Bush’s Approved Torture … in 2003?

A number of people have pointed to a comment Bush made in MI on Thursday about his role in approving torture. Here’s how CNN described it:

Bush spoke in broad strokes about how he proceeded after the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003.

"The first thing you do is ask, what’s legal?" he said. "What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, ‘I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.’ I can tell you that the information we got saved lives."

Here’s how Eartha Jane Meltzer from MI Messenger described it:

But the former president spoke indirectly of his administration’s authorization of the use of torture against detainees captured during the War on Terror, avoiding the words “torture” and “abuse.”

“You have to make tough decisions,” Bush said. “They’ve captured a guy who murdered 3,000 citizens … that affected me … They come in and say he may have more information …and we had an anthrax attack … and they say he may have more information. What do you do?“

Bush was firm and defended his record as president: “I will tell you that the information gained saved lives.”

And here’s how the Detroit Free Press described it:

Former President George W. Bush defended on Thursday his decision to allow harsh interrogation of the terrorist who ordered the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, saying it was cleared by his lawyers to prevent what his advisers believed was another, imminent attack.

"I made a decision within the law to get information so I can say, I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people," he said. "I can tell you, the information gained saved lives."

Here’s how SW MI’s Herald-Palladium described it:

He defended his decision to authorize waterboarding on the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. 

Now, I’m trying to get clarification on this point, particularly since Bush used to claim frequently that Abu Zubaydah ordered up 9/11, but between CNN and H-P, they seem to be clear that Bush was referring specifically to KSM, not AZ. [See updated below.]

If his reference to KSM was explicit, I find that very odd. 

Why would Bush talk about the seminal moments in his tenure as President, and refer to approving the torture of the third guy we waterboarded, and not number one or number two? Wouldn’t the first approval of waterboarding be the most important?

I ask for a number of reasons. First, there’s Cheney’s bizarre description of the torture authorization process, the"presidential-level decision" that Bush "basically" signed off on.

SCHIEFFER: … somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

CHENEY: I certainly, yes, have every reason to believe he knew — he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. I mean, this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.

This makes me wonder whether Bush "basically authorized" the torture of Abu Zubaydah and only actually authorized the torture of KSM?

Then there’s the timing. As I’ve pointed out, when Jane Harman asked explicitly in February 2003 (before KSM was captured) whether Bush had bought off on torture, Scott Muller basically told her not to worry her pretty little head about such legal niceties as Presidential authorization. We know the White House provided CIA some kind of Presidential authorization in June 2003. But that was in response to Bush saying, in a speech on June 26, that the US would prosecute torturers. So when, exactly, did Bush approve the torture of KSM? And was it before or after we waterboarded KSM 183 times in one month?

Then there’s the detail WO found the other day–a Tenet memo to Condi at about the same time as Tenet was demanding Presidential buyoff, which presented inaccurate information about when we torture Abu Zubdayah. When Cheney says that Bush knew "a great deal" about the program, is he sure that all that information was accurate?

Finally, we now know that Cheney’s defense of his torture program is going to focus primarily on the utterly false claim that torture helped them stop the Library Tower plot. There’s no way to claim the torture of either AZ or KSM stopped an attack, but the torturers are making a much more sustained claim wrt KSM. So is that why Bush is focusing on the approval of KSM’s torture (if, indeed, he is), because someone told him it really did "save lives"?

Again, I’m seeking clarification of whether Bush really described authorizing torture of KSM and not AZ. But if he did, it may be another hint that Bush didn’t authorize our earliest embrace of torture. 

Update, from Eartha: 

Bush did not say "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed." He talked about having to make a tough decision about a guy who he was told masterminded the murder of 3,000 citizens.

So it’s not clear whether Bush meant AZ or KSM.

image_print
107 replies
  1. JohnnyTable70 says:

    EW: I wanted to point out two things in GWB’s response that should be noted.

    The first thing you do is ask, what’s legal?” he said. “What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, ‘I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.’ I can tell you that the information we got saved lives.”

    The first statement is bogus since the OLC opinion was fixed to make what was illegal legal with a stroke of a pen and it ignored years of both American and international law.

    The second half of the statement regarding the Preznit’s duty is a false Republican meme and is something that I have seen Glenn Greenwald talk about. The oath of office for POTUS mentions defending and protecting the Constitution. Nowhere are the American people mentioned in the oath.

    I love your blog and read it dutifully. Continue with your excellent reportage as you are putting most members of the Traditional Media to shame. If I could vote, you would win a Pullitzer .

  2. JimWhite says:

    Just a thought here, and probably wishful thinking, but I’m wondering if this could be the first step of W. throwing PapaDick under the bus. It’s entirely consistent to read this episode of what Bush said along with Cheney’s “basically authorized” statement that Cheney didn’t bring Bush into the program until KSM came onto the scene. That would fit the overall pattern of Cheney’s operations to not let Bush know what was happening until it was too late to do anything about it.

    Sadly, I almost wonder if Bush is more upset with Cheney over his criticisms of Obama than over manipulating him into authorizing torture. W always cultivated the image of being “too good” to criticize his predecessor (that’s what Rove was for, don’t you know), and I think he’s actually put off by Cheney saying Obama is making us less safe. In his mind, that should be the job of Rove and Bolton, not Bush and Cheney.

    So, by saying that he didn’t authorize torture until KSM, Bush is putting Cheney out there to be investigated for making a “presidential level” authorization without Bush’s involvement.

    • JohnnyTable70 says:

      It wouldn’t be the first time that the Craven Curmudgeon made a presidential level authorization w/o GWB’s approval. Didn’t Mr. Personality issue the shootdown order for Flight 93?

      One thing that I have noticed with Cheney being front and center in the media spotlight, he almost seems to enhance the presidency of GWB. It looks like Cheney bullied his way into being co-president by fiat (funny I don’t recall the people electing him President) and usurped much of the power of the Executive Branch with his intimate knowledge of government bureaucracy having served as WH CoS, SecDef, and Congressman. IMO think it was easy for Dick to convince the simpleton Bush to do what he wanted (assuming GWB was actually informed).

      I’m sure that GWB regrets (big time) letting Cheney pick himself as VP nominee. IMO the entire ChenRummy fiasco was a pissing contest between GWB and GHWB and the son wanted to prove that he didn’t need dad’s advice or advisors, so the disaster that was the past eight years could have been avoided if the relationship between father and son hadn’t been so blatantly disfunctional.

    • bobschacht says:

      Yes, I think you’re right. And that’s why the Cheney family is scrambling around furiously, trying to keep the bus away. Someone connected the infamous “torture” ad to the Cheney family, in addition to PapaDick and BabyDick.

