Rejecting Vice President Cheney’s Talk on Torture

Two opinion pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post today respond to Vice President Cheney’s recent comments and his place in history.

The Times editorial focuses on Vice President Cheney’s rewriting of history, pointing out that Mr. Cheney’s claims that he has stopped short of repeating two of the “most outrageous abuses of power in American history — Roosevelt’s decision to force Japanese-Americans into camps and Lincoln’s declaration of martial law to silence his critics” hardly make the Bush Administration’s actions okay. In Mr. Cheney’s version of events, however, everything went just fine, and “the horrors at Abu Ghraib were not the result of the Pentagon’s decision to authorize abusive and illegal interrogation techniques, which Mr. Cheney endorsed. And only three men were subjected to waterboarding.” As the Times points out: Future truth commissions should take note.

In his Washington Post column, Eugene Robinson is confident that history will throw the book at President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Robinson is actually empathetic; he takes seriously the context of fear, grief, and anger that filled the days following the attacks of September 11 within the Administration, and is ready to hear the Administration’s basic defense “We did what we did to keep America safe.” Even granting that a reactive sense of fear might readily cause our leaders to protect the country “by any means necessary,” Robinson points out that initial reactions are supposed to give way to reasoned analysis, however “For Bush and most of his top aides, this didn’t happen until far too late.

For Cheney, apparently it never happened at all. In an interview broadcast Sunday, he invited Fox News' Chris Wallace to "go back and look at how eager the country was to have us work in the aftermath of 9/11 to make certain that that never happened again." People have since become "complacent," he said, but the administration's actions have "produced a safe 7.5 years, and I think the record speaks for itself."

That record includes the violation of international and U.S. laws, “by subjecting terrorism suspects to indefinite detention and cruel, painful interrogation; the creation of a mini gulag of secret CIA-run prisons abroad; and unprecedented domestic surveillance without court supervision -- all justified, Cheney maintains, by a state of "war" that has no foreseeable end.” Robinson says that history will show that the point of the Constitution is that the ends don’t always justify the means. Vice President Cheney has yet to identify any specific examples of foiled terrorist plots in the last 7 ½ years, and the assertion that torture produces actionable intelligence has been called seriously into question by high-level military leaders, intelligence professionals, and the director of the FBI.

In this case, history will show that the purported “ends” – keeping the country safe – have not only not justified the “means”, but they have been challenged extremely by them. As Matthew Alexander has asserted, at least half of U.S. soldiers who have died “have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse.” The policies that grew out of the initial reaction to September 11 – without careful reflection or reasoned analysis – have made our soldiers much less safe. The rest of us are less safe too, as U.S. detention practices have helped diminish our country’s standing all over the world. There’s also the damage we have done to our own sense of what it means to be American. This is a country of ideas and ideals, and the diminishment of those ideals embodied in the Constitution seriously challenges our collective sense of American identity, and the idea of America around the world.

Questions Chris Wallace Should Have Asked Vice President Cheney

Yesterday, Vice President Cheney appeared on Fox News Sunday, where he continued to defend one of the most damaging and dangerous policies of the Bush Administration: torture. Here are some questions we wish Fox’s Chris Wallace had asked him.

Question for Vice President Cheney: In an interview published in Thursday’s Washington Times, you reasserted that the “enhanced” interrogation program has prevented terrorist attacks on the United States. You said, “I think it's directly responsible for the fact that we've been able to avoid or defeat further attacks against the homeland for 7 1/2 years." Are there any specific examples of foiled terrorist plots you could share with us?

Follow-up: Vanity Fair has published a piece calling into question the assertion that torture or “enhanced” interrogation works to produce actionable intelligence. Are you saying that Americans should just trust you when you assert that torture, or abusive interrogation, produces intelligence?

“The proponents of torture say, ‘Look at the body of information that has been obtained by these methods.’ But if K.S.M. and Abu Zubaydah did give up stuff, we would have heard the details,” says [Former FBI Special Agent Jack] Cloonan. “What we got was pabulum.” A former C.I.A. officer adds: “Why can’t they say what the good stuff from Abu Zubaydah or K.S.M. is? It’s not as if this is sensitive material from a secret, vulnerable source. You’re not blowing your source but validating your program. They say they can’t do this, even though five or six years have passed, because it’s a ‘continuing operation.’ But has it really taken so long to check it all out?” (“Tortured Reasoning,” David Rose, Vanity Fair, 12/16/08)

Question for Vice President Cheney: The Director of the F.B.I., Robert Mueller, has said that he doesn’t believe the use of “enhanced techniques” has prevented a single attack on America. Why have you reached a different conclusion than the F.B.I. Director?

