View Full Version : Drop the Investigation of CIA Interrogators
Warrior-Mentor
08-14-2009, 15:16
Drop the Investigation of CIA Interrogators
The legal and policy considerations argue against an investigation, let alone a prosecution.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
‘We’re going to follow the evidence wherever it takes us, follow the law wherever that takes us.” So decreed Attorney General Eric Holder in April when asked whether government officials would face prosecution over coercive interrogation tactics used against terrorist detainees. After all, he elaborated, “no one is above the law.”
Tell that to the voters in Philadelphia who were threatened by nightstick-wielding Obama supporters from the New Black Panther Party. The Panthers got a pass even after they contemptuously ignored court process and even after the government already had prevailed in the case because of their default.
For the Obama/Holder Justice Department, other considerations outweighed following the evidence wherever it led. The Panthers who turned out to be above the law include Jerry Jackson, a credentialed Democratic-party poll-watcher who brays on MySpace about “Killing Crakkkas.” Thanks to Holder’s decision, Jackson is right back in business, having obtained new poll-watcher credentials just days after DOJ dismissed the case.
The CIA interrogators are having a rougher time with prosecutors than did the Black Panthers. They are retaining counsel and preparing for a lengthy investigation that likely will prove personally and professionally ruinous. The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that Holder is close to naming a prosecutor to probe whether the agency and its officers committed criminal misconduct.
The interrogators — whose use of harsh tactics resulted in the capture of leading jihadists, the disruption of mass-murder plots, and the saving of American lives — are in a different posture from that of Binyam Mohammed. Mohammed was a leading jihadist who had been plotting some of those disrupted mass-murder attacks that were to take place in American cities. He was slated for prosecution by military commission. But it turned out that he was above the law, too.
Mohammed had been subjected to extraordinary rendition. Begun during the Clinton administration (in which Holder served as deputy attorney general), rendition involves Western intelligence agencies’ handing captured terrorists over to Third World countries that do not follow our punctilious interrogation practices, meaning that we look the other way while they do far nastier things than what Holder wants to investigate the CIA for doing.
In Mohammed’s case, following the evidence wherever it took us would have involved a look-see into this seamy practice. It would, moreover, have exposed the collusion of British (and possibly American) intelligence agents in Mohammed’s transfer to Morocco, where he says he was tortured. So the Obama administration decided that prosecutorial discretion is the better part of valor: The terrorist was quietly extradited to Britain, where he is living free and clear. In fact, he’ll be speaking at a fundraiser in London later this month — if you act quickly, there are still a limited number of women-only balcony seats available.
The CIA interrogators will need some fundraisers, too. By the time Justice is through with them, they will be above their eyeballs in legal fees and lost employment opportunities, even if they are not ultimately charged. Indeed, the Los Angeles Times notes that several officers have put off retirement plans. They are staying in the agency “so that they can maintain their access to classified files and be in a better position to defend against a Justice investigation.” At least they’ll have a reason for being there. Their co-workers won’t. The Obama administration’s message to the intelligence community is crystal clear: Today’s actions to protect the United States may very well yield tomorrow’s indictments.
Holder is big on lecturing Americans about their purported “cowardice” when it comes to matters of race (the official obsession of the first “post-racial” presidency), but when it comes to doing the job he’s actually been hired to do, i.e., make prosecutorial calls that are sound but possibly unpopular, he’s not exactly a profile in courage.
The truth is that prosecutors don’t always follow the evidence wherever it leads. If they did, every crime would result in charges; in fact, many crimes, if not most, do not. The “rule of law” about which this attorney general is fond of speaking has always involved discretion: An administration and its prosecutors make policy choices about where to allocate the scarce resources available for crime-fighting. Very often, the guilty are knowingly permitted to go free — not because they are above the law but because factual guilt is neither the only nor the most significant factor in many cases.
In the case of the interrogators, the argument against further investigation (let alone prosecution) is overwhelming. If we take just waterboarding, the legal prerequisites simply aren’t there. Although President Obama seemed to absolve the CIA of liability back in the spring, both he and his attorney general left the prosecutorial door open a crack for interrogators who went beyond the controversial guidance DOJ had issued in 2002. But that guidance did not establish lines between lawful and unlawful conduct. To be guilty of a crime, you have to violate a statute, not a memo.
Here, the Justice Department is caught between the administration’s red-meat rhetoric and its staid legal analysis. When speaking for the benefit of their anti-war base, Obama and Holder thoughtlessly brand all waterboarding as “torture” — no matter how or why it is administered. But in court cases (as I’ve detailed here), the Justice Department has quietly conceded that federal law makes torture exceedingly difficult to prove (i.e., federal law ensures that the ignominious label “torture” is reserved for especially heinous, malevolent abuse).
Not only must there be an infliction of extreme physical or mental suffering; the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant specifically intended to torture his victim. In congressional testimony, Holder himself has admitted that if a government official had a purpose different from causing extreme pain, he could not be guilty of torture even if he actually caused extreme pain.
It is highly unlikely that the CIA interrogators induced the excruciating pain necessary to commit torture as a matter of law. Regardless of whether they did, though, it is abundantly clear that they were not trying to torture anyone. That doesn’t mean any harshness that exceeded DOJ guidance was a good thing, or that administrative discipline is not an option for interrogators who went overboard.
It also doesn’t mean that Congress is barred from tweaking the torture statute so that, in the future, the crime is not so tough to prove. But it does mean Holder shouldn’t need to assign a prosecutor to grasp that there is no good-faith basis to proceed with a criminal investigation. Contrary to the apparent lesson of the Black Panther case, a desire to please the left wing is not generally thought of as a good-faith basis for either dropping or pursuing a prosecution.
Which brings us to the last point: Even if there weren’t insuperable legal hurdles to a torture prosecution, there are patently obvious policy reasons not to go where the attorney general is thinking of going. The 9/11 atrocities should not have happened. The nation was vulnerable to them, however, because of a governmental culture of risk-aversion: Justice Department rules discouraged cooperation between intelligence agents and criminal investigators; the FBI refused to allow its criminal investigators to help locate two of the suicide-terrorists its intelligence division had discovered were in the country a couple of weeks before the attacks; Osama bin Laden was not killed when the chance presented itself because the rules of engagement were loaded with so many caveats that CIA agents were unsure whether they’d be acclaimed or indicted.
We have been down this road before and we know where it leads. Eric Holder has managed to find reasons not to follow the evidence wherever it takes him on a number of occasions in his career. It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that promoting national security is a better rationale than the ones that have sufficed to date.
— National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books, 2008).
Thank you for posting this Sir.
Unfortunately, it's not just the 'gators "they" are looking into. The effect of this "investigation" (read: witch hunt) is enormous.
I'm not really sure how this increases our national security.
Imagine if all officers second-guess every order issued to them before they carry them out? Will today's lawful order STILL be lawful (legal) tomorrow or a few years down the road?
I wonder if the AG or anyone else in the current administration has ever lost a family member, coworker, or close friend since the Long War began? I have my doubts.
And so it goes...:(
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Justice Department Report Advises Pursuing C.I.A. Abuse Cases
David Johnston, NYT, 24 Aug 2009
The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.
The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.
When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.
With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.
The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder’s hand.
The recommendation to review the closed cases, in effect renewing the inquiries, centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department report is to be made public after classified information is deleted from it.
The cases represent about half of those that were initially investigated and referred to the Justice Department by the C.I.A.’s inspector general, but were later closed. It is not known which cases might be reopened.
Mr. Holder was said to have reacted with disgust earlier this year when he first read accounts of abusive treatment of detainees in a classified version of the inspector general’s report and other materials.
In examples that have just come to light, the C.I.A. report describes how C.I.A. officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill. It is a violation of the federal torture statute to threaten a prisoner with imminent death.
Mr. Holder, who questioned the thoroughness of previous inquiries by the Justice Department, is expected to announce within days his decision on whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a new investigation; in legal circles, it is believed to be highly likely that he will go forward with a fresh criminal inquiry.
Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Sunday that the Justice Department recommendation to reopen the cases had not been sent to the intelligence agency. He added: “Decisions on whether or not to pursue action in court were made after careful consideration by career prosecutors at the Justice Department. The C.I.A. itself brought these matters — facts and allegations alike — to the department’s attention.”
The report by the Justice Department’s ethics office has been under preparation for more than five years, and its critique of legal work on interrogations provoked bitter complaints from Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey as he was leaving office as the Bush administration’s final attorney general.
