Posted on 11/17/2005 6:17:39 PM PST by Roberts
A former CIA director has exclusively told ITV News that torture is condoned and even approved by the Bush government.
The devastating accusations have been made by Admiral Stansfield Turner who labelled Dick Cheney "a vice president for torture".
He said: "We have crossed the line into dangerous territory".
The American Senate says torture should be banned - whatever the justification. But President Bush has threatened to veto their ruling.
The former spymaster claims President Bush is not telling the truth when he says that torture is not a method used by the US.
Speaking of Bush's claims that the US does not use torture, Admiral Turner, who ran the CIA from 1977 to 1981, said: "I do not believe him".
On Dick Cheney he said "I'm embarrassed the United States has a vice president for torture.
"He condones torture, what else is he?".
Admiral Turner claims the secret CIA prisons used for torture are known as 'black sites', terror suspects are picked up in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
They are flown by CIA-controlled private aircraft to countries where there are secret interrogation centres, operating outside any country's jurisdiction.
No one will confirm their locations, but there are several possibilities: The Mihail-Kogalniceanu military airbase in Romania is believed by many to be one such facility.
Admiral Turner's remarks were echoed by Republican Senator John McCain, himself a victim of torture in Vietnam.
He said torturing to get information was immoral, was not effective and encouraged potential enemies to do the same to Americans.
Both Mr Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice have repeatedly stated that torture by US forces is not condoned.
And just think his minions are STILL working at the CIA
Turner is a worthless POS. I love how he gutted eliminated virtually all HUMINT, thus putting us in a strong disadvantage, especially in Asia. (i.e., Afghanistan)
After gutting the CIA and the Church reforms, he then proceeded to send the gutted CIA into Afghanistan to help start up the mujahideen without any HUMINT.
Church reforms made us completely dependent on the Saudis for funding, and Turner made us completely dependent on on Pakistan for intelligence and territory.
Jimmy Carter should be proud that he tied the hands of the intelligence community and forced us to rely on other countries to carry out objectives.
Stansfield Turner single handedly, well with an assist from Jimmy Carter, took the hunan out of American human intel. A profound idiot.
He took out all ground-based intelligence and relied on satellite observation...ruined the CIA and it's intelligence
gathering capabilities. Basically blinded the US to what
terrorists were developing.
It wouldn't surprise me if some of these traitors are already doing just that behind the scenes.
These people are a danger to our very existence.
Ramsey Clark offered to defend Hussein after he was pulled out of that rathole.
Was ol' Stansfield the CIA Director in charge of getting us taking hosage in Iran and giving the Middle East over to the people who became Al Qaeda??? Or maybe I was thinking of somebody else....
Yeppers.
Looks like that action was most likely applauded by x42, the nightmare that never ends. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1523846/posts
The mujahideen was created after President Carter signed an Intelligence Finding that authorized covert operations in Afghanistan.
The idea was to create a guerrilla type atmosphere against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The problem we had was that we had no human intel on the ground over there. Second, the Church reforms tied the hands of the CIA funding covert operations because they would have to publicly ask for the money for covert operations.
Therefore, with the help of the Saudis, young wahabi muslims were sent from Saudi (other countries as well, but mainly Saudi) to fight against the Soviets. It was an issue of Islam, and not anything really to do with Afghanistan. That was the unifying factor that got these people over there.
These guys were the resistance against the Soviets, and eventually turned into AQ and shifted their focus from the Soviets to ending reliance on the US from Saudi Arabia.
Thanks to George Friedman for most of this information. UI hope I did it justice.
Exactly. I would bet that Turner has essentially no idea what the CIA is doing today in the war on terror.
The left is trying to change the definition of the word torture in the same way they're trying to change the definition of marraige. The left wants to define torture as any form of physical discomfort during an interrogation. If we make someone stand up for three hours, that is "torture" to the left. If we make someone uncomfortably hot or cold for a while, that is "torture" to the left. Although I have read about a couple of instances when the heat was turned up too high for too long, in principle the idea of making someone feel too hot or cold is not torture. While we do have to keep these interrogation practices under control, mild physical discomfort is not torture.
Real torture is when a group of men crash a jet plane loaded with fuel into a building and soak the people inside in burning jet fuel so that all their skin peels off of them, and after that the building collapses and crushes them under tons of concrete and steel. That's real torture. That's what the CIA is working to prevent.
Know the enemy....
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Stansfield Turner (born 1 December 1923) was a U.S. admiral and Director of Central Intelligence.
Turner attended both Amherst College and attained a commission in the United States Navy. During his naval career he served as commander of U.S forces of Japan and Korea, as well as Southern Command of NATO.
He served as president of Naval War College from 1972 to 1974 and was subsequently director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1977 to 1981 (Jimmy Carter's administration). He was a member of the Monsanto board of directors. He is now a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park's School of Public Policy.
Under Turner's direction, the CIA emphasized TECHINT and SIGINT more than HUMINT. This organizational direction is notable because William Casey was seen to have a completely opposite approach, focusing much of his attention on HUMINT. He gave notable testimony to Congress revealing much of the extent of the MKULTRA program, which the CIA ran from the early 1950s to late 1960s. Reform and simplification of the intelligence community's multilayered secrecy system was one of Turner's significant initiatives, but produced no results by the time he left office.
He has written several books, including 2005's Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence, in which he advocates disbanding the CIA.
Notable ancestors include Jerrold Gaylord Turner (1743-1802).
Also
http://edwardjayepstein.com/archived/whokilled.htm
http://www.maebrussell.com/Stansfield%20Turner/Stansfield%20Turner,%20Agency%20Infighting%20WP%205-13-85.html
I was looking for the article where his wife was killed and he escaped death in South America. Help anyone?
Somebody oughta slip this guy the same snack that someone (allegedly) served Arafat.
The liberals have turned this into a food fight.
Even if we were torturing terrorists we would not publicize that information.
Nothing is out of bounds, nothing is too undignified or preposterous.
The liberals have sunk to the level of the National Enquirer.
> Did any one in the Carter crew have any sense at all? Anyone? Stansfield Turner is a lunatic, idiotic horses ass. But that might not be fair to horses.
I used to chalk Carter's mishaps up to incompetance. But his behavior in recent years has led me to believe that he is and was just a commie working to undermine this nation. His appointments certainly reflected that.
There was a case similar to that in Boston 30 years ago. Guy killed a girl. Group of guys kidnapped him, tortured him til he showed them the shallow grave.
They couldn't prosecute him because of that illegal information-gathering method.
This from Jimmy Carter's CIA director, the guy that couldn't prevent or predict 444 days of humiliation to this country. Yes, I'm going to take this guy's words of wisdom. /sarcasm off
People of color should be outraged!
sarcasm/
BTW: Turner learned everything he knows about the CIA from Amy Carter. Amy used to lecture Stansfield when she wasn't busy playing in her treehouse.
Well, he DID give us the misery index.
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