If torture saved us from another 9/11, then why didn't the 9/11 Commission

endorse our torture program? It's not like they didn't know about it. Zelikow, the executive director of the commission, says he wrote a memo against the program. Oh, wait -- he didn't write that memo until 2005, three YEARS after the torture program started. He was on Junior's transition team and Condi Rice's buddy when she discussed torture in 2002 and 2003. I guess she didn't talk to him much? But he was on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board after 9/11. Maybe they didn't talk in the hallway?

The Abu Ghraib story broke around April 2004 and the Taguba investigation had been working since 2003. The ICRC was complaining to Bremmer since 2002. The 9/11 Commission didn't shut up shop until August 2004. Did no one in Congress who was briefed on the TORTURE PROGRAM talk to the Commission? Nancy? Senator Rockefeller? Harman? Nobody? No member of the Taguba investigation? General Meyers? Doug Feith? Steve Cambone? Rummy? Nobody?! What kind of American wouldn't stand up for a program that saved America from terrorist attacks?!

Does this mean the 9/11 Commission doesn't want to keep America safe from terrorists? They had access to plenty of people who knew about the program -- they had access to all of them, including Cheney.

Or, Condi's word? Or, the word of all the others that knew? George Tenet knew. He briefed the White House every day?

Why didn't he stand up for the torture program that was keeping us safe?!

:yoiks: :think: :wow:

Since the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1994, then didn't Pres. Clinton's tactics keep us safe for 7 years?

And...

Wasn't it only when these tactics were abandoned by the Shrub administration that we were successfully attacked?

Because if the Commission didn't find an international, in fact GLOBAL, torture program that kept us safe after 9/11, when every single principal they interviewed knew about it, what does that say about the rest of their operation? :shrug:

that I wouldn't offer the other side even for the sake of argument (we may have to agree to disagree there). As you know after all, a person being tortured is apt to spew any sort of bs to stop the torture, and almost by definition the fraud can't be detected immediately, so that the "stop a ticking bomb" argument has to fall. Of course that's leaving aside the brutalization of the victim and those US citizens who conduct torture, and the degradation of us all when they are made to do it in our name.

Pardon the ranty digression.

I'm just asking if the 9/11 Commission was remiss in not standing up for torture when their job was to figure out how to make us safer. (If you need it, :sarcasm: )

:)

1) Why did the White House go with the CIA torture program in light of the fact that the FBI interrogation methods were working? The White House claimed the FBI interrogations weren't effective but they also claimed all sorts of other nonsense. FBI agent Soufan is now on the record stating the FBI methods were working.

2) Why did the CIA obstruct al Qaeda investigations before 9/11 even though at the very same time they were on high alert for a possible attack?

We don't have good answers to either question. The 9/11 Commission wanted it both ways in relation to the use of torture. They accepted the CIA interrogation transcripts and considered them sufficient for their "definitive" report while distancing themselves from the use of torture. IMO there is no way the 9/11 Commission wouldn't have known about CIA tapes. Are we to believe a single source didn't tell them about the tapes or that nobody on the Commission (including staff) had ever heard anything about possible interrogation tapes? Once again it seems people are believing the 9/11 Commission for no good reason.

In Philip Shenon's book we learn that the commissioners thought that Tenet lied in closed session interviews. Tenet also lied about the CIA's conduct in relation to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. He claimed nobody at the CIA read cables relating to their travel to the US yet the CIA IG report (executive summary) states that 50-60 officials had seen this cable traffic. This isn't a minor detail. After all, it was Tenet himself who declared war on al Qaeda in 1998. Why would his CTC withhold information about al Qaeda operatives in the US, even after US sailors were murdered in an al Qaeda plot in 10/00?

and are now trying to blame CIA, again. That's plain. Tenet didn't have the power to impose a torture program on anyone but the family dog.

And before 9/11, the administration was not interested in Al Qaida. No matter how dirty they are and have always been, CIA doesn't generate leadership. They're supposed to respect and respond to it.

edit for clarity

for the CIA to tell the FBI that al Qaeda operatives were inside the US. In fact, the initial withholding took place in early January 2000.

Are we to believe CIA officials thought that torture was a good idea? Surely their lawyers knew it was illegal and one would think somebody at the CIA realized it wasn't an effective interrogation method. It goes back to question #1. If FBI interrogations were working then what was the true purpose of the torture program? I find it easy to believe that Tenet would go along with a sinister program designed to elicit false confessions.

As the link in the sig line indicates.

Those women were really something. :)

Thank you.