The Justice Department’s report, the most important since Mr. Holder took office, was submitted by Mary Patrice Brown, a veteran Washington federal prosecutor picked by Mr. Holder to lead the Office of Professional Responsibility earlier this year after its longtime chief, H. Marshall Jarrett, moved to another job in the Justice Department.
There has never been any public explanation of why the Justice Department decided not to bring charges in nearly two dozen abuse cases known to be referred to a team of federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., and in some instances not even the details of the cases have been made public.
Former government lawyers said that while some detainees died and others suffered serious abuses, prosecutors decided they would be unlikely to prevail because of problems with mishandled evidence and, in some cases, the inability to locate witnesses or even those said to be the victims.
A few of the cases are well known, like that of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in 2003 in C.I.A. custody at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after he was first captured by a team of Navy Seals. Prosecutors said he probably received his fatal injuries during his capture, but lawyers for the Seals denied it.
Over the years, some Democratic lawmakers sought more details about the cases and why the Justice Department took no action. They received summaries of the number of cases under scrutiny but few facts about the episodes or the department’s decisions not to prosecute.
The cases do not center on allegations of abuse by C.I.A. officers who conducted the forceful interrogations of high-level Qaeda suspects at secret sites, although it is not out of the question that a new investigation would also examine their conduct.
That could mean a look at the case in which C.I.A. officers threatened one prisoner with a handgun and a power drill if he did not cooperate. The detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was suspected as the master plotter behind the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole.
All civilian employees of the government, including those at the C.I.A., were required to comply with guidelines for interrogations detailed in a series of legal opinions written by the Justice Department. Those opinions, since abandoned by the Obama administration, were the central focus of the Justice Department’s internal inquiry.
It has been known that the Justice Department ethics report had criticized the authors of the legal opinions and, in some cases, would recommend referrals to local bar associations for discipline.
But the internal inquiry also examined how the opinions were carried out and how referrals of possible violations were made — a process that led ethics investigators to find misconduct serious enough to warrant renewed criminal investigation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/us/politics/24detain.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
armymom1228
08-24-2009, 11:32
At what point will this madness end?
Does the current regime in the WH think that the 'other side' are choir boys who just simply hope that by asking someone for information they will cough it up? Geez..
I dunno what universe this group of 'investigators' lives in..but mine is real and the threats to my country are real. If I had MY way this would all end and our guys at the CIA would get medals for stopping terrorists.
I guess someone should show Joe Anzack or Matt Maupins obvoisly tortured bodies photos to BHO. I bet he would refuse to believe the truth even then..
What a huge crock all this is..
They're (the WH) just trying to divert our attention away from something. We'll figure out what it is in a week or so.
And so it goes...;)
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Obama To Let Holder Decide On CIA Investigations
Johnston and Zelney, NY, 24 Aug 2009
President Obama does not intend to voice his preference for whether anyone is prosecuted from prisoner abuse cases, a White House spokesman said Monday, and will allow Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to make the decision.
(cont'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/us/politics/25detain.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Source is here (http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/testimony/2009/ag-testimony-090824.html).
Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder Regarding a Preliminary Review into the Interrogation of Certain Detainees
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Office of Professional Responsibility has now submitted to me its report regarding the Office of Legal Counsel memoranda related to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. I hope to be able to make as much of that report available as possible after it undergoes a declassification review and other steps. Among other findings, the report recommends that the Department reexamine previous decisions to decline prosecution in several cases related to the interrogation of certain detainees.
I have reviewed the OPR report in depth. Moreover, I have closely examined the full, still-classified version of the 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report, as well as other relevant information available to the Department. As a result of my analysis of all of this material, I have concluded that the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations. The Department regularly uses preliminary reviews to gather information to determine whether there is sufficient predication to warrant a full investigation of a matter. I want to emphasize that neither the opening of a preliminary review nor, if evidence warrants it, the commencement of a full investigation, means that charges will necessarily follow.
Assistant United States Attorney John Durham was appointed in 2008 by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations. During the course of that investigation, Mr. Durham has gained great familiarity with much of the information that is relevant to the matter at hand. Accordingly, I have decided to expand his mandate to encompass this related review. Mr. Durham, who is a career prosecutor with the Department of Justice and who has assembled a strong investigative team of experienced professionals, will recommend to me whether there is sufficient predication for a full investigation into whether the law was violated in connection with the interrogation of certain detainees.
There are those who will use my decision to open a preliminary review as a means of broadly criticizing the work of our nation’s intelligence community. I could not disagree more with that view. The men and women in our intelligence community perform an incredibly important service to our nation, and they often do so under difficult and dangerous circumstances. They deserve our respect and gratitude for the work they do. Further, they need to be protected from legal jeopardy when they act in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance. That is why I have made it clear in the past that the Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees. I want to reiterate that point today, and to underscore the fact that this preliminary review will not focus on those individuals.
I share the President’s conviction that as a nation, we must, to the extent possible, look forward and not backward when it comes to issues such as these. While this Department will follow its obligation to take this preliminary step to examine possible violations of law, we will not allow our important work of keeping the American people safe to be sidetracked.
I fully realize that my decision to commence this preliminary review will be controversial. As Attorney General, my duty is to examine the facts and to follow the law. In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me to take.
I don't hold AG Holder in high regard. I'm ambivalent about his decision to pursue the matter further. Still, it is noteworthy that he's willing to break ranks with the current administration out of his sense of duty.
The Reaper
08-24-2009, 16:09
As Attorney General, my duty is to examine the facts and to follow the law. In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me to take.
You mean, like he did with the Black Panther voter intimidation case?
TR
You mean, like he did with the Black Panther voter intimidation case?
TR
TR--
His handling of that case is a primary reason why I don't hold him in high regard <<LINK (http://professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=267179&postcount=44)>>.
President Bush authorized enhanced interrogation techniques on select detainees in order to get actionable information to protect the United States.
CIA officer threatened KSM that if any more attacks occur, KSM's family will be killed.
CIA officer operated a power drill so a blindfolded detainee can hear the sound of the drill, which was not/not used on detainee.
CIA officers waterboarded several detainees. (Yes, it sucks and is "scary" but it ain't that damn bad.)
Now the current administration is investigating and those officers/contractors MAY be prosecuted by the US Government.
So let's say that a CIA contract employee or heck, a USG employee, has eyes on UBL (or even AAZ) and are 100% confident in their PID'd. The civilian employee has UBL in their sights. Will the employee be prosecuted for murder if he squeezes the trigger? COULD he be prosecuted by a later administration for "crimes" (e.g. doing his job) that we're authorized by a previous President?
When does this stop? Personally, those officers should be awarded intelligence medals or receive cash awards and not prosecuted. I wonder...how much is all this investigating, special prosecutor assigning, blah, blah, blah COSTING the US taxpayer? Maybe I'm out of my mind but I would rather that the CIA officers that are working on processing all those FOIA requests be working on COUNTER-TERRORISM CASES AND NOT THIS CYA JUNK!!!
This administration is weakening our Nation by this distraction.
When does this stop?
Looks to be when those who may have committed prosecutable offenses are prosecuted (which doesn't mean they'll be found guilty) and those who didn't aren't.
And so it goes...;)
Richard's $.02 :munchin
President Obama does not intend to voice his preference for whether anyone is prosecuted from prisoner abuse cases,
So basically he's voting "present" once again. :rolleyes:
Warrior-Mentor
08-24-2009, 19:10
Of the 6 wrenches of Propaganda that turn the human mind,
#1 is ATROCITY ACCUSATION.
So lets just tie ourselves in knots...
It’s a pity that we can no longer "torture" terrorists with loud music and deprive them of sleep. The intention to protect America from being attacked again, in my mind, justifies the reality which terrorists faced because of the consequences of their actions.
"I was obliged to eat [apples], I was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed..."
- Mark Twain "Extracts from Adams's Diary"
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Four interesting points of view from today's OpEds. ;)
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Prosecuting the C.I.A.
NYT, 25 Aug 2009
Part 1 of 2
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has named a veteran federal prosecutor, John Durham, to examine nearly a dozen abuse cases in which detainees were held by the Central Intelligence Agency. The Justice Department’s ethics office, in a report released on Monday, recommended reopening the cases, reversing the Bush administration and potentially exposing C.I.A. workers to prosecution for their treatment of detainees.
President Obama, who has often said that he wants to look forward, not backward, said in April that C.I.A. officers who were acting on the Justice Department’s legal advice approving the use of certain interrogation techniques, would not be prosecuted. But he left open the possibility that anyone who acted without legal authorization could face criminal penalties.
