I’ve been meaning to go back to compare the chronology laid out by Dan Rather in his complaint as it pertains to Abu Ghraib with the chronology of the Taguba investigation and the Hamdi case. Two things stick out. First, Myers pretended to be ignorant of the details of the abuse on May 6, several weeks after he called Dan Rather personally to spike–or delay–the story. Second, it appears the news of the abuse leaked to 60 Minutes and others at about the time the military put Major General Geoffrey Miller in charge of responding to the abuse–suggesting the leak may well have been a response to the military’s attempt to cover up the abuse and investigation. And finally, as lysias noted, the attempts to postpone the story would have delayed the Abu Ghraib revelation after the time when Paul Clement assured SCOTUS there was no torture.

Scribe noted in his comment that Rummy probably also called CBS to get them to spike the story. If Rather gets Rummy under oath, he may well have to reveal who in the Administration knew of the torture–and either didn’t tell Ted Olson and Paul Clement. Or did.

August 31 to September 9, 2003: Major General Geoffrey Miller ordered to Abu Ghraib from Gitmo

October 1, 2003: Hamdi petition filed with SCOTUS

Fall 2003: General Sanchez visits Abu Ghraib regularly

January 9, 2004: SCOTUS agrees to hear Hamdi

January 13, 2004: Joseph Darby gives CID a CD of images of abuse

January 15, 2004: General Craddick receives email summary of story

January 19, 2004: General Sanchez requests investigation of allegations of abuse

January 20, 2004: Craddick and Admiral Keating receive another notice of abuse

January 2004: General Myers learns of abuse

January 31, 2004: Taguba appointed to conduct investigation

February 2 to 29, 2004: Taguba’s team in Iraq, conducting investigation

March 9, 2004: Taguba submits his report

Late March, 2004: 60 Minutes II starts on story

April 2004: General Miller ordered to Abu Ghraib to fix problems

April 7, 2004 (approximately): 60 Minutes II acquires photos authenticating Abu Ghraib story

Mid-April, 2004: General Myers calls Dan Rather to ask him to delay story

Mid-April, 2004: Taguba begins to brief officers on his report ("weeks" before his May 6 meeting with Rummy)

April 28, 2004: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld argued before SCOTUS; Paul Clement assures SCOTUS that the Administration doesn’t torture

QUESTION: May I ask just one other question, I think it’s just relevant. But do you
think there is anything in the law that curtails the method of interrogation that may be employed?

MR. CLEMENT: Well, I think there is, Justice Stevens. I mean —

QUESTION: And what is that?

MR. CLEMENT: Well, just to give one example, I think that the United States is signatory
to conventions that prohibit torture and that sort of thing. And the United States is going to honor its treaty obligations. The other thing that’s worth mentioning of course —

QUESTION: But you said something about self-executing. In connection with the Geneva
Convention, you said, well, it’s not self-executing. Would you say the same thing about the torture convention?

MR. CLEMENT: Justice Ginsburg, I actually have the sense that the torture victims — you have the Torture Victim Protection Act, of course, which I think doesn’t actually apply to the United States. So I’m not sure that there would be any other basis for bringing a private cause of action against the United States. But as this Court noted in footnote 14 of the Eisentrager opinion, the idea that a treaty is going to be enforced through means other than a private cause of action doesn’t mean that it’s not a binding treaty, doesn’t mean that it’s not going to constrain the actions of the executive branch. Just to finish up my answer to Justice
Stevens’ question, I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about this. It’s also the judgment of those involved in this process that the last thing you want to do is torture somebody or try to do something along those lines.

April 28, 2004: Abu Ghraib story airs on 60 Minutes II

May 6, 2004: Taguba meets with Rummy, Wolfowitz, Cambone, Myers, and others

In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib. "Could you tell us what happened?" Wolfowitz asked.

[snip]

“Here I am,” Taguba recalled Rumsfeld saying, “just a Secretary ofDefense, and we have not seen a copy of your report. I have not seenthe photographs, and I have to testify to Congress tomorrow and talkabout this.”