Follow-up: I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls
“enhanced techniques”?

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.” (“Tortured Reasoning,” David Rose, Vanity Fair, 12/16/08)

Question for Vice President Cheney: In Thursday’s Washington Times interview you said that you felt “good” about the choice you had made to authorize the use of waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques and you asserted that, "I think it would have been unethical or immoral for us not to do everything we could in order to protect the nation against further attacks like what happened on 9/11," Recently, a professional interrogator, Mathew Alexander, has asserted that U.S. policies authorizing torture have cost America as many lives as were lost on 9/11. Does this information alter your assessment?

Follow Up: “I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. … It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.” (“I’m Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq,” Mathew Alexander, Washington Post, 11/30/08)

Question for Vice President Cheney: The Bush Administration has taken the position that it authorized “aggressive” interrogation methods after field officers complained that conventional interrogation approaches were not working. The Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, portions of which were released earlier this month after being unanimously endorsed by the Committee’s Democrats and Republicans, paints a different picture. The report finds that the impetus for harsher practices came from officials in Washington. In particular, the report describes that, as early as December 2001, Defense Department officials looked to a military training program for information on how techniques designed to prepare American servicemembers for torture in enemy hands could be adapted for use by American interrogators. Have you read the SASC report? Do you dispute its findings?

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We are hopeful that when the new administration takes office in January, the “debate” about torture will be over, and the United States can reclaim its moral leadership and finally expunge the stain that torture has left on our nation. The Obama Administration should act quickly to restore America's commitment to humane treatment, enforce the many laws against such abuses, and hold those have violated these laws accountable.

Cheney 'persists in defending these disgraceful policies ... '

As quoted in a Washington Post article today looking at Vice President Cheney's record, HRF CEO and Executive Director Elisa Massimino said Cheney:

"persists in defending these disgraceful policies of abuse which have been rejected by senior retired military leaders and experienced interrogators as ineffective and counterproductive."

Human Rights First has been working with a group of retired military officers in an effort to end official cruelty and restore America's commitment to the rule of law.

How the Vice President Stole America’s Ideals

On the joint occasion of the holiday season and Vice President Cheney’s recent statements again advocating the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” – torture – we refreshed Dr. Seuss’s holiday classic in hopes of seeing a change of heart on the part of the Vice President.

How the Vice President Stole America’s Ideals

Every Who Down in Whoville Liked humane treatment a lot.

But the Grinch who lived at the Navel Observatory, Did NOT!

The Grinch hated the rule of law and also, the whole transition season!

Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.

It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right.

It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.

But I think that the most likely reason of all,

May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

"January 20th is coming ! It's practically here!"

Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming,

"I MUST find some way to stop accountability from coming!"

"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,

Then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry BooHoo!"

"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "That I simply MUST hear!"

So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.

And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.

It started in low. Then it started to grow.

The SASC Report said that torture couldn’t be blamed on some bad apples

An assertion with which the Grinch struggled to grapple

He HADN'T stopped accountability from coming! IT CAME!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,

Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?

It came in a mostly still-classified report

It came with plenty of bipartisan support.”

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!

"Maybe actionable intelligence," he thought, "doesn't come from waterboards,

Maybe building rapport brings more rewards,

And keeps our soldiers safe, and our ideals intact.

When tested by terror, what’s important is how we react.

And when we stay true to America’s meaning

Our policies on torture won’t go careening.”

And what happened then? Well...in Whoville they say,

That the Grinch's small heart Grew three sizes that day!

Cheney's Comments Discussed on Hardball

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Supreme Court Revives Chance for Justice in Torture Case

The Supreme Court’s decision to revive a lawsuit brought by four British men who claim they were tortured at Guantanamo provides the plaintiffs with a chance for justice and the public with an opportunity to learn how policies that undermined American interests and tarnished our reputation came to be embraced.

The four men -- Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith -- were captured in late 2001 in Afghanistan and were transferred to Guantanamo in early 2002. In March 2004, they were returned to Britain. Their lawsuit named then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and 10 military commanders. They claimed they were subjected to torture, harassed as they practiced their religion, and forced to shave their religious beards.