      Bob in HI

        • TheraP says:

          The ad was put up by Accuracy in Media which shares a website and an address (same suite!)with Accuracy in Academia. The former group attacks the “liberal press” and the latter group attacks “liberal professors.” But basically it would appear they are one and the same. Basically the media group is just a subsidiary of the academia group, which is the one to which Lynn Cheney is linked.

          Lynn Cheney founded another group called ACTA (American Council of Trustees and Alumni) – all of whose press releases appear to come via Accuracy in Academia. It appears like these right wing groups use multiple names but are all affiliated. You can trace the same people and causes. Sometimes the same addresses.

  3. BoxTurtle says:

    If we got full disclosure, I’d bet we find a “Do whatever you need to do” memo dated not later than 9/15/01.

    The memo itself is likely written in fresh kitten blood over Bush’s printed signature.

    Boxturtle (Whom do we know who uses kitten blood for ink?)

    • emptywheel says:

      We know there was the Presidential MON putting CIA in charge of capturing and detaining al Qaeda, but by all reports that specificcally didn’t include discussion of what you do when you get them.

    • valletta says:

      I’m re-reading The Dark Side and in it is a reference to a draft proposal that Trent Lott delivers to Tom Daschle on 9/14/01 which states that the President has carte blanche as a war president to do anything he feels he needs to do including declaring American citizens illegal combatants, etc. so the idea that he wouldn’t feel that torture is allowed is contrary to everything that was being done right after 9/11.
      As Jane Mayer says in the book, they were panicked. Lawrence Wilkerson uses the same terminology.

      Interesting that Tom Daschle was the anthrax target just one month after he refused to sign off on Bush’s imperial power grab.

  4. subliminalkid says:

    It is very revealing that the so-called reason that Bush approved torture is so that “I can say, I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people…” -not because he is in a position to do everything possible
    (illegal or legal), but so that he can merely say he is doing it.

    • Loo Hoo. says:

      Which kind of leads you to think he knew he wasn’t doing what he should have been doing before 9/11.

  5. Jkat says:

    if cheney issued the shoot down order .. it was because bushie was cowering so deep in some hole he couldn’t be contacted ..

    these guys are simply cowards .. moral and personal cowards ..

  6. TheraP says:

    It’s hard for me to give bush much credit at all for recalling anything accurately. I view his initial statement as self-congratulation. When I first read those words, I thought of the Boy Scout Oath:

    ‘I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.’

    So I read it as: I’m a good Boy Scout. I did my duty. But he’s already lied when he said “the first thing you do is check what’s legal” This is a guy who never did that first! But wants to believe he’s such a good guy! We may never know “what georgie boy knew or when he knew it” – but we will always know that georgie boy views himself as a “good scout” and believes he abides by the Boy Scout oath:

    On my honor I will do my best
    To do my duty to God and my country
    and to obey the Scout Law;
    To help other people at all times;
    To keep myself physically strong,
    mentally awake, and morally straight.

    The Scout Motto is: Be Prepared Ummmm…. 9/11 – How did that work out?

    Here are some scout virtues:

    TRUSTWORTHY
    LOYAL
    HELPFUL
    FRIENDLY
    COURTEOUS
    KIND
    OBEDIENT
    CHEERFUL
    THRIFTY
    BRAVE
    REVERENT

    Is there a one that could really be said of bush? Seems to me you could turn each one upside down and see the trail of wreckage this man has left in his wake! Personally, I think he threw in the name KSM to make himself look good again. He can throw names around! Wow!

    I commend you, EW, for trying to make sense out of nonsense!

    I don’t know which is worse, that W makes no sense or that reporters can’t see that!

  7. Mary says:

    The first thing you do is ask, what’s legal?” he said. “What do the lawyers say is possible?

    Ah yes. I believe that’s what happens in every ticking time bomb scenario. There’s an unknown time left on the bomb and …

    … you recruit some torturers and send them off for torture training;
    … you make arrangements with foreign nations for blacksites;
    … you get your black budget ready to cover expenses including some Boeing sub planes;
    … you recruit some private contractors who get their jollies by slowly, painfully destroying dogs’ minds;
    … you luckily have on hand some CIA doctors and psychologists whose life dream is to get paid for shocking puppies until they give up on life;
    … you draft a memo for the lawyers telling them what you want them to say “is possible”; and
    … you get the memo back from the lawyers and then coordinate the planes, the money, the blacksites and the torturers, the psyhos; etc and you fully brief your interrogators and torturers and private contractors on what the lawyers say “is possible.”

    Yep – that’s how the ticking time bomb thing works.

  8. dopeyo says:

    It is very revealing that the so-called reason that Bush approved torture is so that “I can say, I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people…”

    reminds me of his famous remark on aug 6, 2001: “okay, you’ve covered your ass” to the cia briefer who had flown down to crawford tx to read to him a short message “bin laden determined to strike in u.s.”

  9. fatster says:

    Retired US general denies seeing torture pictures

    BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE 

Published: May 30, 2009 
Updated 2 hours ago

    “A retired US Army general has denied reports that he has seen the pictures of prisoner abuse in Iraq that President Barack Obama is fighting to keep secret.

    “Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported Thursday that retired Army Major General Antonio Taguba, the lead investigator into Abu Ghraib abuse, had seen images Obama wanted suppressed, and supported the president’s decision to fight their release.

    . . .

    “But Taguba told Salon magazine late Friday that he wasn’t talking about the 44 photographs that are the subject of an ongoing American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that Obama is fighting.

    . . .

    “The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said. But he said he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq — not the photos of abuse that Obama is seeking to suppress.”

    http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..-pictures/

  10. dopeyo says:

    It is very revealing that the so-called reason that Bush approved torture is so that “I can say, I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people…”

    reminds me of his famous remark on aug 6, 2001: “okay, you’ve covered your ass” to the cia briefer who had flown down to crawford tx to read to him a short message “bin laden determined to strike in u.s.”

    It is very revealing that the so-called reason that Bush approved torture is so that “I can say, I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people…”

    reminds me of his famous remark on aug 6, 2001: “okay, you’ve covered your ass” to the cia briefer who had flown down to crawford tx to read to him a short message “bin laden determined to strike in u.s.”

    The first thing you do is ask, what’s legal?” he said. “What do the lawyers say is possible?…”

    no, the first thing you do is to ask “what should i do?”
    the second thing you do is decide to torture.
    knowing that torture is generally wrong, the third thing is to call in some lawyers to find a way to make it legal.

    mentioning the word “legal” tells us that he knew he was about to go outside of the law.

