TPMMuckraker May 17, 2009 - May 23, 2009
New York Times
Another NYT Editor Tries To Explain Why Changes In A1 Gitmo Story Are No Biggie
New York Times standards editor Craig Whitney has now chimed in on the paper's changes to its front-page story on "recidivism" among freed Guantanamo detainees -- and Whitney is joining a colleague who thinks the after-the-fact rewriting of the front-page story's headline and lead was no big deal.
Here's Whitney's rather tortured reasoning for why there was no need to issue a correction, as paraphrased by Michael Calderone of Politico:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)Topics: Craig Whitney, Elisabeth Bumiller, Guantanamo, New York Times
Torture
Conservative Radio Host After Being Waterboarded: "Absolutely Torture"
Conservative radio host Eric "Mancow" Muller decided to have himself waterboarded to show it's no big deal.
His response after enduring several seconds of having water poured on his face?
"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke." He added: "Had I known that it was that bad I wouldn't have done this ... I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."
Watch:
And remember: this was in a controlled setting where the victim knew he wasn't going to be harmed.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (66)Topics: Torture
TARP
TARP Watchdog Finds Yet Another Bank Subsidy That "Warrants" Investigation
As we've explained here before, the government didn't just give all that TARP money away to those 579 banks for nothing: it got warrants to buy stock in the banks at certain prices over a ten-year time horizon. And as we informed you last month, no sooner did the banks start making noises about repaying the TARP money did they also begin referring to the cash they were forking over to buy back said warrants as a supposed "early repayment penalty" and angling for a discount on buying them back. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon brought up the issue with Barack Obama himself, while a little bank in West Virginia called Centra sent its CEO and vice president on the media circuit blasting the "penalty" as usurous and "un-American."
But would the Treasury Department really cave to this spin by giving banks that repaid TARP funds early another subsidy? The answer appears to be "yes," at least on the basis of the deal it cut with Indiana's Old National Bancorp, which bought back an estimated $5.81 million worth of warrants last week for the bargain price of $1.2 million, terms a Bloomberg analysis estimates could shortchange taxpayers to the tune of $10 billion. A source tells TPM Neil Barofksy, the special inspector general assigned to oversee the TARP, plans to "soon" add a special audit into the warrant repurchases to the six separate audits of various eyebrow-raising aspects of the bailout already underway at his office. Only three banks have exited the TARP have bought back their warrants thus far -- with disturbing (though strangely mixed) results.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)Topics: Centra Bank, TARP
John McCain
Karen Hughes: Don't Blame Me For Torture
You've got to hand it to Karen Hughes. She fights for what she believes in.
The former top Bush adviser talked torture in a recent interview with the Houston Chronicle:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: George Bush, John McCain, Torture
Alberto Gonzales
Report: Gonzo, Then At White House, Signed Off On CIA Torture In 2002
For a while now, it's been clear that, as former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan testified earlier this month, Abu Zubaydah was tortured well before the Justice Department issued its first opinion approving enhanced interrogation techniques in August 2002.
So we've been wondering about the procedure by which that treatment was authorized. And it looks like a crucial new report from NPR may have offered an answer.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (27)Topics: Alberto Gonzales, CIA, Justice Department, Torture
FBI
The Newburgh Four -- And The Goverment Mole Who Betrayed Them
There's little doubt the bumbling would-be bombers went far enough with the plot to demonstrate that they had the intention to commit terror, and for that they'll pay the price. But the whole tale comes off perhaps more as a sad glimpse into the lives of a loose group of aimless and obscurely embittered Americans than as a dire illustration of the threat of home-grown terrorism.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (31)Topics: FBI, Newburgh 4
Elisabeth Bumiller
NYT Editor On Changes To Front-Page Gitmo Story: No Biggie
Michael Calderone at Politico has gotten comment from the New York Times Washington bureau chief, Dean Baquet, about the paper's changes -- sans correction -- to the online version of a story on freed Guantanamo detainees engaging in terrorism that was on the front page of the print paper Thursday.
At issue were changes to the headline and lead of the story that amounted to a walk back of its original claim that one in seven Gitmo detainees "returned" to terrorism. The headline shifted from "1 In 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds" to "Later Terror Link Cited for 1 in 7 Freed Detainees."
The difference is between a story about the government blundering by letting hardened terrorists free, only to rejoin the fight against America, and a more complicated story in which some Gitmo detainees may have become radicalized while imprisoned.
Baquet thinks the changes, which would seem to speak to basic assumptions about the nature of Guantanamo, were no big deal, and therefore did not warrant notifying Times readers in a correction or editor's note.