May 7, 2004: Rummy testifies before Congress

June 28, 2004: Hamdi decision

At least that’s what I infer from the comments of the lawyer from the public defender’s nonprofit that will now take on Wilkes’ defense in one of two cases (thanks to chrisc for sending this on) he has been charged on.

A lawyer from Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc., a nonprofit thatrepresents indigent people accused of federal crimes, will representWilkes in the criminal case with co-defendant Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, theformer third-highest-ranking official at the CIA.

[snip]

Federal Defenders of San Diego has several experienced lawyers who havecleared stringent background checks, Frank Mangan, the nonprofit’ssenior litigator said in an interview. The attorneys have worked oncases of enemy combatants accused of terrorism and who are being heldin Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Mangan said.

One of the office’s 40 lawyers will appear with Wilkes at ahearing scheduled for next month. At that point, Burns is expected toset a new trial date in 2008.

At issue is that Wilkes’ selected lawyer, Mark Geragos, refused to get a security clearance in a case in which one of the charged crimes has to do with Wilkes and Foggo setting up an air service of the type the CIA uses to conduct its extraordinary renditions. The judge in the case, Larry Burns, threw Geragos off the case and, after reviewing Wilkes’ financial declaration, decided that Wilkes is now indigent and will have a government-paid lawyer. I kind of like the karma that Wilkes will likely be defended by a guy that has also defended the kinds of people Wilkes aspired to deliver unto torture.

If you haven’t already, go read Jane Mayer’s article on our methods of torture. The short version: we’re using psychological methods to impose "learned helplessness" and dependency, and as a result, we’re getting some intelligence, a whole lot of garbage, and we’re turning our own interrogators into moral zombies.

I wanted to focus on one aspect of the calculated humiliation she describes:

A former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the “takeout”of prisoners as a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, duringwhich a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded,sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported byplane to a secret location.

[snip]

The interrogation became a process not just of getting information butof utterly subordinating the detainee through humiliation.” The formerC.I.A. officer confirmed that the agency frequently photographed theprisoners naked, “because it’s demoralizing.” The person involved inthe Council of Europe inquiry said that photos were also part of theC.I.A.’s quality-control process. They were passed back to caseofficers for review. [my emphasis]

Part of the very calculating treatment we give these detainees is photographing them, both to humiliate them and for "quality-control." (Quality control of what? Is this like glorified meat inspection?)

I wanted to call attention to these passages because of the dust-up between the Administration and the ACLU last December. Here’s a series of posts I did tracking the dust-up:

• The Administration tries to force the ACLU to return a classified document pertaining to torture
• The Administration wants the document back because it shows how its torture policy changed in December 2005
• The Administration declassifies the document rather than risking a court decision against it on classified issues;the document describes a change in the official policy on photographing detainees

Click through to the last link for a history of our changing official policy on photographing detainees.

I raise this dust-up for two reasons. First, to show how the calculating process of using photos (and other humiliation) to dehumanize detainees has a parallel in the calculating process of legally codifying that practice. But also to call attention to the way this exacting process of photographing detainees for "quality-control" purposes can backfire.

BushCo’s attempts to get its photographing policy returned closely followed the ACLU’s attempts to get photographs of the detainees it was representing. Somewhere, there’s a a collection of photos of the ways and people we’ve dehumanized.

The photos from Abu Ghraib showed how out-of-control our interrogations in Iraq were. Somewhere there’s an equally shocking catalog of photos showing how inhumane our more formalized practices are, too.

There are two stories out today claiming Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, is really wearing the pants in the Executive Branch’s dealings with intelligence. The NYT has McConnell describing tremendous pressure from Congress, yet insisting he got no pressure from the White House.

In an interview in his office, Mr. McConnell insisted on Tuesday thathe never felt direct pressure from the White House to reject theDemocratic proposal, and that contrary to statements from seniorDemocrats he had never given a verbal commitment to their plan.