    • Mary says:

      That is an interesting connection, the Bush “you’ve covered your ass” (and I have no interest in what you have to say) approach to a CIA briefer sent to try to get him off his duff and “I covered my ass by torturing”

      Gonzales’ Jan 2002 memo told him he was going, and had already been, outside the law. It spells out that they have War Crimes Act problems unless they make up a way for the Geneve Conventions to not apply to the people they are kidnapping and buying through their bounty program.

  11. Mary says:

    I think that there are a lot of good questions in your post that need answers, but I think on the umbrella question – why focus on KSM when he wasn’t one of the first tortures – that one is fairly ez.

    KSM is the one really, truly, readily identifiable guy who fit the torture parameters in the actual memos (but-for the not being a member of al-Qaeda). Due to circumstances of (lack of) health, knowledge, ties with al-Qaeda, etc. the other tortures all have difficult issues and questions for the “guy who got the memos.”

    From Suskind’s book, it seems clear that on AZ, for example, Bush was told early on that his speechifying about AZ was false and his response wasn’t “oops, let’s not torture that guy then” It was more a *Tenet, your ass is grass if you let me look bad on this* So anyone really digging in with Bush for questioning on the torture issues of AZ for example, has a lot more soft underbelly targets than with KSM. AZ didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. He wasn’t a member of al-Qaeda or in any operational status. He was feeble minded (my old mountains expression – TheraP & Jeff Kaye can jump on me for using it). The FBI was very invovled from the get go and Bush has to square off against someone like Soufan – vs no such FBI guy on the KSM torture tales.

    KSM is really the only tale they want to tell. It’s why, even though I think we need to hammer the real facts – like the 183 waterboardings – for KSM, he should be the last topic of conversation on the airwaves. Every time they raise KSM as their fig leaf, they need to be hit with questions on Arar; el-Masri; AZ being crazy and talking to FBI until he was tortured; al-Libi’s torture being used to gin up false premise for war and then al-Libi being disappeared from the American public before there was any accountability; Errachidi; Kurnaz etc. And if they want to talk about KSM, they need to be asked about his wife and children.

    It’s like death penalty arguments. For the devoted (I’m not one, but I do kind of admire those who are and wish I could access their world view) the way to lose the argument is to take out the worst piece of evil there is and say “we shouldn’t put this to death because its a bad thing” OTOH, even one story of someone innocent who ended up being murdered by the state wins ground.

    It’s emotion and not ideology, but there it is. Bush wants to talk about KSM because he’s the baddest guy they got. He wants to talk about him bc he does have clear ties to terrorist acts and al-Qaeda. KSM is a pretty black and white bad guy. Torturing a crazy guy who was a meet and greet guy and not al-Qaeda and who gave up his good info when not being tortured and who gave all kinds of false info under torture and who had brain injuries before his torture sessions – it’s just not the rousing “I saved America from the bad guy” story that Bush wants to paint and now that he’s not running the show, all those complicated, unsavory “facts” and “details” can bite him in the butt when he misinforms and they know it.

    KISS in this case is supplanted with KSM,W.

    So is that why Bush is focusing on the approval of KSM’s torture (if, indeed, he is), because someone told him it really did “save lives”?

  12. fatster says:

    Oh, rilly?

    Wilkerson: Cheney “Lonely, Paranoid, Frightened”
    Ryan Grim

    First Posted: 05-29-09 03:55 PM 
    “Six years after the UN speech, the group also debated Dick Cheney and his legacy — and whether he should be prosecuted. Wilkerson told the Qatar-based news network than he thought it was impractical to charge former vice president with a crime, regardless of his own preference. He would rather, he said, see the administration’s lawyers disbarred before going after “lonely, paranoid, frightened Dick Cheney.”

    . . .

    “Moran apportioned the blame for torture on the Bush administration generally, but Rushing pressed him to “name names.”

    ‘”Dick Cheney,” said Moran in response. “Bybee [and] the poor lawyer who can’t get a job so I’m not going to mention his name.” He was referring to Judge Jay Bybee, a chief architect of the legal rationale for the Bush administration’s program of torture who is now on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit; and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, still unemployed.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..09182.html

  13. Peterr says:

    Why do I get the feeling that every Friday afternoon, Bush signed a document that says ”I hereby authorize and approve whatever Vice President Cheney did this week”?

  14. fatster says:

    O/T, or back to the decline of the US Press.

    Shhhh. Newspaper Publishers Are Quietly Holding a Very, Very Important Conclave Today. Will You Soon Be Paying for Online Content?

     James Warren
    The Real Deal

    “Here’s a story the newspaper industry’s upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Chicago about their future.

    . . .
     
    “There’s no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication Inc., among more than two dozen in all. A longtime industry chum, consultant Barbara Cohen, “will facilitate the meeting.”‘

    http://correspondents.theatlan…..oon_be.php

    • freepatriot says:

      Will You Soon Be Paying for Online Content?

      not unless they plan on hiring Marcy an the rest of the FDL crew first

      well, I might pay to read Josh Marshal too

      I’m already payin Digby, Joe Amato, an a few others

      an while were on the topic, I nominate bmaz for underboss, and Mary for Consigliori

      just in case we’re a democratic type blogger family or somtin

      author’s note, I didn’t really “pay” to “read” Marcy/ I paid to get her better access and oppertunity to provide MORE content

      there’s a difference …

      I think

      (wink)

  15. BayStateLibrul says:

    Bushie is writing his book as we speak.

    In this speech, he is merely verbalizing what he has already written…
    He is double-talking about what will be confirmed (lied about) in his
    book….

      • PJEvans says:

        Well, someone is writing it for him. Possibly someone Dick chose for the job, but I hope that it’s someone not willing to lie that much.

      • Mary says:

        I heard they have picked up an interactive media partner in the book deal and plan on going where Presidential memoirs have never gone before.

        Ten years ago, who could have predicted Crayola co-sponsoring a President’s memoirs?

  16. perris says:

    we have all this clear evidence with bush/cheney/rumsfeld not only complicit but directly responsible for breaking our law, international law, our treaties and the indication is clear, war crimes

    now we have bush’s own ”general in the field”, general petreaus telling us in no uncertain terms the bush administration broke the geneva convention

    how is it possible these crimes are not prosecuted?

    • BoxTurtle says:

      how is it possible these crimes are not prosecuted?

      Because the current president has stated that he does not wish to prosecute.

