Why Did CIA Hide Dick Cheney’s Role in Briefing?

Thanks to the WaPo for confirming something I guessed last month. Back then, I wrote,

I’m going to make a wildarsed guess and suggest that when the CIA lists "not available" in a series of 2005 torture briefings to Republicans in Congress, they really mean "Dick Cheney attended, but we don’t want to tell you that."

Today, the WaPo reports,

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about the controversial interrogation program, part of a secretive and forceful defense he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used on detainees.

[snip]

The CIA made no mention of his role in documents delivered to Capitol Hill last month that listed every lawmaker who had been briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques" since 2002. For meetings that were overseen by Cheney, the agency told the intelligence committees that information about who oversaw those briefings was "not available."

[snip]

The CIA declined to comment on why Cheney’s presence in some meetings was left out of the records.

[snip]

Several members of Congress who took part in the Cheney meetings declined to comment on them, citing secrecy concerns.

In one of my most unsurprisingly correct wildarsed guesses ever, Cheney was working with the CIA to keep his little torture program, and neither the CIA nor the Republicans he was arm-twisting want to talk about it.

But that ought to be worth some closer attention. WTF did the CIA hide Cheney’s role in these briefings (not to mention the date of their briefing with McCain)? It reveals not only a desire to hide the degree to which these "briefings" under Porter Goss became active lobbying in support of torture, but also the degree to which the CIA is working actively, with a former Administration official (Cheney) to hide their collaboration.

The article does provide two more important details that add to the damning story.

Cheney’s briefings on interrogations began in the winter of 2005 as the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees,  Sen. John D. Rockefeller III (W.Va.) and  Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), publicly advocated a full-scale investigation of the tactics used against top al-Qaeda suspects.

On March 8, 2005 — two days after a detailed report in the New York Times about interrogations — Cheney gathered Rockefeller, Harman and the chairmen of the intelligence panels,  Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and  Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), according to current and former intelligence officials. Weeks earlier, Roberts had given public statements suggesting possible support for the investigation sought by Rockefeller. But by early March 2005, Roberts announced that he opposed a separate probe, and the matter soon died.

Cheney’s efforts to sway Congress toward supporting waterboarding went beyond secret meetings in Washington. In July 2005, he sent David S. Addington, his chief counsel at the time, to travel with five senators — four of them opponents of the CIA interrogation methods — to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On the trip, Sen. Graham urged Addington to put the interrogations at secret prisons and the use of military tribunals into a stronger constitutional position by pushing legislation through Congress, rather than relying on executive orders and secret rulings from Justice Department lawyers.

First, the WaPo reports that Jello Jay pushed for an investigation, but Pat Roberts quashed it. I guess that explains why Roberts is so quiet now. But in case anyone wanted any more affirmation that Democrats opposed torture and Republicans sustained it, there’s yet one more data point.

And then yet another Gitmo trip for Addington, this time with some Senators in tow. Was this an all-Republican affair as well? The question is particularly relevant, since Lindsey Graham has helpfully reminded us that all these Republican-only briefings are proof of criminal intent. Or was it just Graham, McCain and the few other anti-torture Republicans, off on a field trip to be coerced by Cheney’s right hand man?

If anyone needed yet more proof that torture was Cheney’s baby, his active lobbying of Congress–hidden as "CIA briefings"–ought to do the trick.

image_print
161 replies
  1. perris says:

    marcy, this entry is incrdible with excellant insight, I especially like this point, notice my bold;

    But that ought to be worth some closer attention. WTF did the CIA hide Cheney’s role in these briefings (not to mention the date of their briefing with McCain)? It reveals not only a desire to hide the degree to which these “briefings” under Porter Goss became active lobbying in support of torture, but also the degree to which the CIA is working actively, with a former Administration official (Cheney) to hide their collaboration.

    enemies within our midst

    does obama know about the complicity?

    if not he needs to be made aware and he needs to fire those cheney “leave behinds” as fast as possible

    here’s another thing i would like to comment on;

    In one of my most unsurprisingly correct wildarsed guesses ever, Cheney was working with the CIA to keep his little torture program, and neither the CIA nor the Republicans he was arm-twisting want to talk about it.

    “working to keep his torture program” is an understatement, he lobbied for it in the first place, we even know as a fact he used the program to statements he knew as a fact were false, for instance we know as a fact every inteligence organization told him there were NO ties between al qaeda and saddam YET he insisted they toture someone to make claim to such a relationship

    he created the torture program in the first place, we know the cia kept getting back to him that there were no ties to al-qaeda and he insisted on torturing the captive so he could establish that connection to which he knew as a fact was false

    this man is a student of the leo strauss school sociopathology and he had absolutely no second thoughts about torturing someone for that purpose

  2. pmorlan says:

    I wonder if the CIA buddies of Pincus are the Cheney stay behinds? I also wonder who were the sources for this latest WaPo piece?

    • perris says:

      I wonder if the CIA buddies of Pincus are the Cheney stay behinds? I also wonder who were the sources for this latest WaPo piece?

      there are far more leave behinds then that, cheney installed a “team b” way back when ford took over from nixon, the first mission for his team b was undermining nixon’s treaty of detante, many of those recruits must still exist

      I am convinced there are at least two factions in the cia, one group of professionals who really have our national interest as their objective and the other group of “team b players” who have koch industries, the pnac and graduates of leo strauss as their players

      • pmorlan says:

        Perris, my response @ 6 was meant as a reply to your comment @5 but it’s too early in the morning and I failed to click the reply. LOL

      • acquarius74 says:

        Perris, books I have studied bear out your conclusions. I recommend these 2 for beginers:

        Legacy of Ashes, The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner (winner of Pulitzer)

        The Secret Team, by AF Col L. Fletcher Prouty

        You remember the heavy influence of Kissinger (Sec. State under Nixon). Well, as a young man in WWII, Kissinger was interpreter for Allen Dulles (Dir CIA under Truman/Ike/Kennedy) when both were stationed in Switzerland. I think of Allen Dulles as a smoother version of Cheney.

        Prouty in his book refers to Kissinger as “front man for the CIA” [the clandestine arm= Special Ops, and other names]. Within the clandestine arm are several compartments, one of which is the economic branch (the Economic Hit Men).

        Now, here is a chilling excerpt from wiki:

        After completing his studies, [Timothy] Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, D.C., for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988

        Yes, perris, there are lots of ‘left-behinds’; almost more than one can comprehend.

  3. BayStateLibrul says:

    The plot boils…
    Has Panetta been sent to the woodshed…
    He’s read all this bullshit, when will he speak out…

  4. BayStateLibrul says:

    And where is the OLC Report that they claimed woiuld be released
    within days, weeks?

    • bobschacht says:

      I think there must be a titanic battle going on in DOJ and the WH over the final form of the OLC report. That’s the only explanation I can think of to explain this long delay in its release. Sheldon Whitehouse has been proclaiming its immanent release for more than a month now– probably to prod the DOJ to release it, and the fact that they haven’t must mean that there is massive resistance. I wish someone with DOJ sources would investigate.

      Bob in HI

      • yellowsnapdragon says:

        IMO it makes sense that they will release the report after the mideast trip. Makes O’s trip a little easier not to have to talk about it.

  5. pmorlan says:

    I’m not a believer in the Obama 3 dimensional chess BS but I wonder if there is an effort inside this WH to deliberately draw out some of the stay behinds so that they can identify them and get rid of them? Who knows maybe some of Cheney’s buds at the CIA are telling him that they can’t cover for him anymore and that’s why he changed his tune on the memos he wanted declassified?

  6. Ishmael says:

    From the WaPO article:

    “An official who witnessed one of Cheney’s briefing sessions with lawmakers said the vice president’s presence appeared calculated to give additional heft to the CIA’s case for maintaining the program. Cheney left it to the professional briefers to outline the interrogation practices, while he mounted an impassioned defense of the program.”

    SOP for Cheney when it comes to the CIA – whether it is visiting the CIA during the runup to the Iraq War, or hovering over the briefings to [certain] Congress members, he (and Addington) understood the value of intimidation…sorry, “additional heft”, and making sure that the message given was the one he wanted.

  7. BayStateLibrul says:

    As I see it, Obama needs to rid the Justice Dept, Defense Dept, and
    CIA of pro-Bush forces which are working to derail Obama…

  8. LabDancer says:

    Ms E Wheel: You always recover more value from Capitol scat than anyone.

    When I read this back a few hours, the first thing that struck me is the ABSENCE of Pincus. The WaPo security watch is typically assiduous in noting everyone involved, no matter how marginally.

