Two different stories are being told about how the torture program started.

[EFerrari]

1. Hissyspit posted this one:

Torture planning began in 2001, Senate report reveals
By Mark Benjamin

April 22, 2009 | WASHINGTON -- The Senate Armed Services Committee has just released an exhaustive review of torture under the Bush administration that, among other revelations, torpedoes the notion that the administration only chose torture as a last resort. Bush officials have long argued that they turned to coercive interrogations in 2002 only after captured al-Qaida suspects wouldn't talk, but the report shows the administration set the wheels in motion soon after 9/11. The Bush White House began planning for torture in December 2001, set up a program to develop the interrogation techniques by the next month, and the military and the CIA began training interrogators in coercive practices in early 2002, before they had any high-value al-Qaida suspects or any trouble eliciting information from detainees.

As the report puts it, "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees." The report undercuts the Obama administration's case for leniency against the CIA, since the agency was pursuing abusive techniques even before Department of Justice lawyers had issued their supposed legal justification for the techniques in August 2002. The report also shows that the administration appears to have attempted to use the abusive techniques to shore up its case for war in Iraq. Interrogators employed the techniques, which are notorious for producing bad intelligence, to get detainees to make statements linking Iraq and al-Qaida.

To hear former President Bush tell it, you would think the United States only turned to the techniques in desperation. When Bush announced the existence of the CIA's interrogation program in September 2006, for example, he argued that suspected al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah stopped cooperating with interrogators after his capture on March 28, 2002, forcing the agency to get rough. "We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives," Bush said. "But he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation," the president said. "And so, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures."

Not to worry, the president explained. "The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively, and determined them to be lawful."

But that's not how it happened. Staff reporting to Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., pored over 200,000 pages of documents and interviewed more than 70 people. After months going through the declassification process, their report is a stunningly frank tick-tock of the development of torture policy under the Bush administration. The sequence of events shows the early genesis of torture and also exposes repeated, vivid warnings -- falling on deaf ears -- that torture is a clumsy, wrongheaded and ineffective way to gather intelligence.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/04/22/benjamin/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5510025


2. sinkingfeeling posted this one:

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: April 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — The program began with Central Intelligence Agency leaders in the grip of an alluring idea: They could get tough in terrorist interrogations without risking legal trouble by adopting a set of methods used on Americans during military training. How could that be torture?

In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.

This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22detain.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5510728

They both can't be true.



/oops

[Spazito]

1. The NYT report is not based on the Senate report....

It is based on " several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago" so I would not trust the NYT article as far as I could throw it.

The Salon article, on the other hand, uses direct quotes from the report so has much greater credibility, imo.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. The several former top officials involved in the discussions

HAVE to be heavily invested in putting the best possible slant on things in order to minimize their own culpability, wouldn't you say?

[Spazito]

6. Yes, I would agree...

It seems there is a concerted effort to focus on the CIA as the initial instigators of the torture process with the intent being to mitigate all others above the CIA, imo.

The NYT is remiss, yet again imo, in relying on these people:

"This account is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former senior officials of the C.I.A., White House, Justice Department and Congress. Nearly all, citing the possibility of future investigations, shared their recollections of the internal discussions of a classified program only on condition of anonymity."

and reporting as if the "current and former senior officials" have no personal stake, aka protecting their own asses, in how this is received by the public.

[EFerrari]

3. And another misleading item from AP on possible Spanish prosecution:

Spanish justice shies away from cross-border cases

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
(04-22) 07:22 PDT MADRID, Spain (AP) --

Spain grabbed world headlines a decade ago by indicting Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet, and has since probed alleged atrocities as far away as Tibet and Rwanda.

But now, after tangling with Israel and the United States, the long arm of its justice system is apparently pulling back.

The Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, keen on establishing strong relations with President Barack Obama, says it wants to narrow the scope of such cross-border cases to ones with some obvious link to Spain itself.

