CIA IG Report: To Be Released on June 19
The detail that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in a month and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed got into the OLC memo via the CIA IG Report released May 2004. So, too, did the reports that CIA interrogators exceeded the guidelines laid out in the Bybee Two memo. And the conclusion that the torture couldn’t be said to have stopped any attacks? That was in the CIA IG Report, too.
Which is why the IG Report’s reported release–on June 19–might be big news.
Or, it might be 400 pages of mostly redacted content.
In new responses to lawsuits, the C.I.A. has agreed to release information from two previously secret sources: statements by high-level members of Al Qaeda who say they have been mistreated, and a 2004 report by the agency’s inspector general questioning both the legality and the effectiveness of coercive interrogations.
The Qaeda prisoners’ statements, made at tribunals at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, were previously excised from transcripts of the proceedings, but they will be at least partly disclosed by this Friday, according to a court filing. The report by the inspector general, whose secret findings in April 2004 led to a suspension of the C.I.A. interrogation program, will be released by June 19, the Justice Department said in a letter to a federal judge in New York.
Precisely how much the agency will disclose, however, remains to be determined, as the administration is clearly struggling to decide where to draw the line. In both cases, which involve separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the documents are likely to be redacted to withhold information the C.I.A. still considers especially delicate.
Me? I’ll be pleasantly surprised (though not satisfied) if they release pages 85 though 91, which talk about the (in)efficacy of the program. It was in response to these six pages that at least some of Dick Cheney’s CYA documents were written.
And the detainee statements from their CSRTs? Maybe we’ll finally learn why Rahim al-Nashiri was only waterboarded two times.
Shouldn’t this be ‘released May 2009?’
As for the possibility of 400 redacted pages, perhaps we should all load up on kazoos so that we can scorn, mock, and express our contempt in gleeful, noisy sounds if very much on those pages is redacted…?
The very thought of an iPhone app or a mobile app based on registering the level of contempt if the redactions are significant does make me chuckle; I have to find some humor in it all…there’s a potential market for a ‘Scorn-O-Meter For Number of Redactions’, surely…?
No clue how you get through so much reading!
(I haven’t even caught up on today’s posts, let alone comments! 8-0
Nope, that May 7 2004 date is correct. See this redacted copy over at the ACLU.
Ack! (I’ll never catch up…!)
Thanks for the clarification
Thanks for the link, MD, scrolling through that was sure bracing!
(Actually I do recall it now —amazing how much has gone under the bridge.)
I tipple sparingly as a rule, but I’m about ready for a drinking game.
Hmmm…I think the original CIA OIG “Special Review of Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001 – October 2003) of 7 May 2004″ report was only 220 pages, but who’s counting. *g*
Jane Mayer on the original:
So the 400-pager is the public version released last year in all its redacted glory? Where are we getting those different numbers — 400 and/or 220 — from? Just trying to make sure we’re all in the same phone book here …
Anyway, googling around to get the history straight for myself took me back to this post from EW, which is an invaluable summary of all the references to the report in the Bradbury memos. (It was ProPublica whose link to EW brought me back.)
A little editorializing, Mr. Shane?
Meanwhile, buried in the article, a barely hopeful piece of good news:
Keeping the heat on…
Heh, yeah, agreed; however, the unadulterated and unmodified word “torture” was used. It is certainly not in the straight up tone we use here, but the NYT seems to slowly be dropping the use of the Bushisms, couched terms and masked language. Don’t know that it means anything, but that kind of struck me.
Yes, that is some progress, and if they keep it up, important progress. Still, the editorializing bugs me, and Shane is no more guilty than most of them.
FYI:
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..s-torture/
The June 11 meeting with Obama is the National Religious Campaign Against Torture’s kick-off for their Torture Awareness Month.
Oh, I do so wish them well! Wonder how Obama’s advisors will make of it?
It’s sad to say but they’ll probably pay lip service to them and do just what they’ve been doing. NOTHING.
Thanks for the link, and fatster (#19) for the story.
OT: For the Burris shoebox.
A major health problem might be involved, but it goes in mine for now anyway.
The previous Times story said the OLC Report will be released this summer.
In Timespeak, do they mean June 21st or Sept 22nd?
A twofer?
Does the OLC Report (in the making for 5 years) set a kicked-down-the-road-
delay-of-game-penalty-cover-up record?
