Administration Insider Informers & Whistleblowers Needed
WASHINGTON - Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.
The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them Thursday to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday. The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture.
"If you looked at the timing of the meetings and the memos you'd see a correlation," the former intelligence official said. Those who attended the dozens of meetings agreed that "there'd need to be a legal opinion on the legality of these tactics" before using them on al-Qaida detainees, the former official said.
The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. Attending the sessions were Cheney, then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The White House, Justice and State departments and the CIA refused comment Thursday, as did a spokesman for Tenet. A message for Ashcroft was not immediately returned.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., lambasted what he described as "yet another astonishing disclosure about the Bush administration and its use of torture."
"Who would have thought that in the United States of America in the 21st century, the top officials of the executive branch would routinely gather in the White House to approve torture?" Kennedy said in a statement. "Long after President Bush has left office, our country will continue to pay the price for his administration's renegade repudiation of the rule of law and fundamental human rights."
The American Civil Liberties Union called on Congress to investigate.
"With each new revelation, it is beginning to look like the torture operation was managed and directed out of the White House," ACLU legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said. "This is what we suspected all along."
The former intelligence official described Cheney and the top national security officials as deeply immersed in developing the CIA's interrogation program during months of discussions over which methods should be used and when.
At times, CIA officers would demonstrate some of the tactics, or at least detail how they worked, to make sure the small group of "principals" fully understood what the al-Qaida detainees would undergo. The principals eventually authorized physical abuse such as slaps and pushes, sleep deprivation, or waterboarding. This technique involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning.
The small group then asked the Justice Department to examine whether using the interrogation methods would break domestic or international laws.
"No one at the agency wanted to operate under a notion of winks and nods and assumptions that everyone understood what was being talked about," said a second former senior intelligence official. "People wanted to be assured that everything that was conducted was understood and approved by the folks in the chain of command."
The Office of Legal Counsel issued at least two opinions on interrogation methods.
In one, dated Aug. 1, 2002, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee defined torture as covering "only extreme acts" causing pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure. A second, dated March 14, 2003, justified using harsh tactics on detainees held overseas so long as military interrogators did not specifically intend to torture their captives.
Both legal opinions since have been withdrawn.
The second former senior intelligence official said rescinding the memos caused the CIA to seek even more detailed approvals for the interrogations.
The department issued another still-secret memo in October 2001 that, in part, sought to outline novel ways the military could be used domestically to defend the country in the face of an impending attack. The Justice Department so far has refused to release it, citing attorney-client privilege, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey declined to describe it Thursday at a Senate panel where Democrats characterized it as a "torture memo."
Not all of the principals who attended were fully comfortable with the White House meetings.
The ABC News report portrayed Ashcroft as troubled by the discussions, despite agreeing that the interrogations methods were legal.
"Why are we talking about this in the White House?" the network quoted Ashcroft as saying during one meeting. "History will not judge this kindly."
___
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
___
Citizens Arrest
We know that war has been a tool ruling class elitists have used to transfer wealth to themselves ever since men have been able to organize fighting on a tribal and national theater. We know that this class of people have used god and fear to train people to believe 'they', as the chosen people, are doing god's work by killing people who are not members of their sect.
We know, while many well to do families in the US have handed down profits made from war through generations, that the Bush family is among the most successful of these clans. Samuel Bush, our de facto president's great grandfather sold weapons to opposing parties before and during WWI. Prescott Bush was a banker for a Third Reich owned bank in the US before and during WWII. George Bush Sr. has ties to the Bin Laden Family and has been on the board of directors of the Carlyle Group, which owns many defense contractor companies, who profit from war.
We know that neo-conservative "think tanks", such as Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was planning to attack Iraq, long before 9/11. They in fact wrote that they desired "some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”
We know that 9/11 could not have happened the way it did without foreknowledge, complacency and collaboration from within the US government. The buildings did not collapse in a manner so much like an explosive implosion as a result of the planes hitting them. In fact no plane hit building number 7 and no steel framed skyscraper ever collapsed due to fire.
We know that the case for going to war with Iraq was based on lies. Just as we know that billions of dollars in war profits are going to military industrial complex defense contractor CEOs that helped get G.W. Bush into office. Although they fill the mainstream news media with propaganda about how bad their war is going, the people behind the curtain are taking in blood money like there is no tomorrow, they are winning this war.
We know people in and around the Bush Administration have perpetrated crimes against humanity, war crimes by enacting immoral policies of genocidal proportion. We need people who have inside information to help prove our criminal case against Bush, Cheney and many other persons within their Administration, the Pentagon and military industrial complex so we can translate their crimes into violations of laws as stated in the US Criminal Code under title 18. Even when we have undeniable evidence of their crimes; we still will not easily obtain justice because the majority of our elected officials have let these criminals pack the Supreme Court and install criminals in the US Attorney General's office which is the highest law enforcement office in the land. We need to act as a majority and the majority will have to arrest these criminals.
Again, this is a request for people who have worked in and around the Bush Administration, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex to come forward as informers and whistle blowers. All of the money the criminals who have hijacked our government have given you and may offer you is not worth selling out your family, your nation, your Homo sapiens species and the beautiful planet we all share. Please come forth to help us convict these people who are nothing more than merchant's of death who drink the blood of innocent woman and children as war profiteers. We know their crimes and we will bring about an arrest of these people in the name of the majority of the citizens of the United States with or without the help of public servants who should act responsible and do their jobs by helping us arrest criminals who occupy the highest offices of our land. Please, now is your chance to stand with the many good people of our nation against a few greedy self centered Narcissistic individuals who are certainly guilty of crimes against nation and humanity. Please, we will help you in every way we can if you help us all get these criminals out of office. Please be brave and forthcomming; let the information you know come out to the public. We will do all we can offer you immunity and protection as an informer and whistleblower. The only power the war profiteers have comes from Mammon and the Beast of Bilical proportion. Good will overcome evil and you have a chance to do good.
Thank You
Ken Driessen
at_lib@hotmail.com