Madrid appears to be betting that in order to achieve its ambition to carve out a bigger role on the world stage it needs to keep diplomatic frictions with allies to a minimum.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/22/international/i072249D50.DTL&feed=rss.business

This is misleading because the story is about the wishes of the Zapatero government and not about JUSTICE Garzon in whose court this case is being considered:

Spanish Judge Allows 'Bush Six' Torture Case to Remain
Written by William Fisher
Saturday, 18 April 2009 16:38

By William Fisher

Human rights advocates who were critical of President Barack Obama’s decision not to prosecute Central Intelligence Agency operatives who tortured war-on-terror prisoners are hailing a Spanish judge’s order to pursue a criminal investigation into the actions of six Bush administration lawyers for providing legal cover for torture – despite a recommendation from his prosecutors that the case not go forward.

Late last week, Spain's attorney general, Candido Conde-Pumpido, recommended that the judge, Baltasar Garzón, should dismiss the complaint, brought by human rights lawyers. On Friday, the judge resisted pressure with a decision to proceed with the case.

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/844-spanish-judge-allows-torture-case-against-bush-six-to-remain-open.html

Hold onto your hats, here we go. :crazy:

[formercia]

4. Behind the Third Door

lies the School of the Americas where enhanced interrogation techniques have been taught for generations. There was already a very large cadre of instructors and former students, available on short notice, to initiate the program.

All of these other stories are fall-back positions, to see if any can acquire traction.

[EFerrari]

5. You know something, I'm sure as I sit here that Cheney/Rumsfeld

solicited those two SERE wackjob instructors to refine their torture program because it's just like those two to reinvent the f#cking wheel. It's classic Rumsfeld especially.

Tenet didn't have the juice to impose his will on anything (rest in peace, my respect for Scott Shane), the program didn't start overseas and as you say, CIA already had a fund of experience to draw from.

Now I'm waiting to see which one of these stories goes viral. Bets?

[unc70]

23. Agree on third. What about the fourth door?

Agree about SofA and torture. Curious about your thoughts on a couple of other angles:

1. How much of the get tough, use any means including torture was already in motion before 9/11? The Patriot Act was essentially written before 9/11, so how much other stuff was going on?

2. How involved was Israel in all this? We know that Israel had clandestine operations in Iraq long before the invasion. How much did the US relie on Israel's "special" knowledge of the region during the interrogations and other intelligence operations before the invasion of Iraq and afterward? There were quiet but persistent claims at the time. Were some of the "contractors" from Israel?

[formercia]

27. Many more doors to come

1. From personal experience....Junior learned the trade from Poppy. This crap has been going on since day one. It's just a matter of scale and incompetence.

2. I think that Israelis were the folks who posed as Saudis and other locals to try and trick the detainees. They have the infrastructure to do that.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Having read both stories, I don't see any conflict. I think they're two sides of the same thing.

[EFerrari]

8. Imho, it couldn't have been Tenet's idea (and negligence

to look into origins of tactics) if the program was largely developed at the Pentagon for Don Rumsfeld. Also, remember that at the time, Cheney/Rumsfeld were winning a power struggle with Tenet WHILE they were simultaneously blaming Intel for 9/11. Tenet has been their scapegoat for years.

That's what it looks like to me, anyway.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. I don't see it . Look at these quotes from the Salon article.

"The Bush White House began planning for torture in December 2001, set up a program to develop the interrogation techniques by the next month, and the military and the CIA began training interrogators in coercive practices in early 2002, before they had any high-value al-Qaida suspects or any trouble eliciting information from detainees."

"To set up the torture program, the Department of Defense and the CIA reverse engineered something called SERE training, which was conducted by the JPRA."

Both of those are confirmed in the NYT's story:

"Agency officials, led by Mr. Tenet, sought interrogation advice from other countries. And, fatefully, they contacted the military unit that runs the SERE training program, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which gives American pilots, special operations troops and others a sample of the brutal interrogation methods they might face as prisoners of war."

"In late 2001, about a half-dozen SERE trainers, according to a report released Tuesday night by the Senate Armed Services Committee, began raising stark warning about plans by both the military and the C.I.A. to use the SERE methods in interrogations."