Here's what he told Calderone:
Reading some of the criticism it seems that people are saying it undercut the story. It did not. The story was about the estimate of the number of people who ended up, by DOD"s account, as being engaged in terrorism or militant activity after leaving Gitmo. That still stands. The change was an acknowledgment that some assert that not everyone in Gitmo is truly a terrorist. Some critics have said that Gitmo is also filled with people who aren't truly terrorists.Anyone who is reading a significant retreat in the story, or as us somehow saying the story is wrong is looking for politics where it ain't.
The problem here is that the use of variations on the word "return" throughout the original story was wrong and significant. And keep in mind that the story was pounced on by right-wing media and picked up on cable, where the "returned to jihad" phrasing was endlessly parroted. (Others have pointed out the credulousness of the piece on other fronts.)
As we said above, the use of this phrasing speaks to important assumptions about what happened at Guantanamo -- and, potentially, how we deal with detainees there in the present. Which is presumably the same reason why the Times rewrote the headline and lead of the piece.
Topics: Dean Baquet, Elisabeth Bumiller, Guantanamo, New York Times
FBI
Feds: "It's Hard To Envision A More Chilling Plot" Than One Involving Stoner And Schizophrenic
OK, this really puts the nail in the coffin of any claims that those four guys arrested last night in connection with a plot to bomb two New York synagogues were some kind of highly dangerous terror cell.
Calling the men "amateurs every step of the way," the AP reports:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (10)Topics: FBI, Newburgh 4
CIA
House Rejects Effort to Probe Pelosi On CIA Claim
That GOP effort to get a congressional investigation into Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA lied to her about torture? Looks like it didn't get too far.
The Associated Press reports that the House voted by 252-172 to block the measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah. Two GOPers, Ron Paul of Texas and Walter Jones of North Carolina, joined Democrats in voting against it.
Topics: CIA, Nancy Pelosi, Torture
AIG
AIG Chief Liddy To Step Down
AIG CEO Ed Liddy, who was brought in by the government to try to stabilize the firm amid the financial crisis last fall, is going to step down.
It's unclear exactly why, and for how long the departure had been planned. Here's the key part of AIG's press release:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: AIG, Ed Liddy, Financial Crisis, Wall Street
Guantanamo
NYT Reporter: Maybe 1 In 7 Detainees Didn't "Return" To Terrorism
New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller is now casting doubt on the claim in her front page story today, pounced on by the right and quickly picked up on cable, that one in seven detainees released from Guantanamo "returned to terrorism or militant activity."
Appearing on MSNBC today, Bumiller said "there is some debate about whether you should say 'returned' because some of them were perhaps not engaged in terrorism, as we know -- some of them are being held there on vague charges."
Here's the video of her exchange with Andrea Mitchell:
Bumiller's claim is so striking because her A1 story in the print edition of the Times today, which ran under the headline, "1 In 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds" (emphasis ours), began:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (40)Topics: Elisabeth Bumiller, Guantanamo, New York Times
FBI
Accused "Terror" Ringleader: I Smoked Pot Before Bust
More evidence that those four guys arrested last night for a plot to blow up synagogues in New York weren't exactly fearsome, highly-trained terrorists.
NBC4 reports:
The ringleader of the four-man homegrown terror cell accused of a plotting to blow up synagogues in the Bronx and military planes in Newburgh admitted to a judge today that he had smoked pot before his bust last night.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)When U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa M. Smith asked James Cromatie (sic) if his judgment was impaired during his appearance in federal court in White Plains, the 55-year confessed: "No. I smoke it regularly...I understand everything you are saying."
Topics: FBI, Newburgh 4
CIA
How Cheney Turned A Right-Wing Meme Mainstream
It looks like we've figured out what Dick Cheney meant when he said President Obama has "reserved unto himself" the right to order enhanced interrogation techniques.
In February the Wall Street Journal reported (sub. req.) :
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Dick Cheney, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney Still Pushing Bogus Saddam-Al Qaeda Link
Here's something else that's noteworthy from Cheney's speech. He again falsely implied that Saddam was working with al Qaeda:
We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.
It's unclear which "Mideast terrorists" those were. After all, Saddam had for over 30 years been the leader of a major Mideast country. It would be surprising if you couldn't find that he had "ties" to terrorists of some kind. But Cheney's purpose in bringing it up is clearly to suggest that Saddam had meaningful connections to the terrorists who hit us on 9/11. That's long been known to be a lie.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Topics: Dick Cheney, Iraq
Dick Cheney
Was Cheney Talking About Obama's Executive Order?
