TPMMuckraker Torture: April 2009
Pat Leahy
Leahy to Bybee: Why Not Give Us Your Side Of Torture Story?
As the calls for his impeachment grow louder, Jay Bybee -- the Bush OLC lawyer who wrote one of the torture memos, and who is now a federal judge -- has been given the chance to share his side of the story.
The unlikely invitation comes from Pat Leahy, the chair of the Senate Judiciary committee. In a letter sent to Bybee today, Leahy invites him to testify before the committee about his role in writing the memos.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: George Bush, Jay Bybee, Justice Department, Pat Leahy, Senate Judiciary Committee, Torture
John Conyers
Conyers And Nadler To Holder: We Need Special Torture Prosecutor
Reps. John Conyers and Jerry Nadler want a special prosecutor to investigate whether Bush administration officials committed crimes in ordering and justifying torture policies.
In a just-released letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Democratic lawmakers write:
The authorization and use of interrogation techniques that likely amounted to torture has generated concern and outrage in this country, and has harmed our legal and moral standing in the world. As a country committed to the rule of law, we must investigate and demand accountability for acts of torture committed by or own our behalf (sic). Appointing a special counsel to undertake this task would serve the interests of the department and of the public in ensuring that the necessary investigation is through and impartial, and that the United States fairly investigates serious and credible accusations of misconduct, even where high-ranking government officials may be involved.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)
Topics: Barack Obama, House Judiciary, Jerrold Nadler, John Conyers, Torture
Torture
Senate Report Accidentally Reveals SERE Instructors Trained CIA Officials In Torture
One of the big revelations to come out of the Senate Armed Services Committee report on so-called aggressive interrogation techniques is an early July 2002 training session where officials from the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA)--the agency that oversees the SERE training program--provided "assistance to another government agency." Much of this section of the report is blacked out, so I'll connote blacked out sections with asterisks [***], but the report says JPRA was assisting this agency "on topics such as '*** deprivation techniques,' 'exploitation and questioning techniques,' and 'developing countermeasures to resistance techniques.'" According to the report, "[t]he training was intended to "prepare *** officers for rotations in Afghanistan and elsewhere."
Spencer Ackerman reported on this section in detail when the report was first released, noting what has long been reported, but never officially acknowledged. Spencer writes, "a JPRA team assisted a squad from 'another government agency' during the first six months of 2002 that would be 'sent to interrogate a high level al Qaeda operative.'"
"'Another government agency'," Spencer writes, "is a widespread euphemism for the CIA."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)Topics: Torture
Barack Obama
Obama: On Second Thought, Scratch That Commission Idea
Is President Obama flipping back again on the subject of how to conduct torture investigations?
His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters today that Obama no longer favored the idea of a bipartisan commission to probe the issue. "The president determined the concept didn't seem altogether workable in this case," said Gibbs. And the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reports that Obama backed away from the position during a "lengthy exchange" earlier yesterday with House Minority Leader John Boehner.*
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (29)Topics: Barack Obama, Torture
Media
Maddow Cites TPMmuckraker On Sleep Expert
Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow cited our interview with James Horne, the sleep expert who says his work was distorted by Steven Bradbury in one of the OLC torture memos, to justify keeping people awake for 11 days.
Thanks for the shout out, Rachel!
Topics: Media, Steven Bradbury, Torture
George Bush
Senate Releases Declassified Narrative Of OLC Torture Opinions
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) of the Senate Intelligence committee has just released a declassified narrative (pdf) of the OLC's development of its opinions on torture.
The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder has already picked out a key excerpt, that sheds some light on just who in the Bush administration helped devise and approve the torture policies:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (11)Topics: Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, George Bush, George Tenet, Harriet Miers, Jay Rockefeller, John Ashcroft, Torture
Condi Rice
Condi Aide: Bushies Told Me Anti-Torture Memo Was "Inconvenient"
As we noted, Philip Zelikow, a former top lawyer to Condi Rice at the State Department, yesterday wrote that the White House tried to destroy all copies of a memo he authored, which took issue with the legal opinions laid out in the infamous OLC torture memos.