    • emptywheel says:

      Well, it’s Kane and Warrick. Kane first, meaning this came from the Congressional side–McCain and Graham. (Note, Kane still tries to flog the Nancy Pelosi thing, stubborn as ever!!) But Warrick has good CIA sources.

      Pincus’ sources seemed to me to be CIA sources who wanted to make a point that they prevented Cheney from having that Iraqi waterboarded.

  9. LabDancer says:

    This appears to support that it went beyond the Bush bunch deciding to become the Torture administration; the GOP became the Torture party.

  10. Leen says:

    Pat Roberts sure has been successful at “quashing” investigations. The pre war intelligence investigations etc.

    Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS): Chairman of the Senate Cover-up Committee
    http://thinkprogress.org/roberts-coverup/
    Roberts Believes In Virtually Unlimited Presidential Power. Tim Russert asked Roberts on Meet the Press, “Do you believe that the Constitution gives the president of the United States the authority to do anything he believes is necessary to protect the country?†“Yes,†Roberts replied, “but I wouldn’t say anything he believes.†“I think you go at it very, very carefully, and that’s been done by every president that I know of.†[Meet the Press, 2/12/06]

    Roberts Flip-Flopped, Then Flipped Again On Domestic Eavesdropping Legislation. First, Roberts said he had “worked out an agreement with the White House to change U.S. law regarding the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program and provide more information about it to Congress.†A few days later, Roberts seemed to buck the President and argued the program should be brought under the FISA court’s authority. But the next day, his staff director backtracked and said, “The senator remains open to a number of legislative and oversight options.†[Associated Press, 2/16/06; New York Times, 2/18/06; Associated Press, 2/18/06]

    ##### So will the fight end up being about who “basically” authorized the program?

    Sure appreciated Andrew Sullivan’s outrage about the role Republican Reps played in rolling over on the torture program

    Andrew Sullivan “he’s afraid he is very afraid. That’s why he’s doing this, there is no other reason for this”

    Matthews: “He’s afraid he’s going to be nailed on torture”

    Andrew Sullivan: “He authorized and we now know this the torture of human beings. We know this from the Red Cross, we know this from Office of Legal Council memos, we know this from the Senate Armed Service Committee report. We know the policies that he enforced and pioneered and insisted on led to the torture of hundreds..thousands of human beings. Now those are WAR CRIMES.
    If the government if the government has the power to torture evidence (mistake I believe). Where are CONSERVATIVES ON THIS? Where are conservatives who believe in restraining executive power and the danger of torturing”

    Where are the CONSERVATIVES ON THIS?
    http://www.thechrismatthewsshow.com/index.php

    • wildwest says:

      re: #12 Where are the CONSERVATIVES ON THIS?

      They are waiting for a liberal to do it. Then they will scream from the rooftops.

  11. pmorlan says:

    In July 2005, he sent David S. Addington, his chief counsel at the time, to travel with five senators — four of them opponents of the CIA interrogation methods — to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

    Who were the five senators? Graham, McCain, Warner, ?

    I found this info in a piece in Arab news in July of 2005.

    WASHINGTON, 24 July 2005 — The Bush administration this week threatened to veto a Senate bill for $442 billion in next year’s defense programs if it tries to regulate the Pentagon’s treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at US operated military prisons.

    Cheney told McCain, and two other senior Republican members on the Senate Armed Services Committee, that legislating these issues would interfere with the President.

    This marks the second time that Cheney met with Senate lawmakers to reign in what the White House views as a Republican rebellion.

    Republican lawmakers have also made the White House unhappy by publicly expressing their dissatisfaction over the administration’s inability to find any senior military officials responsible for detainee abuse in Iraq and at the US military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba.

    Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Virginia, said the amendments intended to prevent further abuses in the wake of the scandal over sexual abuse and mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and harsh, degrading interrogations at Guantanamo.

    Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said the Pentagon’s own investigations into detainee abuses left “huge gaps… the military is reviewing itself, that’s not good enough.”

    The piece actually states that there were 10 Republicans who were rebelling against the WH. I wonder why only 4 of them went on the trip?

  12. rxbusa says:

    EW, you nailed it again!

    What strikes me more and more about Cheney’s string of public appearances is his cowardice. And when I read this article in the WaPo this morning the first thing that struck me is that he only made his case to those he thought were his allies, too chickenshit to defend his views before people who would call him on it.

    • wavpeac says:

      Whenever power and control is used and depended upon, the underlying issue is cowardice. The only way a man like Cheeeeeney has power is to scare people into listening to him. He does not “attract” followers he takes hostages.

      Hostage takers don’t know that power is based on our ability to control ourselves in our own lives and when we do this well, we have no need to control others.

      • rapt says:

        “Whenever power and control is used and depended upon, the underlying issue is cowardice.”

        Thanks wavpeac, for putting that so succinctly. If you are right, that one always follows the other, or at the very least it is true in Cheney’s case, I’d say that is the key weak spot through which he may be defeated.

        Trouble is, it may be true that most politicians rely on this same power-game-to-cope-with-cowardice, and are unwilling to bust it in the face. Ergo, non-politicians are necessary for the job. (Makes sense to me anyway.)

        • wavpeac says:

          It’s very hard to bust, without losing balance and sinking to “that” level. (ie using power/control and abuse in return) or giving up for fear.

          It works. It’s highly effective and I think, until we as a nation begin to recognize it’s patterns, it power in our fear, that we will never truly be free.

    • chetnolian says:

      May I join some dots? The exception to the briefing of soft targets is McCain. Now none of us think Cheney’s stupid. He may be borderline sociopath (or to use the formulation I prefer, a VERY BAD MAN) but he is bright. And very intertested in torture. So he probably knows torture doesn’t get at the truth. But it isn’t the truth he wants.

      So if we assume that the purpose of torture was to get support for the link of Iraq to Al Quaeda and to help imagine some WMDs, McCain becomes very dangerous indeed. He knows, really knows, that torture doesn’t get truth but only what the interrogators want to hear. He is in danger of stumbling on the truth, which his that there was a conspiracy of Bolshevik proportions to get the US into a war with Iraq on totally false premises, resulting in unnecessary US (not to mention Iraqi) deaths. McCain cares about dead and injured Americans, given his past. Of all the people Cheney had to convince, or threaten enough to quieten, it was McCain. Does that make sense?

      • perris says:

        Now none of us think Cheney’s stupid

        I think he’s stupid, he’s failed at everything, failed out of college and has demonstrated miserable inept ability for everyhthing he’s done

        in addition, he is not the master mind he’s the puppet, he was rumsfeld’s underling not the other way around

        the puppet masters are the combined intilects (if you want to use that term loosely) from the pnac and the koch industries

        I don’t think there’s really any doubt cheney is a dullard

        search out the rolling stone article on cheney for more info

        • dosido says:

          are the wheels falling off the Cheney cart yet? I mean he’s devised this whole draconian intelligence “factory” and program, now he’s saying there is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Hello?

      • oldoilfieldhand says:

        Above comment # 94 was for you, linky thingy didn’t work the first time. Don’t you love vista?

    • Leen says:

      Cheney & Co’s “cowardice” seems to get under Karpinski’s skin and many more. Letting the boys and girls at the bottom of the ladder do the time for the crimes

  13. al75 says:

    It is interesting to note that Jello Jay actually mouthed words of opposition in 2005. What happened to him? What leverage did they apply?

    • emptywheel says:

      Remember, on torture, Dems have been pretty good all around. It’s easy to say that bc Jello Jay (who, of course, did oppose warrantless wiretapping in 2003) eventually caved on it that he’d be bad on torture. But it’s always more nuanced than that.

      Jello Jay has been saying for years that he was pushing an investigation. No one (besides me) thought to report that. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

  14. scribe says:

    Engaging in a little waggery: since the CIA does not have Deadeye listed as one of the lawmakers it briefed, I suppose that means he isn’t part of the Leglislative branch after all.

    At least as far as the CIA is concerned, I guess….

    • BayStateLibrul says:

      Didn’t Cheney argue that he was part of “no branch of Government”,
      a VP on the fly, so to speak, in limbo, without any constraints….

    • Leen says:

      Addington “We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop.”

      When John Dean visited FDL for a Salon he stated that Addington was first on his Impeachment wish list

    • emptywheel says:

      It was pretty funny. IN our panel the other day, I said Nadler to deal with Yoo and Addington in his hearing. He said “well, Yoo wasn’t so bad, but Addington was rude.”

      I teased him about it once or twic emore later in the panel.

      • alank says:

        I thought the views you’d expressed here about the former(?) VP’s chief counsel’s bad behavior before the committee were compelling.

        Anent comment 23: Sorry I missed that.