“This case presents the question of whether senior officials of the United States government can be held accountable ... for ordering the religious humiliation and torture of Guantanamo detainees," their lawyers said in the appeal to the Supreme Court. "This case presents the opportunity to recognize and enforce rights that are at least as basic and essential to human autonomy -- the right to worship and the right not to be tortured."

As the publicly released portions of the Senate Armed Services Committee report showed last week, the responsibility for the United States’ authorization of torture and abuse extends far beyond the low-ranking individuals who have faced punishment for their actions. “This case presents an opportunity to get to the bottom of the torture scandal so that we can put this sorry chapter behind us,” said Sharon Kelly, Campaign Manager for We Can End Torture Now.

Dick Cheney Defends Torture

He's at it again on ABC tonight. Defending the use of waterboarding and advocating keeping Guantanamo open forever.



Transcript: Cheney Defends Hard Line Tactics

In Exclusive Interview With ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney Opens Up
About His Hard Line Tactics
Dec. 15, 2008—

JONATHAN KARL: So, when do you think we'll be at a point where Guantanamo could be responsibly shut down?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Well, I think that that would come with the end of the war on terror.

KARL: When's that going to be?

CHENEY: Well, nobody knows. Nobody can specify that. Now, in previous wars, we've always exercised the right to capture the enemy and then hold them till the end of the conflict. That's what we did in World War II with, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of German prisoners.

The same basic principle ought to apply here in terms of our right to capture the enemy and hold them. As I say, the other option is to turn them over to somebody else. A lot of them, nobody wants. I mean, there's a great resistance sometimes in the home countries to taking these people back into their own territory.


KARL: But basically, it sounds like you're talking about Guantanamo being a -- it sounds like you're saying Guantanamo Bay will be open indefinitely.

CHENEY: Well, a lot of people, including the president, expressed the view that they'd like to close Guantanamo. I think everybody can say we wished there were no necessity for Guantanamo.

But you have to be able to answer these other questions before you can do that responsibly. And that includes, what are you going to do with the prisoners held in Guantanamo? And nobody yet has solved that problem.

KARL: What's the danger in doing this too soon, you know, just make this symbolic gesture to shut the place down?

CHENEY: Well, if you release people that shouldn't have been released -- and that's happened in some cases already -- you end up with them back on the battlefield.

And we've had, as I recall now -- and these are rough numbers, I'd want to check them -- but, say, approximately 30 of these folks have been held in Guantanamo, then released, and ended up back on the battlefield again, and we've encountered them a second time around. But they've either been killed or captured in further conflicts with our forces.

KARL: Did you authorize the tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

CHENEY: I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.

KARL: In hindsight, do you think any of those tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others went too far?

CHENEY: I don't.

KARL: And on KSM, one of those tactics, of course, widely reported was waterboarding. And that seems to be a tactic we no longer use. Even that you think was appropriate?

CHENEY: I do.

Detainee Abuse Cannot Be Attributed to “a few bad apples”; Top Bush Admin Officials Are to Blame

A report released yesterday by the Senate Armed Services Committee said that top Bush Administration officials bore major responsibility for the abuses committed by American troops in interrogations at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other military detention centers: "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive (interrogation) techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

The report, which represents the most thorough review by Congress to date of the origins of the abuse of prisoners in American military custody, rejects the contention by the Bush Administration that tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe. The report also rejects previous claims that Defense Department policies played no role in the harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and in other episodes of abuse. The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the report says, “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own” but grew out of interrogation policies approved by Mr. Rumsfeld and other top officials, who “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.” The portions made public today also include information about the use of Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) techniques--designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies to elicit false confession--against detainees in U.S. custody.

The report, as Mark Benjamin at Salon.com writes, “is all about naming names, and the summary is stunningly frank in its conclusions, particularly in comparison to the passive language employed by most government investigations into abuse.”

Although most of the report remains classified, the release of the unclassified portions underscores the need for a complete and open investigation into U.S. government detention and interrogation practices since September 11, 2001, and for accountability for those who authorized or engaged in prisoner abuse. "The United States must openly confront its role in sanctioning cruel treatment so that the American public and Congress can learn from past mistakes and prevent future abuse," said Deborah Colson, Interim Director of Human Rights First's Law and Security Program.

HRF is also urging President-elect Obama to establish a nonpartisan commission to investigate the facts and circumstances relating to U.S. government detention and interrogation operations since September 11.