      Boxturtle (Glad I’ve got a shell, else these knives ObamaCo keep sticking in my back would really hurt)

      • freepatriot says:

        Obama only thinks he’s stickin knives in my back

        he don’t know that my Mother armed me with a strong set of human values

        my values repell his every attempt to shame me with his own lack of morality

        too bad Obama’s mother did not impress a sense of human decency into Barack Obama

        george’s crimes are in the books

        Obama can’t change that

        he can either prosecute george, or buy in to george’s crimes

        the law is quite clear

        I ain’t a constitutional scholar, so I don’t even try to bullshit people about what the constitution says

        Obama apparently ain’t that smart

        I expect the Laws Of Humanity to be enforced

        if Barack Obama decided to give george a pass, then the next guy can try george and Barack together

        makes no difference to me how mant people want to smear this shitstorm all over themselves

        My Mother taught me better that that

        but I guess Obama didn’t have that advantage

        and let this be a lesson to the rest of us

        don’t shame your mother like george an barack are doin

      • freepatriot says:

        o-t, personal stuff, for BoxTurtle only, nobody else gits to read this, so just keep scrollin, pal (wink)

        hiya dude

        sorry I dint get back to you bout turtle talk, I was busy gittin ready for teh lection

        since then, I applied my usual method, and turtle talk has been blown WAAAY out of proportion. It now includes Turtle World, versions 1 & 2 (we’re up to version 1.65 on the first one, and Turtle World 2.0 is on the drawing board)

        I forgot where ya put yer email thingy, so if ya could post it again, I’ll get back to ya this time. I got lots of free time now (well, more n I has before) And I really like the turtles (technical note, one of em is really a tortoise)

        I might jes have to figure out this whole “Oxdown” thingy, an share Turtle World with the group

        • BoxTurtle says:

          Sounds like you’re having fun! Boxturtle at woh dot rr dot com.

          On Topic: To the Canucks here, what are the odds of the government after Harper being willing to go after BushCo?

          Boxturtle (Still hoping for janatorial help from our foreign friends)

        • skdadl says:

          On Topic: To the Canucks here, what are the odds of the government after Harper being willing to go after BushCo?

          You mean Michael “empire-lite, torture-lite” Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party? Close friend of Cass Sunstein & Co?

          The odds? From that quarter, I would say little to none. Well, expect about as much from Ignatieff as you expect from Obama — that would be another way of putting the same thing.

          If you have any hope from us, as from the British, it will be from our judges, and from the people who get individual cases to the courts that finally shock the conscience of the public so badly that the covers start coming off the phony “national security” cover-ups.

          Sorry to arrive late and to read much of the thread backwards (which is what I do when I’m late, dunno why). I’ve been watching the finals of Britain’s Got Talent. (OT, but Diversity, superb dance group, won. Our beloved Susan Boyle came second, and Julian Smith, ultra-cool sax guy and my secret favourite, came third. I still sort of wish that Susan had won. Fallout will follow. Man, the melodrama.)

          You’ve probably already heard that Bush and Clinton said almost nothing of substance here (Toronto) yesterday. They were both surprised to learn that, as of Monday, Merkins and Canucks all need either passports or “enhanced” driver’s licences to cross that longest undefended border in the world. Bush did seem to have a faint memory of the enhanced driver’s licences. Isn’t that other guy married to your secretary of state? Och, they just laugh at us.

          And Janet Napolitano has been repeating the zombie lie that the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. over our border. Sorry, bmaz: I know that you admire her, but … Och, I give up. We’re just a running joke to the serious imperialists.

        • skdadl says:

          I still blame Tony Blair.

          Well, Labour have been in too long. Blair was already detested before he won the last election, but people weren’t quite ready then to make the futile gesture of pretending that the Tories were an alternative.

          I guess they’re ready for the futile gesture now.

        • bmaz says:

          …what are the odds of the government after Harper being willing to go after BushCo?

          Bout the same as the odds of the Coyotes returning to Winnipeg and winning the Stanley Cup.

        • skdadl says:

          I just realized that, in answer to a question about odds, it makes no sense for me to have said “little to none.” That’s something close to a mixed metaphor, isn’t it? Sorry. I’m never sure I quite get how odds work, but I suspect I mucked that up.

        • ANOther says:

          Uncharacteristic caution from you there, bmaz. The correct answer is “Bout the same as the odds of the Coyotes returning to Winnipeg and OR winning the Stanley Cup.

        • KenMuldrew says:

          It would be nice if the Coyotes were going to Winnipeg, but Hamilton will just have to do. I don’t see a cup in their future for a few years at least.

          But seriously, there is just no chance at all (zero, nada, zilch!) of anyone other than the U.S. govt. prosecuting any of the principals involved in the Bushco criminal organization. Ex-presidents and their top staff have imperium for what they did while in office (and no sitting president is going to be keen on changing that). The cost of attempting a serious prosecution would be ruinous for any country that tried it. A million dead Iraqis and several million more dispossessed are an adequate reminder to anyone who wants to do more than make a moral (but impotent) point to retain their honor. If you travel outside the U.S. you won’t find any serious person who thinks otherwise.

          When Tony Blair gets frogmarched into The Hague, then you can believe that a European nation is considering suicide (acting against the U.S.). Canada can’t possibly do anything (except welcome home the Coyotes).

        • BoxTurtle says:

          I hold out hope that either Spain or France will act.

          Boxturtle (I am also a Cleveland Browns fan and I firmly believe we’ll make the playoffs this year)

        • bmaz says:

          Agreed completely. That is why I have always been perplexed at how people get so excited at the thought of the “Spanish prosecutor” or “war crime trials at the Hague”. If the US cannot bring itself to address the sins, there is no way any significant other country is going to. Just ain’t happening.

      • i4u2bi says:

        We may need some guidelines or rules as to what is acceptable or not acceptable behavior for people under the claw of blackmail or threat of life and limb.

  17. Mnemosyne says:

    Nitpicky time. Bush is repeating the right-wing talking point that 911 was all about Americans:

    “You have to make tough decisions,” Bush said. “They’ve captured a guy who murdered 3,000 citizens …

    There were people from something like 50-plus countries there that day. While Americans were by far the great majority of the dead, their total was about 2500.

    I know it’s a small item, but the constant repetition by the right-wingers has given it the appearance of accuracy and reinforces the unfortunate point that Americans always think everything is all about them.

    Thank you for keeping after this story, EW.

    • zett says:

      Thank you Mnemosyne. It drives me nuts that almost no-one mentions that people from all over the world died on 9/11.

  18. WilliamOckham says:

    I’m really curious to know if Bush was answering a question when he said that. It’s very hard to tell from the way it has been reported.

    • emptywheel says:

      Your answer, from Eartha again:

      Bush’s discussion of the hard decision to OK torture was the lead policy item in his prepared remarks which took up the first 20 or so minutes of the presentation. It was not clear to me who he was referring to or even whether he was speaking of a specific individual or some composite. His mention of the decision to invade Iraq was towards the end of this section of the program, so these were not closely linked. Looking back over my notes I see that not only was the issue of torture authorization the first policy item, he repeated it. Both times he asked the audience to consider what it felt like to be a person asked to make that decision — though he never spelled out exactly what the decision was.