We asked earlier about what Dick Cheney might have been referring to when he said President Obama had reserved the right to order enhanced interrogation when he deems it appropriate.
Could Cheney have been referring to this passage from Obama's executive order on interrogations?
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Dick Cheney, Torture
Torture
What Did Cheney Mean That Obama Has Reserved Right To Torture?
We were struck by one excerpt from Cheney's speech:
This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It's almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)
Topics: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney: Even Arguing About Torture is Helping Terrorists
Here's maybe the most radical argument of an extremely radical speech:
And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for - our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (12)
Topics: Dick Cheney, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney On Torture: Misinformation And Straw Men
Here are some of the key excerpts from the part of Cheney's speech where he addresses torture. There are some obvious problems with all of them.
Over on the left wing of the president's party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they're after would be heard before a so-called "Truth Commission."PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (43)
Topics: Dick Cheney, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney: If You Disagree With Me, You Don't Take 9/11 Seriously
Here's what might you might call the nut graf of Dick Cheney's forthcoming speech, which was released a little earlier:
So we're left to draw one of two conclusions - and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event - coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come.
In other words, if you oppose Dick Cheney's approach to the war on terror, you're not taking 9/11 seriously.
You can see why Cheney would want to frame the debate this way.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: Dick Cheney
CIA
CIA Briefing Document Lists Goss As Congressman -- Even Though He Was CIA Director At The Time
Another day, another indication that the CIA briefings document that Republicans are currently trying to bludgeon Nancy Pelosi with is deeply flawed and unreliable.
The Associated Press yesterday spotted *(see late update below) two clear new errors in the document -- including one real howler we're kicking ourselves for not spotting ourselves:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: CIA, Nancy Pelosi, Torture
FBI
Thwarted New York Terror Plot: How Serious Was It?
So what happened with that failed plan to bomb synagogues here in New York City? Was it a serious, well-organized terror plot, or more like a repeat of the Liberty Six?
First, here's what we know:
Four men, all Muslims living in Newburgh, New York, were arrested last night in what authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and to fire Stinger missiles at military aircraft at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: FBI, Newburgh 4
Charles Millard
Bush Pension Chief Charlie Millard To Senate: "I'll Plead The Fifth"
For practically his entire 18-month term directing the obscure Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation, Charlie Millard could not stop talking about his radical new plan to plow the majority of the agency's coffers -- which offer partial bankruptcy insurance to the retirement funds of 44 million Americans -- into stocks, real estate and private equity.
Well, that ended today.
Millard pleaded the Fifth three times before a Senate subcommittee convened to discuss the fund this afternoon, refusing to answer any questions about his controversial tenure, which began when Bush appointed him interim director in May 2007 and ended when Obama was sworn into office. There are some pretty good reasons for him to : last week four senators formally requested the Office of the Inspector General to open a criminal investigation into Millard's activities in response to a preliminary OIG report detailing the former Lehman Brother's executive's eyebrow-raising call logs during his time at the office. The report showed that Millard made hundreds of calls to Wall Street investment banks in line for lucrative contracts managing the fund's money under the new investment regime, and traded dozens of emails with a Goldman Sachs executive assisting Millard's post-D.C. job hunt after Goldman was awarded just such a contract.
The PBGC says most of Millard's planned asset reallocation had yet to be completed when he left, and that it is now considering tearing up some of the contracts under which it planned to farm out the funds to the likes of Goldman, JP Morgan, BlackRock and others. But the fund still managed to triple the size of its deficit in the six months between September 30 and March 30, according to numbers released by the Senate today -- meaning the fund currently owes $33.5 billion more than it has the money to cover.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (14)Topics: Charles Millard
EFCA
Earthgrains, The Wholesome New Poster Child For The "Extreme Anti-Union" Movement
A Cornell survey of trends in union intimidation released today is likely to provide labor supporters some critical talking points in their endless struggle to pass a "card check" bill aimed at making said tactics tougher to pull off.
It's called NO HOLDS BARRED: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing and the first company it singles out for strongarm tactics is...a healthy baked goods company called Earthgrains!
Until relatively recently, the report says, the St. Louis-based Earthgrains had "a history of maintaining a stable collective bargaining relationship with the majority of [its] workforce." All that changed in 2000, when its Kentucky plant tried to organize -- and Earthgrains responded by videotaping employees talking to union representatives, publicly confiscating any union literature the reps distributed, interrogating employees about whether their co-workers supported unions, maintaining to know how other workers planned to vote, and outright threatening their jobs and retirement plans. Such tactics are now "standard practice," according to the study of 1,004 union organizing drives between 1999 and 2003, in which management threatened to close plants in 57 percent of the campaigns and threatened to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent. (Electronic surveillance and attempting to infiltrate the organizing committee were less common tactics, used in 11% and 28% of campaigns, respectively.)