"The next president must restore America's commitment to humane treatment and prevent future sanctioning of cruel treatment by directing the new attorney general to investigate potential criminal conduct related to detainee abuse," said Colson. "Prosecution is a strong deterrent against abuse and would send a signal that no one is above the law," added Colson.

Major General Paul Eaton on Countdown: “We have one standard. No torture, period. No exceptions.”

Here is the video of last night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann featuring Major General Paul Eaton:

EATON: When Human Rights First gathered all these retired generals, it was an effort to educate America. Educate the United States that torture is bad. It's bad for the Army, it's bad for America, it's bad for our standing in the world.

OLBERMANN: General Eaton, specifically about torture and specifically in that subject about its repudiation, one of your colleagues, General Fred Haynes said that the president-elect should make that repudiation, should begin, at least, in the inaugural address. Do you share his sense of urgency on that point, and if so, why?

EATON: Well, General Haynes is a national hero. What he went through in World War II was the clearest example of: treat your prisoners right, high payoff. And to get the wording in the inaugural speech would be a very quick, very high payoff repudiation of the past practice, and, "I am President Obama and this is what I stand for. These are my values, these are America's values."

- - - - -

EATON: We have one standard. No torture, period. No exceptions. Otherwise, you dilute the standard and you lower the standard, and then that creates a real problem in understanding what the president wants, all the way down to the youngest private. With respect to your other part-taking a look at how we got here-we are a very forward-looking organization. But we believe that an examination of the past would be helpful. How did we get here?

We had one of the retired generals liken it to a class A or a serious accident investigation where you are not looking for culpability, you are looking for how did that accident happen? How did it unfold? And when we know that path, we'll be better prepared to deal with future wars and future challenges.

Read the rest of the transcript here.

Rear Admiral John Hutson Speaks Out on CNN

Rear Admiral John Hutson, who met along with a group of retired military leaders with the transition team on Wednesday appeared on CNN that night:

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN HUTSON (RET.), U.S. NAVY: The conversation went very well. It was productive. It was very forthright. We have come together. We are a group of 12, but we are a subset of about 40 admirals and generals who over the course of the last three years have been dealing with this very important issue. And we came here to talk with the transition team. We talked with Greg Craig and Mary DeRosa and Eric Holder, the attorney general nominee, to tell them how important we think it is that the new president say up front in the inaugural speech that the United States is not going to engage in torture or enhanced interrogations and then go through a series of actions to demonstrate that. And -- and we feel this way, basically, because it -- we think that gaining actionable intelligence is so incredibly important to protecting the United States and protecting U.S. troops and that those kinds of interrogation techniques are actually less effective. They are ineffective ways of doing it.

- - - - -

We want to make sure that the United States takes the moral high ground. Now, I can't promise you that, if your son goes into the military -- and I hope he does -- that how he is going to be treated if he is captured by the enemy. But, as John McCain said, you know, it is not about them. It is about us. And if we maintain the moral high ground, we are at least in a position where we can argue that this is the way it should be across the board. We are not -- this group of admirals and general isn't so naive as to believe that everybody is going to live up to our standard, but we sure as heck should live up to our standard ourselves.

Read the rest of the transcript here.

News Roundup: HRF Organizes Meeting With Obama Transition Team and Retired Military Officers Opposed to Harsh Interrogation

Washington Post
Retired Officers Meet With Obama Aides on Interrogation Policy
By Peter FinnThursday, December 4, 2008; A04
A group of retired military officers opposed to harsh interrogation techniques sanctioned by the Bush administration met with members of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team yesterday to press the incoming administration to establish a single, internationally accepted standard for the treatment of detainees by all U.S. government agencies.

Associated Press
Obama legal team meets with anti-torture generals
By PAMELA HESS
December 3, 2008
A dozen retired generals met with President-elect Barack Obama's top legal advisers Wednesday, pressing their case to overturn some of the Bush administration's terrorism-fighting policies.

Financial Times
Push to ban torture and close Guantánamo
By Demetri Sevastopulo
December 4, 2008
A group of retired senior military officers on Wednesday urged president-elect Barack Obama to make a strong statement in his January inauguration speech about barring torture and harsh interrogation techniques.

CNN
Obama team considers changes to interrogation policy
December 4, 2008
Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, met Wednesday with 12 retired generals and admirals to discuss changing the U.S. government's current interrogation and detention policies.