The 13 people who made torture possible

What? No Nancy Pelosi? But she knew! It's her fault!!!!! :sarcasm:




Between 9/11 and the end of 2002, the Torture 13 decided to torture, then reverse-engineered the techniques, and then crafted the legal cover. Here's who they are and what they did:

1. Dick Cheney, vice president (2001-2009)

Dick Cheney

On the morning of 9/11, after the evacuation of the White House, Dick Cheney summoned his legal counsel, David Addington, to return to work. The two had worked together for years. In the 1980s, when Cheney was a congressman from Wyoming and Addington a staff attorney to another congressman, Cheney and Addington argued that in Iran-Contra, the president could ignore congressional guidance on foreign policy matters. Between 1989 and 1992, when Dick Cheney was the elder George Bush's secretary of defense, Addington served as his counsel. He and Cheney saved the only known copies of abusive interrogation technique manuals taught at the School of the Americas. Now, on the morning of 9/11, they worked together to plot an expansive grab of executive power that they claimed was the correct response to the terrorist threat. Within two weeks, they had gotten a memo asserting almost unlimited power for the president as "the sole organ of the Nation in its foreign relations," to respond to the terrorist attacks. As part of that expansive view of executive power, Cheney and Addington would argue that domestic and international laws prohibiting torture and abuse could not prevent the president from authorizing harsh treatment of detainees in the war against terror.

But Cheney and Addington also fought bureaucratically to construct this torture program. Cheney led the way by controlling who got access to President Bush -- and making sure his own views preempted others'. Each time the torture program got into trouble as it spread around the globe, Cheney intervened to ward off legal threats and limits, by badgering the CIA's inspector general when he reported many problems with the interrogation program, and by lobbying Congress to legally protect those who had tortured.

Most shockingly, Cheney is reported to have ordered torture himself, even after interrogators believed detainees were cooperative. Since the 2002 OLC memo known as "Bybee Two" that authorizes torture premises its authorization for torture on the assertion that "the interrogation team is certain that" the detainee "has additional information he refuses to divulge," Cheney appears to have ordered torture that was illegal even under the spurious guidelines of the memo.

2. David Addington, counsel to the vice president (2001-2005), chief of staff to the vice president (2005-2009)

David Addington

David Addington championed the fight to argue that the president -- in his role as commander in chief -- could not be bound by any law, including those prohibiting torture. He did so in two ways. He advised the lawyers drawing up the legal opinions that justified torture. In particular, he ran a "War Council" with Jim Haynes, John Yoo, John Rizzo and Alberto Gonzales (see all four below) and other trusted lawyers, which crafted and executed many of the legal approaches to the war on terror together.

In addition, Addington and Cheney wielded bureaucratic carrots and sticks -- notably by giving or withholding promotions for lawyers who supported these illegal policies. When Jack Goldsmith withdrew a number of OLC memos because of the legal problems in them, Addington was the sole administration lawyer who defended them. Addington's close bureaucratic control over the legal analysis process shows he was unwilling to let the lawyers give the administration a "good faith" assessment of the laws prohibiting torture.

3. Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel (2001-2005), and attorney general (2005-2008)

Alberto Gonzales

As White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales was nominally in charge of representing the president's views on legal issues, including national security issues. In that role, Gonzales wrote and reviewed a number of the legal opinions that attempted to immunize torture. Most important, in a Jan. 25, 2002, opinion reportedly written with David Addington, Gonzales paved the way for exempting al-Qaida detainees from the Geneva Conventions. His memo claimed the "new kind of war" represented by the war against al-Qaida "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners." In a signal that Gonzales and Addington adopted that position to immunize torture, Gonzales argued that one advantage of not applying the Geneva Convention to al-Qaida would "substantially reduce the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act." The memo even specifically foresaw the possibility of independent counsels' prosecuting acts against detainees.

4. James Mitchell, consultant

Even while Addington, Gonzales and the lawyers were beginning to build the legal framework for torture, a couple of military psychologists were laying out the techniques the military would use. James Mitchell, a retired military psychologist, had been a leading expert in the military's SERE program. In December 2001, with his partner, Bruce Jessen, Mitchell reverse-engineered SERE techniques to be used to interrogate detainees. Then, in the spring of 2002, before OLC gave official legal approval to torture, Mitchell oversaw Abu Zubaydah's interrogation. An FBI agent on the scene describes Mitchell overseeing the use of "borderline torture." And after OLC approved waterboarding, Mitchell oversaw its use in ways that exceeded the guidelines in the OLC memo. Under Mitchell's guidance, interrogators used the waterboard with "far greater frequency than initially indicated" -- a total of 183 times in a month for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 83 times in a month for Abu Zubaydah.

more: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/18/torture/

(do I really need to add my sarcasm smiley)

Which part was sarcastic?

and brought to justice.

