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Ashcroft Testimony Brings CIA Interrogation Timeline Into Question
Did the CIA start using torture before the DOJ authorized it in the infamous torture memos?
That's what it sounded like according to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was on the Hill yesterday testifying on interrogation techniques before the House Judiciary Committee.
It was during Ashcroft's years as attorney general that the infamous "torture" memos were written. The memos approved the use of waterboarding and other forms of interrogation as long as they did not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure." The first memo-- often called the Bybee memo -- was dated August 1, 2002 and was written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, who also testified before the Judiciary Committee in an earlier hearing in the series on torture.
But at least four months prior to the publication of that memo, the CIA captured al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah on March 28, 2002. Zubaydah's detention and interrogation has garnered much publicity, as it was thought to be especially brutal and involved waterboarding.
The CIA has long denied employing harsh interrogation techniques before it received authorization via the legal memos provided by the DOJ, but Ashcroft's testimony yesterday called that timeline into question, and raised the possibility that "the CIA started torturing at least one detainee before any of the memos were even written."
From Salon's War Room:
But during questioning, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., pointed out that the abuse of Zubaydah had reportedly begun weeks, if not months, earlier. "Did you offer legal approval of interrogation methods used at that time ... prior to August 2002?""I have no recollection of doing that at all," Ashcroft responded. He added that he did not remember anyone else at the Justice Department doing so either. He said later in the hearing that Zubaydah's interrogation "was done without the opinion that was issued on the first of August."
Video of the exchange below:
Josh
Zachary
Here we go again...another Bush appointee who doesn't know, can't remember. They are either the most incompetent bunch to ever work in any administration, or they are all obstructing justice. I think it's the latter.
July 18, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Feds prosecute people all the time who say they can't remember something but are actually lying about their faulty memory in order to obstruct justice.
Congress must start to hold people in contempt for this practice. If you don't hold people in contempt, then you allow it to continue. Contempt is the only way to ferret out the truth, and if you have to go through that unpleasant process, fewer people are going to be willing to claim that they don't remember something when they really do.
July 18, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry if I've asked this before, but how does waterboarding not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by [lung] failure?" Are the lungs not "organs" for the purposes of interigation?
July 18, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even better, how would someone know if the pain was similar to that caused by death or organ failure? Think about it. How can someone know administering waterboarding know a) what pain the person being waterboarded feels, or b) if that pain is similar to death or organ failure? The whole thing is a big ruse.
July 18, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, please, please will someone please tell Ashcroft that he is *not* the President's attorney and he *cannot* claim executive privilege. The President has an attorney but the Attorney General is the country's attorney, not the Presidents. That's the whole problem we had with Ashcroft and Gonzalez--they think their job was to do the President's bidding instead of enforcing the nation's laws.
Also, only the President can claim executive privilege. Ashcroft could either refuse to answer to avoid incriminating himself or, as he has so often done, just say he can't remember. Why, oh why, don't the members of Congress call these bastards on this stuff?
July 18, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word.
July 19, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
This unending reliance on the ever-available ex post facto laws does carry a blessing for lawbreakers we must turn into the admission of felonious behavior it truly is.
It is no comfort to the law-abiding for those inclined lawbreaking, forever rely on the post action justification. For them, the timing of their nastiness seems need never be considered in light of the available statutory or legal authority to do those particular deeds. They just change the law after the fact, and make that apply before the fact, and 'shazzam', innocence is found.
The reality based community, must stop accepting this twisted justification for breaking laws right, left and center.
Never mind that pesky Constitution thing, prohibiting those "after the fact, get out of even an indictment" things. And the claims to Executive Privilege, which are not, in the real world, available to the claimants, must be called to a halt by the questioners. And the questioners must follow through.
Never mind the fact that ordinary people could never avail themselves of such freedom guaranteeing largesse.
Never mind the fact that nowhere are people pardoned before the evil deed, at least nowhere in civilized countries. And nowhere are those deeds pardoned when they violate the Supreme Law of the Land, AKA the Constitution, and those equal legal effect, Treaties -- like the ever-quaint Geneva Conventions.
For the religiously inclined, such actions are violations the Two Top Ten, being the Ten Commandments and Bill of Rights, as you must engage in mendacity violating one to destroy the other. (Are you listening Mr. Ashcroft? If you are, break out the Crisco, it could be a bumpy ride before you prepare that summation before the highest court in the Universe.)
This back up the legality with memos written after the fact, must simply be denied any flight. It should never have, nor should it ever in future, fly.
Not on angel's wings. Not on wings of song. For that matter, eagle's wings won't help here either.
What no one in government seems to remember any longer is that they serve the public. They do not serve an office, or an officeholder.
In fact, the only thing the public servant serves, particularly in those legal offices of DOJ, or in the White House, is the Constitution. When our public officers serve the Constitution, the public is best served. Those that serve us best serve the Constitution first, last and always.
Those "it's not torture unless, and until, we say it is", is a philosophy more in tune with the Papal crystalline globes and spheres used to counter Galileo. Some things do not allow the lawbreaker to be the lexicographer of ultimate authority. Such is the nature of common sense, and the sensibility of the Constitution.
July 21, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink