Torture memos

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by glatt

Once you have a prisoner in captivity however, the rules change. You are in complete control of the situation. It's no longer a messy war situation, but a prison situation. The rules of law should apply because you are back in civilization.

I know what you are getting at. And I sort of agree. I am not sure that the problem lies with what we do to the high value targets of whom we are sure of their importance and value as the vetting of all the prisoners captured. I think back to the days of WW2 where our soldiers were kept in pretty poor conditions and the Germans we captured were actually brought to working farms where they had a lot of local freedom to work, move about, and purchase goods, and in some cases even travel. But times have changed and although war and the WOT specifically has changed many of the rules of conventional combat. The enemy is non-specific and not easily identified. IMHO, all they know and respond to is a certain degree of brutality and ruthlessness, anything less is a weakness to that kind of enemy. It brings about many mixed emotions for many reasons. I don't have the answer. But I know the answer is not easily defined by ill conceived UN Conventions which everyone ignores and only provides a bully pulpit for the detractors and critics.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by W

Their plot was derailed in early 2002 when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al Qaeda operative.

Originally Posted by Redux

The plot was "derailed in early 2002...." when the Jemaah Islamiyah (J-I) guys were arrested in Malaysia.

Please note the critical difference in these two statements.

We know when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al Qaeda operative. We don't know who that was. We don't know when the J-I guys were arrested, but we know it's later:

Originally Posted by W

Subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations made clear the intended target, and how al Qaeda hoped to execute it. This critical intelligence helped other allies capture the ringleaders and other known operatives who had been recruited for this plot.

And we also know that J-I remained active and powerful in October 2002 when they carried out the Bali bombings.

And we know that ringleader Hambali was arrested in August 2003 in Thailand.

Makes sense that it would take that kind of time. The torture memo I referenced lays out what leads to it:

More specifically, we understand that KSM admitted that he had tasked Majid Khan with delivering a large sum of money to an al Qaeda associate. Khan subsequently identifed the associate (Zubair), who was then captured. Zubair, in turn, provided information that led to the arrest of Hambali. The information from these captures allowed CIA interrogators to pose more specific questions to KSM, which led the CIA to Hambali's brother, al-Hadi. Using information from multiple sources, al-Hadi was captured, and he subsequently identified the Guraba cell.

Based on all this and the flawed Timothy Noah piece in Slate, I'll guess this: the plot began to unravel in the first early 2002 arrest, but we didn't necessarily KNOW that it was unraveling, and the trail that led to the arrests of the rest of the cell in late 2003 were provided by later intelligence. KSM intel figured into subsequent understanding of the plot and associated arrests.

[TheMercenary]

Commentary: Obama and D.C. dance the torture minuet
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

There they go again, those folks in Washington, D.C. Everyone wants the power; nobody wants the responsibility.

We're back to the question of which Bush administration officials ordered Justice Department lawyers to concoct some legal way to use illegal torture methods on the prisoners we were taking in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

It appears that no one in power or recently out of power wants to know the answer to that question.

The Republicans in Congress, who resemble nothing so much as a dwindling flock of whooping cranes, have been nothing but surly since last November. Now they’re threatening to get nasty if the Democrats across the aisle insist on unearthing the truth - the who, what, when, where and why - about the torture question.

(Spare me your e-mails about how waterboarding isn't torture; even John McCain, who knows more about torture than you do, agrees that it is.)

President Barack Obama doesn't want or need this issue sucking all the oxygen out of the Congress and his ambitious agenda, and he just wishes it would go away. His position, if you can call it that, changes daily, if not hourly. He and his people look and sound like a hokey-pokey line on the issue.

The problem is that they're all thinking and acting like politicians, and there's nothing in this issue for any of them except an opportunity to do the right thing. Whoever won an election by doing the right thing? Talking about doing the right thing is another matter.

Torture, however, isn't a political problem, but a legal and moral problem, and therein lies the painful rub.

The new president and his administration released a few of the Top Secret memos that show how and why the lawyers in the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) went to work turning criminal acts into just another day at the office for CIA and military interrogation officials.

Then, however, the president hurried out to McLean, Va. to assure CIA employees that none of them will ever face prosecution for just following orders and using methods that they thought were legal - even though one of his first acts as chief executive was to halt the use of torture and order the closing of Guantanamo prison.

Next, the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, released a long-delayed timeline of how the torture issue wended its way from the highest offices in the land to the OLC and across the Potomac to the Pentagon and CIA headquarters and down to cells in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and rent-a-dungeons hidden away around the world.

