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.
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 .
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.
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.
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
I think TheraP was the source who connected the ad to the Cheney family. Credit where credit is due!
Bob in HI
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.
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?)
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.
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.
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.
Which kind of leads you to think he knew he wasn’t doing what he should have been doing before 9/11.
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 ..
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:
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:
The Scout Motto is: Be Prepared Ummmm…. 9/11 – How did that work out?
Here are some scout virtues:
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!
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 psyh
os; 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.
It’s all very logical if you use the proper mental contortions.
Would you please provide a list of the proper mental contortions? Thanks!
You need the Special Edition, DOJ seal of approval, White House version of Twisted.
Just don’t ask what they use for the red.
It’s akin to a series of tubes.
It would not be surprising if Olbermann co-opted this for his tv show. Good stuff.
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.”
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/
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.
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.
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”?
I wonder if PapaDick liked The Truman Show.
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
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”?
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
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)
I love the smell of collusion in the morning.
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….
“Bushie is writing his book as we speak”
Isn’t it the other way?
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.
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?
Bushie is
writingcoloring his book as we speak”fixed it f 4 u
*g*
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?
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)
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
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
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)
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.
Eeeeeek! Survey results for UK: Conservatives at 40%, LibDems at 25% and Labour at 22%.
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..ur-party-s
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.
Bout the same as the odds of the Coyotes returning to Winnipeg and winning the Stanley Cup.
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.
Uncharacteristic caution from you there, bmaz. The correct answer is “Bout the same as the odds of the Coyotes returning to Winnipeg
andOR winning the Stanley Cup.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).
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)
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.
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.
Where have I heard the phrase “off the table” before?
Nitpicky time. Bush is repeating the right-wing talking point that 911 was all about Americans:
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.
Thank you Mnemosyne. It drives me nuts that almost no-one mentions that people from all over the world died on 9/11.
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.
Your answer, from Eartha again:
In sum, Bush is so full of shit that it is not useful as evidence or proof. Go figure.
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):
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):
That post tells how Lizzie, her husband, and Lynn are involved with Lockheed Martin, including Larisa’s comment about their involvement under bushco:
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!
Halliburton Watch – has its own timeline!
Did you catch this entry?
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).
Here’s another piece, again from the Alexandrovna article(which links to here, Playboy!):
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:
I think this guy Perry is a lynchpin!
Here’s his job as OMB General Counsel (from Wikipedia link above):
Homeland Security – General Counsel:
What do you want to be he knows all about the rendition flights?
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.
Here’s an update from Eartha:
So it’s not clear who Bush was referring to–and the reference to anthrax might suggest it was Zubaydah.
Kitt?? I thought she died last Christmas.
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.
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
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.)
“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.
Very well said Plunger. Exactly right.
KSM vs AZ?
emphasis added
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.
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
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
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.
USIS and CACI are very dirty for their involvement with torture, corruption, and fraud throughout the Iraq debacle.
Let’s not forget either that rove cut his teeth in the area of data mining. Didn’t he own some IT firms?
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…
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?
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
A vast coverup – to be sure. Keep changing the names, and baffle them with bullshit.
unding for 32 Patriot missiles for Turkey under a foreign military sale.
EDD is electronic data discovery
http://tinyurl.com/lwutco
Bush “we don’t torture”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj9ZBEgn-4o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6LtL9lCTRA
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/
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
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:
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.
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.
oops…sorry…
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”
I’ve had my nap now so maybe I’ll follow better. Thnx.
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!
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?
That would would be al-Nasiri, the guy they waterboarded only once, probably because they almost killed him.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Agreed.
sick sick sicko
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.
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.
If you are exercised by all of this lack of accountability by Bushobama, you can go the official Obama Open Government Dialogue, register, and vote for “End Imperial Presidency” and for my “Restore Human Rights,” which in just 7 hours has gained more than 30 votes.
Bob in HI
I also have an “idea” up on “Investigate and Prosecute War Crimes.” Please consider voting for this “idea,” too.
Bob in HI
Richard Clark provides strong drink…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01560.html
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.
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.
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.
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.