[snip]

“My job is to speak truth to power,” he said.

And the LAT has McConnell’s spokesperson claiming the same:

A spokesman for McConnell rejected assertions that he had changed hisposition or been used for political purposes by the White House. "TheWhite House did not play any part in rejecting that bill," said RossFeinstein, a McConnell spokesman. McConnell "made his own decisions. Hewas clear all along on what he needed in the bill."

In handlingthose negotiations, McConnell was thrust into a delicate position. Bytradition, the nation’s top intelligence official is supposed to beinsulated from political pressure or from debates over policy. But atthe same time, the director is appointed by the president and serves ashis top intelligence aide.

"He is the president’s seniorintelligence advisor, not Congress’ senior intelligence advisor," saidMark Lowenthal, a former top CIA official and intelligence historian.But, he added, "I don’t think McConnell would ever allow himself to beput in the position of doing the bidding of the White House. It’s justnot who the guy is."

Both stories contradict the stories TPMM and others were getting from during the negotiations.

Given the contradiction, I couldn’t help but remember the reports from negotiations on Bush’s recent Executive Order on torture (including one from Mark Mazzetti, the author of today’s NYT piece).

One good thing about the spectacular abuse of intelligence to get us into the Iraq war: the intelligence community is acquiring a habit of releasing key judgments from its NIEs (I understand we’ll get an Iraq NIE in time for September’s moving of the goal posts). And when I read the claim yesterday that half the content of last week’s NIE on terrorism came from detainee interrogations …

According to one senior intelligence official, nearly half of thesource material used in the recent National Intelligence Estimate onthe terrorism threat to the United States came from C.I.A.interrogations of detainees.

… I decided it would be useful to compare this most recent NIE with the NIE on terror produced in April 2006 and released in late September 2006. After all, the NIEs have been produced in fairly quick succession. But the NIEs were produced under different Directors of National Intelligence (Death Squads Negroponte for the last one, and Mike McConnell for this one) and under different majority parties. The previous NIE, unlike this most recent one, may have relied on intelligence gathered using torture. And the previous one was only declassified after it was leaked that the NIE contradicted public statements from the Administration; whereas this one was developed with the understanding an unclassified version would be released

It’s really tough sorting out the new Executive Order on torture. But after a whole day of pondering the details, I think I’m finally getting it. It’s yet another Bush signing statement, this time to record his own personal interpretation of the Geneva Convention. After all–that’s where this new EO came from: after SCOTUS, in Hamdan, told Bush that all detainees were covered by the Geneva Convention, after Congress, with the Military Commissions Act, told Bush he could shred concepts like habeas corpus but only if he had documentation for doing so, he was forced to write this new EO.

Charlie Savage provides a good overview:

Bush’s executive order laid out broad guidelines for how the CIAmust treat detainees in its secret overseas prisons, where theadministration has held some suspects without giving them access to theRed Cross. The document prohibits a range of abuses, including"intentionally causing serious bodily injury" and "forcing theindividual to perform sexual acts," as well as mistreating the Koran.

Theorder also said the CIA director must personally approve the use ofextraordinary interrogation practices against any specific detainee.Detainees must also receive "adequate food and water, shelter from theelements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat andcold, and essential medical care," it said.

But most of thepresident’s executive order is written in generalities, leavingunanswered whether the CIA will be free to subject prisoners to a rangeof specific techniques it has reportedly used in the past, includinglong-term sleep disruption, prolonged shackling in painful stresspositions, or "waterboarding," a technique that produces the sensationof drowning.

That is, some of the most obvious abuses–using sex and religion–are now forbidden. But the key information, what remains permitted, is in a separate, classified list that we don’t get to see. And three other key details: the Executive Order explicitly denies any legal responsibilities associated with the EO, so even if some overzealous torturer ignores it, he’s not going to jail. The Red Cross remains unable to monitor prisoners in this newfangled "enhanced interrogation" program. And Congress still doesn’t have a copy of the DOJ opinion on the program. For that matter, Karen DeYoung reports that the Administration hasn’t responded to Congress’ other questions, either.