What distinguishes the current organizing climate from previous decades of employer opposition to unions? The primary difference is that the most intense and aggressive anti-union campaign strategies, the kind previously found only at employers like Wal-Mart, are no longer reserved for a select coterie of extreme anti-union employers.The report cites the campaigns for the ever-widening gap between the percentage of American non-managerial workers who say they would vote for a union -- higher than ever at 55% -- and the actual union density, which stands at 12.4%, and blames "deregulation, investor-centered trade and investment policies, and an underfunded and disempowered National Labor Relations Board" on what it terms "the rise of the union avoidance industry." But let's go back to Earthgrains for a minute. PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)
Topics: EFCA
Arlen Specter
Specter: "CIA Has A Very Bad Record When It Comes To ... Honesty"
Support for Nancy Pelosi -- and for our point that questioning the CIA's honesty isn't really too radical a position -- has come from a perhaps unlikely new source.
The Hill reports that Arlen Specter, the new Democrat who as a Republican chaired the Senate intelligence committee, told a luncheon audience at the American Law Institute: "The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to -- I was about to say candid, that's too mild -- to honesty."
Topics: Arlen Specter, CIA, Nancy Pelosi, Torture
Nancy Pelosi
In Savaging Pelosi For "Attacking" CIA, GOP Ignores Its Own Record Of Similar Attacks
We really shouldn't have to do this. As we've said before, the idea that it's some kind of outlandish and unconscionable slur to point out that the CIA -- the CIA, for chrissakes! -- can sometimes be economical with the truth is absurd on its face. But the Republican attacks on Nancy Pelosi for daring to make that claim just keep coming, so it looks like we're going to have to point this out:
Shocking as it sounds, the GOP hasn't always been so sensitive about harsh criticism of the CIA -- including leveling the charge that the CIA is being deliberately deceptive -- when it's served the party's political interest.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (10)Topics: John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, Pete Hoekstra, Torture
Andrew Cuomo
Before You Take The Advice Of Credit Solutions Of America And Sell That Plasma, You Might Want To Read This
New York AG Andrew Cuomo sued two major debt settlement companies today for fraud and deceptive advertising practices in the first big development in an expansive probe of the debt settlement industry he announced last week. One of the companies, Credit Solutions of America of Richardson, Texas, was sued by its own state attorney general in March -- and from the numbers it sounds like a busy time for the company's lawyers. Cuomo's office said CSA, which has had more than 1,600 Beter Business Bureau complaints filed against it in the past three years, collected approximately $17 million in fees signing up 18,000 New Yorkers between 2003 and 2008 with promises of reducing their debtload by 60% -- a promise they fulfilled for an average of one percent of their customers.
Two things make that shocking statistic even more shocking. Number one, as a New York Times Magazine story published Sunday makes clear, it's hardly unusual these days for customers to receive a 60% reduction in their credit card debts simply by asking the customer service representative on the other end of the line. Number two, as some documents we received from a lawyer representing an ex-client of CSA makes clear, the company endorsed some pretty desperate measures for settling debts: yup, CSA encouraged its clients to sell their blood plasma!
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)Topics: Andrew Cuomo
CIA
Hoekstra: It's Wrong To Call CIA Liars -- Except When I Do It
We told you earlier this afternoon about how Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who has called Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA lied to her "outrageous," has himself initiated a probe into whether the agency misled lawmakers about a 2001 shooting incident in Peru that caused the death of an American citizen.
And it looks like Hoekstra's hypocrisy goes even further. Think Progress points out that Hoekstra last night went on Fox News, where he explained to Greta Van Susteren that it's fine to criticize the CIA's performance, but not to accuse it of lying:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)Topics: CIA, Nancy Pelosi, Torture
CIA
CIA: Like We Said Before, Briefing Document Could Be Wrong
The CIA has given another indication that the briefing document with which Republicans are trying to attack Nancy Pelosi is unreliable.
Yesterday, Rep. David Obey sent a letter to CIA director Leon Panetta pointing out yet another apparent error in the document. The Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman asked CIA for a response to Obey's claim, and got the following statement:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (11)Topics: CIA, Nancy Pelosi, Torture
CIA
Lawmaker: CIA Already Being Probed For Misleading Congress
As they go after Nancy Pelosi over those CIA briefings, Republicans have been putting the burden of proof on the Speaker, suggesting that it's all but unheard of for the CIA to mislead others in government. But in fact, the agency is currently being probed for doing exactly that on a different issue -- and the effort was initiated by one of Pelosi's fiercest critics on the torture briefings kerfuffle.