Today, Zelikow appeared on MSNBC to flesh out that story. Among other things, he reveals that the Bushies said his memo was "inconvenient to have around." (Would it have been too much for Andrea Mitchell to have followed up by asking him who, exactly, said that?)
Watch:
Topics: Condi Rice, George Bush, Justice Department, Torture
Guantanamo
Levin: DOJ Should Decide On Investigation For 'Abominable' Bush-era Memos
Earlier today, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) spoke to MSNBC about the mammoth report his Armed Services Committee released last night. The report details the evolution of a brutal interrogation policy within the Department of Defense, and implicates, for the most part, a different set of officials than the familiar folks of the Bush Justice Department. Watch:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: Guantanamo, Torture
Torture
Administration, Military, Knew Techniques Were Torture, Ineffective--Pressed Ahead Anyhow
One of the key takeaway's of the Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainee treatment is the extent to which administration and military officials were warned that a). some SERE techniques amounted to torture and b). that they would be extremely ineffective at acquiring intelligence from prisoners. They were, after all, based on techniques used by Chinese Communists to elicit false confessions.
But the people who nonetheless approved of or supported the techniques weren't swayed.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: Torture
Torture
Trio Of Senators Ask Obama Not To Prosecute Bush Attorneys
Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman have sent a letter to President Obama urging him not to prosecute Bush Justice Department officials who wrote legal rationales for torture. "[T]he Department of Justice is currently conducting an internal ethics review of the OLC memos," the trio write, "but that is a quite a different matter from making legal advice with which we may disagree into a crime."
This has been a common refrain from these three for some time, but this letter belies the facts that the use of torture predated the memos that were written to retroactively justify it, and that the Attorney General has independent authority to investigate and, possibly, prosecute their authors. I've pasted the full text of the letter below the fold.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)Topics: Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Torture
Torture
House Member Asks Sec. State To Intervene On Torture Prosecutions
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee today. She's appearing to testify on the administration's foreign policy but earlier Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), a senior Republican on the committee, gave her an earful about torture prosecutions. Watch:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: Torture
Jerrold Nadler
Nadler On Torture And Bybee
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who sits on the House Judiciary committee (and also happens to be TPM's congressman) went on MSNBC's Countdown last night to repeat his call for the impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee, who, while a member of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, wrote one of the torture memos released last week.
Nadler also said he supported the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate whether Bush administration officials, including Bybee, committed crimes.
Watch:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Topics: House Judiciary, Jay Bybee, Jerrold Nadler, Justice Department, Torture
Torture
Levin's Torture Report: A Round-Up
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has picked up where he left off almost a year ago last night by unveiling an unclassified report (PDF) detailing the origins of U.S. torture policies and the route those policies took through the government and into the darkened rooms where military interrogators put them into practice.
The release of this report is coincidental to last week's release, by the Obama Justice Department, of a series of Bush-era memos written to justify a number of torturous CIA interrogation techniques.
Levin got this process rolling in June of last year, releasing a shorter report and a series of Pentagon memos--the fruits of a two year investigation--which painted a more skeletal picture than last night's report does.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)Topics: Torture
Torture
Turley: We Need A Special Torture Prosecutor, Not Some Lame Commission
Jonathan Turley, the media-friendly George Washington Law School professor, who's an outspoken advocate of curbing executive power, gave a bravura performance on MSNBC's Countdown last night, on the subject of possible torture prosecutions.
Arguing that investigations aren't just necessary but long overdue, Turley made two important points that have been getting a bit lost in the rapid-fire debate lately.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (11)Topics: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, George Tenet, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Justice Department, Steven Bradbury, Torture
Jay Bybee
Feingold Latest To Call For Bybee Impeachment
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) is the latest to call for the impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee, in response to the release of those torture memos last week.
Bybee wrote one of the memos in 2002, when he served in the Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel.