In the process, we learned that one high-ranking al Qaida prisoner was subjected to waterboarding, a barbaric tool in the torturer's kit that involves suffocation and near-drowning, not one time for 20 seconds, as reported earlier, but 83 times. Khalid Sheikh Mohamed got the same treatment 183 times, or an average of six times a day.

The new director of national intelligence, Navy Adm. Dennis Blair, said that some useful information was squeezed out of the torture chambers, but he isn't certain that this information couldn't have been gained without resorting to techniques borrowed from the Spanish Inquisition.

Former Bush administration luminaries, beginning with former Vice President Darth Cheney and proceeding down the chain, hasten to declare that torturing those people made America safe, or safer than it was on 9/11, when they were all ignoring a CIA warning that Osama bin Laden was "determined to strike in U.S.."

Even if you believe that the end justifies the means and ignore the numerous factual flaws in this ex post facto defense, it doesn't address the question of how many of the 4,954 American troops who’ve been killed to date in Afghanistan and Iraq were killed by Islamic jihadists who were recruited in part by the revelations that we were torturing helpless Muslims. How much safer did those orders to torture make our young men and women?

The plain fact is that waterboarding is illegal under U.S. law. It's illegal under international laws and treaties that we helped negotiate, we approved and we adhered to until President Bush and his men and women decided that we wouldn't.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont has revived his proposal for a bipartisan Truth Commission to investigate the well-known and less well-known authors of this legal and moral outrage. If the Republicans continue to refuse to participate, as they have so far, he says, then he's prepared to launch a congressional investigation.

What's truly disheartening is to watch all the ducking, bobbing and weaving in the nation's capital - like so many powder-haired dandies prancing a minuet.

Yes, it's an ugly chapter in the life of a nation that prides itself on its freedoms and its rule of law. But it's more than that: It's a splendid opportunity for a bunch of politicians from both parties to find their spines, or borrow some, and get to work cleaning out the dark corners in the White House and emptying the closets of skeletons.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Please note the critical difference in these two statements.

We know when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al Qaeda operative. We don't know who that was. We don't know when the J-I guys were arrested, but we know it's later:

And we also know that J-I remained active and powerful in October 2002 when they carried out the Bali bombings.

And we know that ringleader Hambali was arrested in August 2003 in Thailand.

Makes sense that it would take that kind of time. The torture memo I referenced lays out what leads to it:

Based on all this and the flawed Timothy Noah piece in Slate, I'll guess this: the plot began to unravel in the first early 2002 arrest, but we didn't necessarily KNOW that it was unraveling, and the trail that led to the arrests of the rest of the cell in late 2003 were provided by later intelligence. KSM intel figured into subsequent understanding of the plot and associated arrests.

UT....here is another perspective:

The description of the plot was based on claims made by Mohammed, who has said he was the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, during interrogations after his capture in Pakistan in March 2003. But those familiar with Mohammed’s comments and the alleged plot have suggested that, at most, it was a plan that was stopped in its initial stages and was not an operational plot that had been disrupted by authorities.

In March 2004, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that it had been briefed on Mohammed’s statements. “We were made aware of that information last spring,” John Miller, then the LAPD’s top anti-terrorism official, said at the time.

On Friday, Miller – now the chief spokesman for the FBI – said only that the LAPD had discussed the matter in depth with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and concluded that whatever plot that had existed in its initial stages already had been dismantled with the arrest of Al Qaeda operatives in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Federal counter-terrorism officials on Friday disclosed for the first time that during his interrogations, Mohammed said he hadn’t completely abandoned the prospect of a second wave of attacks, but had turned the idea over to a trusted aide named Hambali, the chief of operations for an Al Qaeda affiliate group in South Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah.

Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, in turn is believed to have chosen several men to launch the attacks, including a pilot, and had set aside some money to pay for them, according to one senior counter-terrorism official.

Those men were soon captured, however, and the plot never progressed past the planning stages, according to several counter-terrorism officials.

“To take that and make it into a disrupted plot is just ludicrous,” said one senior FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with departmental guidelines.

http://articles.latimes.com/p/2005/o...ion/na-terror8

I guess it is a matter of interpretation and who one chooses to believe.

[DanaC]

The enemy is non-specific and not easily identified. IMHO, all they know and respond to is a certain degree of brutality and ruthlessness, anything less is a weakness to that kind of enemy.

Violence and torture are all their kind understand?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Violence and torture are all their kind understand?

Violence yes. Anyone will respond to torture, it may not be kind of response you expect, but anyone will respond.

