Cutting through to good news from Sy Hersh

How can you tell that the national security experts who are the unnamed sources for journalist Seymour Hersh’s latest New Yorker exposé of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal are tough-minded, no-nonsense insiders?

They say “shit” a lot.

“This shit has been brewing for months,” a Pentagon consultant tells Hersh, creating a particularly unpalatable image of the growing prison abuse investigation.

“He goes into it not knowing shit,” says a former intelligence official, referring to Gen. Antonio Taguba’s state of mind as he began an investigation of the abuse.

“When the shit hits the fan, as it did on 9-11, how do you push the pedal?” the defense consultant asks, suggesting that it is exceedingly difficult to find the appropriate levels of force and intimidation in terrorist interrogations.

And, finally, “Some people think you can bullshit anyone,” says a senior CIA official of the congressional testimony of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.

Clearly, if Hersh’s reporting is correct, the Bush administration is in deep shit.

Of course, there are serious doubts about the accuracy of some of Hersh’s information.

And what has not been discussed much lately is the fact that many people will read Hersh’s descriptions of the actions taken by Rumsfeld and his deputies and say, “Yes!!!”

As Hersh tells the story, the secretary of defense was “apoplectic” after U.S. forces blew a chance to kill Afghanistan’s Mullah Omar because a military lawyer wouldn’t approve the strike.

“Rumsfeld was apoplectic over what he saw as a self-defeating hesitation to attack that was due to political correctness,” Hersh writes.

To which many people might say: It’s about time. That’s precisely the reaction a secretary of defense should have.

And Rumsfeld didn’t just rant. According to Hersh, he created a new, top-secret program to get around legal roadblocks in high-importance terrorism cases.

The program gave elite U.S. forces great freedom in nabbing terrorists. “The rules are ‘Grab whom you must. Do what you want,’” one former intelligence official told Hersh.

To which many people might say: Good.

And the plan worked. “In mid-2003, the special-access program was regarded in the Pentagon as one of the success stories of the war on terror,” Hersh writes.

“It’s been the most important capability we have for dealing with an imminent threat,” the former intelligence official told Hersh. “If we discover where Osama bin Laden is, we can get him. And we can remove an existing threat with a real capability to hit the United States — and do so without visibility.”

Although Hersh writes that some of the program’s methods were “troubling,” still many people might say of the program: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

All that applied to the war against al Qaeda.

Hersh reports that later, in Iraq, Rumsfeld became increasingly alarmed at the growing level of violence from the post-Saddam insurgency.

After the August bombings of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, and then the United Nations headquarters, top Pentagon officials began to rethink their approach to the insurgents.

To which many people might say: Good idea.

The problem, Hersh writes, was a shortage of usable intelligence.

“Human intelligence is poor or lacking ... due to the dearth of competence and expertise,” says a classified military report quoted by Hersh. “The intelligence effort is not coordinated since either too many groups are involved in gathering intelligence or the final product does not get to the troops in the field in a timely manner.”

So the Pentagon decided, in Hersh’s words, “to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents.”

And guess what: It worked.

“We’re getting a picture of the insurgency in Iraq,” the former intelligence official told Hersh, “and the intelligence is flowing. ... We’re getting good stuff.”

Informed of that, readers who have been discouraged by the administration’s unsteady — some would say disastrous — handling of the insurgency in Fallujah most likely began to feel some renewed confidence in the Iraqi effort.

Hersh writes that the administration then took the program too far, which led to the Abu Ghraib abuses.

But it’s not at all clear from his report that the prison abuses actually stemmed from the secret program.

And one of the article’s sources “made it clear” to Hersh “that he was not alleging that Rumsfeld or [Joint Chiefs chairman] General Myers knew that atrocities were committed.”

So in light of some of the hyperventilation that has surrounded the release of Hersh’s article, it might be good to remember this: The abuses, whatever their origin, were discovered and investigated and are now being prosecuted.

The president himself apologized for them.

And the secret interrogation program, whether or not it had any connection to Abu Ghraib, nevertheless produced real results and probably saved American and Iraq lives.

It was a good idea.

No shit.

This is a completely concocted load of crap gleefully promoted by the RATmedia and willingly swallowed by the uncritical and those with no perspective.

In comparision to life, death and war and peace this triviality was a one day story. Actually when it was announced by the military authorities in January it was not even that since the RATmedia ignored it for months while the military was getting to the bottom of it.

Only after months of desperately trying to destroy Bush without avail did the RATmedia turn to this nonsense.