We asked some legal and national security experts what the scope of such an inquiry should be and whether C.I.A. employees and contractors should be subject to potential prosecution.
David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center
Sarah E. Mendelson, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Vicki Divoll, former C.I.A. assistant general counsel
Diane Marie Amann, law professor at University of California, Davis
Hold Top Officials Accountable
David Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and the author, most recently, of “The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable,” to be published in September.
The announcement that Attorney General Holder will direct an independent counsel to investigate a number of C.I.A. interrogators and contractors for possible criminal prosecution for conduct that went beyond that authorized by the Justice Department is an important first step in the path toward accountability, but it is by no means sufficient.
To investigate line interrogators without investigating those who committed the “original sin” — authorizing the C.I.A. to use cruel, brutal and torturous tactics in the first place — is to substitute scapegoating for true accountability.
A comprehensive investigation is needed, not limited by political considerations to the weak, but including those all the way up the chain of command who hold ultimate responsibility for launching us on a path of torture.
In particular, the lawyers at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel who contorted the law to authorize precisely what it forbade need to be investigated. Lawyers in that office, including John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, wrote a series of memos from 2002 to 2005 that baldly misinterpreted the law with one and only one goal in mind — to give a green light to the C.I.A. to use tactics amounting to torture, including slamming suspects into walls, stripping them naked, forcing them into painful stress positions for hours, and waterboarding.
The Justice Department lawyers had an obligation to tell the C.I.A. that such tactics are illegal. But instead they conspired to rationalize their use through skewed distortions of law, language and logic.
A fair investigation must also encompass the officials in the Bush Cabinet who personally approved these tactics — reportedly including Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and, as national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. They are all powerful and connected people, but that should in no way excuse them from a full inquiry into their role in the United States’s descent into torture.
Whether criminal prosecutions are ultimately warranted for these individuals remains an open question. But there can be no question that a full investigation is required, and that these officials are equally, if not more, responsible for the C.I.A.’s use of brutality than the interrogators. If we are willing to consider holding to account only those without political power, what is left of the rule of law?
A Step Closer to Justice
Sarah E. Mendelson is director of the Human Rights and Security Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The term “transitional justice” — how countries reconcile with abuses committed by a past regime— doesn’t mean much to most Americans. To some Washington insiders, the term “accountability” is toxic, conjuring up witch hunts and partisan warfare.
But with Attorney General Eric Holder’s carefully worded statement on Monday in which he claimed that “…the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations,” we, as a country, have taken a step closer to both justice and accountability.
This announcement will likely be met by criticism that Holder has not gone far enough (why such a narrow scope?) as often as the claim that Holder has gone too far (why look back at all?). In fact, this process, of which this review will come to be seen as but one small part, will likely play out over a long period taking many shades and hues; there will be more reports leaked and released, and more calls for justice. There will be debates about commissions versus prosecutions. There will be name calling.
Those utterly absent from these debates: human rights defenders suffering this very moment in countries dominated by total impunity, where there is never the possibility of such a review. Where crimes routinely go unpunished, and people are disappeared by governments that are never ever brought to justice. We won’t hear either from those ruling with impunity, who mock the defenders even as they exterminate them. The U.S. departure from international law has enabled authoritarians in recent years. Maybe this review will give them pause.
Take a deep breath, and let yourself imagine, just for a second, that the arc of history does, in fact, bend toward justice.
(cont'd)
Prosecuting the C.I.A.
NYT, 25 Aug 2009
Part 2 of 2
Who Knew What When
Vicki Divoll is a former C.I.A. assistant general counsel and general counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee. She teaches government at the United States Naval Academy.
The issues involving the legal consequences of harsh or abusive handling of detainees by C.I.A. officers and contractors overseas have gotten much more confusing in the past 24 hours. We all seem to be arguing about different things, but we can agree about quite a bit.
We can agree, for example, that the Justice Department has the final word within the executive branch about the legality of the conduct of U.S. officials in the performance of their duties. Sometimes before, and often after, intelligence activities have occurred, Justice officials decide if they are within the bounds of the law.
We can also agree that if Justice lawyers give written guidance about future activities, and government officials follow that guidance, then, even if the guidance proves later to have been incorrect on the law, those who acted in reliance on the advice should not be prosecuted. C.I.A. officers are entitled to rely on Department of Justice legal opinions.
Finally, we can agree that if agency officers and contractors engaged in conduct that exceeded the clear guidance given by Justice lawyers, then they are responsible for their actions and should be held accountable in a court of law, as would any citizen.
These are fairly basic concepts. So where are we? Attorney General Holder has determined that a prosecutor should investigate the conduct of C.I.A. officers and contractors to determine if they should be prosecuted for violations of federal criminal law.
The special prosecutor will likely focus on the legal guidance by Justice that was provided to C.I.A. headquarters and whether that guidance was communicated to officers in the field in a clear, unambiguous and timely manner. He will examine all the communications back and forth between headquarters and the field on the interrogations and the accounts of relevant witnesses. He’s also likely to consider whether supervisors at headquarters knew or should have known about any actions that exceeded the legal guidance, and, if so, whether they took proper action to stop them.
With the findings from that investigation, the special prosecutor will then have to make a determination as to whether C.I.A. officers, contractors and supervisors knowingly exceeded the legal authority provided to them in the handling of the detainees. If that is the case, a decision will then have to be made on whether to prosecute them.
We may have had eight years to forget, but this is how the rule of law is supposed to operate.
A Long Way from Prosecution
Diane Marie Amann is a law professor at University of California, Davis.
The “Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder Regarding a Preliminary Review into the Interrogation of Certain Detainees” in fact falls far short of calling for a prosecutor to investigate the conduct of C.I.A. officers and contractors to determine if they should be prosecuted for violations of federal criminal law.
Mr. Holder ordered only “a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations.” If the answer is yes, the next step will be “the commencement of a full investigation,” and even that step may not lead to criminal charges. His statement takes pains to exclude from risk of prosecution –- or indeed, preliminary review -– intelligence agents “who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel.”
Cause for concern thus rests only with persons who acted in bad faith, or against legal advice. (Mr. Holder’s statement is notably silent on the extent to which the preliminary review will consider either the lawyers who wrote the Office of Legal Counsel memos or the policymakers at whose request they were written.)
Consider another case, a decade ago and an ocean away. In 1999, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ordered an internal analysis of whether NATO’s air war against Serbia violated the laws of war. Based on that analysis, the prosecutor announced there would be “no formal inquiry,” and the matter was dropped for good. Nothing in the Holder statement bars the same result here.
All Mr. Holder did, in short, was to instruct a prosecutor to see if U.S. law was violated. Given the descriptions in the just-released C.I.A. report of waterboarding and other abuses, how could he have done anything less?
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/prosecuting-the-cia/?partner=rss&emc=rss
So are the proceedings going to be run in Salem Mass? It would be historically correct to have Witch Hunts II (The Obama Years) there. Pandora's box when opened is hard to close. What happened to The Great O's statement that they were not going to do this months ago?:munchin
And so it goes...;)
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Inside The CIA's Patchwork Interrogation Program
Pamela Hess and Matt Apuzzo, AP, 25 Aug 2009
With just two weeks of training, or about half the time it takes to become a truck driver, the CIA certified its spies as interrogation experts after 9/11 and handed them the keys to the most coercive tactics in the agency's arsenal.
It was a haphazard process, cobbled together in the months following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington by an agency that had never been in the interrogation business. The result was a patchwork program in which rules kept shifting and the goals often were unclear.
At times, the interrogators went too far, even beyond the wide latitude they were given under the Bush administration's flexible guidelines, according to newly unclassified documents released Monday. Interrogators took the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding beyond what was authorized. Mock executions were held. Family members were threatened. There were hints of rape.
If it was a terrifying process for the detainees, it was a bureaucratic nightmare for the interrogators. Until 2003, the agency provided its interrogators with rules on a case-by-case basis, sometimes giving permission by e-mail or even orally from CIA headquarters.
Despite the lack of clarity, interrogators were required to sign documents saying they understood the rules and would comply with them. Yet they were given ample room to improvise and make decisions about how much humanity to show to terror detainees.
While former Vice President Dick Cheney said the interrogation program was run by "highly trained professionals who understand their obligations under the law," the newly released documents suggest otherwise, at least in the early months.
The interrogators slapped prisoners, held a handgun to one's head, used power drills to make threats and left men shackled and naked in frigid rooms until they cooperated.