They said the administration has not responded to the questions theyasked during a recent briefing on the new order and the detaineeprogram.

Mind you, this is the DOJ review that Congress mandated as part of the Military Commissions Act. But I guess that’s classified too.

Credit where it’s due. Tom Maguire hits all the right notes about this Novak book excerpt, save one. He notes that Novak’s story has a way of changing with the seasons.

Interesting.  This old post has the Novak version before he was willing to name Armitage; here is Novak (post-"Hubris") rebutting Armitage’s version.

There are subtle shifts in the story – now we are told that "Hementioned her first name, Valerie", a detail not presented earlier.

I love the way righties note how changeable Novak’s story is–yet they always seem to fall for his most ridiculous lines. Like about how, when he referred to Valerie Plame as a covert Agent, he really meant she was running a Congressional campaign in Wyoming (no really–he did say that once–you think he’s got former Congressmen from Wyoming on his mind)?

Oh wait. This is a credit where it’s due post. Sorry. Maguire also points out that Novak’s cover story about Fran Townsend is changing too.

OK, we have had that before – the prevailing version as told by Murray Waas has been that the Townsend column came out on July 10;Rove defended her to Novak at length on the 8th or 9th, and then Novakslipped in a question about Wilson’s wife and Karl responded with "Iheard that, too".

But now Novak tells us that the Townsend column was written on July7.  Hmm – in that case, what did he and Karl find to talk about on July8 or 9?  Or had Rove "heard that, too" in a chat with Novak on the 7theven before Novak met with Armitage?

Well done, Maguire. Posts like these are why you’re a respectable Plameologist.

But Maguire misses one point. A big one. An awfully big one. You see, Novak says he was reporting on Townsend on July 7, before (Maguire accepts Novak here) he called Rove. Maguire points out how that may or may not challenge Novak’s cover story about calling Rove to talk about Townsend. But he doesn’t do the obvious–like asking who, if not Rove, Novak was talking to about Townsend on July 7. I’ll remind you of this passage in Murray Waas’ story on this issue (which Maguire links but apparently doesn’t re-read that closely).

The senior staff in the Office of the Vice President adamantly opposedTownsend’s appointment. The staff included two of Cheney’s closestaides: Libby, then the chief of staff and national security adviser tothe vice president; and David Addington, who at the time was Cheney’scounsel but who has since succeeded Libby as chief of staff.

Among other things, Libby and Addington believed that Townsendwould bring a more traditional approach to combating terrorism, andfeared she would not sign on to, indeed might even oppose, the OVP’spolicy of advocating the use of aggressive and controversial toolsagainst terror suspects. One of those techniques is known as"extraordinary rendition," in which terror suspects are taken toforeign countries, where they can be interrogated without the samelegal and human-rights protections afforded to those in U.S. custody,including the protection from torture.

Libby’s opposition to Townsend was so intense that he asked atleast two other people in the White House to obtain her personnelrecords. [my emphasis]

Now who do you think Novak might have been talking to on July 7? Who do you think might have seeded the Townsend story that she was a Democrat and shouldn’t be hired? Golly. I can’t even begin to guess. And mind you, Novak would have to have been talking to someone intimately involved in the 16 words controversy, because that’s why he brings this up in the first place. And according to his (changing) testimony, the 16 words was precisely what he spoke to Libby about.

Good thing we know that Libby and Novak would have been forthcoming about it if they had had a meeting on July 7, huh?

Two more nitpicky points. First, I’ll reiterate my point that if Novak initiated his question to Armitage by saying, "Joe Wilson never worked at the CIA," it still raises the question of why he believed that, when Wilson’s resume (or Who’s Who entry, since Novak claims to be a fan) wouldn’t be enough to make that claim. He wouldn’t know that, definitively, unless someone with clearance had told him.

And lastly, this is, necessarily, unmitigated bullshit.