Here's Feingold's statement:
The just released OLC memos, including the 2002 memo authored by Jay Bybee, are a disgrace. The idea that one of the architects of this perversion of the law is now sitting on the federal bench is very troubling. The memos offer some of the most explicit evidence yet that Mr. Bybee and others authorized torture and they suggest that grounds for impeachment can be made. Clearly, the Justice Department has the responsibility to investigate this matter further. As a Senator, I would be a juror in any impeachment trial so I don't want to reach a conclusion until all the evidence is before me.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)
Topics: George Bush, Jay Bybee, Jerrold Nadler, Justice Department, Russ Feingold, Torture
Media
White House Press Corps Badgers Gibbs On Torture Stance
The White House press corps gave Robert Gibbs a hard time today about President Obama's comments this morning that left the door open to prosecutions of Bush officials for torture.
It's true that the president's comments go further than anything he'd said before, and could suggest that the White House is tacking this way and that on a crucial subject. That impression is strengthened by the fact that the White House has now had to walk back Rahm Emanuel's comments from Sunday that the Bushies wouldn't be prosecuted.
Late Update: Looks like The Huffington Post's Sam Stein had the same response to the briefing that we did.
Topics: Barack Obama, George Bush, Media, Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Torture
John Conyers
Conyers To Hold Hearings On Torture Memos
Rep. John Conyers, who chairs the House Judiciary committee, has announced that he plans to hold hearings into the Bush-era OLC memos released last week.
Despite his pledge to hold hearings in his own committee, Conyers said he agrees with President Obama's statement that he favors a probe conducted by a bipartisan commission, rather than solely by a congressional committee.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: Barack Obama, George Bush, House Judiciary, John Conyers, Torture
George Bush
CAP Circulating Petition To Impeach Bybee
Think Progress, the blog of the Center for American Progress, is circulating an online petition calling on Congress to impeach Jay Bybee, who, while at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, wrote one of the torture memos released last week. Bybee is currently a federal judge.
CAP is led by John Podesta, a close White House ally who helped run Barack Obama's transition.
Think Progress joins Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Rep. Jerry Nadler, the New York Times, and the Center for Constitutional Rights in calling for Bybee's impeachment.
Late Update: Sen. Pat Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary committee, has called on Bybee to step down from the bench, though he doesn't seem to have mentioned anything about impeachment.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: George Bush, Jay Bybee, Jerrold Nadler, Justice Department, Torture
Condi Rice
State Dept Lawyer: White House Tried To Destroy My Alternative Memo On Torture
As David noted over at TPM, there was some potentially big news in a blog post that was written this morning over at Foreign Policy by Philip Zelikow, a top State Department lawyer under Condoleezza Rice.
Zelikow wrote that, in 2005, he had written a memo on the legality of harsh interrogation techniques that expressed an "alternative view" to the OLC memos. He continued:
My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo. I expect that one or two are still at least in the State Department's archives.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (23)
Topics: Condi Rice, Justice Department, Torture
Barack Obama
Obama: Torture Prosecutions For Bushies Is A Question For AG
President Obama is leaving the door open for prosecutions of Bush DOJ officials who provided the legal rationale to support torture policies.
In comments to reporters this morning, Obama said he didn't support prosecuting CIA officers who were carrying out the policy. But:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Topics: Barack Obama, Eric Holder, George Bush, Justice Department, Torture
Torture
Senator: OPR Torture Report Likely To Be "Devastating"
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) went on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show last night, to talk about the fallout from the release last week of the Bush administration's torture memos. And his appearance added to the growing sense that pressure is mounting to hold the memos' authors accountable.
Whitehouse, who sits on the Senate Judiciary committee, did temporarily pour a little bit of cold water on the spate of calls to impeach Jay Bybee, the author of one of the memos, who is now a federal judge. He said that it's "certainly possible" that Bybee should be impeached, but that first, we should wait for the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to release its long-held report into the authorship of the memos.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (22)Topics: DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, Jay Bybee, Justice Department, Senate Judiciary Committee, Torture
Torture
White House: Rahm Didn't Mean What He Said On Not Prosecuting Bushies For Torture
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel went on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos and clearly declared that the Obama administration would not prosecute the Bushies who "devised" torture policies.
That seemed to go further than anything the administration had said before. So yesterday we called the White House to get a more formal statement on the issue. And when we didn't hear back, we got to wondering: had Rahm been freelancing, and gotten out ahead of White House policy?
