Torture -- Right-Wing Distractions

May 15, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers

TORTURE

Right-Wing Distractions

The debate over accountability for torture authorized by the Bush administration heated up this week. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) led a hearing on Wednesday on Bush-era interrogation practices, featuring testimony from the former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Philip Zelikow. Notably, Zelikow endorsed an investigation into torture: "The U.S. government adopted an unprecedented program of coolly calculated dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information. ... Precisely because this was a collective failure, it is all the more important to comprehend it and learn from it." Though the hearing was a significant step forward for accountability for Bush officials, the White House announced on the same day that it would no longer release hundreds of photographs showing detainee abuse by U.S. troops. At the same time, while progressives continue to advocate investigations, the right wing is attempting to foil moves toward accountability for the real torture culprits, senior Bush officials, instead conjuring up a new attack on congressional officials who were briefed on so-called enhanced interrogation tactics.

NEW EVIDENCE THAT TORTURE DOESN'T WORK: Wednesday's hearing featured testimony from Ali Soufan, a former FBI interrogator who worked closely with Abu Zubaydah. Soufan slammed torture as being "ineffective, slow and unreliable." Describing his team's use of rapport-building techniques with Zubaydah, Soufan said, "Within the first hour of interrogation we gained actionable intelligence." His team quickly learned, for example, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was a key player in the planning of 9/11. Yet contracted CIA interrogators later pushed for abusive interrogations, including "nudity, sleep deprivation, loud noise and temperature manipulation against Zubaydah, even before the Justice Department provided legal permission in writing." Torture was also used to fit the administration's political objectives. In April 2003, "very senior" Bush administration officials suggested that an Iraqi prisoner be waterboarded to see if he would "provide information of a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime," former Iraqi Survey Group chief Charles Duelfer said yesterday. Two senior U.S. intelligence officials said that the suggestion came from the office of Vice President Cheney. Finding this "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda was the primary purpose of the interrogation program authorized in 2002, said former Colin Powell chief of staff Larry Wilkerson. Whitehouse responded, saying, "I have heard that to be true," adding that the accusations bolster the case for criminal prosecutions.

REVERSING COURSE ON ACCOUNTABILITY: Last month, the Pentagon agreed to comply with a Second Circuit court order requiring the release of hundreds of photographs showing detainee abuse at the hands of U.S. troops. At the time, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the DOJ "decided based on the ruling that it was hopeless to appeal, and a mandate ordering the release of those photos came Monday." But this week, the White House reversed course and announced that it would appeal the court order and keep the photos secret. The President "believes their release would endanger our troops," the White House explained. "Nothing is added by the release of the photo s," Gibbs said this week, calling the photo release a "a sensationalistic portion of that investigation." "Their disclosure is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse," countered Amrit Singh, attorney with the ACLU, which originally sued for the release.

PINNING THE BLAME: One of the right wing's latest attempts to distract from the push for torture accountability for Bush officials is saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was equally responsible for Bush's torture program, after reports emerged that the CIA briefed her on "enhanced interrogation techniques" in 2002. Former White House adviser Karl Rove declared that Pelosi was "an accomplice to 'torture.'" House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claimed Pelosi was "well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were." Rep. Pete Hoesktra (R-MI) said yesterday that the "first witness" in a truth commission should be Pelosi. Yesterday, for the first time, Pelosi "acknowledged that in 2003 she was informed by an aide that the CIA had told others in Congress that officials had used waterboarding during interrogations. But she insisted, contrary to CIA accounts, that she was not told about waterboarding during a September 2002 briefing by agency officials." Pelosi then accused the CIA of "misleading the Congress." Furthermore, in multiple interviews yesterday, former senator and Intelligence Committee ranking member Bob Graham also denied that he had been briefed on waterboarding, contradicting the timeline that the CIA sent to the committee. Regardless, the debate over whether Congress was an "accomplice to torture" ignores the fact that an August 2002 DOJ memo flatly stated that "Congress may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield." In other words, the same conservatives railing that Pelosi should have loudly objected to the program also defended the president's absolute right to order abusive interrogations, with or without congressional approval.