"How cold is cold?" one officer said in the 2004 CIA inspector general's report released Monday. "How cold is life threatening?"
The CIA's Counterterrorism Center began training interrogators in November 2002, two months after suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah already had been repeatedly subjected to waterboarding.
But because the CIA had so little information about al-Qaida, CIA analysts could only speculate about what the detainees "should know," hobbling the interrogators' ability to ask meaningful questions and identify misleading or useful answers.
Some in the CIA correctly feared that the existence of the program would leak out someday. Others worried they'd be identified by name in news stories.
"One officer expressed concern that, one day, agency officers will wind up on some 'wanted list' to appear before the World Court for war crimes," the inspector general wrote.
Another added, "Ten years from now we're going to be sorry we're doing this ... (but) it has to be done."
Even the Justice Department, which authorized the interrogation program, conceded in a 2004 memo that "at least in some instances and particularly early in the program," the program appeared to have gone off track.
Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a prosecutor Monday to look into whether such incidents amounted to violation of federal law. He said nobody who operated within the framework of the Justice Department's legal opinions will be charged.
But the program that the Bush administration's Justice Department approved in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks began to short-circuit almost immediately.
In August 2002, government lawyers said interrogators were not supposed to use harsh tactics until all other methods had failed. But three months later, when officials captured the terrorism suspect Abd al-Nashiri, believed to be behind the bombing of the USS Cole, interrogators immediately launched into enhanced tactics.
And the method of waterboarding used by the CIA did not always resemble the clinical, closely supervised process that the Justice Department approved. One official, explaining why interrogators were pouring excessive amounts of water over a detainee's cloth-covered mouth and nose, said, "It is for real."
Another interrogator repeatedly choked off the carotid artery of a prisoner, causing the detainee to pass out, then shaking him awake again. The interrogator had only recently been trained in interrogation tactics and had previous experience only in debriefing, the practice of questioning people already willing to cooperate.
As late as September 2003, the CIA was still sending mixed signals to its interrogators.
"No formal mechanisms were in place to ensure that personnel going to the field were briefed on the existing legal and policy guidance," the report said.
It was a debriefer, not a trained interrogator, who threatened alleged al-Nashiri with a power drill and an unloaded gun. Such threats violate U.S. anti-torture laws.
It's not clear from CIA reports whether waterboarding or other aggressive tactics made America safer, as Cheney has long claimed. CIA officials credited the detention and interrogation program with thwarting several terrorist attacks. But investigators said it's less certain that waterboarding or other coercive tactics directly contributed to that success. In one case, CIA officials staged a mock execution to terrify a detainee into cooperating. Mock executions are prohibited under U.S. law. But authorities believed the detainee was withholding information, and they felt they needed to get creative. So they pretended to kill another detainee in a nearby room.
It was an elaborate setup, complete with a guard playing a dead detainee.
But the scheme apparently didn't work. A senior officer later said the effort was so obviously a ruse, it yielded no benefit to interrogators.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_cia_interrogations_confusion
Did anyone see Good Morning America this morn. I came back into the house (for the 2d time-kept forgetting things, "Parts"heimers).
Wife had it on, but wasnt paying attention to it. I SWEAR I heard one of those "info-babes" commenting on the torture issue. The remark I think I heard her make re waterboarding was: "Just because it works is no reason to continue doing it". I was struck pretty much like the AFLAC duck after hearing Yogi Berra explain how it worked.
Im looking for verification on this comment?
At what point will this madness end?
Maybe 2012.
greenberetTFS
08-25-2009, 14:55
So are the proceedings going to be run in Salem Mass? It would be historically correct to have Witch Hunts II (The Obama Years) there. Pandora's box when opened is hard to close. What happened to The Great O's statement that they were not going to do this months ago?
SF_BHT,is right...... :rolleyes: BHO said he's not going to look back but only forward, another lie.................. :eek: He's allowing this to go on,because if he really wanted it to go away, he could stop it,easily enough......... :p
Big Teddy :munchin
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/08/republicans_denounce_witch_hun.html
(this is just a portion of the article)
Leading Republicans denounced Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision to appoint a prosecutor to investigate alleged abuses of roughly a dozen detainees under a Bush-era CIA policy, as top Democrats expressed mixed views on Monday's actions by the Obama administration and some worried that the Justice Department probe would not go far enough.
Holder's appointment of John H. Durham, a career prosecutor, will hinder future intelligence gathering in the fight against terrorists, Congressional Republicans argued. "We are witnessing the beginning of a witch hunt that will decimate both the morale and effectiveness of those who have dedicated their lives to protecting our nation," Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the head of a conservative caucus in the House, said Tuesday in a statement.
Price's words echoed the sentiments of other senior Senate Republicans, eight of whom wrote a letter of protest to Holder Monday evening. "We fear that the true cost of this endeavor will ultimately be borne by the American people, who rely on the intelligence community, operating without distraction, to protect them from the many threats, known and unknown, that our country faces in this post-9/11 world," the group wrote.
Senators signing the letter included Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz), the No. 2 Republican leader; Christopher "Kit" Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee; and Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.
(article continues)
I understand we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Thats what makes us a great country. But it angers me that this is about the same people who video tape our prisoners being beheaded. Maybe it's just been to long since 911. I'm sure this story would never come to light if we were attacked again on the levels of 911.
"Eight years ago next month, Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists in two fuel-laden jetliners crashed into and collapsed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Another jet with a full fuel load tore into the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth crashed in a field in Somerset County, [Pennsylvania,] believed to have been brought down by brave passengers who refused to let terrorist bastards hit another Washington target. Nearly 3,000 men, women and children died. Many were incinerated and vaporized in the infernos. And the United States Department of Justice now is actively considering prosecuting Central Intelligence Agency employees and those with whom the CIA contracted -- for scaring terrorist suspects. God forbid that those charged with bringing the 9/11 terrorists -- and those involved in other terrorist acts -- to justice and/or with eliciting information about future terrorist plans might have used necessarily nasty tactics to do so. Attorney General Eric Holder, who would rather prosecute those defending America than, say, New Black Panther Party members intimidating voters with clubs in Philadelphia, vows that no information will be made public that would compromise the work of the CIA. There, don't you feel better? Never mind the chilling effect of prosecuting those who did the job they were charged to do. Perhaps the Obama administration would like to take terrorist suspects to Starbucks for, what the heck, a nice Caffe Misto. God help these fools. God help the U.S.A."
http://link.patriotpost.us/?136-903-903-182155-8698
Got it from the Patriot Post, http://patriotpost.us/
I understand we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Thats what makes us a great country.
But it angers me that this is about the same people who video tape our prisoners being beheaded.
Maybe it's just been to long since 911. I'm sure this story would never come to light if we were attacked again on the levels of 911.
Sir, I could not not agree with you more!!!
Oh yes, let's coddle the Rag-head's that saw off American heads, that'll teach 'em We mean business!
Disgusting! The One should be ashamed!!!:mad:
Holly
"Attorney General Eric Holder, who would rather prosecute those defending America than, say, New Black Panther Party members intimidating voters with clubs in Philadelphia, vows that no information will be made public that would compromise the work of the CIA.
Right. Instead the ACLU will just show pictures to the BGs. Why am I not surprised? And where the hell is the outrage?
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/mmalkin/2009/mm_08261.shtml
ACLU: Spying for America's Enemies
By Michelle Malkin
August 26, 2009
Savor the silence of America's self-serving champions of privacy. For once, the American Civil Liberties Union has nothing bad to say about the latest case of secret domestic surveillance -- because it is the ACLU that committed the spying.
Last week, The Washington Post reported on a new Justice Department inquiry into photographs of undercover CIA officials and other intelligence personnel taken by ACLU-sponsored researchers assisting the defense team of Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to the report, the pictures of covert American CIA officers -- "in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes" -- were shown to jihadi suspects tied to the 9/11 attacks in order to identify the interrogators.
The ACLU undertook the so-called "John Adams Project" with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- last seen crusading for convicted jihadi assistant Lynne Stewart. She's the far-left lawyer who helped sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing and N.Y. landmark bombing plot mastermind, smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client's court-ordered isolation.
The ACLU's team used lists and data from "human rights groups," European researchers and news organizations that were involved in "(t)racking international CIA-chartered flights" and monitoring hotel phone records. Working from a witch-hunt list of 45 CIA employees, the ACLU team tailed and photographed agency employees or obtained other photos from public records.
And then they showed the images to suspected al-Qaida operatives implicated in murdering 3,000 innocent men, women and children on American soil.