  19. TheraP says:

    EW:

    This comment goes back to your blog on Lizzie, Papa Dick, and Libel. If you have time, check out my post from yesterday (link below) based on conclusions I came to while reading your post and the thread (linked above):

    Criminal Mismanagement: A unifying theory of cheney’s media circus

    In a nutshell it links the cheney family media circus to an Times ad against torture that came out on the very day
    of a press release for a shareholder lawsuit against 32 Halliburton execs, including cheney!

    Next, if you have time, check out this article by Larisa Alexandrovna at Huff Po from 2007 (from a longer article she links to):

    Lizzie Cheney – The Pride of Lockheed Martin – Speaketh

    That post tells how Lizzie, her husband, and Lynn are involved with Lockheed Martin, including Larisa’s comment about their involvement under bushco:

    So basically, Elizabeth Cheney runs a slush fund for terrorists, Islamic militants, and other such worthy characters in in order to create regime change for her daddy’s vision of the Middle East. And we, you and I, are paying for it.

    To my mind there is a huge story here and you are much better positioned to pull all the threads than I am. It may well need to become part of some of your time-lines.

    I know you’re involved in a ton of stuff. I’ll do what I can to follow up on this myself. But really, this seems to be the kind of thing you and your group do best!

    I think this story is the reason these folks are worried about libel!

      • behindthefall says:

        Did you catch this entry?

        2004

        January: Halliburton reportedly wants to drill on Mars at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.

    • klynn says:

      Great work TheraP and super links in your comments.

      This fits the links I put up over the last two weeks regarding the Cheney “feature not a bug” approach to using well placed individuals at Dept. of Interior and State to do his “bidding” and carry out funding through no bid contracts fed via federal Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPA).

      • TheraP says:

        Here’s another piece, again from the Alexandrovna article(which links to here, Playboy!):

        Dick Cheney’s son-in-law, Philip J. Perry, a registered Lockheed lobbyist who had, while working for a law firm, represented Lockheed with the Department of Homeland Security, had been nominated by Bush to serve as general counsel to the Department of Homeland Security. His wife, Elizabeth Cheney, serves as deputy assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs.

        Vice President Cheney’s wife, Lynne, had, until her husband took office, served on the board of Lockheed, receiving deferred compensation in the form of half a million dollars in stock and fees. Even President Bush himself has a Lockheed Martin connection. As governor of Texas, he had attempted to give Lockheed a multimillion-dollar contract to reform the state’s welfare system.

        You can see how the cheneys span govt, corporations, and secrecy.

        The more I look into this, the more I see the cheneys as a crime family for sure. They have their fingers in so many pies it’s hard to keep track of them.

        My question
        : The article above says cheney son-in-law was “nominated” for that job. Did he actually serve? If so, we have a Chertoff connection there!

        Nice link to the son-in-law’s info at Political Friendster:

        http://www.politicalfriendster…..ip-J-Perry

        Wikipedia:

        Philip J. Perry (born 1964, San Diego County, California) is an American attorney and was a Bush administration political appointee. He was Acting Associate Attorney General at the Department of Justice, General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, and General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security. He is a partner at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Perry

        OMG!!!

        • TheraP says:

          I think this guy Perry is a lynchpin!

          Here’s his job as OMB General Counsel (from Wikipedia link above):

          In 2002, Perry then moved to the White House to be General Counsel for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In that capacity, he supervised the White House’s clearance of federal regulations, mediated interagency disputes, addressed matters on the DOJ’s civil litigation docket, formulated presidential executive orders, developed White House policy initiatives, and advised the president.[4] Among his tasks as general counsel was drafting the legislation that created the new Department of Homeland Security.[5]

          Homeland Security – General Counsel:

          In his position as the General Counsel for the DHS, Perry supervised over 1,500 lawyers, and advised Secretary Michael Chertoff and the White House on the Department’s legal and policy issues. Issues of influence for Perry included, but were not limited to, “the transit of people and cargo, comprehensive immigration reform, and critical infrastructure such as chemical plants.”[4] A Cornell university alumni newsletter reports, “While at DHS, he was joined by Gus P. Coldebella ‘94, current acting general counsel, and Julie L. Myers ‘94, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.[4] He had substantial involvement in the passage of legislation authorizing DHS to regulate chemical site security.[4] Chertoff is a former partner at Latham & Watkins, LLP.[7] Perry was also “closely involved” in the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) National Security Agreement process.[3]

          What do you want to be he knows all about the rendition flights?

  20. oldtree says:

    this is OT, but the Petraeus confession of Geneva Convention violations is still not on any MSM site that I have found. Has anyone seen it anywhere since it first broke? The reasons for this kind of neglect to cover a world news exlusive are ominous.

  21. emptywheel says:

    Here’s an update from Eartha:

    Bush did not say “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.” He talked about having to make a tough decision about a guy who he was told masterminded the murder of 3,000 citizens.

    So it’s not clear who Bush was referring to–and the reference to anthrax might suggest it was Zubaydah.

      • emptywheel says:

        Earth Jane Meltzer, mentioned in the post. A very very good journalist. Broke both the Republicans using foreclosure lists for caging and the story of a Blackwater wannabe planning a training center in N MI.

    • freepatriot says:

      Here’s an update from Eartha:

      I knew it

      I hopped on the WRONG shuttle at alpha centuari

      or maybe I missed that left turn at Omega Albuquerque

      I’m on the wrong fookin planet

      an you bastids dint say anything

      that’s why russian ships are attacking russian villages

      on the planet I’m from, the russian ships shell Latvian villages by mistake

      beem me up, scottie

      and does anybody else suspect that georgie travels to Canada to prove that he isn’t afraid to travel “over seas”

      kinda like pettin a dog to prove you like horses

      cept george ain’t though of that one yet

      • hackworth1 says:

        Canadian PM Harper loves Bush. Were it not for Bushco and all its accoutrements (including direct interference caused by American, forced-birth, Christian-Fundamentalist-Republican border-hopping operatives) Harper would not be where he is today.

        (Nor would Calderon be President of Mexico.)

  22. plunger says:

    “What do the lawyers say is possible? What’s legal?”

    When? In what time frame? In 2003?

    What about on September 12th, 2001? Was torture any more legal on September 12th than it was on September 10th? What about the day after the first known anthrax attacks – the week following September 18, 2001 – was waterboarding legal then? According to whom? We’d been attacked not once, but TWICE! Was waterboarding legal on October 1st, 2001, in the aftermath of two terror attacks?

    The PNAC called for a “New Pearl Harbor.” But what about the aftermath of the original Pearl Harbor attack? Was waterboarding legalized by anyone subsequent to Sunday, December 7th, 1941?