ENVIRONMENT -- DEEP IN DENIAL, 'SMOKEY JOE' BARTON UNLEASHES DIRTY ENERGY PLAN: Yesterday, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee unveiled what Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell called "a cynical Republican alternative to the clean energy jobs legislation being developed by committee Democrats." Barton maintains his plan is a "viable alternative to a mandatory cap and trade plan." Writing at The Wonk Room, O'Donnell explained that, in reality, Barton's plan is "basically a PR stunt aimed at conning the public to stay stuck in the same dirty energy rut that is destroying our economy and environment." A summary of Barton's plan includes plans to define both nuclear power and "advanced coal" technology as "renewable" sources of energy, preempt state authority to reduce climate-related emissions, and repeal the Supreme Court decision that said the Environmental Protection Agency could limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. As O'Donnell concludes, "While not quite ignoring the threat of climate change...[Barton's proposal] would guarantee that U.S. emissions would continue to increase without bound for the foreseeable future. ... Barton is just blowing smoke: new subsidies for oil, coal, and nuclear, rollbacks of environmental standards, Orwellian language, and denial of the science of climate change. Wasn't eight years of planetary and economic destruction enough?"

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove will be interviewed today by Connecticut prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy, "who was named in September to examine whether former Justice Department and White House officials lied or obstructed justice in connection with the dismissal of federal prosecutors in 2006." Rove is also "tentatively scheduled to provide closed-door testimony" to the House Judiciary Committee next month.

President Obama yesterday acknowledged that the Employee Free Choice Act doesn't yet have enough votes in the Senate to pass, but said that there "may be areas of compromise to get this bill done." Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), an opponent of the legislation, also said that "prospects are pretty good" for a compromise.

Attorney General Eric Holder assured GOP lawmakers during a House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday that the Justice Department would not release any detainees from Guantanamo Bay "whom he considered dangerous" on U.S. soil. "We're not going to do anything, anything that would put the American people at risk -- nothing," Holder said.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), a "key moderate," endorsed the compromise climate change bill yesterday that "he negotiated with House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA)." "I intend to vote yes and I intend to urge all other committee members to do the same," Boucher said.

Yesterday the House passed a bill "that would provide more than $96 billion in funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30, as President Obama had requested." However, a bloc of 51 Democrats opposed it, accusing Obama of "escalating a war without a clear exit strategy." "I'm tired of wars with no deadlines, no exits and no ends," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA).

"The House on Thursday passed a multiyear school construction bill with the ambitious goals of producing hundreds of thousands of jobs, reducing energy consumption and creating healthier, cleaner environments for the nation's schoolchildren." A similar bill stalled in the Senate last year after President Bush vowed to veto it.

"The former Bush administration official in charge of the federal agency that guarantees pensions for 44 million Americans is under investigation over his contacts with several major Wall Street firms seeking to obtain lucrative contracts." Charles E. F. Millard "is also being investigated on suspicion of soliciting help from one of the winning firms in his search for a new job once he left office."

President Obama "will restart Bush-era military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees, reviving a fiercely disputed trial system he once denounced." Though Obama suspended the tribunals soon after taking office, administration officials say that they will have new legal protections for terror suspects, including a ban on all evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

"The combination of a deep recession and a foundering housing market has left the government with more than 50,000 houses on its hands," USA Today reports. In all the government has has acquired at least 110,000 foreclosed houses" and is "spending about $12.2 billion to reimburse lenders after the owners defaulted on government-backed loans."

And finally: For fans of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's luscious locks, look no further than blagohair.com. Dennis Fath, owner of Delta Laboratories Inc. in Illinois, has created the "Blago It's Bleep'n Golden" volumizing shampoo and conditioner available for $8 a bottle. "I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea," Fath said. "He does have a nice head of hair, and [I thought] it would be funny to have something named after him because of his hair."

Media outlets are ignoring the success of non-harsh interrogation methods.

The irrational fear of Frank Luntz's messaging on health care.

The SEIU launches "Keep America Working" hotline.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says Bush saw the law as "a nicety that we couldn't afford."

An abrupt resignation of the U.S. ambassador leaves the embassy in China "decapitated."

Secession fever is alive and well in Texas.

Just how little oversight did AIG have before it crashed?

Report says that the most heavily taxed nations are the happiest.

I mean, one of the reasons these [torture] techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work."
-- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 5/13/09

VERSUS

"I don't think that these techniques as a whole have made us safer."
-- Graham, 5/13/09

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