Where is the concern for the safety of these American officers and their families? Where's the outrage from all the indignant supporters of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose name was leaked by Bush State Department official Richard Armitage to the late Robert Novak? Lefties swung their nooses for years over the disclosure, citing federal laws prohibiting the sharing of classified information and proscribing anyone from unauthorized exposure of undercover intelligence agents.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero refused to comment on Project CIA Paparazzi and instead whined some more about the evil Bush/CIA interrogators. Left-wing commentators and distraction artists are dutifully up in arms about such "inhumane" tactics as blowing cigar smoke in the faces of Gitmo detainees. But it's Romero blowing unconscionable smoke:
"We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken as we investigated the circumstances of the torture of our clients and as we have vigorously defended our clients' interests," he told the Post. "Rather than investigate the CIA officials who undertook the torture, they are now investigating the military lawyers who have courageously stepped up to defend these clients in these sham proceedings."
Courage? What tools and fools these jihadi-enablers be. Civil liberties opportunism is literally a part of the al-Qaida handbook. A terrorist manual seized in a Manchester, England, raid in 2005 advised operatives: "At the beginning of the trial ... the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison." Jihadi commanders rehearsed the lines with their foot soldiers "to ensure that they have assimilated it."
Since 9/11, the selective champions of privacy have recklessly blabbed about counter-terrorism operations, endangered the lives of military and intelligence officials at Gitmo, and undermined national security through endless litigation. They accused Bush immigration officials of xenophobia for pursuing visa over-stayers from jihadi-friendly countries. They accused local law enforcement, FBI and other homeland security officials of "racial profiling" for placing heightened scrutiny on mosques and jihadi-linked charities.
Now, caught red-handed blowing the cover of CIA operatives, they shrug their shoulders and dismiss it as "normal" research on behalf of "our clients."
But don't you dare question their love of country. Spying to stop the next 9/11 is treason, you see. Spying to stop enhanced interrogation of Gitmo detainees is patriotic. And endangering America on behalf of international human rights is the ultimate form of leftist dissent.
--------------------
NiteTrain
08-26-2009, 20:48
What happened to The Great O's statement that they were not going to do this months ago?:munchin
That went out the window when he decide not to throw his hat in the arena on this goat rodeo.:rolleyes:
People seem to have missed this one so I'm reposting - FWIW I concur with the opinions posited by the author.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Who Knew What When
Vicki Divoll is a former C.I.A. assistant general counsel and general counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee. She teaches government at the United States Naval Academy.
The issues involving the legal consequences of harsh or abusive handling of detainees by C.I.A. officers and contractors overseas have gotten much more confusing in the past 24 hours. We all seem to be arguing about different things, but we can agree about quite a bit.
We can agree, for example, that the Justice Department has the final word within the executive branch about the legality of the conduct of U.S. officials in the performance of their duties. Sometimes before, and often after, intelligence activities have occurred, Justice officials decide if they are within the bounds of the law.
We can also agree that if Justice lawyers give written guidance about future activities, and government officials follow that guidance, then, even if the guidance proves later to have been incorrect on the law, those who acted in reliance on the advice should not be prosecuted. C.I.A. officers are entitled to rely on Department of Justice legal opinions.
Finally, we can agree that if agency officers and contractors engaged in conduct that exceeded the clear guidance given by Justice lawyers, then they are responsible for their actions and should be held accountable in a court of law, as would any citizen.
These are fairly basic concepts. So where are we? Attorney General Holder has determined that a prosecutor should investigate the conduct of C.I.A. officers and contractors to determine if they should be prosecuted for violations of federal criminal law.
The special prosecutor will likely focus on the legal guidance by Justice that was provided to C.I.A. headquarters and whether that guidance was communicated to officers in the field in a clear, unambiguous and timely manner. He will examine all the communications back and forth between headquarters and the field on the interrogations and the accounts of relevant witnesses. He’s also likely to consider whether supervisors at headquarters knew or should have known about any actions that exceeded the legal guidance, and, if so, whether they took proper action to stop them.
With the findings from that investigation, the special prosecutor will then have to make a determination as to whether C.I.A. officers, contractors and supervisors knowingly exceeded the legal authority provided to them in the handling of the detainees. If that is the case, a decision will then have to be made on whether to prosecute them.
We may have had eight years to forget, but this is how the rule of law is supposed to operate.
People seem to have missed this one so I'm reposting - FWIW I concur with the opinions posited by the author.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
.
Richard, my husband and I had this discussion a couple of nights ago.
First of all, let me say that I think the administration is using this as a means to deflect all the attention away from the healthcare debate.
With that being said, I support what the author has to say as well. As long as the investigation looks solely into cases where the interrogators went above and beyond what was authorized by the administration at the time, I have a no problem with that. We are a nation of laws, and we cannot pick and choose which laws to follow, at a whim. I am sure there are a lot of people in prison today that thought they were doing "the right thing". If anyone went outside the parameters of what President Bush and the Justice Department authorized, and it can be proven in a court of law, they deserve to be prosecuted.
What I do have a problem with, is I think it will go beyond that. I do not think Holder has the capacity to keep the investigation on this very small focus point. I think he will use it as an excuse to go after President Bush and his policies. He will not be able to attack President Bush outright, so he will start rounding up any interrogator that ever looked at a detainee, regardless of whether the followed the outlined procedures to the letter of the law.
I hope they realize that if they go down this road, they are setting a very disturbing precedence. "Let's go back and prosecute someone for something that was legal when it happened, just because we didn't like the policy now". I wonder what the Supreme Court will have to say about these types of cases when they reach their hallowed halls?
If this happens, can you imagine what will happen to the Obama administration should a Republican win the 2012 election, or the 2016? Somehow I doubt the whiz kids of the Obama administration can think ahead that far, and fail to realize they are putting a bulls eye right on their chest. I wonder how much they are going to like being under scrutiny?
Richard, my husband and I had this discussion a couple of nights ago.
First of all, let me say that I think the administration is using this as a means to deflect all the attention away from the healthcare debate.
With that being said, I support what the author has to say as well. As long as the investigation looks solely into cases where the interrogators went above and beyond what was authorized by the administration at the time, I have a no problem with that. We are a nation of laws, and we cannot pick and choose which laws to follow, at a whim. I am sure there are a lot of people in prison today that thought they were doing "the right thing". If anyone went outside the parameters of what President Bush and the Justice Department authorized, and it can be proven in a court of law, they deserve to be prosecuted.
What I do have a problem with, is I think it will go beyond that. I do not think Holder has the capacity to keep the investigation on this very small focus point. I think he will use it as an excuse to go after President Bush and his policies. He will not be able to attack President Bush outright, so he will start rounding up any interrogator that ever looked at a detainee, regardless of whether the followed the outlined procedures to the letter of the law.
I hope they realize that if they go down this road, they are setting a very disturbing precedence. "Let's go back and prosecute someone for something that was legal when it happened, just because we didn't like the policy now". I wonder what the Supreme Court will have to say about these types of cases when they reach their hallowed halls?
If this happens, can you imagine what will happen to the Obama administration should a Republican win the 2012 election, or the 2016? Somehow I doubt the whiz kids of the Obama administration can think ahead that far, and fail to realize they are putting a bulls eye right on their chest. I wonder how much they are going to like being under scrutiny?
I see this in Latin America all the time. One party comes in and they start investigating the last Government. It goes on government after government..... That is why the out going crew packs up and goes to a country that will not extradite. Wonder where the Obamanites will go? Venezuela or maybe Iran..... The seem to want to be BFF's:munchin
Bordercop
08-27-2009, 08:50
Here's the link:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWM0OWU1NDJkNGFjNjc5MmE2M2NkZWIwZTdlNTA3MWM=
Crisis Management
Americans are being led back to a pre-9/11 landscape.
By Clifford D. May
During the 1990s, most of us thought we were living in a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. We even spent the “peace dividend” — cutting resources for intelligence and the military. The Cold War was over. We had no enemies worth worrying about. That was the conventional wisdom, the accepted narrative of that giddy era.
The fact that Americans were being attacked with regularity by Islamist terrorists — for example, in New York City in 1993, at Khobar Towers in 1996, at two of our embassies in Africa in 1998, off the coast of Yemen in 2000 — did not lead most politicians to conclude there was a crisis that urgently needed to be addressed. As a result, the catastrophic attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 came as a shock and a surprise.