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (10)Topics: Barack Obama, George Bush, Rahm Emanuel, Torture
George Bush
Nadler And NYT: Impeach Bybee For Torture Memo
More fallout from last week's release of the Bush DOJ's torture memos...
Both Congressman Jerry Nadler and the New York Times are calling for Jay Bybee, the author of one of the memos, who's now a federal judge, to be impeached.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (28)Topics: George Bush, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Justice Department, Steven Bradbury, Torture
George Bush
Who Are the Torture Memo Authors?
For all the (justified) clamor over the Bush administration's torture memos that were released yesterday, there's been surprisingly little attention paid to the two authors of those documents.
As officials in the department's Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury authored the four memos. The first was written in 2002 by Bybee, and the latter three in 2005 by Bradbury. So: who are Bybee and Bradbury?
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (19)Topics: George Bush, Harriet Miers, Jay Bybee, Justice Department, Steven Bradbury, Torture, U.S. Attorneys
George Bush
Sleep Expert "Surprised And Saddened" To Find Research Twisted In Torture Memo
A British professor whose research on sleep was cited in one of the just-released Bush administration torture memos has expressed outrage that his work was used to justify extreme sleep deprivation, including keeping subjects awake for up to 11 days.
In an interview with TPMmuckraker, James Horne, a leading authority in the field of sleep research, said he was "surprised and saddened" to see Bush officials "misrepresent" his research to argue that such sleep deprivation does not cause serious harm to its subjects.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (47)Topics: George Bush, Justice Department, Steven Bradbury, Torture
Media
Scarborough: Torture Opponents Want "Washington DC And Los Angeles To Be Obliterated By A Nuclear Blitz"
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough went on quite a rant this morning, attacking President Obama's decision to release the torture memos.
He ended up by calling for an honest (kind of) debate: "If you'd like Washington DC and Los Angeles to be obliterated by a nuclear blitz [rather than permitting the use of waterboarding], I respect your opinion."
Watch:
Good old liberal MSNBC.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)Topics: Barack Obama, Media, Torture
Justice Department
Torture Memo: Detainees Can Be Naked In Front Of Women, Causing "Pyschological Discomfort" For "Modest" Detainees
From one of the May 2005 OLC memos by Steven Bradbury:
Nudity. This technique is used to cause psychological discomfort, particularly if a detainee, for cultural or other reasons, is especially modest ... [I]nterrogators can exploit the detainee's fear of being seen naked. In addition, female officers involved in the interrogation process may see the detainees naked; and for purposes of our analysis, we will assume that detainees subjected to nudity as an interrogation technique are aware that they may be seen naked by female.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)
Topics: George Bush, Justice Department, Sex, Torture
George Bush
Torture Memo: Waterboarding Is "Simply A Controlled Acute Episode," Not Torture
Here's the official Bush legal rationale for waterboarding -- which Eric Holder recently confirmed was torture -- from that 2002 memo by Jay Bybee.
Finally, you would like to use a technique called the "waterboard." In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. This causes an increase in carbon dioxide level in the individual's blood. This increase in the carbon dioxide level stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of "suffocation and incipient panic," i.e., the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe any water into his lungs. During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths. the sensation of drowning is immediately relieved by the removal of the cloth. The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout. You have orally informed us that this procedure triggers an automatic physiological sensation of drowning that the individual cannot control even though he may be aware that he is not in fact drowning. You have also orally informed us that it is likely that this procedure would not last more than twenty minutes in any one application.As we understand it, when the waterboard is used, the subject's body responds as if the subject were drowning -- even though the subject may be well aware that he is in fact not drowning. You have informed us that this procedure does not inflict actual physical harm. Thus, although the subject may experience the fear or panic associated with the feeling of drowning, the waterboard does not inflict physical pain. as we explained in the Section 2340A Memorandum, "pain and suffering" as used in Section 2340 is best understood as a single concept, not distinct concepts of "pain" as distinguished from "suffering".... The waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever, does not, in our view, inflict "severe pain and suffering". Even if one were to parse the stature more "finely" to attempt to treat suffering as a distinct concept, the waterboard could not be said to inflict severe suffering. The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering.