There are worse things done in every prison in the Middle East and were FAR worse things done in prison camps during our past wars. Rather than crying and whining like a 9 yr. old girl who spilt her milk why don't you do a little research into Civil War prisoner camps just for starters.

I dropped my shoe- what an ATROCITY. I lost my belt- what an ATROCITY. My head hurts -what an ATROCITY.

The only true atrocity here is the atrocious lack of perspective and total viciousness of the RATmedia. It does not care about anything except destruction of Bush and every story is written and published with that goal in mind. Those which cannot serve that goal are spiked and suppressed.

Since the opinion of the rest of the world has little value with me when it conflicts with carrying out necessary national security operations I will lose little sleep tonight over it or the pooor mass murderering killers who had their feelings hurt by the prison guards.

Though I do not condone private initiatives just for fun such as this if torture is necessary to get information that would save military or Iraqi civilians' lives then fire up the grill.

If the lives of the little children burned to death in their school van by the bombs of these sh!tbags and friends could have been saved by forcing some dirtbag to wear women's underwear I would not hesitate to bring it out. Or beating them within an inch of their lives. Even such dyed in the wool Lefties as Dershowitz gets the picture.

Actually when it was announced by the military authorities in January it was not even that since the RATmedia ignored it for months while the military was getting to the bottom of it

Nobody imagined it would be this bad. Without the photos and videos how could they (which is why the military classified them)?

There are worse things done in every prison in the Middle East and were FAR worse things done in prison camps during our past wars. Rather than crying and whining like a 9 yr. old girl who spilt her milk why don't you do a little research into Civil War prisoner camps just for starters

In Napoleanic times the British and French were still crucifying prisoners. Do you want to go back to that? I'll grant you that it may be impossible to fight a modern war according to the Geneva conventions but I want it discussed.

pooor mass murderering killers

How do you know they were that? 400 prisoners were just released from Abu Ghraib (presumably because they were innocent). How do you know we didn't torture them?

If torture is necessary to get information that would save military or Iraqi civilians' lives then fire up the grill...even such dyed in the wool Lefties as Dershowitz get the picture

Yes, torture has its legitimate uses. But it should be used with extreme care since legitimizing it leads easily down a short, slippery slope to a place where our worst enemies live.

There was little that was so "bad" since I don't consider humiliation of mass murderers, mass murderer wannabes, mass murderers assistants, mass murderers' friends to be bad. Were there videos of hands being chopped off? No, but why does the RATmedia sit on those which DO exist showing Saddam's henchmen doing just that and not show THEM 24/7?

The war fightable under the Geneva convention was won. These are spies and terrorists not soldiers and fight by no rules. I have no particular objection to crucifying these scumbags but see no necessity for it.

What passes for "torture" at this prison was having a woman (OHMYGOD) point at the privates of a murderous misogynist scumbag. And I thought Nazi Concentration Camps were bad, little did I know how depraved we could be and she was laughing OH THE HORROR. It would be unfortunate if any innocents were tortured but am sure there weren't enough to worry about. Some of the released prisoners even expressed their gratitude for the good treatment and want to become Americans. RATmedia will not report that just as it sits on the videos of REAL torture preferring to show these silly, quasi-Mapplethorpe photos. When do they go on the walls of the Metropolitan?

It is one thing to torture those with information which could save lives if revealed and quite another to use it gratuitously. This did not happen at this prison nor did anything else of any real significance.

Since i am a student of history, I will guarantee you that if a US soldier is captured they can in fact expect to be tortured and brutalized in ways that these bad guys haven't even dreamed of. You seem to be a very left wing nut because you twist my wordsx into thigs I never said. You suggest that I think torturing humans is less henious than the mutilation I discribed. Never said don't believe it...but what happened at Abu Ghraib is not torture. Hitler it is well established was a meth head from about 1931 onwards. He was switched over to heroin just before the collapse of Germany during the last phases of the war. Again note I have NEVER said that Muslims are the embodiment of evil. What I have said is that Islam ( the Koran and its belief system) are evil. And frankly I don't give a hoot what most of Europe or the rest of the world thinks of the US. They have been consistently wrong over the last 50 years so why would they get it right now?

Oh I understand thoroughly now. It is okay to bomb the hell out of civilians just not okay to make people stand around naked...Got it. As ever your sense of proportion is out of whack. And the reason for banning the camera phones has more to do with the fact that no prisoners are to be photographed. The photos taken by Graner were illegal and are part of the charges against him. I know you think you are a very special human but in all honesty this is my last post on this stuff to you because you keep repeating the same thing overr and over as if that is the same as dialogue. You do not or will not understand the nature of the enemy and I look forward to seeing you when they come for you

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