In the wake of 9/11, it was obvious that we faced a national-security crisis — that a war was being waged against America and the West. Extensive anti-terrorism policies were implemented in response. Terrorists were hunted down and killed. Others were captured and interrogated. In a few cases, “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” were authorized to coerce “high-value” terrorists to reveal what they knew about attacks planned but not yet carried out.
Even so, most experts predicted that further assaults on Americans would not be long in coming. Curiously, the same people who are now quick to credit President Obama’s stimulus spending with averting a second Great Depression say they doubt whether there is any correlation between the anti-terrorist policies of the Bush administration and the security we’ve enjoyed over the eight years since their implementation.
Former vice president Dick Cheney begs to differ. Those policies “provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al-Qaeda,” he said in a statement. “The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al-Qaeda to launch further mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”
Now, not only are some of those policies being abandoned, but Attorney General Eric Holder also is making an effort to demonize and, possibly, place in the docket those who conceived or carried them out. It will be a watershed in American history if lawyers from the current administration prosecute lawyers from the previous administration because they disagree with their legal opinions. In banana republics that is common. But in America, it used to be sufficient for one party to defeat the other at the polls. Jailing political opponents was regarded as excessive.
What’s more, all of the CIA cases in question already have been examined by the agency’s inspector general. They were then referred to career attorneys at the Justice Department who declined to prosecute in every case but one — that of a CIA contractor who beat a detainee to death with a flashlight. To re-open the other cases now may not technically constitute double jeopardy — but it is close.
Through carelessness, partisanship, or some combination, much of the media have made it appear that the abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib — abuses exposed by the military and prosecuted by the military — are somehow connected with the Justice Department memos authorizing limited but coercive techniques to get top al-Qaeda leaders to talk.
I’ll bet there are people who now believe that Lynndie England was a trained CIA interrogator rather than a kid from a West Virginia trailer park who enlisted in the army reserves and got a sent to a jail in Baghdad where she mistreated prisoners for her own entertainment. They may believe, too, that she read the Justice Department memos and acted on their instructions as part of a top-secret government intelligence-gathering operation.
By the way, it is inaccurate to refer to those memos — as they have been in most press reports — as “torture memos.” They are actually anti-torture memos: They draw a line between torture, which is prohibited, and harsh but legal techniques designed to prod uncooperative terrorists to reveal information about ongoing operations. One can argue over where to draw the line — precisely how many hours of sleep deprivation constitute torture? — but one cannot seriously argue that no attempt was made to draw it. Nor can one argue, based on the evidence that has been released, that these methods did not prevent terrorist attacks and save American lives. Some people may think that’s irrelevant; most probably do not.
An attempt is being made to lead Americans back to a pre-2001 landscape. A message is being sent that we now face no crisis — Americans need not be concerned about militant Islamists waging a war against us. Indeed, this White House and this Justice Department no longer speak of war, only of crimes committed by terrorists and — with more vehemence — by those who have attempted to thwart them.
It is likely to be a long time before a captured terrorist will again tell an American interrogator what he knows. It also may be a long time before another terrorist is captured. For now, at least, it is still permissible to use drones to kill terrorists in such remote corners of the world as Waziristan. But how would you like to be the CIA operative pulling that trigger?
Richard,
With all due respect, I disagree with the post from Vicki Divoll (of course I will concede that she is the lawyer and I am the furthest thing from one) but it would seem that there would be some room for a decent argument specifically related to:
1) Which US laws, if any, were broken? Is a memo from DOJ an actual law or simply a policy? Is policy enforceable by criminal punishment?
2) As I understand it, a USG employee working on a US base, FOB, etc is subject to the UCMJ. What about foreign sites where some interrogations reportedly took place? I'm assuming here that violation of a foreign law isn't punishable in the US (SOFA excluded)?
Or is it?
What's next: the ODA grows to 13 members to include a JAG rep? Will DA missions be equated to murder? UW equated to armed rebellion and sedition? Granted that's extreme but what about the SOT-A guys and the voodoo that they do?
I think this witch hunt puts all intelligence-type work potentially under undue scrutiny by outsiders who think they know what's best. Intel work is intended to be carried out in the shadows, otherwise we risk returning to the days of "Gentlemen don't read other peoples' mail." in an attempt to hold the morale high ground.
I don't want to live in that world. :D
It seems that the judgment has already been rendered and punishment has been levied on the CIA. It appears the Administration feels the CIA is guilty and therefore, has taken away their authority to conduct interrogations of CT HVIs and created the HIG. This whole thing has gotten political and is no longer about substance: did the techniques used provide results?
It seems that the judgment has already been rendered and punishment has been levied on the CIA. It appears the Administration feels the CIA is guilty and therefore, has taken away their authority to conduct interrogations of CT HVIs and created the HIG. This whole thing has gotten political and is no longer about substance: did the techniques used provide results?
You should reread Ms Divoll's position - which is an 'IF:THEN' position - that the investigation should occur - just like we investigate soldiers on the battlefield for committing criminal acts if evidence supports such a supposition - and what follows as a result of the investigation (the IF) may or may not be the prosecution of some who may have gone beyond the law (the THEN)- but however it turns out, it is the rule of law by which we choose to live as a society.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Insightful...and so it goes...
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Abuse Issue Puts the C.I.A. and Justice Dept. at Odds
Peter Baker, David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti, NYT, 27 Aug 2009
With the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate detainee abuses, long-simmering conflicts between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department burst into plain view this week, threatening relations between two critical players on President Obama’s national security team.
The tension between the agencies complicates how the administration handles delicate national security issues, particularly the tracking and capturing of suspected terrorists overseas. It also may distract Mr. Obama, who is trying to move beyond the battles of the Bush years to focus on an ambitious domestic agenda, most notably health care legislation.
The strains became evident inside the administration in the past several weeks. In July, Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, tried to head off the investigation, administration officials said. He sent the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, Stephen W. Preston, to Justice to persuade aides to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to abandon any plans for an inquiry.
Mr. Preston presented what was, in effect, a closing argument in defense of the C.I.A., contending that many potential cases against intelligence operatives were legally flawed and noting that they had already been investigated, some more than once. In none, he said, had prosecutors found grounds for charges.
But the Justice Department was unmoved, officials said. Despite the C.I.A. pressure and the stated desire of the White House not to dwell on the past, Mr. Holder went ahead with an investigation that will determine whether agents broke the law in their brutal interrogations.
The officials interviewed for this article spoke anonymously so that they could discuss debates over classified matters.
On the day the decision was announced, Mr. Panetta phoned Mr. Holder, according to people familiar with the call. In the conversation, which lasted less than a minute, the C.I.A. director told the attorney general that the agency would cooperate but expressed his displeasure and swore mildly, if only once.
Mr. Holder and Mr. Panetta are each confronting difficult balancing acts. Mr. Holder inherited a dispirited department accused of carrying out the political wishes of the Bush White House, and he now must show independence while continuing to work with the rest of the administration.
For his part, Mr. Panetta, who is also new to his job and lacks a background in intelligence, must carry out White House orders to make a clean break with some of the Bush administration’s intelligence policies, including ending the C.I.A.’s harsh interrogations. At the same time he must soothe frayed nerves at the C.I.A.
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said that reports of shouting matches were overblown and that the protagonists were simply advocating for their agencies’ viewpoints in robust discussions, as they should. “Leon’s representing his institutional building,” Mr. Emanuel said. “Eric’s representing his institutional responsibilities.”
While top C.I.A. officials are angry at the Justice Department, Mr. Panetta has also quarreled over turf with Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, to whom he reports. The White House has occasionally been frustrated with both Mr. Panetta and Mr. Holder. And some in the administration have taken aim at Gregory B. Craig, the White House counsel, blaming him for some of the troubles in handling the detainee issue.
The behind-the-scenes fighting began in April when, in response to an A.C.L.U. lawsuit, the Justice Department prepared to release legal opinions written by its lawyers during the Bush administration authorizing the C.I.A. to use brutal interrogation techniques.
Mr. Obama disavowed the harsh methods, like waterboarding and wall-slamming, but the legal opinions were filled with embarrassing details about the C.I.A.’s aggressive approach. Mr. Panetta sought to heavily edit the memos before releasing them but was overruled when Mr. Obama sided with Mr. Holder, who wanted more detailed disclosures, the officials said.
Though he lost on the memos, Mr. Panetta’s camp came away thinking that at least they had won a tacit understanding, said some administration officials; the embarrassing details would be aired, but Justice would back off from any new investigation.