    No?

    You mean despite the tragic loss of 2,350 souls on that fateful day, FDR, despite signing an ACTUAL DECLARATION OF WAR, failed to instruct his legal advisers to authorize waterboarding as a legal means of extracting information out of those Japs?

    Surely the entire country would have rallied behind it at the time, right?

    But it never happened. Because we’re Americans, and we’re better than that.

    We don’t torture, and when it’s done in our name, those responsible hang for it.

  23. seesdifferent says:

    KSM vs AZ?

    BENTON HARBOR, Mich., May 29 (UPI) – Former U.S. President George W. Bush has defended using harsh interrogation tactics saying information received prevented another assalt on the United States.

    In what appeared to be reference to the waterboarding of Al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Bush said, “I made a decision within the law to get information so I can say, I’ve done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people,” the Detroit Free Press reported.

    emphasis added

  24. plunger says:

    George W. Bush announced that a plan to fly a plane into the LA Library Tower was thwarted in 2002 and within minutes – news networks were showing footage of the same building being destroyed in the movie Independence Day.

    After the mayor of LA, Antonio Villaraigosa, immediately went public with comments of his absolute bewilderment concerning the alleged plot, no fewer than twenty three intelligence experts told Capitol Hill Blue that President Bush was “cheapening and politicizing their work” by creating a “fantasy world” of discredited terror alerts and using them for political points scoring.

    Both current and former NSA and FBI officials vented their fury with George Bush, one telling Capitol Hill Blue that he was “full of shit.”

    The LA attack plot arose from the same discredited informant who said that Washington and New York financial institutions were being targeted, which led the White House to raise the terror alert right as the 2004 election campaign was beginning.

    “But is it just a coincidence? You had February 6th circled on the calendar for the hearings, the NSA hearings. Is it just a pure coincidence that this comes out today?” asked one journalist.

    The alleged information came from the same alleged informant whose alleged confession so frightened President Bush that he sent his wife and two daughters to the Citibank building in a show of support for those brave Manhattan workers who were forced to work at one of the alleged target buildings under the alleged threat from the alleged terrorist who allegedly confessed to a terror plot, rather than drowning.

  25. fatster says:

    O/T, or more news for the car people.

    Sen. Sherrod Brown criticizes GM for plan to move jobs to China

    ‘[Brown]: “I was in a state of disbelief last night when I learned that General motors is not going to create those jobs in the United states…not in big auto states….what GM wants to do is take our tax dollars and create jobs in China.”‘

    http://www.laborradio.org/node/11216

    ************************************************
    Union voices GM deal job concerns
    Union leaders say they fear for UK jobs after a deal was announced to save the European arm of General Motors.

    “Germany has agreed a deal with Canadian car parts maker Magna International to take over most of GM Europe, which owns Vauxhall and Germany-based Opel.

    “The UK government says it is optimistic Vauxhall, which employs 5,500 people in Luton and Ellesmere Port, can be saved.
    But Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, fears German plants will be saved rather than UK factories.

    “Under the deal struck late on Friday night, the German government will provide an emergency loan of £1.3bn while the European arm of GM is sold to Magna, with investment backing from Russia.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8074834.stm

    *******************************************************

    Obama ‘helped’ Opel rescue deal

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel has revealed the US president helped swing a deal to save carmaker Opel from the imminent bankruptcy of its parent firm.

    “Earlier, Germany agreed the deal with Magna International, a Canadian car parts maker, to take over Opel, part of the European wing of US carmaker GM.

    “It should protect Opel if GM files for bankruptcy protection in the US.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8075234.stm

  26. plunger says:

    TheraP:

    Chertoff happily received both Philip Perry and Julie Myers (Niece of General Myers).

    Cronyism and protection is all in the “family.”

    Got RICO?

    Several forms of racket exist. The best-known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of “protection” against crimes that the racketeers themselves instigate if unpaid (see extortion).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering

  27. Styve says:

    Don’t know if this is of value, but a LinkedIn board included a post asking about a Lockheed-related matter, and I thought the potential data-mining connection might be of interest to those looking into Cheney’s Lockheed connections.

    Aspen/Lockheed getting out of EDD/Mega 3 business?

    Labat Anderson, Inc., one of the three Mega 3 (lit. support) contractors (with CACI and Aspen/Lockheed) was recently acquired by USIS. Today, it seems that Aspen (acquired by Lockheed a few years ago) is getting out of the Mega 3 business altogether.

    Any confirmation?

    USIS and CACI are very dirty for their involvement with torture, corruption, and fraud throughout the Iraq debacle.

    • TheraP says:

      Let’s not forget either that rove cut his teeth in the area of data mining. Didn’t he own some IT firms?

      • Styve says:

        I have to step out, but I can refer you to some info from Madsen about the GOP IT guru, Mike Connell, who allegedly engineered the 2000 election theft. Don’t know about Lockheed’s role, but as Plunger says, they are all fronts for one another. The Carlyle involvement is big…

        December 22-23, 2008 — Connell’s high-tech network active against Gore in 2000

        WMR has learned from knowledegable Republican Party sources that Mike Connell, the GOP’s information technology maestro who was killed in a suspicious plane crash last Friday night while flying from the Washington, DC area back to Akron, Ohio, was involved in a high-tech operation targeting Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000.

        Although Connell, whose Richfield, Ohio-based GovTech Solutions LLC is accused of helping to steer Ohio’s 20 electoral votes to the George W. Bush column in 2004, is identified with alleged vote fraud in 2000 and was reportedly prepared to testify about it before being threatened by former Bush aide Karl Rove, our sources have claimed Connell’s network goes back to 2000 and is linked to malfeasance directed against Gore.

        GovTech Solutions and Connell’s other firm New Media Communications were closely linked to the Ohio election fraud. GovTech Solutions was hired by then-GOP Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell as a consultant to the Secretary of State for the election. New Media Communications set up hundreds of Republican web sites, including gwb43.com, which was used by Bush White House staffers to send politically-connected emails in violation of government policies on mixing official duties with political work.

        Blackwell also contracted out backup servers to Smartech of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Stephen Spoonamore, a computer security expert and IT adviser to the Bush 2004 and John McCain 2008 presidential campaigns, revealed that Smartech was able to intercept 2004 Ohio election returns before they were made available on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website.

        Connell’s colleague Jeff Averbeck was reportedly brought by the GOP to Chattanooga from Texas to head up the efforts targeting Gore in Gore’s home state. SmarTech’ servers were placed in the basement of the old Pioneer Bank Building in downtown Chattanooga. The parent company for SmartTech is Airnet, also headed by Averbeck. Averbeck was, according to our sources, the actual technical brains behind the entire SmartTech-GovTech Solutions-Media Communications operation that resulted in the election tampering in 2004. There are also questionable ties between SmarTech and former Chattanooga Mayor and now U.S. Senator Bob Corker that point to Chattanooga’s city government under Corker providing a cover for a major GOP political dirty tricks operation in the city. Corker successfully ran for Mayor of Chattanooga in 2000.

