Cheney Calls for Release of Memos Showing Results of Interrogation Efforts

[sabra]

Source: Fox News

Former Vice President Cheney says he knows how successful the interrogation techniques were in collecting intelligence for the United States and wants that information to be released to the public as well as the legal memos explaining the decision to allow the heavily criticized methods.

Now that the memos showing the rulings of interrogation techniques have been released, the Obama administration should release additional documents that show what the interrogations yielded, former Vice President Dick Cheney told FOX News on Monday.

In an interview with FOX News' Sean Hannity to be aired on "Hannity" Monday night, Cheney questioned the point of releasing the legal decisions behind the interrogations but not the outcome of them.

"One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort," Cheney said.

Cheney said he's asked that the documents be declassified because he has remained silent on the confidential information, but he knows how successful the interrogation process was and wants the rest of the country to understand.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/20/cheney-calls-release-memos-showing-results-interrogation-efforts/

---

Obama releases memo:

[bemildred]

1. Oh heck yeah, let's have everything, thanks Dick! nt

[Solly Mack]

26. Exactly.

Without redactions, all names fully noted.

[bemildred]

29. Knowledge is good. More knowledge is more good.

:-)

[Solly Mack]

30. LOLOL! That's particularly funny to me because my husband says it all the time

[bemildred]

32. Sorry, never heard of him.

:toast:

[Solly Mack]

33. LOL!

I love your wit!!

[BelgianMadCow]

37. hey if we go down the name names road

throw in the 28 redacted pages in the 9/11 "report" will ya?

[Solly Mack]

40. I'm OK with that

I want WH emails too. Energy papers. More.

[BelgianMadCow]

41. Cheney's secret energy meeting is the Real Whopper indeed

but only one of many beefs we have with Bush*co.

I would like Colin Powell's UN keynote WMD Liespeech's rehearsal tapes myself.

[Usrename]

56. If they were so exculpatory, why did they burn the video tapes?

:shrug:

[Jawja]

57. He wants the memos released

that supports the conclusion that Saddam was behind 9-11 because the Bush Criminal Justice Department tortured suspected terrorists into implicating him. Seems like if all that torture was indeed successful, the Bushes would have gotten Bin Laden. I have strong suspicions that the torture was aimed at getting terrorists to point the finger at Iraq.

Just a hunch.

[mvd]

2. LOL - so true on what the memo shows

:hi:

[liberalmuse]

3. He knows damn well President Obama can't release those, if they even exist.

Because they would compromise national security. When is this piece of shit going to have his last heart attack already?

[ZeitGuy]

11. Kicking this reply. And is that...

...Jeff Buckley in your sig photo?

[DLnyc]

31. If I recall correctly, the successes actually don't exist.

Some committee, (maybe the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence?) asked for several months for Dead-Eye Dick to put up or shut up about these supposed successes, if I remember correctly. No successes were ever documented, as I recall, even though the committee had top clearance. Smells like the stuff just ain't there.

Maybe someone can document this. I can't seem to find a link right now, but remember seeing the story not that long ago.

[appleannie1]

44. It was intelligence officials themselves

Information Secured Through Torture Proved Unreliable, CIA Concluded
by Scott Horton

Peter Finn and Joby Warrick at the Washington Post:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him. The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida - chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates - was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/30-4

[DLnyc]

45. Yes, thanks, and that links to an excellent article in Vanity Fair.

This is not really the story I was looking for, but it makes excellent points:
.....
Several of those I interviewed point out the dearth of specific claims the administration has proffered. “The proponents of torture say, ‘Look at the body of information that has been obtained by these methods.’ But if K.S.M. and Abu Zubaydah did give up stuff, we would have heard the details,” says Cloonan. “What we got was pabulum.” A former C.I.A. officer adds: “Why can’t they say what the good stuff from Abu Zubaydah or K.S.M. is? It’s not as if this is sensitive material from a secret, vulnerable source. You’re not blowing your source but validating your program. They say they can’t do this, even though five or six years have passed, because it’s a ‘continuing operation.’ But has it really taken so long to check it all out?”

Officials who analyzed Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation reports say that the reports were afforded the highest value within the Bush administration not because of the many American lives they were going to save but because they could be cited repeatedly against those who doubted the wisdom of ousting Saddam by force.