Ew/All thought you might be interested in this (I think worth the listen0
http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/…..horton-20/
The Other Scott Horton, international human rights lawyer, professor and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses the ACLU’s ongoing legal action to get torture photos released, another bogus 16 words in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address, the propaganda value of executing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed vs. giving him a full and fair trial and how Dick Cheney browbeat DOJ lawyers into giving permissive torture legal opinions before hiding behind them.
MP3 here. (24:24)
I wrote about the “The Other 16 Words” last October.
Probably too late to the thread to get an answer, but that Scott Horton is the only one I know of. It probably is a fairly common name, but Google gives me several that don’t appear to have the prominence of the one I know, who writes No Comment and articles for Daily Beast.
Sort of OT:
Yesterday’s slew of EW posts set me to thinking (AGAIN!) – about torture:
1. If we wrote out the torture memos like math equations, here’s what I think people are forgetting: First of all, the so-called torture “techniques” are not additive. Torture memos make it look like A+B+C etc. But each technique is a multiplier, so actually it should be AxBxC etc. That more accurately represents what happens to a torture victim. It’s never just additive. So food deprivation X cold (not simply food deprivation plus cold). And the whole shebang = Kidnapping X rendition X endless captivity X whatever OTHER torture etc.
2. Since torture “techniques” (I hate that euphemism!) “in the field” are not the same as on paper, it’s like any technique squared, so A Squared (I’d put the symbol for squared but I can’t seem to find how to do it.) And so on. There has to be a way to indicate that we’re talking another degree of evil when it comes to actually “doing” torture. Adding my first two points, you arrive at A Squared X B Squared and so on for what happens to a detainee.
3. On top of the fact that we lack a language for torture, we also have the problem of assumptions. The primary assumption is “BAD GUY” – but that’s not an assumption! That’s something that has to be proven! In math, you can make assumptions, but only of things that can’t be proven. “Guilt” – since it can be proven or disproven – can never be an assumption.
I realize I probably haven’t said anything here, but sometimes if you take information and look at it from another angle, you can see it better. Or say it better.
There are so many things WRONG with torturing. And I’m just trying to find better ways to communicate that.
I like your description of it being a multiplier not just an addition. You are absolutely correct. If you keep someone awake and starve them at the same time you are making both “techniques” worse than they otherwise would be singly. It would be easier for someone to deal with starvation (not that it’s easy at all) if they got the proper amount of sleep.
It’s just monstrous what they did. Every time I read a description of what was done I immediately think of the sheer misery those prisoners went through. Unfortunately, there are far too many people in this country who can not or will not allow themselves to think about that.
You are right. It takes a toll to think about it. But it also takes a moral toll not to think about it.
Well said. Responsibility = the ability to RESPOND. With some humanity. These people (the tortured detainees) deserve amends and rehabilitation, not continued incarceration (and possible continued torture with some it sounds like) and not discussion of them like they are international nuisances we have to put up with and extricate ourselves from, we are talking about the ones found INNOCENT and there is no REMORSE ever expressed. Obvious embarrassment, but no REMORSE. Yipes.
And then you have those on the right refusing to acknowledge the vast number in Gitmo that have been recognized as innocent and already released. Hypnotic Cheney lying lying lying and media respectfully putting the mike in front of his chin.
Levels of desensitization even in the rhetoric toward the detainees, let alone their actual treatment. Citizenry in general denying the horror and the revelations it seems.
And the simultaneous use of the torture techniques. What levels of depravity.
This is Obama’s moral quagmire and all he needs to do is adequately acknowledge the wrongness in human terms (does he think that will make him a bad guy with the military, standing by them when serious WRONGS/CRIMES have been perpetrated and/or the right, such humanity so threatening to the drum beating, demonizing, fear mongerers) and allow due process. Otherwise, it is cronyism bonding he is about. Bottom-line morality not a bottom line priority with him?
Our high command is acting like the bishops who lent cronyism protection to the priests who molested children. And Obama is a new bishop, so to speak, he has not been compromised by this insanity. So why is he compromising himself now. So codependent of him.
And the leverage China has over the US and other countries to threaten when protection is offered for their “enemy” ideological refugees is something to be faced down and if not will escalate in this world of money driven power behavior and dirty amoral compromising.
You nailed it!
Amen to that.
You are absolutely right in trying to find some way to present the amplifying awfulness of torture. Perhaps, if we were physicists, we could add in equations to demonstrate that these events also occur upon people who exist in a state of time-duration, so that one can picture these events resonating over time, as well as space.
In the end, it’s the destruction of reality, the inverse of William Blake’s “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower…”
It’s the destruction of the universe inside a single body and skull.