  15. pmorlan says:

    I wonder what specific date the Senators visited Guantanamo because on or about July 22, 2005 a new hunger strike was started by 52 prisoners. I wonder if the visit was before or after?

    • drational says:

      My guess is that this was a Junket hosted by John Warner for the SASC.

      Kennedy and Akaka and Lindsay Graham are three present who might have objected to CIA techniques at GTMO….

      • rincewind says:

        So from that link we know that the SASC trip, of 5 Senators (Warner, Kennedy, Sessions, Akaka, and Graham), was the July 15 trip. From WaPo we know that Addington went with 5 Senators, one of whom was Graham; and 4 of whom were “opponents” of the torture techniques (Sessions has never expressed any problem with torture, has he?).

        ISTM not a wild leap to conclude that the July 15 SASC trip was the Addington trip (although the Knight-Ridder article says the ‘official’ “escort” for the SASC trip was Gen Bantz Craddock, and that Miami Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez also went on that trip).

  16. Aeon says:

    Between mid June and mid August 2005, 49 members of congress (in 14 CODELs) went to Gitmo.

    Here are the Senators:

    REPUBLICAN SENATORS (9): Jim Bunning of Kentucky; Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia; Mike Crapo of Idaho; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; Pat Roberts of Kansas; Jeff Sessions of Alabama; John Warner of Virginia.

    DEMOCRATIC SENATORS (4): Daniel Akaka of Hawaii; Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts; Ben Nelson of Nebraska; Ron Wyden of Oregon.

        • pmorlan says:

          Boy it really is too early for me. LOL I actually have that link @18. Sorry to make you post it again. LOL I evidently didn’t read far enough. Boy do I feel dumb. LOL

    • jackie says:

      Question; Graham is also a member of the national guard. Isn’t there a conflict of interest(?) between being a Rep and also being military (subject to orders from above etc)? Does that come into play somewhere?

      ‘Lindsey Graham of South Carolina’

      • scribe says:

        Your perception that a conflict of interest might well be presumed to exist is correct.

        Unfortunately, there is a Vietnam-era Supreme Court case (which I’ve been trying to find) which dismissed on standing grounds a complaint brought by citizens against Congressmen who simultaneously held commissions as military officers, alleging this made them not-independent of the Executive Branch.

        Graham not only is a member of the Reserves, but has managed to get himself activated while not losing his seat. Each of the services has, buried deep within their personnel regulations (I know – I’ve read them in the past) a provision that any officer who becomes a member of Congress or the Senate shall give up their commission (for so long as they remain a member of Congress or the Senate) without prejudice to regaining it later. It’s a mandatory regulation – not a discretionary one.

        That the regulation has not been enforced against Graham means he is the beneficiary of particularized favoritism from the DoD. And, as known by anyone who’s dealt with some of the rougher customers this world has to offer, favors are the most expensive form of currency known.

        In short, Deadeye has Graham’s pecker in his pocket.

        • scribe says:

          But he is still holding his commission and getting photos of himself out there in uniform and in Iraq. Recall, he did a senatorial trip there during a recess and then switched clothes and served at Camp Bucca at a time when the abuse photos were being taken.

        • scribe says:

          I found the case I was looking for: Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to End the War, 418 U.S. 208 (1974).

          In that case, a number of military reservists opposed to the Vietnam War sued to challenge the practice of members of Congress holding reserve commissions as military officers. From the opinion:

          Article I, 6, cl. 2, of the Federal Constitution provides:

          “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments [418 U.S. 208, 210] whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”

          The Constitution thereby makes Members of Congress ineligible for appointment to certain offices through the limitation of the Ineligibility Clause, and prohibits Members of Congress from holding other offices through the latter limitation, the Incompatibility Clause.

          * * *
          We reaffirm Levitt in holding that standing to sue may not be predicated upon an interest of the kind alleged here which is held in common by all members of the public, because of the necessarily abstract nature of the injury all citizens share. Concrete injury, whether actual or threatened, is that indispensable element of a dispute which serves in part to cast it in a form traditionally [418 U.S. 208, 221] capable of judicial resolution. It adds the essential dimension of specificity to the dispute by requiring that the complaining party have suffered a particular injury caused by the action challenged as unlawful. This personal stake is what the Court has consistently held enables a complainant authoritatively to present to a court a complete perspective upon the adverse consequences flowing from the specific set of facts undergirding his grievance. Such authoritative presentations are an integral part of the judicial process, for a court must rely on the parties’ treatment of the facts and claims before it to develop its rules of law. Only concrete injury presents the factual context within which a court, aided by parties who argue within the context, is capable of making decisions.

          The kind of injury those plaintiffs alleged – blatant violation of a Constitutional proscription – was held to be a generalized grievance and not a particularized, concrete injury sufficient to grant them standing.

        • jackie says:

          Thank-you for your reply.
          I do think there is an angle (re; Graham/active duty) that is being missed..But it could just be wishful thinking.. I do know that the ties that bind these people go deep and twisty.

    • emptywheel says:

      Of those opposed, it might be Warner, Hagel, Graham, Kennedy, and Wyden on that trip (remember that Wyden was a big big supporter of the earlier Dem effort to abolish torture), particularly if Kennedy was one of those.

    • bobschacht says:

      Aeon,
      Thanks for this. What’s your source on this? It is interesting to me that Sen. Akaka was on this trip– He’s normally one of the most progressive senators, and he’s one of my senators.

      Oops, OK, I see your answer @35. Thanks. And thanks for the “Edit” feature!

      Bob in HI

  17. Diane says:

    What I don’t get, is why the CIA would collaborate with Cheney when the agency (including Tenet) has been scapegoated by Cheney + the antipathy that the Plame outing produced.

  18. BayStateLibrul says:

    “If every college football team had a linebacker like Dick Butkus, all fullbacks would soon be three feet tall and sing opera.”

    –Sportswriter Jenkins.

    Will Nadler, Whitehouse, and EW be our linebackers?

  19. TheraP says:

    This explains more about the cheney family running around with their media circus. That ad in the Times. All of it. This is “part” of what’s going on beneath the surface. But I’m betting there’s more.

    EW, you have an amazing instinct for homing in on “what’s missing” – so What else is missing?

    It’s those unknown unknowns. And the cheney family is scared. We’ve got Lizzie and her doings. Son-in-law, Perry, and his doings. Lynn and her doings. This is one implicated family! One implicated CRIME family! I have a feeling the spying has to be mixed up in this – I mean the 24/7 surveillance of everybody. All these outsourced contracts. Not just for torture. We’ve got a major (interconnected) scandal, I’m pretty sure. And it’s not just the torture. Torture, I think is the can-opener. And it’s the can of worms (Pandora’s box) we’re looking for.

    What other briefings did cheney supervise, for example?

      • TheraP says:

        Here’s a link to my blog on the ad.

        And another link for how I put that together with the media circus.

        And then add in the info regarding cheney’s son-in-law, who has worked as a Lobbyist for a military-industrial complex company, as well as oversaw “executive orders” in the White House (early on) – after being at DoJ – and then worked as General Counsel at Homeland Security (where I suspect he knew about the rendition flights). I’ll look back and get the EW blog where that was discussed in the thread.

        Look here and to comments below that:

        http://emptywheel.firedoglake……ent-162406

    • NCDem says:

      Cheney is feeling pressure from all sides. The pension fund from Detroit has now filed a massive lawsuit against Halliburton and KBR for fraud and mismanagement. You can read about it at http://www.examiner.com/p-3466…..lders.html

      This suit also ties to the many sales of nuclear equipment and supplies that the off-shore subsidary of Halliburton dealed to Iran. Cheney has always argued that the Cayman Island office could use Dubai and skirt all laws of the US. It started while he was at Hallibuton and is still in action today.

      • TheraP says:

        Yes, it was exactly that event (the pension fund lawsuit) that prompted my view of this media circus as more than just the torture.

        The torture ad (connected to Lynn cheney) came out on THE EXACT DAY of the press release of that pension fund lawsuit. (Links for that are in the second blog link above).

        So in my view cheney is having to battle on more than one “front” right now. And these investor lawsuits may increase, if other corporations are viewed as having been affected negatively by the cheney family.

        As I say, this is all interconnected, I think. And in my view EW is the best person to take a look at these things. I’m assisting. But I view her as the point person here!

      • MiriamKniaz says:

        Halliburton sold nuclear technology to Iran? Do you have any links for that – that is just amazing.

        • plunger says:

          The link is now busted, but here is the story in my own archive – and the source was Jason Leopold.

