Oops, our bad. - updated

The Washington Post has a little update on the torture story for us, written by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

[Emphasis mine]

Imagine that.


"Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots" is the actual headline of the Washington Post article. The subheader is: "Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say"

Those motherfuckers watched way too much Jack Bauer on "24."

Digby, who tipped me to the WaPo story, writes:

Dick Cheney is going to hell. But we knew that. And so are Bush and Rice and all the rest who insisted on torturing Abu Zubaida, a brain damaged man who was so desperate that he made up fantastical terrorist plots just to make the torture stop. They not only committed a war crime, they made us all less safe by sending investigators all over the world on wild goose chases.

This story was always pooh-poohed by administration officials, who insisted that the information this man with serious memory problems gave under torture was vital in stopping many terrorist attacks. But they lied.

Forget hell. International courts and conviction for war crimes!


UPDATE:
There are lots of other articles related to this today. bmaz concludes one at Emptywheel, in which motive for destroying the torture tapes is discussed, thus:

Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft. Means, motive and opportunity. Who could have imagined?

This certainly explains why it was that top White House lawyers including Gonzales, Addington, Bellinger and Miers, with "vigorous sentiment", assisted the CIA in the decision and process to destroy the torture tapes of abu-Zubaydah and others. There are definable offenses in their conduct: obstruction of justice, contempt of court, conspiracy, false statement/perjury, mishandling of classified material, and willful destruction of material evidence in federal investigations.

There exist patently clear crimes; where is the criminal justice system? We should not have to be humiliated by having to rely on other first world countries such as Spain, or international communities such as the Red Cross, to show us functioning justice and the rule of law.

I don't want the Obama Administration to be partisan and spiteful, I want them to do their damn job. Is that too much to ask?

[Emphasis mine]

Bmaz argues that if the tapes showed that torture works, they most certainly would have preserved them. But if the tapes show that it was pointless, then crimes have been committed to no purpose, Rather damning.


--the BB

Cheney Redux?

Avid pursuit of WMD - anthrax - links with terrorists - be very afraid!

Ah yes, Cheney's favorite fiction: the Mohammed Atta meeting in Prague that wasn't. The standard White House lines leading up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. What White House stooge was uttering them on November 28, 2001?



Here's some background for y'all on the allegations that the lead hijacker of 9/11, Mohammed Atta, met with an Iraqi spy in Prague. First a clip of Darth Cheney denying what he'd said earlier:



And some follow-up:

The claim that terrorist leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague with an Iraqi spy a few months before 9/11 was never substantiated, but that didn’t stop the White House from trying to insert the allegation in presidential speeches, according to classified documents.

Cryptic references to the White House efforts are contained in a new Senate Intelligence Committee report released last Friday that debunked purported links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. However, attempts by committee Democrats to make public a more explicit account of White House interest in the anecdote were thwarted when the “intelligence community” refused to declassify a CIA cable that lays out the controversy, according to congressional sources. Democrats charged in a written statement that intelligence officials had failed to demonstrate “that disclosing the [cable] ... would reveal sources and methods or otherwise harm national security.” The Democrats also complained that officials' refusal to declassify the cable “represents an improper use of classification authority by the intelligence community to shield the White House.”

According to two sources familiar with the blacked-out portions of the Senate report that discuss the CIA cable's contents, the document indicates that White House officials had proposed mentioning the supposed Atta-Prague meeting in a Bush speech scheduled for March 14, 2003. Originated by Czech intelligence shortly after 9/11, the tendentious claim was that in April 2001, Atta, the 9/11 hijack leader, had met in Prague with the local station chief for Iraqi intelligence. The sources said that upon learning of the proposed White House speech, the CIA station in Prague sent back a cable explaining in detail why the agency believed the anecdote was ill-founded.

According to one of the sources familiar with the Senate report's censored portions, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, the tone of the CIA cable was “strident” and expressed dismay that the White House was trying to shoehorn the Atta anecdote into the Bush speech to be delivered only days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The source said the cable also suggested that policymakers had tried to insert the same anecdote into other speeches by top administration officials.

--Newsweek
[Emphasis mine]

Cheney. McCain.

Wrong then. Wrong now.

Oh, and while we're all obsessing on economic woes, what might you suppose will be the effects of a 50% unemployment rate? That's the case in Iraq right now. Heckuva job, Dubya.

h/t to Juan Cole at Informed Comment
--the BB

The omnipotent presidency-updates (2)

McJoan writes today of the history behind the FISA Law, including the work of the Church Committee. Now that the FISA Law is turning thirty, a little review doesn't hurt. She also writes of the constant goal of Dick Cheney to return presidential power to where it was before Watergate, and perhaps beyond that.
Emptywheel discusses related issues, including minimization.

Jane Hamsher talks about the administration lying about the Protect America Act and where things actually stand.

Glenn Greenwald's post from yesterday ("The Leader isn't protecting us and keeping us safe") also helps clarify the differences between what is being claimed and reality.

There, now y'all can stay in the loop.

No, I don't plan to drop this topic. Thanks for asking.

UPDATE:
Kagro X explains minimization and FBI screw-ups (oopsie, we gathered EVERYTHING) here.

UPDATE2:
Mark Fiore has one of his animated cartoons, explaining about "The Spies Who Love You" (with Snuggly the Bear).
==the BB