No real argument. But we also need to remember the banality of torture. We do not want to glamorize it or build it up larger than life. Torture is hardly unimaginable or epic in scale.
On the contrary, it is grubby. Squalid. Mean-sprited, small-minded. Nasty. Perverted. It is what little bullies do to small animals and younger, smaller playmates. It is what rapists and child molesters do. It is contemptible.
This is the real reason for the desperate call for secrecy. It’s not that the perpetrators really fear for their lives if their faces are shown. It’s that they fear the reaction of their relatives, neighbors, employers, and co-workers. They have done nasty, mean things and are more familiar with drains, damp, body fluids, pain and filth than healthy folk ever are. They are yicky. They are contaminated. They don’t want anyone else to know.
People can stand almost anything but contempt. Contempt is hatred without respect or pity, hatred that is no longer personal but uniform and social.
The torturers and their confederates are more aware of this than we are. As human animals, they know, instinctively, that even those that once condoned the actions will disavow the actors once the sheer squalidness of the conduct is revealed. No one will leave children alone with with someone who has crushed a 7-year-old’s testicles–no one really believes he did it because he was ordered to. No wants to discuss the weather over coffee in the break room with someone they’ve seen drowning hooded, half-starved, bound and naked men. That’s just sick. No one lends money to people like that. No one hires them. Even spouses and parents can’t help wondering about them.
There’s a rough justice in human nature.
Appreciate your whole comment. Re the above, was thinking of Scott Peck’s book, People of the Lie. He says EVIL is laziness — laziness, to the nth degree. In terms of narcissism, and emotional inconvenience. Mark Twain once wrote something about how an adult frets more about a tear in his own trousers, than an illness of his own child. Ego is such a strong motivator. Altruism, not so much, in most.
People have a stereotype of who they think they are which is benign and socially appropriate, if not heroic, but when they are tested, and their ego is running the show in terms of impression management uber alles or the baser instincts like abuse of power and down-right sadism, and they are so out of touch with true empathy and their own sense of self, independent pathology takes over, or, in other cases, authoritarian following group think is a slippery slope, easier to go along without challenge in the short run. Amazing the ripple effect of collusion in evil. Of denial and minimization and authoritarian following. If you don’t stop it, like an addiction, it escalates. Like an addiction? Well, what am I saying? I am talking about pathology and addiction. Addiction overrides moral considerations and escalates steadily. Co-addiction enables it. Co-addiction is even more baffling and insidious! The coaddict is reactive, not proactive. The addict is proactively evil. The coaddict is passive and ineffective, despite appropriate-sounding shallow posturing.
EW, bmaz, Mary
OT sort of…
I left a comment/question on the last thread irt Panetta and contractors and whether he can protect them because of BPA language which contractors signed off on.
Panetta busy protecting torture “contractors” not the rule of law. WTF
Leen, how can I reach you about Netroots Nation?
[email protected]
Got it.
Movie by Erroll Morris, ‘Standard Operating Procedure’, on STARZ right now.
Had not seen it, only 5 min. into film about Abu Ghraib, and already I am thinking, HOLY SH*T.
Karpinski has already said enough without actually accusing Rumsfeld, to demonstrate how he firewalled himself from the Gitmo-ization of the facility.
I’m going to have to rent this and see if there’s a transcript.
I know Maddow mentioned this last night on her show, but it’s absolutely ridiculous.
Obama is giving Palau an aid package of 200 mill to take the 17 Chinese Uighurs so he won’t have to deal with reality.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..namo_palau
A little more info here, Mary.
Palau to take Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay
Pacific state Palau agrees to take Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay detention center
RAY LILLEY AP News
Jun 10, 2009 06:32 EST
“Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. was prepared to give Palau up to $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the Uighurs and as part of a mutual defense and cooperation treaty that is due to be renegotiated this year.”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c…..hp?ref=fpa
Obama is a freakin idiot. For all the Ostrich reasons, but even more for how this is going to lay in rustbelt states like IN and OH where so many have lost their jobs. They don’t give a rats ass about things like relocating the Uighurs to a Uighur community here in the states, despite the Republican posturing. They are having huge job issues and are already deeply resentful of the CEO bailouts. To find out he’s handing out 20-25 million per person to “give terrorists a home in the tropics” is just going sink. And of course that will be the Republican line, along with the lack of facilities in Palau to supervise and detain and comparisons with just keeping them at GITMO and the profligate spendthrift aspects.