In April, C.I.A. officers felt reassured by Mr. Emanuel’s comments on ABC News, in which he said that Mr. Obama “believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided; they shouldn’t be prosecuted.” But White House and Justice officials said that there was no such bargain and that all Mr. Emanuel meant was that C.I.A. officers who followed interrogation guidelines were safe from prosecution.
For his part, Mr. Holder had arrived in office in January thinking he might open an inquiry, and his resolve hardened after reading graphic classified reports of detainee abuse, including several deaths of prisoners in C.I.A. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Still, it came as a shock to the C.I.A. when Newsweek reported in July that Mr. Holder was leaning toward an investigation. Given that the information was contained in an exclusive profile of Mr. Holder, the agency took it as a signal that an inquiry was coming. Mr. Panetta felt blindsided and had several conversations with White House officials about the long-term damage he believed such an inquiry could do to the C.I.A. He said the C.I.A. had already taken disciplinary action against the officers who had committed the most egregious acts.
At the time, Mr. Panetta felt besieged on several fronts. Mr. Blair, the intelligence director, was pushing to appoint the senior intelligence officials in each country overseas, a traditional prerogative of the C.I.A.
And other administration officials complained when the C.I.A. sent documents about the detention program to the Senate Intelligence Committee without giving the White House time to consider whether there were any executive privilege issues.
The interagency debate grew heated enough that Mr. Emanuel summoned Mr. Panetta, Mr. Blair and other officials to the White House to set down rules for what should be provided to Congress. Mr. Panetta complained that he was being chastised for excessive openness after being criticized for excessive secrecy when he pushed to withhold details from the interrogation memos.
The various issues raised by the Bush-era interrogation and detention policies have caused other tensions within the Obama team. Mr. Emanuel and others have concluded that the White House mishandled the planning for the closing of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Some in the administration blamed Mr. Craig, the White House counsel, for not anticipating and managing the political reaction to the decisions on Guantánamo and other issues. After The Wall Street Journal suggested that Mr. Craig was on the way out, a White House official said Mr. Emanuel reassured Mr. Craig that it was nonsense, and Mr. Craig’s defenders said he had been handed a thankless task.
Throughout the summer, Mr. Holder indicated that he was still weighing whether to appoint a prosecutor. The C.I.A. dismissed that as empty posturing. To the agency, it was clear that Mr. Holder had already made up his mind and was planning to announce the investigation, as he did Monday even as the inspector general report was released.
Few cabinet officers are closer to Mr. Obama than Mr. Holder, and the issue has been awkward for the two. Aides said that they could not rule out that the two discussed the matter but said that there was never a formal White House meeting about it.
Sensitive to the problems other administrations have had regarding politicizing the Justice Department, Mr. Obama left the decision to Mr. Holder, aides said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/us/politics/28intel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
but however it turns out, it is the rule of law by which we choose to live as a society.
Concur 100%.
I don't think the genie's getting back into this bottle though (seems as if the Dems want some accountability for this) and I'm concerned that we're heading down a slippery slope.
I hope Mr. Henninger is wrong...but I assess that he may be onto something.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374500451334282.html By DANIEL HENNINGER
The message of Scotland's release and the Holder decision is that the will born in the wake of 9/11 is waning. The war on terror is being downgraded to not much more than tough talk. Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Iranians, not yet converts to the West's caricature of its own legal traditions, will take note. In time, they will be back. The second war on terror is in the future.
You should reread Ms Divoll's position - which is an 'IF:THEN' position - that the investigation should occur - just like we investigate soldiers on the battlefield for committing criminal acts if evidence supports such a supposition - and what follows as a result of the investigation (the IF) may or may not be the prosecution of some who may have gone beyond the law (the THEN)- but however it turns out, it is the rule of law by which we choose to live as a society.
Haven't investigations already taken place? How many sets of eyes and opinions are required before due process has been achieved, and who decides when the "right" decision is made on whether or not to prosecute?
Haven't investigations already taken place?
My understanding is that an initial review of readily available materials and existing laws was made to determine whether or not an in-depth investigation was/was not warranted. Apparently, further investigation with the possibility of some having committed prosecutable offenses was the determination of the review.
FWIW - DOJ is a busy place - looks as if they are also an equal opportunity prosecutor for service related criminal activities - here are a few of their recent official releases:
Husband of Former Army Officer Pleads Guilty to Laundering Money Stolen from Iraq
A New Jersey accountant pleaded guilty today to laundering portions of more than $300,000 stolen from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in the Republic of Iraq and brought back to the United States by his wife, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel.
William Driver, 45, of Trenton, N.J., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Mary L. Cooper in the District of New Jersey, Trenton Division. At the plea hearing, Driver admitted that his wife, former Lt. Col. Debra Harrison, was assigned to the CPA - South Central Region (CPA-SC) as the deputy comptroller and acting comptroller from April though June 2004. He admitted that Harrison stole money from the CPA-SC and then transported it back to their home in Trenton. Driver admitted that he contacted a home improvements company to build a deck on their home, and from October through December 2004, he and Harrison made four payments of $9,000 each to the contractor using the stolen cash. Harris admitted he and his wife made the payments in cash to evade transaction reporting requirements when the contractor deposited the funds at a bank. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 3, 2009.
On June 25, 2007, co-conspirator Lt. Col. Bruce Hopfengardner was sentenced to 21 months in prison for conspiracy and money laundering related to this scheme. Hopfengardner was also ordered to forfeit $144,500.
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-crm-773.html
Former Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Convicted of Stealing Large Amounts of Fuel from U.S. Army in Iraq
Robert Jeffery, 55, was convicted today by a federal jury in Alexandria, Va., for his role in a scheme to steal fuel worth approximately $39.6 million from the U.S. Army in Iraq.
Jeffery, a former master chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy, was convicted after a two-day trial on one count of conspiracy and one count of theft of government property. According to the evidence presented at trial, from February 2008 through May 2008, Jeffery and his co-conspirators, purportedly representing Department of Defense contractors in Iraq, used fraudulently obtained documents to enter the Victory Bulk Fuel Point (VBFP) in Camp Liberty, Iraq. Evidence showed that Jeffery and his co-conspirators presented false fuel authorization forms to steal large quantities of aviation and diesel fuel from the VBFP for subsequent sale on the black market.
The evidence at trial showed that Jeffery served as an escort for the fuel trucks and retrieved hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel from the VBFP. The United States owns and operates the VBFP in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The VBFP supplies aviation fuel and diesel fuel to both military units and U.S. government contractors operating in and around the VBFP.
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-crm-789.html
Former Member of Armed Services Sentenced for Participating in Bribery and Extortion Conspiracy
A former member of the U.S. armed services was sentenced today to 28 months in prison for his role in a widespread bribery and extortion conspiracy that operated from January 2002 through March 2004, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.
Rommel I. Schroer, 33, a former sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, was also ordered to pay a $7,500 fine and to serve three years of supervised release. Schroer was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in Tucson by Judge Cynthia K. Jorgenson.
The charges arose from Operation Lively Green, an undercover FBI investigation that began in December 2001. Fifty-six additional defendants have been sentenced for their roles in the conspiracy.
Schroer pleaded guilty on Feb. 10, 2009, to one count of conspiring to enrich himself by obtaining cash bribes from persons he believed to be narcotics traffickers in return for his assistance, protection and participation in the activities of what he believed to be an illegal narcotics trafficking organization that distributed cocaine from Arizona to other locations in the southwestern United States. In reality, the narcotics traffickers were undercover FBI agents. According to court documents, in order to protect the shipments of cocaine, Schroer and his co-conspirators wore official uniforms, carried official forms of identification, and used official vehicles, when necessary, to prevent police stops, searches and seizures of the narcotics as they drove the cocaine shipments through checkpoints manned by the U.S. Border Patrol, the Arizona Department of Public Safety and Nevada law enforcement officers.
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-crm-820.html
Son of Imprisoned Spy Pleads Guilty to Two Counts of Federal Indictment
Nathaniel James Nicholson, 25, of Eugene, Oregon, appeared before U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown and pled guilty to the crimes of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The maximum penalties for those crimes are five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, and 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000, respectively. Judge Brown scheduled sentencing on January 25, 2010.
Nicholson’s father, Harold J. Nicholson, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, is serving a 283-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Sheridan, Oregon, for a 1997 conviction of conspiracy to commit espionage. The government alleges that defendant Harold J. Nicholson, working through his son Nathaniel J. Nicholson, received cash proceeds for his past espionage activities from agents of the Russian Federation between 2006 and 2008.
