Month: April 2008

ACLU Calls for Independent Prosecutor to Investigate Bush-Cheney Torture Authorization

Jon Ponder

George Bush’s confirmation Friday that he authorized top officials in his administration to create torture guidelines for the CIA — in violation of U.S. and international law — has prompted the ACLU to call on Congress to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the officials’ authorization of torture:

“We have always known that the CIA’s use of torture was approved from the very top levels of the U.S. government, yet the latest revelations about knowledge from the president himself and authorization from his top advisers only confirms our worst fears,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “It is a very sad day when the president of the United States subverts the Constitution, the rule of law, and American values of justice.”

…The American Civil Liberties Union is calling on Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations by the Bush administration of laws including the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act, and federal assault laws.

“No one in the executive branch of government can be trusted to fairly investigate or prosecute any crimes since the head of every relevant department, along with the president and vice president, either knew or participated in the planning and approval of illegal acts,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Congress cannot look the other way; it must demand an independent investigation and independent prosecutor.”

Officials involved in creating the torture guidelines, a process that began in 2002, included Vice President Cheney and Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser, then Sec. of State Colin Powell, then Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft, then Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, then CIA Director George Tenet and their aides.

Turley: White House Torture Planning Was Like a ‘Meeting of the Bada Bing Club’

Jon Ponder

Video above from MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on Thursday, April 10. (See transcript below.)

In the 1990s, Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and constitutional expert, was a strong advocate for impeaching Pres. Bill Clinton because Clinton lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky while under oath in a deposition for a civil lawsuit.
UPDATE:
• ACLU Calls for Independent Prosecutor in Bush Torture Case
The issue today is far more serious. According to ABC News, starting in 2002, senior Bush officials, including Vice President Cheney and Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser, were involved hands-on in drafting torture guidelines for the CIA. Because torture is illegal under U.S. and international law, Jonathan Turley says he believes the drafting of these guidelines was a war crime.

Late Friday afternoon, George Bush confirmed to ABC News that Cheney, Rice and the other officials were working at his behest.

News that Bush commissioned his executive staff to create guidelines for torture is being ignored in the media today (Saturday). It will be interesting to see if it makes it onto the Sunday political shows, including even ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous.”

The transcript for Turley’s “Countdown” interview follows:

[…]

Bush Admits He Approved White House Torture Manual

Jon Ponder

“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people. And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved,” George Bush said to ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz late on Friday:
The big story on cable news today is the controversy over Obama saying voters were “bitter.”

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency….

The high-level discussions about [the torture techniques] were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley has described the drafting of torture guidelines by White House officials as a war crime. In addition to Bush, the officials at the meetings, which started in 2002, included Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, Sec. of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft, CIA Director George Tenet, and their aides.

Colin Powell told ABC News that he didn’t have “sufficient memory recall” about the meetings and that he had participated in “many meetings on how to deal with detainees…” But that he’s “not aware of anything that we discussed in any of those meetings that was not considered legal.”

Last year, George Tenet attempted to shift blame preemptively to Ashcroft. “It was authorized. It was legal, according to the Attorney General of the United States,” Tenet told ABC News.

Releasing bad news like this on a Friday afternoon is classic White House damage control, and of course it has worked. The media are either ignoring the story or reacting to it with a Cheney-esque, “So?” In fact, the big story on cable news today is the controversy over Barack Obama saying that some Americans are bitter.

Conyers ‘Invites’ Former Bush Officials to Testify about Authorizing Torture

Jon Ponder

Democratic Rep. John Conyers, chair of the Judiciary Committee, has “invited” Bush officials who were involved in drafting torture guidelines to testify at a hearing on Tuesday, May 6:

“New and troubling allegations suggest that the decisions on torture came from the highest levels of government,” said Conyers in a statement. “These reports, if true, represent a stain on our democracy. The American people deserve to hear directly from those involved.”

