OMG ... Cheney Ran the CIA’s Torture Briefings

[L. Coyote]

June 3, 2009 ·By Scott Horton - http://harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-90005093
Cheney Ran the CIA’s Torture Briefings


We’re now a month past the CIA’s release of a summary to the Senate Intelligence Committee concerning its briefings of Congressional leaders about the introduction of the Bush program of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding. Two things emerge at this point. One is that the CIA’s summary is riddled with errors and grossly unreliable. It missed facts as obvious as that Porter Goss had left Congress and was running the CIA, and it lists a substantial number of briefings which never took place. By now, most of the Congressional personnel involved have flagged serious errors, but for a good introduction, watch this clip with Senator Bob Graham on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show (the interview starts at 4:20):

VIDEO = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1vatefPAgk&feature=player_embedded
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x320187


I’m with The Atlantic’s James Fallows on this point:

Graham has a general reputation for honesty. In my eyes he has a specific reputation for very good judgment: he was one of a handful of Senators actually to read the full classified intelligence report about the “threats” posed by Saddam Hussein…. More relevant in this case, Graham also has a specific reputation for keeping detailed daily records of people he met and things they said. He’s sometimes been mocked for this compulsive practice, but he’s never been doubted about the completeness or accuracy of what he compiles.

But that still leaves the question of whether the CIA reports are merely the result of weak memories or whether they were conscious dissembling for a political purpose. On this point, the record is less clear. The mistakes are generally about things on which a memory can fail: who exactly was in the room, what exactly was said. On the other hand, we now know that the CIA memorandum—which leading Democrats are convinced was leaked by individuals close to Republican ranking member Pete Hoekstra—formed the center piece of a sustained, large-scale G.O.P. campaign assailing the credibility of Nancy Pelosi. CIA Director Leon Panetta seems to have had more than a whiff of that, since he released the document with a remarkable cover memo in which he distanced himself from it and suggested it might very well prove inaccurate. (One might well ask why, in that case, Panetta released the document. In retrospect he certainly looks at least a bit foolish for having done so.) A large number of the errors in the CIA chronology do seem tailor-made to serve this political purpose.

............. OMG. · Cheney Ran the CIA’s Torture Briefings

[NNN0LHI]

1. According to the NaderNuts this will prove Pelosi knew

[L. Coyote]

3. I love that theory. They lied to everyone but the Dem leader. LOL

How anyone with a wrinkle in their cranium could fall for that lie about lies is beyond belief :rofl:

[JuniperLea]

4. I bet Pelosi knows were Obama was REALLY born too!

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

7. Right. Pelosi got to be speaker by being obtuse and out of the loop!

Everything you'd want in a leader!

All of DC knew what Cheney was up to. Nancy couldn't possibly be so incompetent to stay innocent of that knowledge.

[JuniperLea]

8. They want us to beleive that...

That is what's so incredible. I guess they have W to point to on that accord... obtuse and out of the loop is putting it mildy where W is concerned.

[EFerrari]

9. She's just a distraction anyway. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

13. Now it is down to a distraction?

So every time the Rethugs accuse Dems of something we are all distracted?

I don't think so.

Don

[EFerrari]

14. If your goal is to bring torturers to justice, yes, Nancy is a distraction.

[EFerrari]

5. I know. It's beyond incredible.

lol

[G_j]

6. huh?

guess I missed something, what is the connection with Nader?

stupid me... :shrug:

[NNN0LHI]

12. If you notice here it is the NaderNuts who are the first to attack her and other Dems

On the flimsiest evidence. I have noticed it for a long time. Same goes for the Ron Paul crazies who hang out here. They do the same thing.

Don

[G_j]

15. ==

so if I like Nader, I deserve to be flat-out & immediately insulted? You don't specifically say if every person who might appreciate Ralph Nader is a
nut, but does it matter? The point is taken.
Do people really have to degrade others as a group, right out of the gate in a conversation?

[L. Coyote]

16. What ever happened to calling trolls trolls?

[HopeHoops]

2. I wouldn't be shocked to find out he was the lead trainer!

Asshole.

[jazzjunkysue]

10. You mean all those vampire jokes were not snarky, or clever, but true?

Damn.

[PopSixSquish]

11. So Unless I'm Missing Something Regarding Nancy Pelosi

She was not yet Speaker of the House in 2005 and no longer the ranking member of the House Committee, so how and when would she have been briefed by Cheney?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_cheney_interrogations

[L. Coyote]

17. Not by Cheney, by CIA. But Cheney is being fingered as having a role in the CIA briefings.

When they lie, someone is telling them to! Someone up their chain of command, and Cheney isn't even supposed to be inserted there in the first place.