Of course, thanks to today's announcement by DOJ, CIA officers can't be prosecuted for this.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Topics: CIA, George Bush, Justice Department, Torture
Torture
Torture Memo: As Long As You Don't Keep The Guy Awake For More Than 11 Days, It's Fine
Here's a taste of the Bush administration's legal rationale, exemplified in one excerpt from the 2002 OLC memo written by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking al Qaeda member:
Sleep deprivation may be used. You have indicated that your purpose in using this technique is to reduce the individual's ability to think on his feet and, through the discomfort associated with lack of sleep, to motivate him to cooperate. The effect of such sleep deprivation will generally remit after one or two nights of uninterrupted sleep. You have informed us that your research has revealed that, in rare instances, some individuals who are already predisposed to psychological problems may experience abnormal reactions to sleep deprivation. Even in those cases, however, reactions abate after the individual is permitted to sleep. Moreover, personnel with medical training are available to and will intervene in the unlikely event of an abnormal reaction. You have orally informed us that you would not deprive Zubaydah of sleep for more than eleven days at a time and that you have previously kept him awake for 72 hours, from which no mental or physical harm resulted. (our itals)
If you have time, comb through the memos yourselves (they're here) and let us know what else you find.
Topics: George Bush, Justice Department, Torture
Torture
Rights Group Decries Waterboarding Immunity
It's worth making sure we don't lose sight of the apparent price that the Obama administration paid to the intelligence community to mollify them over the release of the torture memos: a pledge not to prosecute agency personnel for waterboarding.
Here's a statement from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has led the fight against torture, calling the decision "one of the deepest disappointments of this administration".
CCR Decries Immunity for Torture, SecrecyPERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)April 16, 2009, New York - In response to President Obama's decision to guarantee immunity to CIA officials who carried out the drowning torture known as waterboarding, which his attorney general has classified as torture, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:
"It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials. Whether or not CIA operatives who conducted waterboarding are guaranteed immunity, it is the high level officials who conceived, justified and ordered the torture program who bear the most responsibility for breaking domestic and international law, and it is they who must be prosecuted. In the president's statement today, the most troubling contradiction is the contrast of the words, 'This is a time for reflection, not retribution,' followed shortly by, 'The United States is a nation of laws.' Government officials broke very serious laws: for there to be no consequences not only calls our system of justice into question, it leaves the gate open for this to happen again."
Since the first days of the public revelations regarding the Bush administration's torture program, the Center for Constitutional Rights has made efforts to hold high level officials and their lawyers accountable for their crimes. CCR, along with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), has tried three times, twice in Germany and once in France, to bring criminal cases in Europe against former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, and former White House Counsel/Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as well as the other lawyers who were part of the conspiracy that authorized the torture program in Guantanamo, Iraq, secret CIA sites, and elsewhere. The German case is still pending. CCR also has torture cases pending in U.S. courts.
Topics: Barack Obama, Justice Department, Torture
Barack Obama
Torture Memos Released
Here are the OLC torture memos just released by the Justice Department...
An 18-page memo [PDF], dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.
A 46-page memo [PDF], dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.
A 20-page memo [PDF], dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.
A 40-page memo [PDF], dated May 30, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.
Go to it!
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (16)Topics: Barack Obama, Justice Department, Torture
Barack Obama
Obama Releasing Four Torture Memos
One of the memos is from 2002, the other three are from 2005.
According to the AP:
One memo specifically authorized a method for combining multiple techniques, a practice human rights advocates argue is particularly harmful and crosses the line into torture even if any of the individual methods do not....
The methods include keeping detainees naked for long periods, keeping them in a painful standing position for long periods, and depriving them of solid food. Other tactics included using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls, keeping the detainee's cell cold for long periods, and beating and kicking the detainee. Sleep-deprivation, prolonged shackling, and threats to a detainee's family were also used.
Among the things not allowed in the memo were allowing a prisoner's body temperature or caloric intake to fall below a certain level, because either could cause permanent damage, the officials said.
The techniques were applied to 14 suspects considered very senior terrorists.