        In February 2007, Corker, Rove, and Bush were spotted together at Porker’s BBQ restaurant in Chattanooga. There were reports of a connection between SmarTech’s predecessor firm ST3, another wed service provider called Coptix, and Corker.
        […]
        Two years later, SmarTech had reportedly become involved in Alabama politics and may have, according to our sources, been involved in the computer glitch in Magnolia Springs, Alabama that gave Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Riley and razor-thin win over incumbent Democratic Governor Don Siegelman. SmarTech reportedly received a lucrative Alabama state contract from Governor Riley to support Alabama’s criminal justice information system. There are, according to our sources, close links between Averbeck and former Republican National Committee official Bill Canary, whose wife Leura was one of the U.S. Attorneys used in Alabama to prosecute Siegelman in a politically-manufactured corruption probe. Connell also, according to our sources, received contract work from the Riley administration to perform IT services for Alabama’s criminal justice system. Connell also did IT work for the Alabama Republican Party.

        In 1998, Averbeck’s IT firm, Executive Consulting Services of Chattanooga, won Microsoft’s “Best Solutions for Small Business” grand prize. Averbeck’s firm developed a software package that tracks bankruptcy and collection cases, enables electronic court filings, schedules and manages dockets, calculates payments with or without interest, and manages attorneys’ billing time. Interestingly, the software mirrors some of the same functions provided by the Prosecutors Management Information System (PROMIS) that remains a controversial subject as a result of charges that the Justice Department purloined the software in the early 1980s from Inslaw and made it available to various intelligence agencies.

        Averbeck is also considered a technical expert on Internet live stream technology. WMR previously reported that Connell had contracts for web site development for the CIA and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We have now learned that Connell and Averbeck may have been behind the installation of live streaming black boxes in the White House and the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building used to stream live video of torture sessions in Guantanamo, Cuba and Abu Ghraib to the Old Executive Office Building office of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief Counsel David Addington and into the White House, itself.

        Media reports of torture sessions being taped may have been planted by the White House to deter investigators away from looking at live streaming capabilities in the offices of Cheney and President Bush.

        The fire that broke out in an “electrical closet” in the Old Executive Office Building on December 19, 2007, near Cheney’s ceremonial office likely contained the live streaming boxes used to stream torture sessions from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, according to our sources who added that SmartTech and Airnet have been in the live streaming video business since 2002.
        […]
        WMR has been told that the same group of GOP high-tech spies are involved in yet another operation to engineer the 2008 presidential election for the Republican ticket using connections to private companies’ election tallying computers and voting machines around the United States. The operation is primarily based in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Enterprise, Alabama, the same locations that served as headquarters for the election engineering carried out in 2004. The group of high-tech experts was responsible for the flipping of votes in Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, Florida and other states in 2004, as well as statewide elections in Alabama and Georgia in 2002.”

        • Gitcheegumee says:

          Styve: I’m SO glad you posted this info.

          I tried to post this on another site,a few days ago,and my post was deleted by the mods.

          BTW,ere’nt we continuously told that the US did NOT torture?

    • plunger says:

      Sounds like the same type of stunt they pulled with Raytheon. When the need arises, the co-conspirators simply arrange to have a company “acquired” to facilitate a name change and erasure of all prior evidence of misdeeds (crimes).

      Talking head General Barry McCaffrey is another name to keep track of. He served as the Drug Czar, and on multiple boards that surely enrich him – as he talks his war portfolio on the TeeVee. I’ve got Raytheon in the midst of some seriously evil shit – and then whddayaknow…check out this daisy chain:

      http://projects.publicintegrit…..px?aid=425

      The Sincerest Form of Flattery – Private equity firms follow in Carlyle Group’s footsteps

      Veritas Capital Management is the 41st largest defense contractor and second only to the Carlyle Group among private equity firms. Though Veritas doesn’t have any marquee former politicians in its ranks, its roster includes Adm. Joseph W. Prueher, ex-commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command and former U.S. ambassador to China; Gulf War I veteran and former U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey; former commander-in-chief of Allied Forces in Southern Europe Admiral Leighton W. (”Snuffy”) Smith; former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Central Command Gen. Anthony C. Zinni; and Gen. Richard E. Hawley, former commander of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

      The companies it has invested in have been very successful in bagging defense contracts, with nine of them winning Pentagon deals since 1998. More than 70 percent of the firm’s contracts were brought in by Vertex Aerospace (formerly Raytheon Aerospace, part of the Raytheon Corp.), which provides aviation and aerospace technical services to the Pentagon and other branches of the U.S. government. Veritas sold Vertex in December 2003.

      When Veritas bought MZM and renamed it Athena Solutions, James C. King, now Athena CEO, commented enthusiastically about the involvement of the Veritas Capital Defense and Aerospace Advisory Council in the sale. The Advisory Council includes the Honorable Richard Armitage, General Richard Hawley, General Barry McCaffrey, Admiral Jospeh Prueher, Admiral Leighton Smith and General Anthony Zinni.

      A vast coverup – to be sure. Keep changing the names, and baffle them with bullshit.

      From 1997 to 2002, Vertex Aerospace (then Raytheon Aerospace) received around $2.1 billion in U.S. government contracts.

      Former parent Raytheon, which maintains an interest in Vertex Aerospace, had more than 5,300 contracts with the U.S. government from 1990 through 2002 worth nearly $58.5 billion.

      Barry McCaffrey, a member of the board of directors, was on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a Washington lobbying group formed in October 2002 to increase public support for the war in Iraq. Richard Perle, who serves on the Defense Policy Board, a government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, served on the same committee. Perle, who advised the Turkish government through his International Advisers Inc., also helped the Raytheon Company in attempts to sell its Patriot missiles to Turkey in the early 1990s. In June 1991, the Defense Department awarded Raytheon a $346.3 million modification to an existing contract, which included f

      unding for 32 Patriot missiles for Turkey under a foreign military sale.

  28. Styve says:

    EDD is electronic data discovery

    http://tinyurl.com/lwutco

    The Mega 3 Team consists of companies whose combined experience in information technology and management uniquely qualifies us to meet the requirements of this contract. As the prime, CACI provides its leadership as a systems integrator, applications developer, problem solver and innovator to this team. We draw upon more than 30 years experience serving the Department of Justice clients and more than 45 years of experience serving DoD and other federal customers to understand and address the challenges facing your organization.