“We didn’t know he’d been waterboarded and tortured when we did that analysis, and the reports were marked as credible as they could be,” the former Pentagon analyst tells me. “The White House knew he’d been tortured. I didn’t, though I was supposed to be evaluating that intelligence.” To draw conclusions about the importance of what Abu Zubaydah said without knowing this crucial piece of the background nullified the value of his work. “It seems to me they were using torture to achieve a political objective. I cannot believe that the president and vice president did not know who was being waterboarded, and what was being given up.”
......

And let me just repeat that one line for emphasis:

---->> "It seems to me they were using torture to achieve a political objective" <<<-----

Nauseating bastard degenerate assholes.

From Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812?currentPage=4

[24601]

47. If there were no successes - then releasing the results shouldn't

compromise anything. Release it - and let us decide the value.

[crikkett]

60. Probably couldn't because it would reveal a few victims of Cheney's Death Squad? n/t

:shrug:

[condoleeza]

65. Exactly right on both thoughts

and maybe Cheney knows they don't exist because they were in the boxes he injured his back carrying out of the WH.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Bring it on

[old guy]

5. Makes no difference how successful they were,

Torture is illegal!

[humbled_opinion]

17. That may be true...

but it does sway the public opinion meter if you can prove that your actions saved lives....

[barbtries]

58. he doesn't want anything to get out

he's playing CYA

[TheEuclideanOne]

18. True. If the pres actually started investigating these folks, we

would be discussing if this is good evidence or not, as we should be. Now we are letting the criminal help justify it for future generations. That is just great, first Obama takes a position that he agrees 100% with our new torture policy, now we get to discuss how effective it is.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

23. and that it turned out that Cheney arranged the 9/11 attacks?

[hwmnbn]

6. I call bullshit...

if any memos supported the Cheney administration, they would've been declassified and released already. They had precedent in the Plame outing.

This mofo Cheney seems to be talking a lot more shit now then when he was in office. Wonder why?

[No More Bushbots]

7. Interrogation Results Memo

[No Elephants]

61. And no one understood that was degrading under the Geneva Conventions? Give me a break!

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. It turns out that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a REALLY evil guy

After being tortured, KSM admitted to kicking over the lantern that started the Great Chicago Fire, killing JFK, putting the bomp in bomp,bomp,bomp, being the REAL Deep Throat, shooting JR, masterminding 9/11 and stealing a bike from little Timmy Fenstermaker down the street.

[jb5150]

20. You forgot

stealing a candy bar when he was 9.......

[No Elephants]

62. What a relief! I thought he may have stolen the cookie from the cookie jar, or been the real

Hamburglar.

[Uben]

9. Dickhead had the chance to release that memo.......

....he didn't do it when he had the chance. So, he is still the big fucking loser he has always been.

[santamargarita]

10. That's because there was NO success, you stumpy little shitbag!

Goddamn, I hate these scumbags!

[Politicalboi]

12. I found it

See President "Cheney" wasn't lying. Thanks again Faux Noise for keeping us "infromed".

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0210/p02s01-uspo.html

See how quick you all forget how Bush kept us safe.

[PNutt]

13. Oh Yeah, We Got Great Results.........

We cornered and captured Osama Been Rotten within 24 hours of getting that oh-so-vital information. :eyes: Perhaps Our National Dick should disclose his kickbacks from Haliburton and leave off the futile attempts to justify his being a War Criminal and a blight on humanity.:

[opihimoimoi]

14. The Ends Justify the MEANS??? We went over this a long time ago...it don't work

Tell dick to go fuck himself

[BelgianMadCow]

15. he has the audacity to meddle AGAIN?? Okay, let's see the evidence. But include ALL of Abu Ghraib

files - and the statistics of "actionable intelligence " over there?

Since effing when is it improper to criticise past presidents but former VPs can come and meddle in the debate?

The media that are giving him a forum - :mad:

Only place Cheney should be heard from is a defendant bench.

[irislake]

34. I can't believe the nerve!

The grandiosity! He can't accept he isn't in power any more. What a terrifying nut! He's truly insane. And to think he was running your country! It could have been much worse.

Didn't Bush senior or one of his lot call Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfie etc "the crazies"? How right he was. They are crazy and evil.

[truthisfreedom]

16. Yo Dick, how about you 'splain to the 'murkin people how safe you left us on 9-11??? No fighters,

nothing done to protect our skies. Remember that, dickie? Why don't you release a full explanation of exactly why you dropped the ball and allowed the attacks? Why don't you explain why it took 45 fucking minutes to scramble one fighter, mr. smartypants?