[EFerrari]

10. Yes! And NYTs article sets it firmly at CIA only:

"The program began with Central Intelligence Agency leaders in the grip of an alluring idea: They could get tough in terrorist interrogations without risking legal trouble by adopting a set of methods used on Americans during military training. How could that be torture?"

[sinkingfeeling]

12. No. It states what happened after Bush assigned the 'interrogation' of 'terrorists' to the CIA.

Since the article talks about the CIA contact with the SERE we know that the DOD was involved.

[EFerrari]

You know because you know about SERE. Look at the writing:

Check out the language: "not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program"

[sinkingfeeling]

17. OK, the NYT's article is critical of the CIA and the lack of oversight by the Intelligence

Committees and the Salon article is more critical of the Army. It's still the same story.

[EFerrari]

19. NYTs article is the story of how Rumsfeld and Cheney went along with

Tenet's idea because he was so persuasive:

"They made a persuasive duo, former officials who heard their pitch recalled. Mr. Tenet, an extroverted former Congressional staff member, was given to forceful language about the threat from Al Qaeda, which he said might well have had operations under way involving biological, radiological or even nuclear weapons. Mr. McLaughlin, a career intelligence analyst, was low-key and cerebral, and some White House officials said they found his support for the methods reassuring."

snip

"The C.I.A. then gave individual briefings to the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and the secretary of state, Colin L. Powell. Neither objected, several former officials said.

Mr. Cheney, whose top legal adviser, David S. Addington, was closely consulting with Mr. Yoo about legal justification, strongly endorsed the program. Mr. Bush also gave his approval, though what details were shared with him is not known."

Salon article says, DoD made the first contact with the SERE people:

"The report details how abusive interrogations began. "In December 2001," the report says, "the DOD General Counsel's office contacted the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, for information about detainee 'exploitation.'"

Edit for clarity

[hootinholler]

14. My personal belief is that tha CIA is a scapegoat

The ops were conducted by DIA contractors. All the grunts involved would know is they were spooks.

-Hoot

[EFerrari]

16. CIA is in it up to their eyeballs but, the Shane article

makes it sound as if goofy, incompetent George Tenet was the architect. Andrew Sullivan slams him precisely for that here:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/a-president-who-knew-and-asked-nothing.html

The thing is, when did Tenet ever originate anything? His job was to deliver, not to think. And to take the fall. Mostly, the latter.

[Bluerthanblue]

11. Cheney's tip off: on Sept.16 2001

-- Five days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney instructed the nation that the U.S. government would begin working "the dark side" to defeat its enemies in a new global war. "A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion," Cheney declared on NBC's "Meet the Press." He added, "It's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal."






http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11231.htm

[EFerrari]

13. Good catch. n/t

[Bluerthanblue]

15. - very interesting thread-

thank YOU-!

:hi:

[Solly Mack]

18. It began within the Bush WH, the CIA's expanded role in the "war on terror"

The "policy" began within the White House (from 2006)

The Enhanced Language of Guilt
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/29/torture/
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/21/cia_sere/?source=rss

"Moreover, the involvement of the CIA, which was secretly granted broad authority by President Bush days after 9/11 to target terrorists worldwide, suggests that both the military and the spy agency were following a policy approved by senior Bush administration officials."

Manifested itself and grew with the "Pentagon memos" (Rumsfeld), that came after the Bush Whitehouse had already "granted broad authority" to the CIA

The Pentagon Memos

The "Pentagon Memos" were classified by Rumsfeld on March 6, 2003, and those lay out a lot of the groundwork for interrogations by the military. One memo in March, another on April 4, 2003.

March 6 memo
Part 1 http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/images/06/09/pentagonreportpart1.pdf
Part 2 http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/images/06/09/pentagonreportpart2.pdf

April 4, 2003

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/040403dod.pdf

All of this came out years ago

The content of the report recently released wasn't exactly unknown, at least in part


The idea that the CIA didn't know what SERE's is (its wheres, whens, and whys) is laughable. Absolutely laughable. The CIA had a long time acquaintance with torture called "no touch" torture, and reverse engineering served that purpose. Reverse engineering involved the SERE's program. And such was adapted for use by both the CIA and the military under Bush.