  29. Leen says:

    EW “But if he did, it may be another hint that Bush didn’t authorize our earliest embrace of torture.”

    My sense was that this was 43’s message during his last years in office. Think it will come down to just what the definition of “basically” is.

    SCHIEFFER: How much did President Bush know specifically about the methods that were being used? We know that you– and you have said– that you approved this…

    CHENEY: Right.

    SCHIEFFER: … somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

    CHENEY: I certainly, yes, have every reason to believe he knew — he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. I mean, this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.

    http://emptywheel.firedoglake……-decision/

  30. fatster says:

    O/T, or more on the meltdown mess

    Bair Attacks Too-Big-to-Fail as Enforcer Geithner Must Trust

    May 29 (Bloomberg) –” Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and a lifelong Republican, boarded Air Force One for the first time in February. Neither President George H.W. Bush nor his son, President George W. Bush, had invited her on the world’s most famous jet in the five years she worked for them. It was a Democratic president, Barack Obama, who asked her to fly to Washington after the two had unveiled his administration’s foreclosure relief plan in Mesa, Arizona.
    . . .

    ‘“It was great,” Bair says of her meeting with the president. “He’s got an agenda which we share. Banks are a means to an end. You stabilize the banks to support the economy. But you don’t stabilize the banks for the sake of stabilizing the banks.”
    . . .

    “The FDIC head isn’t done expanding her influence over Wall Street. An opponent of the “too-big-to-fail” policy for firms like Citigroup Inc., Bair is lobbying Congress to give the FDIC authority to wind down bank and thrift holding companies — a move she says is necessary to protect taxpayers. And she wants lawmakers to include the agency in a systemic risk council to prevent future financial shocks.”

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/aqvszsak7rke

  31. WilliamOckham says:

    Bush was referring to Osama Bin Laden. I can hear everybody scratching their heads and wondering if I’m crazy or I think Bush is crazy, but neither is true. Let me explain. [No, it is too much. Let me sum up.]*

    Here’s the quote:

    “You have to make tough decisions,” Bush said. “They’ve captured a guy who murdered 3,000 citizens … that affected me … They come in and say he may have more information …and we had an anthrax attack … and they say he may have more information. What do you do?“

    He’s regurgitating the hypothetical that Cheney used to get him to give the green light to torture. Bush, ever the simplistic black and white thinker, bought into the ticking nuclear time bomb scenario.

    *I was falling behind on my quota of ”Princess Bride” quotes.

    • fatster says:

      It’s a slow day and I probably need a nap, but I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying the ‘guy’ in the quote “They’ve captured a guy who murdered 3,000 citizens . . .” is OBL? Thnx.

      • WilliamOckham says:

        Yeah, as Styve mentions below, I’m saying that in Bush’s mind, he made the decision to approve torture based on the notion of “what would you do if we capture Bin Laden and there was a nuclear bomb about to go off in New York City”

        • TheraP says:

          So, in other words, you’re saying he was reporting an imagined memory. That, at a certain point he imagined they’d got OBL and he imagined checking to see if it was “legal” to torture him. And once he’d imagined it was ok to torture OBL, that opened the door for anyone.

          And if you’re correct, that may be how they got W to make all sorts of decisions. Present him with an imagined scenario. An extreme one. Get him to ok it. And then he’d “decided” once and for all.

          As a theory it fits the man!

  32. Styve says:

    I read that WO was saying that Bush was simply repeating the ticking time bomb scenario, as told to him by Cheney. I thought he was referring to KSM when I first read it.

    My question is who is the third person besides AZ and KSM in EW’s reckoning?

    Why would Bush talk about the seminal moments in his tenure as President, and refer to approving the torture of the third guy we waterboarded, and not number one or number two? Wouldn’t the first approval of waterboarding be the most important?

    • WilliamOckham says:

      That would would be al-Nasiri, the guy they waterboarded only once, probably because they almost killed him.

      • bmaz says:

        Yes, Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri. He was one of the two exhibited in the “torture tapes”. He was also the one in which medical attention and tracheotomy are mentioned most significantly.

        • emptywheel says:

          Correction. They aren’t mentioned. But we’re looking for an explanation for 1) why PapaDick and BabyDick don’t claim it was effective and 2) why they did it only twice.

          Tracheotomies are one possible explanation.

        • bmaz says:

          You are correct, I should have said they have been mentioned in terms of al-Nashiri having been a significant part of the genesis of those concepts.

        • emptywheel says:

          But we don’t know it was al-Nashiri. All we know is that we’ve got questions about why al-Nashiri’s waterboarding stopped, and we’ve got questions about why tracheotomy kits started appearing inthe torture medical bag. It’s a likely conclusion, but it’s also possibly they needed it for Abu Zubaydah or someone who was tortured in another way.

        • dopeyo says:

          Tracheotomies are one possible explanation.

          consider that every single “enhanced interrogation techniques” left no scars. scars are evidence and – IANAL – can be used to support charges of torture.

          water, cold, towels around the neck to slam the detainee into a plywood wall, stress positions, loud music, sleep deprivation… sadism with no marks and no evidence. i suspect that they felt pretty clever, until that tracheotomy left a scar.

          it’s suspicious that that they arrived at a list of 18 ‘techniques’ that left no visible traces. maybe they realized that #19 (genital mutilation with a scalpel) was impractical for their uses.

    • emptywheel says:

      Rahim al-Nashiri, who was waterboarded on his 12th day of interrogation in October-November 2002. But they don’t claim it worked with him for some reason, so they don’t want to talk about it.

  33. tjbs says:

    Did anyone mention Nuremburg 2.0?

    The International War Crimes Tribunal is the best solution other than massive amounts of brain bleach on an IV drip.

  34. rjrnab says:

    In response to fatster

    OOOOOO conclave, is that like seperate private enclaves?

    And, George Washington, ( georgie’s mom ) shamed georgie 1st when she first noted his running for presidance as a joke.

  35. rjrnab says:

    In response to Ken Muldrew

    If you Canucks could’ve just got his urine sample, we could prove he’s on drugs.

    Yeah, did you hear they had to bring out of China during the Olympics all of georgies p-p & pooh-pooh so they couldn’t prove he’s on drugs.

    I hate admitting you’re really right sir. What’s Europe going to do send
    Interpol to a Starbucks in D. C. to arrest cheney and frogmarch him to the Hague? OBL & H Chavez seem to always be spot on, we da devil.

  36. amilius says:

    W ‘wants’ to be able to say that he did everything possible to protect the American public because the events of 9.11 prove he did not. That is why they attach the qualifier, “…since 9.11″. In the process, they have only aggravated oppressive circumstances among the disenfranchised around the world.

Comments are closed.