the matter, Obama refrained from taking a position -- but maintained that such an investigation should be bipartisan if it happens. "As a general deal, I think that we should be looking forward and not backwards. I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively, and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations."

That is different than Rahn Emanuel's previous statement.

Asked Sunday on ABC's "This Week" about the fate of those officials, Emanuel said the president believes they "should not be prosecuted either and that's not the place that we go."

The release of the memos was going to create pressure on Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute. Obama was asked in the Oval Office if Bush lawyers could be prosecuted. "I don’t want to prejudge that," Obama answered.

Obama repeatly stressed C.I.A. operatives will not be prosecuted. The President went to the Langley headquarters to personally deliver that message.

The White House press corp is curious about why the Obama administration backtracked on previous statements about criminal prosecutions against Bush officials. Press Sec. Robert Gibbs does his best to spin.



Kevin Drum makes a strong argument that Office of Legal Counsel attorney can not be prosecuted without charges leading to George W. Bush. Drum sees Obama eventually ruling prosecution is impossible. My take is this is take on momentum of it's own. Bush supporters are fewer than the people that dislkie him. That doesn't mean Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld will be prosecuted. George Tenet is another story. Some people were born to fall on the sword.

'We Don't Torture' Is A Myth

The C.I.A. waterboarded Abu Zubaydah a minimum of 83 times in August of 2002. Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003. Firedoglake blogger Marcy Wheeler broke the latter story before the New York Times. Wheeler found information about Mohammed's waterboarding from a C.I.A. memo sent to John Rizzo, Senior Deputy Council for the C.I.A. Rizzo was involved with the C.I.A. secret prisons. His nomination for CIA general counsel was killed in the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The memo makes clear former C.I.A. Director George Tenet had to approve all uses of waterboarding.

Any interrogation plan that involves the use of enhanced techniques must be reviewed and approved by "the Director, DCI Counterterrorism Center, with the concurrence Chief, CTC Legal Group."

The memo admits Zubaydah and Mohammed were waterboarded.

Consistent with its heightened standard for the use of waterboarding, the CIA has used this technique in the interrogation of only three detainees to date (KSM, Zubaydah and 'Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri) and has not been used since the March 2003 interrogation of KSM.

The damning evidence is on page 37.

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

The memo mostly attempts the legally justify pure torture. Anyone that doesn't think waterboarding is torture should try it. George Tenet approved this. How long until Tenet starts passing the buck to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?

President Barack Obama spoke at the C.I.A. Langley headquarters. The President promised not to prosecute or release the identity of operatives involved in waterboarding.

"You are an indispensable tool, the tip of the spear in America's international mission and our national security," Obama said. "I will be as vigorous in protecting you as you are in protecting the American people."

He acknowledged that "the last few days have been difficult" and said he would continue to fight to keep classified documents secret. But he defended his administration's decision to release select documents last week, saying much of the information in them was already public knowledge.

"I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos," Obama said.

Releasing the memos will put pressure on Obama to prosecute people. Former C.I.A. Director Michael Hayden has repeatedly attacked Obama. Hayden is obviously nervous. Hayden's argument that terrorsts weren't aware of C.I.A. interrogation methods before the memos were released. That is garbage. Hayden is covering his ass.



This is the same Hayden that told he didn't know if waterboarding was illegal.

It [waterboarding] is not included in the current program, and in my own view, the view of my lawyers and the Department of Justice, it is not certain that that technique would be considered to be lawful under current statute.

I have doubts only three detainees were waterboarded. A 2005 ABC News story details waterboarding and other tortures methods at an secret Afghanistan prison. Hayden told Congress only Zubaydah, Mohammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded. What is going on is Hayden knowingly perjured himself to Congress. I doubt Hayden will get charged for perjury. Hayden isn't so confident.

If waterboarded was safe and legal then why did the Bush administration lie about their interrogation methods for years? The Bush administration either suffered from a collective pathological lying disorder or were afraid of criminal indictments.

Update: Emily Bazelon proposes disbarment for David Addington, Alberto Gonzales and Jim Haynes. I would add Rizzo and Rizzo and John Yoo. How can Obama be able to argue these men shouldn't disbarred?