When I went to my office Monday, July 7, 2003, Joe Wilson was not in the forefront of my mind. Frances Fragos Townsend was.

The reason this is clearly bullshit is because Novak is simultaneously (at least as of February) arguing that the reason he called Wilson an "asshole" to Wilson’s friend on July 8 is because he was so pissed at how rude (ha! some fierce pot-calling here) Wilson was on Meet the Press, on July 6. Novak has basically argued (for the sake of pretending he didn’t speak to someone before he spoke to Armitage) that he was obsessed with what an asshole Wilson was from the time Novak ran into him in the Green Room to the time he ran into Wilson’s friend on the street. That is, he was fuming about that asshole Joe Wilson from July 6 to July 8.

Which is it, Novak? Were you fuming for two days straight? Or did you speak to someone on July 7–someone who wanted Townsend fired, like Scooter Libby–who told you Wilson was an asshole?

I’ve talked about Cheney’s and Addington’s Methods. Now I’d like to inventory the sources that Gellman and Becker used for their articles, as a way to understand where the shifting loyalties of the Administration lie. One thing that becomes clear by mapping this out is the centrality of Josh Bolten to many of the more damning accusations against Cheney. Thus, while these articles may reflect the fingerprints of Poppy (likely) or Scooter (implausible, IMO), I think it is primarily an attempt by the COS and possibly Condi to bring Cheney under control, aided by former Administration lawyers they know to have soured on Cheney’s ways.

The anonymous sources at the bottom serve as a way of filling out who the named sources are below. For a list of all the people mentioned in the articles, see this page.

John Ashcroft: John Ashcroft is a named source (albeit a vague one) for a key confrontation in Gonzales’ office and a likely unnamed source for some of the other disputes. It’ll be interesting to see if he increasingly makes such public comments, seeing as how his testimony before HPSCI the other day clearly backed up Comey’s.

James Baker: Is quoted in part two and shares his notes in part one (though the notes may come from someone’s library). Baker states clearly that Cheney has been about the accumulation of power.

Brad Berenson: Curiously, the designated GOP firewall defense lawyer is a boisterous source for these articles (though, from personal experience, I can attest he is approachable). He seems intent on minimizing his own role–and that of John Yoo (whom he calls a "supporting player").

Josh Bolten: Bolten seems to be an important source for these stories, which raises very interesting questions about Bush’s own view of the article. The quote that best sums up Bolten’s critical attitude towards Cheney’s power is this one: "The vice president didn’t particularly warm to that," Bolten recalled dryly. Bolten is, of course, describing how Cheney refused to play an ordinary VP role, with some apparent bemusement. There’s a later quote–The White House proposal, said Bolten, the chief of staff, "did not come out exactly as the vice president would have wanted."–that sounds like Bolten gloating.

David Bowker: Source for some of the issues affecting Powell.

Bryan Cunningham: Cunningham seems to be the source for the details about how Cheney and Addington bypassed Bellinger. He has left government to go into private consulting, so presumably his loyalties may be very anti-Cheney. Note that Bellinger himself is a Rice loyalist; if he is a source for this it would lend credence that she participated in this effort.

Gordon England: England describes his dismay about Addington’s maneuvers on torture.

Tim Flanigan: Flanigan offers nowhere near as many on the record comments as Berenson and Yoo. It may be he’s stuck in the position of defending the indefensible, and therefore remains more quiet. His most telling comment, however, is this one:

he still believes that Addington and Yoo were right in their"application of generally accepted constitutional principles." But heacknowledged that many battles ended badly. "The Supreme Court,"Flanigan said, "decided to change the rules."

That is, he’s just bummed (and talking) because Addington’s efforts backfired.

Mike Gerson: Mike Gerson is described as an opponent to black sites, yet describes Cheney’s motives favorably. There are a few more comments that similarly criticize Cheney while treating him as honorable which may come from him.

Bob Graham: There’s no surprise seeing Graham provide details about the domestic wiretap program. He is one source (potentially the only one) reporting on the first briefing on the program given by Cheney.