          Halliburton Sold Iranian Oil Company Key Nuclear Reactor Components, Sources Say

          Published Date: 2005/8/6 13:25:28
          Reads : 6422

          By Jason Leopold

          © 2005 Jason Leopold

          Scandal-plagued Halliburton — the oil services company once headed by Vice President Cheney — sold an Iranian oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, say Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies’ business dealings.

          Halliburton was secretly working at the time with one of Iran’s top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and sold the components in April to the official’s oil development company, the sources said.

          Just last week, a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, whose miltary unit just reported a 284 percent increase in its second quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the means to build a nuclear weapon.

          With Iran’s new hardline government now firmly in place, Iranian officials have rounded up relatives and close business associates of Iran’s former President and defeated mullah presidential candidate Hashemi Rafsanjani, alleging the men were involved in widespread corruption of Iran’s oil industry, specifically tied to the country’s business dealings with Halliburton.

          Not vouching for its accuracy, just answering your question.

  20. n8nnc says:

    Marcy – Love the valuable work you are doing. Please, for the sake of our country, keep up the good work!

    A nit: in the last sentence I think you meant “ought to do the trick”

  21. SaltinWound says:

    I know, on balance, this post is meant to put Democrats in a good light, but I don’t know what this means:

    “Several members of Congress who took part in the Cheney meetings declined to comment on them, citing secrecy concerns.”

    Why were they compelled to help hide this? It seems like they’re helping Cheney and the CIA cover this up, with no basis in logic. There’s no reason Cheney being there should be a secret and no reason the Democrats should support this deception.

  22. WilliamOckham says:

    By the way, I would like to point out that the WaPo article let a senior intelligence official make a blatant lie. It’s not just false, the person has to know it’s a lie:

    One senior intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the identities of individual briefers are intentionally concealed in all cases — their names do not appear in any of the CIA documents that describe congressional briefings.

    The identities of the briefers were not all concealed. Sure, there are no names, but multiple briefings list the DCI (or after the ODNI was created the DCIA) as a briefer. That’s actually more specific identification than using a name (lots of people in the world named Porter Goss or Mike Hayden, but only one DCI at a time). In fact, in a number of instances the document has direct quotes from the Director. This is not just a triviality. The quote is given as way of explaining why Cheney’s participation was obscured, but that’s just BS. If you can quote the CIA Director, you can mention the VP. It’s really disappointing to me that the reporters just pushed that ridiculous spin into the article.

    • WilliamOckham says:

      Btw, I do realize that the article included this line (right after the one I quoted):

      For all but seven of the 40 meetings listed, however, the documents outlined which agency led the briefing and which provided support. And on at least five occasions, they spelled out that then-CIA Director Michael V. Hayden led the classified meetings

      But that’s not what I’m getting at. The reporters want the reader to draw a conclusion, but they can’t seem to draw the appropriate conclusion themselves. Why did the SIO try to spin them? The March 8, 2005 meeting is the one where the CIA maintains that Porter Goss was still head of the HPSCI (ok, what they really said was their records show that). This article claims that Hoekstra was at that meeting. This all goes back to my obsession with “why did they tell this particular lie?”. Until reporters ask themselves that question, they’ll never get to the bottom of their story.

    • emptywheel says:

      Yup. Though I’m I’m as interested in the fact that they’ve kept Porter Goss secret as keeping Cheney secret.

      Though I am glad they’ve said that some of hte briefers weren’t named. Wanna bet that they didn’t list Rodriguez but that he was there?

    • maryo2 says:

      It would be nice if we/someone were updating the CIA briefers’ list PDF with human names. The pieces are becoming available, but we are not collecting them in one place.

  23. radiofreewill says:

    Then the stage lights dimmed-down to a spot on a lonely and gaunt, but still defiant, Pat Roberts, standing amongst a pile of suppressed documents, and shaking a noose in his hand, boldly proclaiming, “Give me Gooper Ideology, or give me…”

  24. TheraP says:

    From the White House emails timeline:

    February 15, 2005: No email archive of OVP emails.

    February 16, 2005: No email archive of OVP emails.

    February 17, 2005: No email archive of OVP emails.

    May 21, 2005: No email archive of OVP emails.

    May 22, 2005: No email archive of OVP emails.

    May 23, 2005: No email archive of OVP emails.

    Will these dates prove connected to this somehow?

  25. rincewind says:

    Great links!
    From the July 16 Boston Globe article, Teddy definitely went on the 15th.
    From the Aug 14 Knight-Ridder article, an SASC trip was “a few weeks” after July 9.
    From today’s WaPo article, Addington and 5 Senators (no Reps mentioned) “in July”.

    Can we assume that the Addington trip was the SASC trip? and can we assume that the SASC trip was the July 15 trip?

    SASC in 2005:

    John Warner-VA, Chair
    John McCain-AZ Carl Levin-MI
    James Inhofe-OK Edward Kennedy-MA
    Pat Roberts-KS Robert Byrd-WV
    Jeff Sessions-AL Joseph Lieberman-CT
    Susan Collins-ME Jack Reed-RI
    John Ensign-NV Daniel Akaka-HI
    James Talent-MO Bill Nelson-FL
    Saxby Chambliss-GA Ben Nelson-NE
    Lindsey Graham-SC Mark Dayton-MN
    Elizabeth Dole-NC. Evan Bayh-IN
    John Cornyn-TX Hillary Clinton-NY
    John Thune-SD

    Knight-Ridder trip list of Senators:

    R Sens: Bunning-KY, Chambliss-GA, Isakson-GA, Crapo-ID, Graham-SC, Hagel-NE, Roberts-KS, Sessions-AL, Warner-VA

    D Sens: Akaka-HI, Kennedy-MA, Nelson-NE, Wyden-OR

    The matches are Warner, Roberts, Sessions, Chambliss, Graham, Kennedy, Akaka, and Ben Nelson. Roberts went on the 9th with Hagel (not on SASC) and the Miami police chief (per Knight-Ridder), could have gone again? Graham was definitely on the Addington trip (per WaPo); McCain was definitely NOT (not on the K-R lists, “read in” late Oct 2005).

  26. i4u2bi says:

    The ’stay behinds’ are the the deep 7 overseers..they clean up and push down. Deep 7 (bad guys) subverts Deep 6 (the good guys). Deep 8 (new good guys) have infiltrated Deep 7 (bad guys and gals) and Deep 7 is in deep shit. Only problem is that Deep 8 may be compromised.

  27. JimWhite says:

    Okay, this revelation was the final straw for me. I just put up an Oxdown I’ve been thinking about for a few days: The Next Terrorist Attack On US Soil Will Be Dick Cheney’s Fault.

    Cheney has been the prime moving force behind the decision to torture and now we know that he was the prime force in keeping it in play when Congress tried to push back. Torture is the primary recruiter for al Qaeda, so that makes Dick responsible for the next attack. That’s why he’s out there on the airwaves saying Obama is making us less safe. He knows that the next one is really his own fault.

    • Citizen92 says:

      Dick and Lynne have had an empty parcel at that address in McLean for quite some time.

      In the last year of the Administration, they started construction, and now have an 11,000 sq custom-built foot home on the lot. It is not far from the main gates of CIA/Langley. Dick’s place is also not far from some considerable properties owned by middle eastern royals on Chain Bridge Road, which are also not located very far from Langley.

      Personally, I’ve been wondering what sort of “safe” they built into the place. County records only show that an elevator was permitted, but no mention of a safe — probably not required.

      [Although it is public record, I’m not sure of the appropriateness of publishing that address].

        • sojourner says:

          As radical as this may sound (and this is in response to a number of comments above), I am willing to bet that some of the FISA abuses provided Cheney with fodder to “persuade” several lawmakers to go along with the torture, and even walk a fine line toward defending it. Political blackmail is not too low for Cheney and his crowd to get their way.

        • TheraP says:

          Whatever info they gathered (or manufactured), would cheney not have to put it “to use” to further his ends? You state exactly my own contention. He pulled every lever of power and invented them if they didn’t exist!

          Apparently he even intervened to prevent accurate info re global warming getting out.

  28. sgwhiteinfla says:

    Marcy

    Another thing for you to consider which I commented at Greg Sargent’s place too is how this dovetails with the particular reports that Cheney wants declassified. Its HIGHLY likely that those were reports that he had put together to “sell” the torture program. That means they are very likely carefully worded propaganda pieces which he would be intimately aquainted with as it was his own spiel to convince members of Congress that torture was not only legal but also useful.

    • emptywheel says:

      Not sure if you’ve seen my earlier reporting on this, but it’s also pretty clear that these documents were partly written in conjunction with the OLC memos’ efforts to make a case that it was legal because it was effective. And of course it’s a response to the IG Report which said it was not effective.