Update: John McCain criticizes Obama for releasing the memos. (Still testy about the election.) McCain does state waterboarding is morally wrong.

It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period. I can ensure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear. And most importantly, it serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us. And I've seen concrete examples of that talking to former high-ranking al-Qaeda individuals in Iraq.

Update: Batocchio has a lengthy must read piece on David Rivkin's defense of waterboarding.

Henry Hyde Wins Medal of Freedom

I literally laughed my ass off when I found out that George W. Bush has bestowed the Medal of Freedon upon Henry Hyde. It seems that Bush is trying to out fuck up the trifecta of former Medal of Freedon recipients George Tenet, Paul Bremer and Tommy Franks.



Another classic Bush moment in arrogance was bestowing the award to Norman "Bomb Iran" Podhoretz in 2004. Bush cynically looks at the award as a way to payoff cronies. Including those that give him horrible advise on Middle East policy.

Open Letter to George Tenet

Former CIA officers wrote a public letter to George Tenet. They accuse the former CIA Director of using his book to whitewash his role in helping the White House make the case to invade Iraq.

You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.

The former CIA officers compare Tenet to Alberto Gonzales. They accuse Tenet of being "a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality." That is a nice way of saying that Tenet is a useless ass kisser.

The letter also throws the dreaded Curveball at Tenet. The informant got his codename because of his history of lying. An intelligence analyst made an attempt to warn about Curveball's unreliability. He was brushed off.

All those sources are suspect or unreliable, especially the key one nicknamed "Curve Ball," warned the analyst, the only U.S. intelligence official who had met Curve Ball.

The analyst received a dismissive reply. "This war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say, and . . . the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about," replied the deputy chief of the CIA's Iraq task force. The warning was never passed on to Powell or his top aides.

That didn't stop the White House from using Curveball's bogus claims of bioweapons. Tenet and John E. McLaughlin were warned about this information.

Tyler Drumheller, former chief of the CIA European Division, said he and other senior officials in his office — the unit that oversees spying in Europe — had issued repeated warnings about Curveball's accounts.

"Everyone in the chain of command knew exactly what was happening," said Drumheller, who retired in November after 25 years at the CIA. He said he never met personally with Tenet, but "did talk to McLaughlin and everybody else."

Drumheller scoffed at claims by Tenet and McLauglin that they were unaware of concerns about Curveball's credibility. He said he was disappointed that the two former CIA leaders would resort to a "bureaucratic defense" that they never got a formal memo expressing doubts about the defector.

"They can say whatever they want," Drumheller said. "They know what the truth is …. I did not lie." Drumheller said the CIA had "lots of documentation" to show suspicions about Curveball were disseminated widely within the agency. He said they included warnings to McLaughlin's office and to the Weapons Intelligence Non Proliferation and Arms Control Center, known as WINPAC, the group responsible for many of the flawed prewar assessments on Iraq.

The letter points out that Tenet did not stand up to the administration and stop the use of faulty intelligence. Tenet was an active enabler. He could have lobbied members of Congress not to vote for the war resolution. He could have resigned and spoke out. Instead, he sat behind Colin Powell during the Sec. of State's disgraceful United Nations presentation.

Wilkerson said Powell “turned to the DCI, Mr. Tenet, and he [Powell] said, ‘everything here, everything here, you stand behind?’And Mr. Tenet said, ‘absolutely, Mr. Secretary.’ And he [Powell] said, ‘well, you know you’re going to be sitting behind me tomorrow. Right behind me. In camera.”

Tenet had the opportunity to tell Powell the WMD case was not solid. He stood behind. I believe Powell still would have made bogus claims to the U.N. The source is Lawrence Wilkerson and he has been a harsh critic of the administration and publicly disagreed with his friend Powell.

Tenet's book is revisionist history. We will be seeing more of it from other Bushies.

Quote of the Day

“I remember watching and thinking, ‘As if you needed me to say ‘slam dunk’ to convince you to go to war with Iraq.’”

Former CIA Director George Tenet on the Bush administration.