David Gribben: Curiously, the article describes David Gribben as a friend from grad school. It doesn’t mention he was also a Defense and Halliburton employee while Cheney was in charge, or that he was instrumental in the transition. Gribben’s named quote seems to defend Cheney’s method of sending "messages" while firing disloyal employees, which sure suggests Gribben remains loyal. As the one named OVP staffer in the article (Matalin aside) Gribben may be the source for some of the comments about Cheney’s intentions.

Mary Matalin: Matalin is one of the surrogates for Cheney and Addington (both of whom declined to be interviewed). She stresses how important Cheney is, without commenting on the legality or efficacy of what he has done.

Brian McCormack: McCormack is one of the many people that has moved from Cheney’s staff eventually onto Bush’s (which surely helps Cheney keep tabs). Curiously, McCormack moved through the corrupt world of Defense acquisitions before ending up in a public liaison function (which, according to Susan Ralston, works with outside constituencies, which means he may remain in the corrupt world of crony contracting. McCormack’s named quote is fairly vanilla, though he seems to be one of the few people who would talk about how Cheney set up his fiefdom even before Bush v. Gore was decided.

Alberto Mora: One of the military lawyers fighting back against Cheney, Mora is a likely source for some of the later meetings on torture.

Dan Quayle: Dan Quayle is a named source used to (humorously, IMO) depict how far out of the norm Cheney is. There are few interesting questions of loyalty in what he says.

William Taft: A Powell loyalist, Taft shows up admitting that he was an easy mark because he misunderstood the stakes of the fight.

John Yoo: Yoo is a named source for one incident where Cheney and Addington ignored his advice (not to spread the use of torture to the military). He may well be the source for some of the very detailed descriptions of the Addington/Yoo/Flanigan/Gonzales interactions.

Sidney Blumenthal and I were apparently making the same point at about the same time. Not long after I argued, on a panel on the Imperial Presidency, that there are those within the Administration who believe in the rule of law and can therefore be mobilized against it, Sidney was finishing up his column making that point in much more comprehensive fashion.

In private, Bushadministration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental informulating and sustaining the legal "war paradigm" acknowledge thattheir efforts to create a system for detainees separate from dueprocess, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed. One of thekey framers of the war paradigm(in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chiefmakes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutionalsystem of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehementlyfor pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his beliefin the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. If he wereto speak up, given his seminal role in formulating the policy and hisstature among the Federalist Society cadres that run it, his rejectionwould have a shattering impact, far more than political philosopherFrancis Fukuyama’s denunciation of the neoconservatism he formerlyembraced. But this figure remains careful to disclose hisdisillusionment with his own handiwork only in off-the-recordconversations. Yet another Bush legal official, even now at thecommanding heights of power, admits that the administration’s policiesare largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint ofirony or sarcasm, "Not everything we’ve done has been illegal." Headds, "Not everything has been ultra vires" — a legal term referringto actions beyond the law.

The resistance within the administration to Bush’s torturepolicy, the ultimate expression of the war paradigm, has come to an endthrough attrition and exhaustion. More than two years ago, VicePresident Dick Cheney’s then chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libbyand then general counsel David Addington physically cornered one of thefew internal opponents, subjecting him to threats, intimidation andisolation.

It’s weird, blogging the Libby trial. I’m putting out details at such a tremendous rate all day that I have a real hard time getting the big picture–though I do get that by the time I talk it through with others here. But I do feel like I’m missing the middle ground.

Except relating to one thing. David Addington. By far the biggest surprise to me, in terms of personal impressions, is David Addington.

As I’ve been reminding at every opportunity, David Addington is Mr. Unitary Executive, the guy who has provided legal justification for many of Cheney’s biggest power grabs: torture, extraordinary rendition, domestic spying, and so on.

I truly expected his interviews to be terribly hostile. I truly expected to see Addington bristle at every question. But that didn’t happen.