According to Politico.com, Conyers’ invitees include first-term Bush officials, including then-Attorney Gen.l John Ashcroft, then-CIA Director George Tenet, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Chief of Staff to the Vice-President David Addington, then-Assistant Attorney Gen. Daniel Levin and John Yoo, the DOJ official who wrote a controversial March 2003 memorandum giving legal cover to his bosses for authorizing torture.

Conyers has received no RSVPs so far, and it is unclear whether he will issue subpoenas to those who decline to appear voluntarily.

Torture Revelations: The Cure for Outrage Fatigue

Trish

We all, myself included, gave ourselves a pass a few years into the Bush administration by claiming “outrage fatigue.” Well, fatigue or no, it’s time to get outraged again.

Continuing revelations about Bush cabinet members — the highest level of unelected power-holders in this country — and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney ordering precise torture techniques on individual prisoners are too shocking to ignore. First we found that “The Principals,” as they are known, informed themselves on such methods so they could personally choose which ones would be inflicted. They just as deliberately kept the president slightly beyond their level of direct knowledge.

While his most trusted advisers selected which method to inflict on which detainee, Bush delivered the denials

The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved…

The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room…Attending the sessions were Cheney, then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The eagerness on the part of these officials to learn about the methods and then to weigh the consequences of getting caught using them is shocking.

[…]

Ashcroft on White House Torture Guidelines: ‘History Will Not Judge This Kindly’

Jon Ponder

Torture-gate: News that, starting in 2002, Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, then-Sec. of State Colin Powell, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft and others, met to draft torture guidelines for CIA interrogators has been met with a collective yawn by the media.

Their blase reaction is revelatory of the fact that they (along with most Americans) have simply become inured to Cheney’s black-hearted depravity. It is also yet another instance in which the corporate media is too focused on something trivial — the Democratic candidates’ bashing each other — to do its job.

There’s no better evidence that Cheney and the others were fully aware that what they were doing was wrong than this quote from Ashcroft, a devout Christian, during one of the sessions:

“Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”

In her capacity as national security adviser, Rice was in charge of the project. What is unknown is whether “Mistress Condi” wore her knee-high black leather boots to the meetings.

Bill Blames Hillary’s Screw Ups About Bosnia on Being Tired at Night. What About 3 a.m.?

Trish

Bill just keeps making things worse for Team Hillary. In explaining how she got it wrong on Bosnia, he himself is also inaccurate on almost every detail.

But here’s the capper: Bill keeps saying Hillary screwed up because it was 11 p.m. and she was tired. Excuse me? Someone who twice hung her entire campaign on her acumen, hypervigilance, and superior ability to respond after being awakened at 3 in the morning in the White House was brain dead at 11 at night on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania? Except it wasn’t 11 at night.

ABC’s Jake Tapper could find hardly anything correct in the former president’s explanation. First is Bill’s version, followed by what really happened, according to Tapper’s fact check.

Excuse me? Someone who twice hung her entire campaign on her acumen, hypervigilance, and superior ability to respond after being awakened at 3 in the morning in the White House was brain dead at 11 at night on the campaign trail?

Former President Bill Clinton offered this bit of revisionist history of his wife’s Bosnia story in Jasper, Ind., today, one riddled with a veritable sniper fire of errors.

“She took a terrible beating in the press for a few days,” he said, per ABC News’ Sarah Amos, “because she was exhausted at 11 o’clock at night (1) and she started talking about Bosnia and she misstated the circumstances under which she landed in Bosnia. (2)

“Did you all see all that? And oh, they acted like she was practically Mata Hari,” he said — referring to the Dutch exotic dancer accused by the French of spying for the Germans and executed by a firing squad during World War I — “like she was making up all this stuff.

“And then the president of Bosnia said, ‘Well, it was quite dangerous when she came, there were snipers in the hills all around,’ (3) And then Gen. Wes Clarke, who was there trying to make the peace among the Bosnians, said ‘Yeah, it was dangerous, let me remind you three of the Americans who were on my peace-keeping team were killed because they had to take a dangerous road ’cause they couldn’t go the regular way.’

[…]