The fact is, techniques used by the CIA for 40 plus years were incorporated into military training to one degree or another.

People can bet their sweet bippy that Rummy knew as well.


Add that with the "torture memos", where the DOJ and the WH go back and forth with structuring their plans for the detainees, which go back as early as January 2002, and you get a systemic program of torture that begins in the WH.

[EFerrari]

20. And as I've said up thread, Tenet was not a risk taker.

But using those SERE psychologists who had no data to suggest their technique would work is CLASSIC Rumsfeld. Tenet would never take such a risk, imho, even if he needed to go outside the agency to look for torture methods.

[Solly Mack]

21. Tenet isn't the ring leader. He did..ah...follow orders

[EFerrari]

22. Scott Shane is now on my list. The last time I read him

he published a story about Bruce Ivins that reprised already discredited FBI talking points as if the preceding 6 months of discussion had never happened. This article was published Jan 2009 and we'd been talking about this story since the preceding August.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/us/04anthrax.html?pagewanted=6&hp

[Solly Mack]

24. I didn't much like the tone and direction of his article in the OP

and I don't trust much of anything in the official Ivins narrative

[EFerrari]

25. The weird thing about that Jan article is that there were very specific

points fronted by FBI that had been demolished by then. And there he is, six months later, repeating them again as if nothing had happened. Had he written the same article the previous August, that would have been different.

[starroute]

26. Albert McCoy on the CIA's 'no touch' torture

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/14/torture_at_abu_ghraib_followed_cias_manual/

May 14, 2004

THE PHOTOS from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison are snapshots not of simple brutality or a breakdown in discipline but of CIA torture techniques that have metastasized over the past 50 years like an undetected cancer inside the US intelligence community. From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led secret research into coercion and consciousness that reached a billion dollars at peak. After experiments with hallucinogenic drugs, electric shocks, and sensory deprivation, this CIA research produced a new method of torture that was psychological, not physical -- best described as "no touch" torture.

Although seemingly less brutal, no-touch torture leaves deep psychological scars. The victims often need long treatment to recover from trauma far more crippling than physical pain. The perpetrators can suffer a dangerous expansion of ego, leading to cruelty and lasting emotional problems. After codification in the CIA's "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual in 1963, the new method was disseminated globally to police in Asia and Latin America through USAID's Office of Public Safety. Following allegations of torture by USAID's police trainees in Brazil, the US Senate closed down the office in 1975.

After it was abolished, the agency continued to disseminate its torture methods through the US Army's Mobile Training Teams, which were active in Central America during the 1980s. In 1997, the Baltimore Sun published chilling extracts of the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual" that had been distributed to allied militaries for 20 years. In the 10 years between the last known use of these manuals in the early 1990s and the arrest of Al Qaeda suspects since September 2001, torture was maintained as a US intelligence practice by delivering suspects to foreign agencies, including the Philippine National Police, who broke a bomb plot in 1995.

Once the war on terror started, however, the US use of no-touch torture resumed, first surfacing at Bagram Air Base near Kabul in early 2002, where Pentagon investigators found two Afghans had died during interrogation. In reports from Iraq, the methods are strikingly similar to those detailed in the Kubark manual.

I originally got on to this McCoy piece through a thread on it here in May 2004 -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x556085. I commented at the time, "I'd sure like to know the details of who worked all this up, who gave the orders to put it into place, and why they thought it would be a good idea." It looks like those questions are finally being answered.

[Solly Mack]

28. Thanks for posting that!!!

[formercia]

29. I concur

I had these techniques used against me when it became a false perception that I might be a Soviet Agent. I had been detailed to the FBI and worked with Robert Hanssen.
They did everything they could to try to get me to break and run. The chemical agents were bad but the use of hostile psychologists to 'get into my head' and break me down was the worse.
The KGB had a price on my head for work that I did on Afghanistan. That was the last place I wanted to go, so I hunkered down and toughed it out. Fuck those assholes.

[DCKit]

30. Kick (&rec) n/t