  29. fatster says:

    NOT DEAD YET: 
Bin Laden Tape Blasts Obama

    Tape Airs On Al Jazeera As Obama Travels To Mideast … OBL Criticizes Obama For Deaths Of Muslims In Pakistan

    Currently the main article on the front page of http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

    Hmmmmm. Real or psy-ops or . . . ?

  30. phred says:

    EW, just popping in quick to ask whether the WaPo pointed out that the “not available” briefings were mostly given to Republicans. It seems to me that needs to be emphasized after the endless caterwauling over Pelosi’s briefing.

  31. radiofreewill says:

    Ding!

    PapaDick collapses onto the stool in his corner, spits-out his mouthpiece, and says, “What the Fuck! Where’d that dirty fucking hippie blogger come from?”

    “Yeah, Boss, she’s really starting to tag you!” says the MiniMe Addington Corner Troll, leaning-in and speaking thru a cut-stick clenched in his teeth.

    “Shut-up! You idiot!” PapaDick sneers, “She even slipped my Pelosi Haymaker! How’d that happen?! Dammit!”

    “Yeah, Boss, you really stepped right into that one!”

    “You really wanna get Waterboarded, doncha Motherfucker?”

    Over the crowd noise, a yell could be heard, “Hey Dick! Paulie and I are gettin’ a little nervous over here!”

  32. Leen says:

    ot

    Arianna’s latest
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..10627.html

    When Will Dick Cheney’s Tower of Lies Finally Come Tumbling Down on Him?
    You know what they say about people living in glass houses? Well, people with a paper trail that proves they ignored the looming threat of al-Qaeda, sanctioned torture, and used lies and manipulated intelligence to get us into a war, shouldn’t be so fast to throw stones either.
    one of the only times I have found myself agreeing with Friedman
    Obama on Obama

    By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
    Published: June 3, 2009
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06…..8;emc=rss#

  33. Socked Salmon says:

    Darlin’ you just keep doing real reporting and analysis (and always labeling each appropriately) and I’ll jes keep on sending you my $$$…I so appreciate your work!

  34. fatster says:

    We keep supporting Dick “Dick” no matter what.

    Bush is gone, but Halliburton keeps cashing checks
    The U.S. government continues to pay the company huge sums, despite allegations of overbilling and faulty work.

    Editor’s note: This article has also appeared on TomDispatch.com.
    By Pratap Chatterjee

    June 3, 2009 | “The Houstonian Hotel is an elegant, secluded resort set on an 18-acre wooded oasis in the heart of downtown Houston. Two weeks ago, David Lesar, CEO of the once notorious energy services corporation Halliburton, spoke to some 100 shareholders and members of senior management gathered there at the company’s annual meeting. All was remarkably staid as they celebrated Halliburton’s $4 billion in operating profits in 2008, a striking 22 percent return at a time when many companies are announcing record losses.

    “More than six years [since March 2003] , KBR has taken in over $31 billion for a variety of services to the U.S. military, notably in the field of logistics, and the money continues to flow in. As of April 2008, under a renewed contract, the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals, driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12 billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons of ice. While these numbers may be impressive, so are the multiple claims from Pentagon investigators of Godzilla-like overcharges and waste, not to speak of spiraling claims of workplace negligence, including faulty electrical wiring that led to deaths and injuries on bases KBR built, and a failure to provide adequately clean water supplies to the troops; and then there are those allegations of war profiteering made by activist groups and politicians. “

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/f…..hatterjee/

  35. oldtree says:

    There is one huge issue that may explain much of the silence. Recall that the domestic surveillance had already begun long before. We know they caught Hastert talking Turkey with Turkey, and that money seems to have changed hands for a vote that was never culminated. How many other congress persons have been caught on one of these illegal taps, and how many are still being blackmailed?
    Roberts appears via his actions to be one of those members. You can see them back off when Cheney barked. There is a trail of tears here that not only shows our government was doing intense domestic spying of people within government, but also using that information to silence them. Sibel Edmonds is one good example of someone who talked. How many in congress did? I think we need to know about all the domestic taps now, as RICO laws do appear to come into play.

    • TheraP says:

      That’s exactly what I’ve been suggesting, oldtree. I’m sure we’ve got the carrots and the sticks operating. And it’s the spying part, and how that connects with spying on congress, especially on the opposition party (election tampering?). And spying on reporters.

      There is a trail of tears here

      Torture is one part of it. And all the spying is another part.

      • oldtree says:

        I know folks like you and Marcy and Mary are going to crack it. I just notice the odd coincidences that no longer appear all that odd! Thanks for your great work too!

  36. BoxTurtle says:

    Marcy scoops MSM by a month this time.

    I think keeping Dick hidden was simply part of how he operates. Everything that man does is secret, by instinct. Cheney’s role in this was certainly well known (or assumed) by that time so hiding accomplishes nothing.

    I hope Cheney sees Marcy’s face everywhere he looks. I hope the first thing he sees in the morning and the last thing he sees at night is the smirk on her face as she clicks OK to post her latest.

    Boxturtle (Bet theres a market for Marcy dartboards at WAPO and NYT as well)

    • Leen says:

      Missing briefings was so obvious even to the peasants.

      Along with Marcy’s pounding Cheney has been getting a solid pounding from Chris Matthews for a good five years. Olbermann, Rachel and now Ed are also clearly on the get Cheney bus

  37. Mary says:

    There was some interesting info in that story.

    On the issue of not revealing Cheney’s identity, I think that could stem from classification sources. The CIA was putting together the info from the CIA’s records and for their employees and officers, they were the classifying authority. But once OVP jumps into the frey and puts itself into intel briefings, the OVP or the WH may be or become the classifying authority for the participation of those offices. So for CIA to mention Cheney or OVP involvement, it might have had to go through some different hoops and with a guy who isn’t real cooperative. What was the gist of Obama’s order early on, wasn’t it something like they had to run stuff by the old Pres/VP first on declassification, although he would be the ultimate arbiter? I’m guessing that’s a battle Panetta just didn’t want to deal with at the time, but obviously there could be more.

    What you do have now is something that would give clear record on the degree of Cheney’s knowledge about the torture programs. If he’s a briefer on them, it’s not just a general knowledge issue. You have Cochran saying that until he had his sitdown with Cheney he never really understood waterboarding – basically saying that Cheney walked him through the mechanics.

    The story also points out two other pretty significant thing – the degree to which both OVP and NSC were empowered to intervene in and interfere with Congressional oversight. One of the very interesting things in the story is the reference that Cheney wanted to brief in more members of Congress, but that it was the National Security Council that wanted to extra-statutorily breif in ONLY the Intel committee heads. If it was the NSC behind that original approach, someone needs to be hammering (mabye on Bellinger’s door in particular) on the legal basis for that decision. This is one thing that the reporters and the members of Congress shy away from talking about much, but what about that finding? Did it exist or not – was it given to the intel heads or not, who determined the torture was a covert program rather than intel gathering and when and who looked at the Nat Sec Act and decided that they could violate it in the briefings?

    Then you have Cheney not only picking and choosing what classified info to chat to members of Congress about in a classified setting with CIA briefers on hand – but you also now have the Addington issue. What authority did Addington have to chit chat about classified programs with members of Congress in a non-secure setting? Shades of this guy named Scooter being authorized to leak the NIE in violation of the NSA and to chit chat about Valerie Plame in violation of the IIPA.

    It sure seems to me that this story would give Senate Committees a lot of grounds to demand turnover and/or access to VP records – not just CIA. After all, we now have info that OVP was directly involved in the torture programs; that OVP was overriding NSC decisions on limiting briefings (and that there were such discussions – which should open the door to NSC records on why the NSA wasn’t followed in the briefings); that the OVP was picking and choosing members of Congress to get cherrypicked leaks/briefings in non-secure locations and utilizing Counsel to OVP (and lets be sure we don’t forget Addington’s direct WH role as well) to conduct those briefings, etc.

    Backing back to Cheney’s presence at the briefings, I have to wonder if it wasn’t as much to be a “minder” of the CIA briefers as well as extra “heft” to the members of Congress.

    Lawmakers at times challenged Cheney and CIA officials about the legality of the program and pressed for specific results that would show whether the techniques worked. In response, the CIA briefers said that half of the agency’s knowledge about al-Qaeda’s plans and structure had been obtained through the interrogations.

    So they were challenging Cheney and the CIA officials, but it was the CIA briefers who responded. Under Cheney’s eye – with an interestingly parsed claim that half the knowledge of plans and structure had been obtained through the interrogations. But according to the NYT’s “Deuce” story, the actual interrogations were done separate and apart from the torture sessions.