Last night, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the House intelligence committee, told MSNBC's Ed Schultz (h/t Democratic Underground):
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (35)Topics: CIA, Nancy Pelosi, Pete Hoekstra, Torture
CIA
UPDATED: Source: "EIT" Term Wasn't In Use When Pelosi Was Briefed
Here's yet another reason (as if more were needed) to doubt that that CIA briefings document perfectly reflects what lawmakers were told about torture back in the early days of the war on terror.
Almost every briefing described in the document -- including the September 2002 Pelosi briefing that's directly at issue -- refers to "EITs," or enhanced interrogation techniques, as a subject that was discussed. But according to a former intelligence professional who has participated in such briefings, that term wasn't used until at least 2006* (see correction below).
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (27)Topics: CIA, Nancy Pelosi, Torture
CIA
Another Lawmaker Points To An Error In CIA Briefings Doc
Here's yet more evidence -- as if it were needed -- that that CIA briefing document that Republicans are trying to hang around Nancy Pelosi's neck is hardly a reliable source of information.
Rep. David Obey, who chairs the appropriations committee, just sent the following letter to CIA director Leon Panetta:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (17)Topics: CIA, Jay Rockefeller, Nancy Pelosi, Torture
The Daily Muck
Topics:
Iraq
Detainee Said He Was Brought To Gitmo To Give Info On Iraqi Army
More possible evidence that the Bush administration used torture to get information about Iraq?
Back in 2004, the Associated Press reported on the plight of several Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Among them was one Iraqi:
The Iraqi, Arkan Mohammed Ghafil al Karim, says he deserted from Saddam Hussein's army and was later imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban for two years. He says he was brought to Guantanamo in 2002 so that the American military could learn about Iraq's army ahead of the invasion of that country.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)
Topics: Guantanamo, Iraq, Torture
Dick Cheney
Gitmo Investigator: Interrogators Were Tasked To Find Qaeda-Iraq Link
On Friday, McClatchy provided a big new addition -- which hasn't got the attention it deserves -- to the growing pile of evidence suggesting the Bush administration used torture to build a political case for the Iraq war.
The news service dug up comments made in 2004 by Dick Cheney to the-now defunct Rocky Mountain News. Said the then-veep:
The (al Qaida-Iraq) links go back. We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it."PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (36)
Topics: Dick Cheney, Guantanamo, Torture
The Daily Muck
Topics:
Dick Cheney
Liz Cheney Won't Deny Her Father Suggested Questions On Iraq-Qaeda Ties
In an appearance on ABC's This Week today, Liz Cheney employed a classic non-denial denial when asked about a report her father's office pressured interrogators to use torture to find evidence of Iraq-Qaeda links.
George Stephanopolous asked Liz Cheney about a Daily Beast piece reporting that the vice president's office in 2003 suggested interrogators waterboard an Iraqi detainee who was suspected of having knowledge of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Asked specifically by Stephanopolous if she would deny "that the vice president's office did ask specifically to have information about Iraq-al Qaeda connections presented to this detainee," Cheney offered this muddled response:
I think that it's important for us to have all the facts out. And and, the first and most important fact is that the vice president has been absolutely clear that he supported this program, this was an important program, it saved American lives. Now, the way this policy worked internally was once the policy was determined and decided, the CIA, you know, made the judgments about how each individual detainee would be treated. And the Vice President would not substitute his own judgment for the professional judgment of the CIA.
Here's the video of the exchange, (h/t ThinkProgress):
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (29)Topics: Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, Torture
Inside TPM
-
Latest
-
Most Popular
All
TPMMuckraker
TPMDC
TPMLiveWire
-
Has Obama Cornered Republicans On Contraception?
-
Tax Avoidance Questions Continue To Haunt Romney
-
Obama To Draw Contrast With GOP In Budget
-
McConnell: GOP Will Fight To Let ANY Employer Deny Birth Control Coverage
-
The Delicate Dance Of Disassociating Oneself From 'White Nationalist' Groups At CPAC
-
Judge Won't Toss Weapons Evidence In Schaeffer Cox Case
-
Women's Groups Broadly Support Birth Control Compromise
-
British Man Using 'Sovereign Citizen' Tactics To Get Out Of Weapons Smuggling Charges
-
White House Seeks To Mute Catholic Uproar Over Contraception Rule
-
The Conspiracy Videos In The Hutaree's Library
TPM Top News
© 2011 TPM Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