[ShareTheWoods]

25. I doubt if this information is secret anymore but...

Four fully loaded Green Mountain Boys F-16 fighters left Burlington VT headed south in full afterburner
within minutes of the first plane hitting the first WTC tower. I watched them as they left while I was
headed to work thinking...damn, never seen them leave in such a hurry with their wings full of stuff.

My friend in the air guard there would not tell me how long it took to load them with munitions. Just as well.

The truth is your friend.

[Ohio Joe]

19. Is that what gave us 500 "second in commands" ?

What an asshole, he belongs in prison.

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. Fortunately, I have Cheney on "ignore".

[MrPerson]

22. NOW CAN WE PROSECUTE THESE PEOPLE?

Cheney is DEFENDING TORTURE.

[CLANG]

24. Better yet, Dick - how about KSM's daughters? Can we see the videotape of that?

Fuck you, Cheney, you vile piece of marinated shit!

[vinylsolution]

27. Cheney needs to be waterboarded....

.... He knows more than anyone else about the crimes of the Bush administration.

[BelgianMadCow]

39. tsk tsk torturing evil incarnate is still torture!

okay, maybe once. Or 183 times. All in one go?

Kidding of course.

[tomm2thumbs]

28. I always felt setting someone's child on fire was effective - and that makes it A-O-K

Extrapolate as you like - The 'results' don't justify the means as they do not indicate whether more or better intelligence could have been achieved through less severe means - given that we have heard repeatedly that other methods often produce better results.

[wroberts189]

35. 1- let it all come out 2- I wish cheney would STFU. 3- Why is anyone listening to him? nt

[undeterred]

36. Cheney is harder to get rid of than a wet booger

so to speak.

[wroberts189]

38. hehe.. Or a bunch of biting fleas from a dead animal. nt

[Jefferson23]

42. All this paranoid asshole does is consistently continue to implicate himself,

keep it up Cheney, you fucking slime bastard.

[chimpyisstillsatan]

43. Roveian rope-a-dope

After eight years of this, you'd think SOMEONE would recognize this Rovian bullshit for what it is. Demanding we release something that doesn't exist. Effing priceless.

[annabanana]

55. Yup!. . Saddam COULDN'T provide the evidence of WMDs either.. . n/t

[WoodyM]

46. With the number of waterboardings

they done they should have several books to release instead of just memos.

[Atticus]

48. So---waterboarding worked, eh?

If this technique --- which we had no difficulty defining as torture when we executed Japanese who employed it on our soldiers --- was so damn effective, Mr. Cheney, why did we have to use it 183 times against the same prisoner? Wouldn't the poor bastard have spilled ALL of his guts after the first couple of times? What were the other 180 torture sessions for?
Other people, who claim to have seen all the memos in question and have not been challenged about that claim, (Senator Rockefeller, for example) say they contain no proof that the "enhanced interrogation methods" greenlighted by you and W. resulted in ANY usable information. Let's see---who to believe?

[MadMaddie]

49. Once again on camara Dick has acknowledged

he knew about criminal activity.

[Hubert Flottz]

50. And while we are at it Dick how about the minutes to those

secret energy meetings.

[lbrtbell]

51. Hey, Dick, to quote your own words:

Go f**k yourself! :grr:

[Hekate]

52. Let the Sun shine in. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, you evil bastard.

Given the hue and cry from just these few memos, I can hardly wait for more.

Hekate

[truthisfreedom]

53. This just in: cheney officially harder to get rid of than bedbugs.

Although we're still working on it.

[annabanana]

54. And Saddam HAS to produce the evidence of WMD development!

This is exactly the same ploy. SAME THING!!

Some people never learn.

[Psychic Consortium]

59. Cheney acts like he is running a shadow government. nt

[No Elephants]

63. They burned the videotapes, but they want the memos THEY prepared released. How can I possibly

reconcile those two things. What could account for the apparent inconsistency?Oh, gee, if only I could figure out this one thing. Let me think. Hmmmm.

[katty]

64. seeing more of Darth now than ever before-he can't seem to leave

[struggle4progress]

66. Cheney should just authorize the immediate release of all his papers. Then everyone will be able

to see how much he's lied

[jtrockville]

67. On what authority does Cheney base this CIA request?