    Anyway – some interesting stuff that would open doors for anyone wanting to go through them. I have to say I don’t agree that Dems have been good on torture,despite Rockefeller making noises about an investigation. I don’t think they were that good on CIA participation in the attempted murder of a Missionary and successful murder of his wife and infant either, of but I won’t belabor any of that.

    I do tie some of this to the recent Cheney lie that there was never any evidence of Iraq’s invovlement in 911. Bc that is a lie – there was indeed some evidence. It was very bad evidence, not persuasive and not reliable, but it existed. It was al-Libi telling us that Iraq trained al-Qaeda. It was evidence provided to Powell to put into the UN presentation. It was “evidence” provided in an open forum to the world.

    But it’s evidence that now Cheney wants to pretend never existed. It’s evidence that was generated – and now the source of the “evidence” is conviently dead and Cheney somehow wants to disavow that the evidence from this source ever existed. Because? Because it’s the issue that is the killshot to his “torture works” argument and it’s torture that probably walks right back to his office.

    • Citizen92 says:

      Cheney was known to reach deep down into the bureaucracy, as witness to his directives to the 19th ranking Interior Official (and Abramoff co-conspirator Steve Griles’ girlfriend).

      Sue Ellen Wooldridge, the 19th-ranking Interior Department official, arrived at her desk in Room 6140 a few months after Inauguration Day 2001. A phone message awaited her.

      “This is Dick Cheney,” said the man on her voice mail, Wooldridge recalled in an interview. “I understand you are the person handling this Klamath situation. Please call me at — hmm, I guess I don’t know my own number. I’m over at the White House.”

      The vice president has intervened in many cases to undercut long-standing environmental rules for the benefit of business. Wooldridge wrote off the message as a prank. It was not. Cheney had reached far down the chain of command, on so unexpected a point of vice presidential concern, because he had spotted a political threat arriving on Wooldridge’s desk.

      I’d suspect Cheney was less of a ‘minder’ for the CIA briefers, too much left to chance. He probably handpicked the briefers himself. Which might explain why the briefers’ identities are being obscured or “unavailable.”

    • WilliamOckham says:

      Backing back to Cheney’s presence at the briefings, I have to wonder if it wasn’t as much to be a “minder” of the CIA briefers as well as extra “heft” to the members of Congress.

      I’ve been thinking about the purpose of Cheney’s presence also. The WaPo story says that Cheney was there for “at least four” of the “briefer unavailable” briefings. They put him at meetings 11, 12, 13, and, by inference, 15. Meetings 12 and 13 were an attempt to stop the McCain amendment. Meetings 11 and 15 are more interesting because the story implies that they were attempts to deal with bad publicity (NYT and WaPo stories). Meetings 11 and 15 also each follow another briefing (10 and 14 respectively) given the day before to some of the same attendees. Does anybody else get the feeling that Cheney wanted to control the toture message?

      • TheraP says:

        I’m with you totally, WO! Yes, he wanted to control the torture message. (and other messages as well)

    • Leen says:

      Mary “It sure seems to me that this story would give Senate Committees a lot of grounds to demand turnover and/or access to VP records – not just CIA. After all, we now have info that OVP was directly involved in the torture programs; that OVP was overriding NSC decisions on limiting briefings (and that there were such discussions – which should open the door to NSC records on why the NSA wasn’t followed in the briefings); that the OVP was picking and choosing members of Congress to get cherrypicked leaks/briefings in non-secure locations and utilizing Counsel to OVP (and lets be sure we don’t forget Addington’s direct WH role as well) to conduct those briefings, etc.”

      Mary ..do you think the Senate Committee’s will grow some family jewels and “demand” turnover of VP records?

  38. Mary says:

    Another interesting part of the story is the Graham (Goldsmith, now Kagan) take that the whole problem with the torture was that it was done with EOs instead of getting Congressional legislation.

    On the trip, Sen. Graham urged Addington to put the interrogations at secret prisons and the use of military tribunals into a stronger constitutional position by pushing legislation through Congress

    Attaboy Lindsey. Go look at pictures you agree show rape and murder and depravity and then cough up the response that the real problem with all that is the lack of legislation authorizing it.

  39. plunger says:

    “Why Did CIA Hide Dick Cheney’s Role in Briefing?”

    Because they all work for the Old Man (Poppy), and the Old Man said so.

    Look above the White House to the string pullers. Cheney wasn’t the boss. He was just taking orders and doing his job…not for the American People, but for his employers. The CIA is a PRIVATE company. Ask Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller who Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld worked for. While you’re at it, ask co-conspirator Alan Greenspan too.

  40. Mary says:

    Another GITMO suicide.

    TPM also has a link to a profile piece on Daniel Fried, who is the guy charged with making things happen – you know, getting other countries to accept our torture victims while we still certify them all as being the worst of the worst and our President claims that the United States doesn’t, after all, torture.

    Apparently truth is real low on the list of possible approaches to solve the problem.

  41. bobschacht says:

    If anyone needed yet more proof that torture was Cheney’s baby, his active lobbying of Congress–hidden as “CIA briefings”–ought to do the trick.

    I’m curious about how on several very recent occasions, Cheney is all of a sudden parsing his words more carefully. Like now he says it was the “Interrogation PROGRAM” (that included waterboarding, but also rapport-building) that had proven successful.
    I think Olbermann among others noticed this shift, and speculated that maybe Cheney was covering his posterior in preparation for anticipated appointments in a court of law.

    I want to ask a related question: is this evidence that Cheney is finally “lawyering up”, and is being advised to cut the BS?

    It’s early morning here in Hawaii, and I haven’t had my first cuppa coffee yet, so I better take time to read through the comments now.

    Bob in HI

  42. oldoilfieldhand says:

    McCain wasn’t threatened, he was bought and paid for…the Republican nomination ring a bell?

    • Mormaer says:

      McCain was bought off probably but he also feels gypped because he got very little support from those whom he made the bargain. This may turn into a double cross. I have thought on occasion that only some Republicans could take the old freak Cheney down. We will see if even worms have turned.

      • freepatriot says:

        I have thought on occasion that only some Republicans could take the old freak Cheney down. We will see if even worms have turned.

        yep

        if the repuglitarded party wants to live, THEY have to lance this boil on the body politic

        and thanks to dick’s little torture tour, now it’s gotta happen IN PUBLIC

        common decency DEMANDS that the repuglitarded denounce torture, if they wanna remain a viable political party

        who was the republican guy that stuck the first fatal blade into nixon ???

        Et Tu, (fill in the blank) says dead eye !!!

  43. tjbs says:

    TREASON is never a mistake but it’s alway’s a mistake not to call it TREASON.

    If this isn’t then there is no is.

  44. TheraP says:

    Oh, boy, here’s another connection!

    Here’s a May 29, 2009 press release that has Lockheed Martin in charge of “records management” for the federal govt:

    The new Records Management Services (RMS) Technical Specification was proposed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and adopted by the Object Management Group™ (OMG™), an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium. Lockheed Martin SOA Chief Architect Mel Greer served as the Records Management Community of Practice’s co-lead with NARA, and as a co-author of the RMS standard.

    I figured there had to be an angle with the IT stuff and the cheneys and now I’m wondering to what extent Lockheed Martin was involved with collating info from the spying.

    Remember, Lockheed Martin and the cheney family are linked:

    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.


    Lockheed Martin
    :

    Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

    Spying anybody?

    I know I’ve had my suspicions here, but: OMG!

  45. TheraP says:

    Lockheed was heavily involved in support of the invasion of Iraq. (boy, knock me over with a feather!)

    Lockheed has also been able to exercise its influence in a larger way – in support of the invasion of Iraq. The company’s former vice-president Bruce Jackson chaired the Coalition for the Liberation of Iraq, a bipartisan group formed to promote Bush’s plan for war in Iraq. Bruce Jackson was also involved in corralling the support for the war from Eastern European countries, going so far as helping to write their letter of endorsement for military intervention.

    And Lockheed is after contracts related to Obama’s push into cyber warfare!

    Computer experts say the government is behind the curve in sealing off its networks from threats

    The military contractors are now in the enviable position of turning what they learned out of necessity — protecting the sensitive Pentagon data that sits on their own computers — into a lucrative business that could replace some of the revenue lost from cancellations of conventional weapons systems.

    Executives at Lockheed Martin, which has long been the government’s largest information-technology contractor, also see the demand for greater computer security spreading to energy and health care agencies and the rest of the nation’s critical infrastructure. But for now, most companies remain focused on the national-security arena, where the hottest efforts involve anticipating how an enemy might attack and developing the resources to strike back.