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-nsd-882.html
The DOJs Office of Public Affairs Press Releases page is an interesting place to spend a bit of time - some interesting news there organized by month-year going back to 1994.
http://www.usdoj.gov/03press/03_1_1.html
Also show vacancies for 74 attorney positions http://www.usdoj.gov/oarm/attvacancies.html
Our tax dollars at work - and so it goes...;)
Richard's $.02 :munchin
incarcerated
08-30-2009, 10:56
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/30/cheney-slams-obamas-politicized-probe-cia-interrogations/
Cheney Slams Obama's 'Politicized' Probe of CIA Interrogations
By Bill Sammon
FOXNews.com
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Calling it a "terrible decision" that undermines national security and devastates CIA morale, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed the Obama administration's probe of aggressive interrogation of terrorists.
"It's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney told "FOX News Sunday" in a no-holds-barred interview.
In blunt, unsparing language, Cheney accused President Obama of setting a "terrible precedent" by allowing an "intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration."
He said the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a probe into alleged abuse of prisoners under the prior administration "offends the hell out of me," as he seemed to question Obama's fitness as commander-in-chief.
"I have serious doubts about his policies," Cheney told FOX News' Chris Wallace in Jackson Hole, Wyo. "Serious doubts, especially, about the extent to which he understands and is prepared to do what needs to be done to defend the nation."
As evidence, Cheney pointed to Obama's decision last week to assert White House control over a newly formed unit that will interrogate terrorists. The new arrangement shifts control of such interrogations away from the CIA and toward the FBI, although oversight will be exercised by the National Security Council, which is located in the White House and reports directly to the president....
Interesting - and so it goes...
Richard's $.02 :munchin
What Torture Never Told Us
Ali H. Soufan, NYT, 5 Sep 2009
{Ali H. Soufan was an F.B.I. special agent from 1997 to 2005.}
Public bravado aside, the defenders of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques are fast running out of classified documents to hide behind. The three that were released recently by the C.I.A. — the 2004 report by the inspector general and two memos from 2004 and 2005 on intelligence gained from detainees — fail to show that the techniques stopped even a single imminent threat of terrorism.
The inspector general’s report distinguishes between intelligence gained from regular interrogation and from the harsher methods, which culminate in waterboarding. While the former produces useful intelligence, according to the report, the latter “is a more subjective process and not without concern.” And the information in the two memos reinforces this differentiation.
They show that substantial intelligence was gained from pocket litter (materials found on detainees when they were captured), from playing detainees against one another and from detainees freely giving up information that they assumed their questioners already knew. A computer seized in March 2003 from a Qaeda operative for example, listed names of Qaeda members and money they were to receive.
Soon after Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the 9/11 attacks, was captured in 2003, according to the 2005 memo, he “elaborated on his plan to crash commercial airlines into Heathrow Airport.” The memo speculates that he may have assumed that Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a fellow member of Al Qaeda who had been captured in 2002, had already divulged the plan. The same motivation — the assumption that another detainee had already talked — is offered to explain why Mr. Mohammed provided details about the Hambali-Southeast Asia Qaeda network.
Mr. Mohammed must have likewise assumed that his interrogators already had the details about Al Qaeda’s organizational structure that he gave them. When I testified in the trial of Salim Hamdan, who had been Osama bin Laden’s personal driver, I provided many unclassified details about Al Qaeda’s structure and operations, none of which came from Mr. Mohammed.
Some of the information that is cited in the memos — the revelation that Mr. Mohammed had been the mastermind of 9/11, for example, and the uncovering of Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber — was gained from another terrorism suspect, Abu Zubaydah, by “informed interrogation,” conducted by an F.B.I. colleague and me. The arrest of Walid bin Attash, one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted messengers, which was also cited in the 2005 C.I.A. memo, was thanks to a quick-witted foreign law enforcement officer, and had nothing to do with harsh interrogation of anyone. The examples go on and on.
A third top suspected terrorist who was subjected to enhanced interrogation, in 2002, was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the man charged with plotting the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole. I was the lead agent on a team that worked with the Yemenis to thwart a series of plots by Mr. Nashiri’s operatives in the Arabian Peninsula — including planned attacks on Western embassies. In 2004, we helped prosecute 15 of these operatives in a Yemeni court. Not a single piece of evidence that helped us apprehend or convict them came from Mr. Nashiri.
It is surprising, as the eighth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, that none of Al Qaeda’s top leadership is in our custody. One damaging consequence of the harsh interrogation program was that the expert interrogators whose skills were deemed unnecessary to the new methods were forced out.
Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him.
A lack of knowledge perhaps explains why so many false claims have been made about the program’s alleged successes. Many officials in Washington reading the reports didn’t know enough about Al Qaeda to know what information was already known and whether the detainees were telling all they knew. The inspector general’s report states that many operatives thought their superiors were inaccurately judging that detainees were withholding information. Such assessments, the operatives said, were “not always supported by an objective evaluation” but were “too heavily based, instead, on presumptions.” I can personally testify to this.
Supporters of the enhanced interrogation techniques have jumped from claim to claim about their usefulness. They have asserted, for example, that harsh treatment led Mr. Mohammed to reveal the plot to attack the Library Tower in Los Angeles. But that plot was thwarted in 2002, and Mr. Mohammed was not arrested until 2003. Recently, interviews with unnamed sources led The Washington Post to report that harsh techniques turned Mr. Mohammed into an intelligence “asset.”
This latest claim will come as news to Mr. Mohammed’s prosecutors, to his fellow detainees (whom he instructed, at his arraignment, not to cooperate with the United States) and indeed to Mr. Mohammed himself. He told the International Committee of the Red Cross that “I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear.”
The inspector general’s report was written precisely because many of the C.I.A. operatives complained about what they were being ordered to do. The inspector general then conducted an internal audit of the entire program. In his report, he questions the effectiveness of the harsh techniques that were authorized. And he slams the use of “unauthorized, improvised, inhumane and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques.” This is probably why the enhanced interrogation program was shelved in 2005.
Meanwhile, the professionals in the field are relieved that an ineffective, unreliable, unnecessary and destructive program — one that may have given Al Qaeda a second wind and damaged our country’s reputation — is finished.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06soufan.html?em
(Note: in case it's not clear, I'm pretty tired of Ali "selling his wares" and I'm not a big fan.)
Meanwhile, the professionals in the field are relieved that an ineffective, unreliable, unnecessary and destructive program — one that may have given Al Qaeda a second wind and damaged our country’s reputation — is finished.
Really? :confused: He's faulted & blamed the CIA for ineptness but yet Agency officers have confided in him?
Objection: hearsay, your honor. Witness is merely speculating on the current opinions of others. If I may, it is clear that Special Agent Soufan has a long standing public disagreement with the Central Intelligence Agency (a). (C'mon..."C.I.A. operatives"? Is he serious? Who identifies KSM as Mr. Mohammed?)
I'm sure Agent Soufan has some interesting insight from personal experience as a Federal Law Enforcement Officer but I wish his articles were more balanced and exposed both sides of the issue. I realize that he's just doing his job to pay his bills and this topic surely pays pretty well in today's environment. :( I wonder if he'll hold the same position if (when) KSM or AMZ sues the USG for violating their human rights?
I guess in 2001 we should have sent DOJ vice DOD to Afghanistan to arrest the criminals. (<--- note sarcasm)
If Congress is so upset by this "torture" issue, I wonder how many have volunteered to attend SERE since the harsh interrogations techniques were publicized? How about these investigative reporters, how many have attended? In '95 and it sucked but that was the intent. I can only imagine what the training is like now. Stress cards or "training time-out" perhaps? I hope not.
a) http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=ali_soufan_1
TOMAHAWK9521
09-09-2009, 09:59
Instead the ACLU will just show pictures to the BGs. Why am I not surprised? And where the hell is the outrage?
Gypsy,
According to O'Reilly on FOX News yesterday, it's an organization called the "John Adams Project" that is doing just that. :mad:
Team Sergeant
09-09-2009, 10:12
Special Forces soldiers, SEALS, Rangers, Infantrymen etc etc etc have given more bad-guys dirt naps than the CIA ever will.
Guess what, their pictures are in newspapers, on TV, youtube videos, getting awards for giving bad-guys dirt naps.
You do the math.
IMO the little girls at the CIA have their panties in a bunch with the "it could endanger lives" line.
Do I think they should be exposed, no, it ruins their ability to work as they do.
If you're afraid of the bad guys then don't f*** with them, leave them to real men.
This is what happens when you recruit little boys and girls that are afraid of the dark.
my .02