Posted on 04/25/2009 3:41:05 PM PDT by Red Steel
This is vital, because it reveals just how bad a card Cheney has to play in protecting himself from being prosecuted as a war criminal. The CIA inspector general's report found no evidence that torture had given any information that would not have been found using legal and moral means. Even one of the legal architects of the torture program, Steven Bradbury, had to concede that much:
"It is difficult to quantify with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program," Steven G. Bradbury, then the Justice Department's principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in a May 30, 2005, memo to CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, one of four released last week by the Obama administration.
"As the IG Report notes, it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks. And because the CIA has used enhanced techniques sparingly, 'there is limited data on which to assess their individual effectiveness'," Bradbury wrote, quoting the IG report.
More salient for future war crime prosecutions will be the fact that the actual waterboarding did not even follow the absurd attempts to make it non-torture:
Contrary to Bush administration's insistence that waterboarding carried few risks and that medical concerns were a priority, the CIA didn't initially seek the help of medical professionals in setting up or carrying out the procedure.
"OMS (the CIA's Office of Medical Services) was neither consulted nor involved in the initial analysis of the risk and benefits of (enhanced interrogation techniques)," Bradbury wrote in his May 10, 2005, memo, quoting from the IG's report... Quoting from the IG report, Bradbury wrote, "The waterboard technique . . . was different from the technique described in the DOJ opinion and used in the SERE training . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com ...
Sullivan gets 1 opinion from a Deputy AG that has some doubt but no where conclusive and this therefore makes Cheney a liar?
Sullivan implies that all statements giving by terrorists under strong interrogation (it's not torture) never give truthful information.
If Cheney is lying, then produce the documents that Obama held back and the redacted information if it all contradicts Cheney, Obots?
Someday people like Sullivan are going to get Americans killed that will make 911 look like a paper cut.
WASHINGTON – President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.
Obama’s national intelligence director make Sullivan the lair or ignorant.
If Cheney is lying, then produce the documents that Obama held back and the redacted information if it all contradicts Cheney, Obots?
If it’s up to the Obama administration to release the rest of those documents you have about as much likelihood of seeing them as you do Obama’s birth certificate. The only way the documents might see the light of day is in a courtroom but I don’t expect that to ever happen. This isn’t about justice, it’s about character assassination and that particular goal is best accomplished in the press, not the courtroom.
Bring it on, Girlie!!!
All of your wrangling, hand wringing, blathering, bloviating, spewing, and foaming at the moputh will not change that.
They protected America...and not being attacked agin by these animals for the last 8 years, and having them hiding in holes in the ground cowering from our forces, or getting slaughtered by our forces when they try and fight, is worth more to me than anyhting that tin horn dictatiors, fabian socialists, whining liberals, and marxists think of our nation...and I include you in that number.
Despite whatever other failings (social spending, illegal immigration, etc.), God bless them just the same for standing strong against these abject enemies of our natiopn.
THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IN HIS OWN WORDS
NOW WE KNOW WHAT A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER DOES
OBAMA, THE STOCK MARKET, AND ENERGY
THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S UPBRINGING
It would seem to be a simple matter to release the documents that Cheney has sited. Gosh, why doesn't Sullivan just join him in his request.
“Cheney Lies Again”
Welcome to the United Stalinist States of America.
IMHO
Andrew says Cheney ‘lies again’ but there’s not a single Cheney quote in this article. It would seem that Andrew is the liar.
No, Cheney didn’t lie, and they had really best not try playing hardball with this guy...poker either.
“Saturday, April 25, 2009
CIA Inspector General Report Is No Smoking Gun [Marc Thiessen]
McClatchy has a story up today with the headline “CIA Official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks.” The story notes that “The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.”
Critics are jumping on this as the smoking gun that proves those who claim the program stopped attacks are wrong. Not so fast.
In fact, the 2004 IG memo concluded as a general matter that the program had produced valuable intelligence, although the IG report prefaced this conclusion by stating that it was difficult precisely to assess or measure the value of the program and that “it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.” The Justice Department memos released by the Obama administration quoted or paraphrased these statements from the IG report.
The IG report was not intended to be a comprehensive inquiry into the value and effectiveness of the program. That is why, the following year, in 2005, the CIA was asked to provide an assessment of the value and effectiveness of the program. They later produced something called the “Effectiveness Memo” which lays out specifically how the program helped stop attacks and saved lives. This is one of the documents that Vice President Cheney has asked be declassified.
For more balanced reporting, I recommend this piece by Stuart Taylor of National Journal. In it he quotes several former CIA directors and directors of national intelligence who state definitively that the program stopped attacks and saved lives.”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTc4NWJmOGMxMTFjYzk1YTAwNGEzOWNjYjM5Njk5Mzc=
As someone said about the difference between Iran, NK or Hugo Chavez getting nukes or Norway and/or Switzerland getting nukes,....I’m not too worried about Norway or Switzerland getting nukes because I mostly don’t think that Norway or Switzerland is totally insane like I think Iran, NK and Chavez are nucking futz.
Cheney or Rumsfeld doing what they have to do to protect American security and survival doesn’t bother me because I think both of them have America’s best interests at heart and both are connected to pragmatic reality vs the fantasy and magical thinking of the Obamaniacs who are all words and zero reality.
There’s a difference.
If Cheney and Rumsfeld have to “lie” to protect us from maniacs, I can live with that. I trust them. I don’t trust Obambi or the Dim Dhims one single bit.
Who are the people who think we don’t need to keep some military or defense secrecy to live in the real world? Who are the people who think we won’t have any enemies hellbent on our destruction if we’re just “nice”.
The naivete of the Dims and the leftist voters in this country (and world) amazes me.
Someone like Sullivan is too stupid to be allowed to walk out in public. That he would be executed immediately by the Taliban or AQ for his sexual proclivities appears to entirely escape him.
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