    (especially cheney CRIME-family threats?)

  46. TheraP says:

    Ten years of Lockheed Martin’s stock prices (a chart).

    Ten years of Halliburton’s stock prices (a chart)

    If you compare these charts, you will see that Lockheed Martin has actually benefited far more from bushco than did Halliburton, especially in the early years.

    I repeat. Lynn cheney used to be on their board of directors (and received compensation). The cheney son-in-law worked as a lobbyist for them (in his role in a law-firm) and is back doing just that.

    Given their IT work and all the data they store for the govt, might they not have been involved in the spying we know occurred? Might cheney not have ways to still spy? Or find out what’s going on via these connections?

    I don’t have the answers, of course. But it sure is a ripe field for speculation.

    Torture: Just ONE of the cheney CRIME family businesses.

      • TheraP says:

        Thanks to googling Comey (and his connection to Lockheed Martin), I just found a service that graphs connections between people and places. And here’s cheney son-in-law Philip J. Perry’s connections.

        Double click on ANY of his places he’s worked – and it then provides another graph of all the people he’s connected to from there. For example, here’s his Homeland Security connections graph.

        Now maybe everybody else knew about this source for connections. But to me it looks like a goldmine of info: Muckety.com. Plug in NAMES and you get the main connectors – then just double click for further info.

        Thank you, bmaz. Though that comment I found this site that graphs networks! I’m gonna check lynn cheney next.

        • kgb999 says:

          Hey! That’s pretty cool. It’s missing a bunch of connections for Hadley though … so it’s far from a definitive map. Great resource though. Thanks.

        • TheraP says:

          You could search for all those groups and people you named @ 126 using Muckety. And then that might give you some of what’s missing.

          Thanks for that info. He was Condi’s second in command for some time, till she moved to State..

      • kgb999 says:

        Stephen Hadley was also a lawyer for Lockheed Martin (through Shea & Gardner) in the ’90s. At the time, he was associated with the Scowcroft Group and the US Committee to Expand NATO(Wolfowitz, Perle and Lockheed V.P. Bruce Jackson).

        They had a gig going where they’d get nations to join NATO (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999. Then Bulgaria, Estonia, Latonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) and then shake them down: pressuring them to bring their armies “up to the norms of NATO” … by buying military hardware from Lockheed. Some of the nations reportedly denounced it as a “racket”.

        Hadley was also part of NIPP during this time with Stephen Cambone and James Woolsey.

        • Mary says:

          I don’t know much about this “Right Web” site, but they indicate that this guy named Greg Craig was also a player on that front.
          http://www.rightweb.irc-online…..ee_on_NATO

          Founded in 1996 by Bruce Jackson together with Greg Craig, the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO (later renamed U.S. Committee on NATO) ceased to exist in 2003. After spearheading two phases of NATO expansion, this neoconservative policy group closed down. But Jackson and two other principals of the committee–Randy Scheunemann and Julie Finley–continue to work to reshape the political, economic, and military course of Europe through the Project on Transitional Democracies, which occupies the former offices of the U.S. Committee on NATO.

  47. freepatriot says:

    so let’s check the scoreboard for the past few months

    My Muse, 3

    so called journalists, 0

    an in the interest of not slandering the McClatchy guys by lumping them with the so called journalists

    McClatchy guys, 1

    You got them beat on the torture issue, ew

    but wolf blitzer is running circles around you on that Air France story

    an the Nancy Reagan story too

    (wink)

  48. fatster says:

    Rather: Former detainee says torture still going on at Gitmo

    BY DAVID EDWARDS AND MURIEL KANE 

Published: June 3, 2009 
Updated 3 hours ago

    “Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor who now hosts a news magazine on cable channel HDNet, has done a documentary on a former Guantanamo prisoner who says he was tortured for years before being released two weeks ago.

    “Lakhdar Boumediene has charged that he was interrogated for sixteen straight nights in 2003 and that he was force-fed through a nasal tube for over two years after he went on a hunger strike. He also described to Rather’s interviewer how he was made to run with shackles on his legs until they were bloody in order to soften him up.”

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

    • freepatriot says:

      gots to be careful with rawstory links

      their headlines are kinda misleading (okay, really misleading)

      here’s the meat of the accusation:

      Rather also pointed out that when Boumediene says he was tortured recently, he is not referring to interrogation but to the force-feeding, which he believes was deliberately made “as painful and uncomfortable as possible.” Boumediene also believes that once the guards knew he had been ordered released for lack of evidence, some of them were looking for an opportunity to “take their last shots.”

      Mr Boumediene now has the unfortunate honor of his name becoming the title of a SCOTUS ruling. He’s goin in the history books, like Miranda an Brown. dick an george can’t escape that one

      an dint somebody round here call for some interviews of the torture victims last week ???

      Oh yeah, that was me …

      you ain’t the only psychic around here ew. I’ll match my crystal bong against yer overactive brainpan any day. We could have a “Predict Off” cage match, an scare the hell outta everyone else for a few days

      we could split 40-60 on the Pay-Per-View, you get the big half, cuz you got overhead n stuff. Contact my lawyers, Dewey, Cheatum, & Howe, C/O Wriggley field

      btw, my own personal favorite is guessing who gets to say this: “Mr President, there is a cancer on America …”

      • bmaz says:

        Proof that they were not all Islamofascists terrorists being held and tortured at Gitmo; one former detainee, Moazzem Begg, upon release is partnering with video game maker to profit from a new video game called Rendition: Guantanamo.

        Sounds like a capitalist to me.

        • freepatriot says:

          it wasn’t an interrogation technique, which is kinda implied in the headline, I think

          Mr Boumediene is describing the remaining horrors of george bush’s torture program, and the actions of a few of the bad apples grown by dick cheney

          I don’t think Obama is handling the closing of GITMO in the right way, and this is part of the reason why

        • fatster says:

          Oh, OK. Well, I can’t help how headlines are worded. I just try to pass on links to articles that I think folks here might find of interest.

          And I’ve been saving this particular one for you:

          http://www.wired.com/underwire…..-the-wall/

        • freepatriot says:

          We hope that this time around, the Pink Floyd brainiac signs up artists other than Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper and Sinead O’Connor to help him bridge the cultural and political divide between Israel and Palestine. Might we suggest Israel’s Kutiman, or Muslim rapper Mos Def? Anyone else you’d like to see take part in a new performance of The Wall?

          the dude misses or totally overlooks the concept of “the Surrogate Band”

    • esseff44 says:

      When will Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS finally come to trial. He wants to get the executives under oath. This article suggested it would be early this year. Any updates?

      http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11…..ather.html

      Dan Rather must have gotten to close to something that would have ruined Bush/Cheney chances of election. No one has yet come up with answers to the questions of GWB’s lost year. Is the reward for that still open?

      Talk about a ‘chilling effect’ on the press. There’s been a deep freeze since that incident with no sign of a thaw.

      • fatster says:

        I just did a simple google search, and this is the latest info I found–Nov 17, 2008. Surely there is more up-to-date information about it, but nothing more recent showed up from my search. Maybe someone here will clarify and update us. Sorry not to be of better help.

        Rather’s Lawsuit Shows Role of G.O.P. in Inquiry
        http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11…..wanted=all

      • Styve says:

        Rather was all over the Bush AWOL story, and had them all but nailed to the wall, I would bet. The best material on Bush’s exploits, and I believe that Rather had all the same dirt on Bush and cohorts, is http://www.glcq.com/bush_at_arpc1.htm.

        A taste of what’s on the site…

        DESERTER

        THE STORY OF GEORGE W. BUSH AFTER HE QUIT THE TEXAS AIR NATIONAL GUARD

        SUMMARY

        An examination of the Bush military files within the context of US Statutory Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of that era lead to a single conclusion: George W. Bush was considered a deserter by the United States Air Force.

        After Bush quit TXANG, he still had nine months of his six-year military commitment left to serve. As a result, Bush became a member of the Air Force Reserves and was transferred to the authority of the Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC) in Denver, Colorado. Because this was supposed to be a temporary assignment, ARPC had to review Bush’s records to determine where he should ultimately be assigned. That examination would have led to three conclusions: That Bush had “failed to satisfactorily participate” as defined by United States law and Air Force policy, that TXANG could not account for Bush’s actions for an entire year, and that Bush’s medical records were not up to date. Regardless of what actions ARPC contemplated when reviewing Bush’s records, all options required that Bush be certified as physically fit to serve, or as unfit to serve. ARPC thus had to order Bush to get a physical examination, for which Bush did not show up. ARPC then designated Bush as AWOL and a “non-locatee” (i.e. a deserter) who had failed to satisfactorily participate in TXANG, and certified him for immediate induction through his local draft board. Once the Houston draft board got wind of the situation, strings were pulled; and documents were generated which directly contradict Air Force policy, and which were inconsistent with the rest of the records released by the White House.

