Pelosi-Gate: The Diversion from Investigating War Crimes and Torture

(Sorry for the high-pitched whine in the audio - I'm working on that)

Last night on Rachel, the issue of just what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it was examined for once with a less than jaundiced eye toward ignoring the entire "War Crimes Were Committed" thing.

I don't have a lot to add that I didn't already say in "Leave Nancy Pelosi (The Frack) Alone!"

Except to point out that at this point in time Sen Bob Graham's notes also contradict the CIA's, and even Leon Panetta basically says the CIA's information can't be trusted. This "Controvesy" is essentially all over, except for the whining.

Like this....



If we're going to continue down this road of nit-picking everything Democrats knew and did concerning what the Republicans are increasingly starting to admit Was Torture, it's only fair that we look at and examine what Porter Goss - who was head of the House Intelligence Committe at the time of those famed briefings - or what Senator Roberts his counter-part did.

Lay it All out On the Table.

Let's talk about Ibn Shayhk al-Libi who in February of 2002 was water-boarded and "broken" - then when he wouldn't give up link between Saddam and Bin Laden, he was buried alive until he did claiming that Saddam had been training al-Qaeda operatives on the use of Chemicals weapons.

Except that he DIDN'T.

Saddam didn't train al-Qaeda. Saddam didn't even have any Chemical Weapons anymore, and we knew it because the head of Iraqi Intelligence Habbush told us so in January of 2003.

Instead of listening to the truth, they requested that Habbush forge a letter claiming that Mohammad Atta was trained in Iraq.

In August 2002, Abu Zubaydah was water-boarded 80 times after he gave up KSM and Jose Padilla because he hadn't linked Saddam to Al-Qaeda yet.

In March 2003, KSM was water-boarded 183 after he revealed information about the Library tower plot (which had already been foiled) because he wouldn't tell us where Al-Qaeda washiding in Iraq.

In April 2003, Cheney's Office requested the Water-boarding of an Iraqi P.O.W. (in clear violation of Geneva since it was never denied to Iraqis by President Bush), simply to get him to tell us about - you guessed it - Links between Saddam and al-Qeada.

is it starting to look a bit like "The Facts are being made to fit the Policy?" They were.

Before the Iraqi invasion every bit of evidence against Saddam either came from a liar like >Curveball (aka "Rafid Alwan"), a blatant forgery or Torture.

All of these people were tortured to Justify a Lie!

THAT'S THE ISSUE, not which briefing Nancy Pelosi received while she was in the minority in Congress, and whether she was willing to violate National Security Classification Laws to "get the word out" - while every other Republican around like Goss, Hoekstra and Roberts stood by silently.

Vyan

The Bush Torture Conspiracy - Part 2: Infighting and Dissent

Contrary to the claims that the Bush Administrations internal decision conspiracy to implement a policy of War Crimes and Torture had always been smooth and without dissent, the New York Times reports today that besides the ignored and even covered-up memos from State Dept Counsels William Howard Taft IV (pdf) and Phillip Zelikow - we now have information that indicates that the CIA's own Inspector General argued forcefully against the techniques as not only illegal, but ineffective.

The consensus of top administration officials about the C.I.A. interrogation program, which they had approved without debate or dissent in 2002, began to fall apart the next year. Acutely aware that the agency would be blamed if the policies lost political support, nervous C.I.A. officials began to curb its practices much earlier than most Americans know: no one was waterboarded after March 2003, and coercive interrogation methods were shelved altogether in 2005. Yet even as interrogation methods were scaled back, former officials now say, the battle inside the Bush administration over which ones should be permitted only grew hotter. There would be a tense phone call over the program’s future during the 2005 Christmas holidays from Steven J. Hadley, the national security advisor, to Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director; a White House showdown the next year between Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney; and Ms. Rice’s refusal in 2007 to endorse the executive order with which Mr. Bush sought to revive the C.I.A. program.

The real trouble began on May 7, 2004, the day the C.I.A. inspector general, John L. Helgerson, completed a devastating report. In thousands of pages, it challenged the legality of some interrogation methods, found that interrogators were exceeding the rules imposed by the Justice Department and questioned the effectiveness of the entire program.

This IG report completely contradicted the legal analysis and rationales that had been provided by Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury and helped lead to the shutdown of the program, even prior to the passage of the McCain sponsored Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 in the wake of the Abu Ghraib Scandal.

Yet amazingly, even after Abu Ghraib and passage of the DTA, Cheney and Bradbury attempted to revive the program over the objections of Rice and NSA Counsel John Bellinger III.

Still, Mr. Cheney and top Justice Department officials fought to revive the program. Steven G. Bradbury, the head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel and author of the recently declassified 2005 memorandums authorizing harsh C.I.A interrogations, began drafting another memorandum in late 2006 to restore legal approval for harsh interrogation. Mr. Bradbury noted that Congress, despite the public controversy, had left it to the White House to set the limits. Early drafts of the memorandum, circulated through the White House, the C.I.A. and the State Department, stunned some officials. Just months after the Supreme Court had declared that the Geneva Convention applied to Al Qaeda, the new Bradbury memorandum gave its blessing to almost every technique, except waterboarding, that the C.I.A. had used since 2002.

Forced as secretary of state to defend the C.I.A. program before angry European allies, Ms. Rice and her aides argued that it had outlived its usefulness. In February 2007, Mr. Bellinger wrote to the Justice Department challenging Mr. Bradbury’s position. He called Mr. Bradbury’s memorandum a “work of advocacy” that gave a twisted interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, and told colleagues he might resign.

In 2007 President Bush - possibly exploiting a loophole in the DTA which allowed CIA personnel and contractors to exceed the Army Field Manual - re-instituted the interrogation program, despite the CIA IG Report and the Hamdan v Rumsfeld which had reinstated Geneva protections to detainees. In this go-around the Waterboarding and nudity which had previously been authorized were prohibited, but various other methods remained.

Bellinger's indictment of Bradbury's memo and Bush's decision to ultimately ignore the law and knowingly implement a plan that both the CIA and NSA doubted was either legal or effective may ultimately prove to be the final, sad, shameful CRIMINAL epitaph of his administration.

Vyan