Neither of Cheney’s Illegal Programs Was Effective
DOJ’s IG on Cheney’s warrantless wiretap program:
DOJ OIG found it difficult to assess or quantify the overall effectiveness of the PSP program as it relates to the FBI’s counterterrorism activities. However, based on the interviews conducted and documents reviewed, the DOJ OIG concluded that although PSP-derived information had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the FBI’s overall counterterrorism efforts.
CIA IG on Cheney’s warrantless wiretap program:
CIA OIG determined that the CIA did not implement procedures to assess the usefulness of the product of the PSP and did not routinely document whether particular PSP reporting had contributed to successful counterterrorism operations. … consequently, it is difficult to attribute the success of particular counterterrorism case exclusively to the PSP.
[snip]
Officials also told the CIA OIG that working-level CIA analysts and targeting officers who were read into the PSP had too many competing priorities, and too many other information sources and analytic tools available to them, to fully utilize PSP reporting.
CIA’s IG on Cheney’s torture program:
As the IG Report notes, it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.
Cheney was never a “type efficace,” as the French would describe it. He fucks up everything. This is like shooting your hunting companion in the face. It’s like buying a huge load of asbestos liabilities for your company. It’s like failing out of Yale (Yale!) your freshman year.
I beg to differ.
The report states pretty clearly that (a) the programs were not really effective in an operational sense, for a couple reasons, but (b) were effective in a wholly-different (and beyond-the-scope-of-the-report sense).
The report is pretty clear in stating that operational level people (particularly analysts) were not read into the program and, when they did get information from it, it had been sanitized to remove its provenance. Thus, in the (unlikely) event program information had been effective in some way toward finding and/or stopping a bad guy from doing something bad, the operational level people would never know it had been program information they’d been using and would therefore be unable to say “hey, that program information was really useful”.
The report is also pretty clear in stating that the senior level people who were read into the program thought it “had some value” or “was useful”, but they could not point to specific examples. That, more likely than not, because they weren’t involved in actually hunting down terrists but rather in managing their people and bureaucratic infighting.
So in the actual hunting of terrists, it was of little obvious or known value.
But, in another sense it was very valuable. The existence and continuance of the program enabled Cheney to get everyone in government scared – really scared – and to keep them that way for years. Selective disclosures were used to push successfully for more executive authority. And, as of March 11, 2004, the American Republic had ceased to operate and was replaced with a dictatorship ruled by the fiat and whim of George W. Bush, as guided by Dick Cheney. They were later able, in 2007 and 2008, through the use of bluff, bullshit and “scary memos” to cow Congress (not that those spineless pussies needed much cowing) into ratifying into statutory law the dictatorial coup they’d pulled off in 2004.
And, now, they’ve managed to cow Obama (not that he needed much work, either) into giving them a free pass for “their successful crimes”.
So, the program was very, very effective.
Yes, much like something I said earlier today on a dying thread, regarding why actually torture instead of merely fabulating. Actually doing could have internal management usefulness to the like of those bastards.
although PSP-derived information had value in some coutnerterrorism investigations
Sounds hedgy to me, the kind of thing a deputy underdog might say if all they really knew was that a) topdog wanted the program regardless and b) they themselves got nothing really good out of it.
Cheney’s a bully, and bullies can always have their way with their own kind–other bullies acting it out as cowards (the bully and the coward, to my mind, being one and the same). And yes, his bullying has had its effect, has been effective in that sense. I would never deny this.
But you’ll agree that not everyone is a bully, and this, I take it, is one of the stories that’s trying to get told (maybe it never will). Mueller, for one, is not a bully, and neither is Patrick Fitzgerald. We could compose quite a list of such folk.
So?
that “conflicting priority” would be the intererst of this country, those programs were clearly illegal and some of the cia was not on board with cheney’s team b
OT: Per HuffPo:
Visibly, there has been an eigh-year pattern, policy, and practice of non notifying Congress about this program. The fact that the CIA’s new director canceled this program and informed Congress the day after he heard about it speaks well of him but only underscores the mendacity of the CIA in their dealings with Congress.
It seems that the CIA was not just misleading Congress, they were misleading their own officials including Panetta who just found out about this program the day before he reported on it to the Intelligence Committee. It raises the question of what else does he and Congress do not yet know about. Who knows how many cuckoo’s eggs Cheney and company left behind and in how many nests.
(((((scribe)))))
And my add-ons:
How could you have surveillance that the CIA agents don’t know about, while you have gutted the SEC, have put Goldman Sachs in charge of the financial regulatory mechanisms of the federal government, and know that your old tag-teamer Phil Gramm of Texas had shepherded credit derivative swaps through the Congress **as insurance contracts that were placed outside oversight**.