        CONTENTS

        INTRODUCTION

        BACKGROUND

        Organization of the Air Reserve Forces

        Bush’s Service Requirements

        Bush’s Record as a Member of the Texas Air National Guard

        BUSH, THE AIR NATIONAL GUARD, AND THE AIR FORCE

        THE RECORDS OF A DESERTER

        “FAILURE TO SATISFACTORILY PARTICIPATE”

        ALL ROADS LEAD TO A MEDICAL EXAMINATION

        THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SEPTEMBER 15TH

        A CONVENIENT WORD FOR “DESERTER”

        HOUSTON, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM

        THE REHABILITATION OF GEORGE W. BUSH

        DID BUSH’S REHABILITATION REALLY HAPPEN?

        APPENDIX 1: THE “NOT OBSERVED” OETR, AND THE UNIFORM MILITARY PERSONNEL RECORD

        APPENDIX 2—THE “NON-LOCATEE” ADDRESS SEQUENCE

        APPENDIX 3—THE SIXTH MONTHS EXTENSION OF SERVICE CONTROVERSY

  49. maryo2 says:

    Cochran said yesterday that it was the first time he had been given a full description of what waterboarding entailed. “I found the conversation with the vice president to be very candid, straightforward, helpful,” Cochran said.

    Did Cheney describe what was legal according to the memos, or did he describe what was really happening? Some of the memos have time limits on application of each technique and expectations that only one technique is being applied at one time. But we know that sleep deprivation was coupled with food depravation, isolation, over-heating and freezing, slapping, walling and stress positions. Can Senator Cochran tell us whether Cheney explained all that?

  50. TheraP says:

    Joe Lieberman keeps coming up connected to Lynn Cheney! Committee on the Present Danger too. He’s thick with these thieves!

  51. Mary says:

    102 – Yep, and by then message was pretty important. Parsing exactly what got out, with what adjectives, what denotations, what connotations. It was the “Iraq/911″ theme repeating with a “Torture/ticking time bomb/save America” set of substitutions – no one really flat out connecting an instance of torture with a ticking time bomb or a saving of America (while there as very much a clear connection with al-libi’s tortue being used to kill American soldiers and support staff and aid workers and Iraqis)

    117 – not just freepatriot,but freeprescience too. *g*

    On a less upbeat note, while Boumediene is talking about the continued force feedings, here’s a NYT link on the same GITMO “apparent suicide” story that I put up earlier, but this with more details.

    Today, TPM has a link up to this New Republic piece on Daniel Fried, to whom Obama pawned off his GITMO problem. Bellinger, everready (like the fake rabbit) to get gravitas notches on his belt from fawning democrats, is one of the “sources” who is tsking away about how hard Bushies worked to rehome its torture victims the worst of the worst and how naive lil ol Obamacakes, he jes didn’ realize that Presidentin’ was gonna be hard work and Wonderful W Bushies, who are so much wiser, could have clued him in that GITMO was a harder problem than a proclamation can address.

    Anyway – the story references the Yemeni problem at GITMO pretty specifically:

    Beyond the hodgepodge of 60 cleared detainees of mixed nationalities, he must also find homes for many of the 97 Yemenis now in U.S. custody, few of whom are expected to be charged.

    So – why would Fried et al be so certain that in ADDITION to the 60 “cleared” detainees, most of the *not yet cleared* 97 (now 96) Yemeni detainees aren’t going to have charges?

    Well, some of that would seem to stem from, or tie to, a bit of the info that came out on the Batarfi sitution in Judge Sullivan’s court. While it was Batarfi’s case before the Judge, he made no bones about the fact that Gov was obstructing justice being less than professionally candid in cases before other Judges as well. See – Gov had this “witness” that it was relying on heavily in a “significant number” of cases.

    Seems the witness is another GITMO detainee, a depressed, suicidal crazy guy who was under constant “treatment” and none of that was disclosed to defense counsel. Not disclosed even though that disclosure was required by not only rules of procedure and evidence, but also required by specific court rulings in the GITMO cases. Gov lawyers, to defend their action, said that even though they didn’t turn over the “yes, our only witness is mentally ill and under constant supervision” info it was not a big deal, bc they had already turned over OTHER info about their witness that so completely undercut his credibility that it was just “cumulative” to add on that he was mentally disturbed.

    Judge Sullivan made it clear that the Gov problems in the Batarfi case infilitrated and corrupted other cases as well. Transcript of hearing here.

    If you make it through, at the end Judge Sullivan discusses “conditions of confinement” issues related to Batarfi and what his powers should be vis a vis orders on such conditions if Gov was essentially admitting that Batarfi was not an enemy combatant. While the legalisms have drawn out, and while Obama and Harry Reid and Republicans played political games blocking the courts and preventing review of conditions of confinement, even while continuing to claim that in general the Yemenis are enemy combatants (they have a crazy guy who says so, after all) – a man dies.

    The NYT at least contacts the dead man’s lawyer, David Remes, and gets his observations. Remes has 16 other Yemeni clients still at GITMO and has been watching them all fail, physically and mentally, over the years. He’s been watching Obama (and the Dems who are good on torture) bring hope to them, and then watched that hope die.

    Mr. Remes, the lawyer with other Yemeni clients, said many prisoners are desperate. “They harbored some hope,” he said, “that President Obama would move swiftly to resolve the situation, but they can’t see any progress so far or any light at the end of the tunnel.”

    They guy who had an “apparent suicide” had been involved in a hunger strike for a long time – Boumediene’s “torture.” He had only weighed 87 or so pounds at one point. According to Remes:

    Mr. Hanashi had been one of seven prisoners kept in a psychiatric ward at the prison and that he had been force-fed in a restraint chair. Mr. Remes said all the detainees in the psychiatric ward were kept under sedation.

    What a great and glorious, patriotic job – keeping a crazy guy drugged and force fed for years until he dies. DOJ lawyers have to be pretty proud of their legacy – and even Karma has joined in, with the DOJ lawyer in Batarfi named “Warden”

    And along with the DOJ approaches under Obama being the same as under Bush, the Obama Pentagon has the same approach to cataloging information:

    During a visit last month, one of Mr. Remes’s Yemeni clients cut his wrist and hurled the blood at Mr. Remes. Prison officials said they did not classify that as a suicide attempt.

    I guess he was just celebrating all that “Hope” that permeates from Obama.

    I guess if the dead man, Hanashi, had lived to see a lawyer seven years after his detention, he might have been all Obamaful too.

    After seven years of imprisonment, Mr. Hanashi had only recently been given a lawyer and, other lawyers said, had yet to meet with the legal team.

  52. fatster says:

    Rumsfeld to ‘face difficulties’ over Guantanamo: UN expert

    “In a year or two, his responsibilities will be established. Wherever he goes, he will face difficulties,” Leandro Despouy, who is Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told journalists in Geneva.

    “A US bipartisan Senate report released late last year found Rumsfeld and other top administration officials responsible for abuse of Guantanamo detainees in US custody.

    . . .

    “The UN expert called on the international community to “support” Obama’s decision to close the prison.”

    http://rawstory.com/news/afp/R…..32009.html

  53. freepatriot says:

    O-T vent hole:

    lindsey ghraham says that he finds Sonia Sotomayor’s remarks ” to be “Offensive” to an “Every day WHITE guy”

    what I find offensive the fact that lindsey graham thinks “every day white guy” is a non racist statement

    a stupid bigot with a victim complex ???

    how attractive

    but torture

    not so “offensive”

    • fatster says:

      From his point of view, I guess torture is not so “offensive” to the “every day white guy.” As I’ve said before, Lindsay needs to retire to one of the swampiest parts of SC where he can enjoy the miasma to the max.

  54. Styve says:

    Darn…meant to edit the above to include the name of the guy who was the genius behind the site…a FDL poster of old…Paul Lukasiak! I don’t know if he is still augmenting the information on the site, but it really is a helluva job of detective work!

  55. Stephen says:

    Yes, during that “mission accomplished” era, very heady times were running amuck. Certain people believed that American Imperialism was unstoppable. Cheney and his partners in crime at the CIA were on a constant high. Their time was now. Then everything fucked up. I still cannot believe Cheney lives 2,000 yards from the Langley CIA headquarters. Can anyone confirm that?

  56. klynn says:

    EW,

    I think you just past the “I travel and sh— hits the fan” curse. I am gone from the tubes two days and…three “breaking news” posts! Thanks for following this.

Comments are closed.