[Undertoad]

I guess it is a matter of interpretation and who one chooses to believe.

Yah, and what parts one decides to put in bold.

...and the plot never progressed past the planning stages, according to several counter-terrorism officials

Okay, so what do we know. We know they had money. They had a cell. They had a leader. They had a target. They had a plan. Their operation was decided upon and timed by al Q's #2.

Never progressed past the planning stages? Can I ask you just one question:

What the fuck?

Because the thing after the planning stage is, you do what you planned. So they didn't have boarding passes yet? That's what the LA Times and you find most important?

...the LAPD had discussed the matter in depth with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and concluded that whatever plot that had existed in its initial stages already had been dismantled with the arrest of Al Qaeda operatives in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Yes...that is what I choose to believe.

I also choose to believe the Bush administration frequently exaggerated the terrorist threat level for political purposes including to justify torture.

[classicman]

And the current administration would never do anything like that

[Undertoad]

I also choose to believe the Bush administration frequently exaggerated the terrorist threat level for political purposes including to justify torture.

But that's something you don't actually know about until more information is released, so choosing to believe that is irrational partisanship.

[Shawnee123]

Educated guess?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I also choose to believe the Bush administration frequently exaggerated the terrorist threat level for political purposes including to justify torture.

But that's something you don't actually know about until more information is released, so choosing to believe that is irrational partisanship.

We know from the memos that the CIA Inspector General found there was no conclusive proof that harsh interrogation techniques (torture) helped prevent any "specific imminent attacks"...despite numerous assertions by Bush/Cheney/Rice that torture led directly to preventing such attacks. (political?)

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.

That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html

We also know that the CIA director later ordered an investigation of the CIA IG - a highly unusual and unprecedented action. (political?)

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agency’s inspector general, whose aggressive investigations of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives....

...Any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would be unusual, if not unprecedented, and would threaten to undermine the independence of the office, some current and former officials say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/wa...ntel.html?_r=1

We know from the bipartisan Senate Armed Services Report that Cheney/Rumsfeld pressured interrogators to use torture to find a (non-existent) connection between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein. (political?)

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html

We know that Bush's DoJ Office of Professional Responsibility has issued a report (to be made public in the next few weeks) that reportedly says the DoJ attorneys who wrote the torture memos may have deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted. (political?)

A Torture Report Could Spell Big Trouble For Bush Lawyers

IMO, yes...without knowing all the facts, all of the above stink of politicization to justify the use torture.

Which is why we need some type of hearings to get to the truth and to prevent such practices in the future.

Originally Posted by classicman

And the current administration would never do anything like that

If you can point to any action by the current administration that has been perceived or publicly acknowledged as illegal or potentially so by many officials within the agencies responsible for those actions....let's discuss it and if there is compelling evidence to support it, I will probably condemn it.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Redux

We know from the memos that the CIA Inspector General found there was no conclusive proof that harsh interrogation techniques (torture) helped prevent any "specific imminent attacks"...despite numerous assertions by Bush/Cheney/Rice that torture led directly to preventing such attacks.

We also know that the CIA director later ordered an investigation of the CIA IG - a highly unusual and unprecedented action.

And the White House was involved in ordering the investigation? That's such a long reach, even the Times doesn't draw that conclusion.

We know from the bipartisan Senate Armed Services Report that Cheney/Rumsfeld pressured interrogators to use torture to find a (non-existent) connection between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein

In a search of all 266 pages of the bipartisan Senate Armed Services Report PDF part 1 PDF part 2, the word "Iraq" does not appear.

The evidence in that McClatchy story comes from a single anonymous individual. And the story buries the note that

Others in the interrogation operation "agreed there was pressure to produce intelligence, but did not recall pressure to identify links between Iraq and al Qaida," the report said.

That's the newspaper game for you: the scary bit goes in the lede, the lack of evidence for the scary bit goes after the jump.

We know that Bush's DoJ Office of Professional Responsibility has issued a report (to be made public in the next few weeks) that reportedly says the DoJ attorneys who wrote the torture memos may have deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted.

If the Bush DoJ writes opinions with its left hand, and investigates itself for those opinions with the right hand, then if the left hand is politicization, the right hand is utter lack of it.

Now, to think in a straight line, your original conclusion is the Bush administration frequently exaggerated the terrorist threat level for political purposes. The examples you've provided do not address that conclusion, not even circumstantially, so you're back to square one.

UT....this is not a case where I have concluded that the facts are irrefutable. My opinion is based on what I consider to be reasonable conclusions from the information available.

You obviously disagree...again a matter of opinion.