Obama needs to get his butt in gear and heed his own advice and start telling people the truth and dealing with issues, not fooling himself into thinking he can buy his way out of them.
And then there’s this in Iraq:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06…..;html?_r=1
Iraq Moves Ahead With Vote on U.S. Security Pact
One of the aspects of his Exculpation of Executivetorture campaigns is that it gets a little difficult to sell a country on a SOFA that allows our forces to tromp through their countryside and that of their neighbors, dropping bombs and kidnapping or buying people at will under the assurance that of course the US will just enforce its own laws and that will make it all ok —- when the US is actively arguing in the Bagram case that its “own laws” mean that it can do anything it wants to to people it kidnaps and dumps in US camp in a foreign country, with no recourse for them in the courts or under military law, especially as that has been revised by the MCA.
And for that matter, his approach to what happens under US (non-)law (per the Obama argument – it’s all Executive whim, not law) to people that the US kidnaps and takes to a US base will likely to be *interesting* to people in other countries where we have bases and where folks aren’t that happy.
They don’t even begin to think through the long term damage they are willing to cause to get the short term breath of relief of not having to investigate someone like Kappes during a Pakistani meltdown. And of course Obama and Holder give less than a rats ass over their horrible decision to just politicize the crap out of DOJ and offer out non-prosecutions to all assortment of criminals, just so Obama won’t have to buy big boy pants and take responsiblity for pardons.
Please don’t forget Greg Craig.
I already have three German Shepherds doing that “duck away, look over shoulder” thing when I walk by, muttering. If you make me thing of Craig, too, my pups will become neurotic. Or more neurotic.
Kind of sick isn’t it? I wonder if one red cent of that will go to actually making the Uighurs comfortable and productive? My bet is no. When the initial group was settled in the Balkans, they were effectively made an isolated leper’s colony in squalid poverty with no way out. Want to bet we will do it again?
At almost $12 million per, I’m surprised there isn’t more demand for Uighurs. My town PAID almost that much for the privilege of getting an extra Wal-Mart.
Think about it–resettlement as stimulus. Your company needs a bailout? Your town lost the Chevy Blazer assembly plant? How many detainees can we put ya’ down for?
We could even have a sort of cap and trade program. These states and towns that don’t want “them” released “here” could pay other, braver states and municipalities to do their duty for them. The program could even be revenue neutral!
In all seriousnmess, I say “duty”, because duty it is. Foisting detainees off on other foreign shores for money is just another evasion of responsibility. Any detainee that is cleared or can’t be tried and still wants to stay here should get to. They should get damages as well. None of them–even those that might actually be guilty of something–were ever held for anything but domestic political advantage. Part of putting a stop to that sort of thing for good is owning up and paying the costs. Americans hate costs and remember what causes them.
That.
Cheney still in crosshairs of Senate Intelligence probe
BY JOHN BYRNE Published: June 10, 2009 Updated 23 minutes ago
“In a carefully worded statement to Mother Jones’ David Corn for an article Wednesday, a spokesman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein indicated that the conduct of individuals who briefed Congressmembers on the CIA’s interrogation program is under review.
. . .
‘“The committee has restricted this part of its review and is not examining briefings provided to other committees–such as the House intelligence committee–according to a congressional source familiar with the probe.” he adds. “But given that Cheney briefed two senior members of the Senate intelligence panel, the committee can review what Cheney told Roberts and Rockefeller about the interrogation program and evaluate whether his assertions were supported by the facts. That is, the Cheney briefing is fair game for the Senate investigators.
“Feinstein’s spokesman declined to comment on whether the committee was investigating the 2005 briefing Cheney gave Senate Intelligence Committee members.”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..nce-probe/
The David Corn article is now up at:
http://www.motherjones.com/bus…..get-cheney
Guantánamo’s Hidden History: Shocking Statistics of Starvation
10.6.09
‘“Guantánamo’s Hidden History: Shocking Statistics of Starvation” is a report I’ve compiled for Cageprisoners analyzing the weight records for prisoners at Guantánamo (released by the Pentagon in March 2007), which demonstrate that, from January 2002, when the prison opened, until February 2007, when these particular records came to an end, one in ten of the total population — 80 prisoners in total — weighed, at some point, less than 112 pounds (eight stone, or 50 kg), and 20 of these prisoners weighed less than 98 pounds (seven stone, or 44 kg).
“The report is available here (as a PDF): Guantanamo’s Hidden History: Shocking Statistics Of Starvation
. . .