In addition, the Justice Department announced in a statement that CIA employees won't be tried for waterboarding.
Here's the full statement from the White House. The statement from DOJ follows it.
Statement of President Barack Obama on Release of OLC MemosThe Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. These memos speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, and their release is required by the rule of law.
My judgment on the content of these memos is a matter of record. In one of my very first acts as President, I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer. Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past.
But that is not what compelled the release of these legal documents today. While I believe strongly in transparency and accountability, I also believe that in a dangerous world, the United States must sometimes carry out intelligence operations and protect information that is classified for purposes of national security. I have already fought for that principle in court and will do so again in the future. However, after consulting with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and others, I believe that exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release.
First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program - and some of the practices - associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.
In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.
Going forward, it is my strong belief that the United States has a solemn duty to vigorously maintain the classified nature of certain activities and information related to national security. This is an extraordinarily important responsibility of the presidency, and it is one that I will carry out assertively irrespective of any political concern. Consequently, the exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities. I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States.
This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.
The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.
Here's the statement from Attorney General Eric Holder:
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RELEASES FOUR OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL OPINIONSPERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)In connection with ongoing litigation, the Department of Justice today released four previously undisclosed Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC") opinions - one that OLC issued to the Central Intelligence Agency in August 2002 and three that OLC issued to the CIA in May 2005.
"The President has halted the use of the interrogation techniques described in these opinions, and this administration has made clear from day one that it will not condone torture," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "We are disclosing these memos consistent with our commitment to the rule of law."
Holder also stressed that intelligence community officials who acted reasonably and relied in good faith on authoritative legal advice from the Justice Department that their conduct was lawful, and conformed their conduct to that advice, would not face federal prosecutions for that conduct.
The Attorney General has informed the Central Intelligence Agency that the government would provide legal representation to any employee, at no cost to the employee, in any state or federal judicial or administrative proceeding brought against the employee based on such conduct and would take measures to respond to any proceeding initiated against the employee in any international or foreign tribunal, including appointing counsel to act on the employee's behalf and asserting any available immunities and other defenses in the proceeding itself.
To the extent permissible under federal law, the government will also indemnify any employee for any monetary judgment or penalty ultimately imposed against him for such conduct and will provide representation in congressional investigations.
"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department," Holder said.
After reviewing these opinions, OLC has decided to withdraw them: They no longer represent the views of the Office of Legal Counsel.
Topics: Barack Obama, Justice Department, Torture
Torture
Greenwald On Torture Memos: These Aren't Intel Docs, They're Legal Docs
A great point from Salon's Glenn Greenwald, to keep in mind as we wait for more information about the possible release of those torture memos:
I want to underscore one vital point about this controversy that is continuously overlooked and will be undoubtedly distorted today in the event of non-disclosure: these documents are not intelligence documents. They are legal documents and, more specifically, they constitute what can only be described as secret law under which the U.S. was governed during the Bush era. Thus, the question posed by the release of these OLC memos is not whether Obama will release to the public classified intelligence programs. The question is whether he will release to the public the legal doctrines under which the U.S. Government conducted itself regarding interrogation techniques he claims are no longer being used.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)
Topics: Barack Obama, Justice Department, Torture
Torture
Report: Obama to Release Torture Memos
The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration has decided to release the "torture memos" written by the Bush Department of Justice, that justify harsh interrogation techniques.
It's not clear from the Times's unsourced report whether this is a compromise, in which only some of the memos will be released, or whether they all will.
Today is the deadline for the administration to weigh in on a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, which is seeking the memos.
We'll have more as things become clearer.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Topics: Barack Obama, Justice Department, Torture
CIA
Red Cross: CIA Interrogation Program Was "Inhuman"
The journalist Mark Danner has obtained the entire report on torture by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which he published excerpts from last month. The report has been posted on the website of the New York Review of Books. Danner's new writeup of it is here.
The major new revelation concerns the active participation of medical officers in the interrogation of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons. The report, written in 2007, concludes that these officers committed gross violations of medical ethics, and in some cases participated in torture. The report called the CIA program "inhuman."
Topics: CIA, George Bush, Intelligence, Torture
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