But you can still track banking transmissions and all other digital data?
This had to be very, very successful for whoever knew how to tag, retrieve, and manipulate data.
I need a much bigger tin foil hat.
With this group of thugs, you actually need full-body armor.
So, given all this, can someone tell me why Deadeye Dick is the only former VP who gets Secret Service protection?
I mean, is Harry Whittington out there bearing a grudge and a quail gun?
It would be good to have federal law enforcement officers who can easily take him into custody – should any of his crimes actually get prosecuted.
Maybe Obama needs them to keep an eye on Dick “Dick.”
It seems that his illegal program was primarily useful in creating terror of him, not protecting us from terrorists’ criminal behavior.
Who gets to see the classified version of this unclassified report? Will it make any difference?
The Congressional Intel committees (HPSCI and SSCI), most likely all of the high ranking grand poohbahs in the Administration, but not us lowly serfs.
As to difference, my bet is not much.
Yes, “terror of him” and he’s a bully per Alabama. I might suggest that there is a little more to it than that though. This bulliness and terror didn’t really help him become a more powerful player, or build him a nice legacy, or shield him from eventual conviction as a war criminal.
No, Cheney needs always to feed his black soul with torture, blood, killing, preferably brutal killing. And of course he has quite a few compadres in this ongoing feast. I am waiting to see if he is protected until this life of his ends “naturally”.
Follow the money. If only we could. He was terrizin
CongressWashington, DC, while simultaneously vacuuming data from everywhere through their various “surveillance” efforts. They didn’t learn that much about the terrists, but they sure got a mountain of data that could come in handy for other purposes.Thank you!!!!!!
You just synthesized what I was groping toward, but couldn’t quite distill.
And there has to be more ‘black money’ involved than any person can get their head around. This is the Dick Cheney who refused to intervene when Enron was politically destabilizing the entire state of California — an episode that we’re still seeing ripples from today. And add on the other ‘economic tools’ overseen by Phil Gramm, and it sure looks like economic treason.
Right, and all packaged in the ‘it saves lives’ meme that Cheney and company used to cover torture, wiretaps or whatever they wanted to do w/o regard to law.
Hell, not only does it ’save lives’, the economic fantasms that Gramm moved through the Senate ‘help innovation’.
Even Orwell must be rolling in his grave.
I sincerely hope that he is because I have a fervent desire for him to be an international example to humans globally that the long, slow reach of justice can and does work.
If Cheney were to account legally, through due process, it’s my view that could take the some of the heat out of a lot of the frustrations and disgust that we and others around the globe feel.
Yeah, I’m a dreamer…
But it does seem as if some kind of subterranean shifts are occuring in pretty rapid jolts right now. Something’s weird…
I’m not convinced that: “Neither of Cheney’s Illegal Programs Was Effective.”
That statement revolves on the goals of the person who is defining “effective.” From Cheney’s perspective, it was totally effective.
The PSP was such a closely guarded secret that few of the operational people who were really hunting terrorists were read into the program; and, when PSP information reached those operational people, its provenance was disguised so they could not distinguish between what was useful and what was noise.
This program was obviously not designed to help anti-terrorist agencies find the terrorists.
The operations people were not setting the targets for the information capture, but only those priviledged few who were “read” into the program.
Likely Cheney and Addington were setting the targets and obtaining the results personally. We can be sure that journalists were on the list, as whistle-blowers have told us that journalists were prime targets. Then, of course, there would be Democratic and Republican congressional representatives, the administration’s own top officials and employees.
Financial institutions and other corporations? Why not?
Information was power to Cheney — and through PSP he could access information on whoever and whatever he wanted.
Let us hope that a congressional investigation will demand to obtain the names and job capacities of everyone who set the targets and those of all who were targeted. What a massive “enemies list” that will produce. Nixon will look like a piker compared to Cheney.
Maybe once our spineless congress people discover their own names, telephone and e-mail records in Cheney’s private information bank, they will finally put impeachment on the table. It still can be done.
Was it this that Jane Harman just found out she had been caught up in? Her story was news for a day and they dropped. It must have been part of a bigger net with finer mesh than we have been told about.
It’s instructive to contrast the behavior and actions of two Nixon alums, John Dean and Dick Cheney.
The lesson John Dean learned from Watergate: The Republican Party, as evinced by Nixon and his crew, is growing ever more insane, cruel, and amoral. Follow their lead at your peril.
The lesson Dick Cheney learned from Watergate: Boy, it sucks to get caught. Glad I didn’t — now I can work to get revenge on those who caught my buddies!