Andy Worthington For Cageprisoners 10 June 2009″
http://www.andyworthington.co……tarvation/
Thanks for the link.
Thanks for that link. There’s no question that force-feeding is torture — we’ve known that for at least a century, since the scandals in England over the force-feeding of hunger-striking feminists.
Is it that hard, when you’ve got a bunch of prisoners who’ve gone on hunger strike, to sit down with them, find out whether the problem is negotiable, and then negotiate?
In Jan-Feb, Adm Walsh seemed to think things were fine at GTMO, even though we knew that prisoners were being force-fed. How much effort did the admiral expend inquiring into the hunger strikes? Pondering rational responses? Did Obama ever ask him that question? Did he ever ask that question of himself?
O/T for the car people. We already knew he didn’t know anything about cars from the earlier article I linked to on these pages somewhere, so why exactly was this man hired?
New GM chairman: ‘I don’t know anything about cars’
BY JOHN BYRNE Published: June 10, 2009 Updated 1 hour ago
“Edward Whitacre, a former AT&T hotshot whose long corporate career has been touted as an example of his big-business prowess, delivered a rather startling comment to a Bloomberg reporter on Tuesday — saying he knows nothing about the auto industry.
‘“I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre said. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..bout-cars/
O/T: Hand-and-glove.
Private Groups Foot the Bill for Pentagon Travel
Strict Rules for Congressional Trips Don’t Apply to Military
By SPENCER ACKERMAN 6/10/09 12:01 AM
“[T]he hand-in-glove relationship between private organizations that do business with the Department of Defense and the department’s employees — where, to the concern of watchdog organizations, private interests frequently open their wallets to foot the travel costs of Pentagon officials, uniformed officers and department-funded civilians in order to maintain good relationships with the Pentagon.
“According to the Center for Public Integrity’s newly created online database of Pentagon travel documents, Boeing paid for at least 37 officials’ travel expenses to various locations between 1998 and 2007, including a trip by seven enlisted airmen to the 2002 Asian Aerospace 2002 Airshow in Singapore. The total cost of the trip: $12,278. Boeing produces numerous aircraft for the Air Force, including the F-15E Strike Eagle and, along with Lockheed Martin, the F-22 fighter jet that Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently canceled.
‘“They’re sowing seeds,” said defense reform advocate Winslow Wheeler* of the Center for Defense Information of contractors who foot the bill for junior officers’ and enlisted men and women’s travel. “Some of these lieutenants and captains will be colonels and above, and they want to make sure they’ve got their hands in their pockets.”’
http://washingtonindependent.c…..gon-travel
*Another Wheeler at work!
O/T related to the article above (tax $s in the revolving door)!
Since 9/11, Iraq War Costs Have Outpaced Fighting Terrorism 3 to 1
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
“The U.S. government has not put its money where its mouth is when it comes to fighting terrorism, at least not when compared to what’s been spent on the war in Iraq. According to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service, the United States spent $217 billion from 2001 to early 2009 on Operation Enduring Freedom—launched to root out al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan—and Operation Noble Eagle, which began just after the Sept. 11 attacks to secure the nation from future acts of terrorism. This amount is dwarfed by the $642 billion that has been allocated since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was initiated to get rid of Saddam Hussein, that is, after the war stopped being about the elimination of weapons of mass destruction that never existed.
“In terms of percentages, spending on Iraq has consumed 74% of the $864 billion appropriated by Congress from FY 2001 to the first part of FY2009. Expenditures on the war in Afghanistan account for 20%, and Operation Noble Eagle only 3%.”
http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews…..to_1_90610
Apparently Rumsfeld can’t leave the country because of his “connection to war crimes”
It is possible that this is the case in the future (although I still think unlikely); but right now, I think this is pure crap.
Perhaps. Wishful thinking?!
Heh, there is nothing wrong with positive hope. However, Horton has been pitching this same line for a long time in one set of words or another; didn’t buy it then, still don’t. Rumsfeld was a high government official of the US; no first order country is going to take it upon themselves to do this. For line level personnel, maybe; high officials, it will never happen without US consent. There will never be US consent.
I’d take 17 Uighurs for $8.5 million and take good care of them for life.
Mary called this one. Its a stinker and a half. 200 million dollars? To Palau.
Its a gift to the Republican Party.
Yet, for the 17, it is their freedom.
17 x 7 years = 119 years
$1.7M per person, per year.
It’s worth it for them, no?