13. George W. Bush, president (2001-2009)
12. Steven Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general, OLC (2004), acting assistant attorney general, OLC (2005-2009)
11. John Rizzo, CIA deputy general counsel (2002-2004), acting general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency (2001-2002, 2004-present)
10. Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense (2001-2006)
9. William "Jim" Haynes, Defense Department general counsel
8. Jay Bybee, assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel (2001-2003)
7. John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel (2001-2003)
6. Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor (2001-2005), secretary of state (2005-2008)
5. George Tenet, director of Central Intelligence (1997-2004)
4. James Mitchell, consultant
3. Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel (2001-2005), and attorney general (2005-2008)
2. David Addington, counsel to the vice president (2001-2005), chief of staff to the vice president (2005-2009)
1. Dick Cheney, vice president (2001-2009)

1. Dick Cheney, vice president (2001-2009)
2. David Addington, counsel to the vice president (2001-2005), chief of staff to the vice president (2005-2009)
3. John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel (2001-2003)
4. Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel (2001-2005), and attorney general (2005-2008)
5. George Tenet, director of Central Intelligence (1997-2004)
6. Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense (2001-2006)
7. William "Jim" Haynes, Defense Department general counsel
8. Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor (2001-2005), secretary of state (2005-2008
9. George W. Bush, president (2001-2009)
10. Jay Bybee, assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel (2001-2003)
11. John Rizzo, CIA deputy general counsel (2002-2004), acting general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency (2001-2002, 2004-present)
12. Steven Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general, OLC (2004), acting assistant attorney general, OLC (2005-2009)
13. James Mitchell, consultant

I would add this asshole to the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_D._Miller

He was the guy that "gitmo-ized" Abu Ghraib (and probably a lot of other prisons).

and this asshole:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cambone

I'm pretty sure he had a significant role in determining WHAT the torture was supposed to find.

Was that Meyers or someone before him? That @sshole needs to be nailed, too.

Andrew Card.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Card

But all reports were that he was a "know nothing" for his entire tenure in the White House.

Not at all like Leo McGarry on the West Wing. Or most Presidential Chiefs of Staff in real life.

You should read what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill had to say about him in his book.

And it was Meyers, from acting Chairman on 10/01/2001 until 2005.

None of this could have happened without his cooperation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Myers

My guess is that there were probably 50 to 60 people involved, from the President down to the CIA contractors and some members of our military.

All of them should face War Crime trials.

The lowest ranking members of the military should be offered deals (dishonorable discharge at the least), in exchange for their testimony against their superiors.

I want to see "A Few Good Men" for real. Only with the officers and civilian officials charged and convicted for their roles.

but we also have to let the chips fall where they may.

Going to War, torturing people to try and gain the fig leaf of false justification ..... The very worst kind of crimes that can be imagined.. The destruction of millions of lies and the outright murder of hundreds of thousands of people (theirs and ours)

How can we NOT prosecute.. how can ANYONE say we mustn't prosecute?

"It will tear the Country apart"??. . . Leaving these crimes un-addressed is already tearing this Country apart.

:kick:

alias Rupert Murdock.

I thought that the 24 show was propaganda to influence the public to play along with our government's bad behavior, and then we learned that the interrogators at Gitmo were watching the show to get ideas for torture -that they knew were being watched by the American public and were thus ostensibly acceptable.


edit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91684540

"Sands says that the harsh interrogation policy that emerged after Sept. 11 came from high-ranking government officials and top military figures. His book explains how the military veered from the strict interrogation protocols set forth in the Army's field manual to using methods inspired by the prime-time television show 24."

He surely was cognizant of the situation. Colonel Wilkerson was. Why isn't Powell considered complicit in this mess?

cheney hated him and wanted as little of his input into anything as he could get. George Tenet played a huge role in duping powell and sending him to the UN with that bullshit presentation.

I don't think that Tenet has parted with enough flesh over what he's done. Another 10 lbs are required from him.

It's one of the points of contention he had with the administration from what I recall.

I think that the reason there is so much much fear and division throughout our country is the feeling among both sides that things are out of control. Whether you agree with all of the constitution and the amendments,they are the law of the land and should not be ignored or dismissed to fit your political view or for political expediency. There is a good reason that the constitution is hard to change. However,what is the use of a law if it simply shoved aside. It sets a precedent that leads to the end of true democracy in this great country. Our leaders,above all others,must be held accountable for the great crime of destroying the protection of that document. If they are not,this country will spiral into anarchy. Torture is against the law of this country and against the teachings of our religions. It offends the souls of the faithful and the atheists. Prosecute the ones responsible,whom ultimately are the ones who ordered it. Those who chose the god of force over the God of their fathers.
If the illegal wire-tapping of this nation is not stopped and punished,we will never have a real democracy again. Ever. It's not just about the listening-in on you and me that worries me so much,although it does infuriate me. There is a very small pool of people that run for office,in the media,or can affect all our lives thru their professions. If information is being collected on these people or on their friends and families that can be used to blackmail or destroy them,does it matter who wins elections? Even if the government doesn't misuse the information,there are people in government that have their own agendas. How easy to pass that information to others. There are technologies, as I'm sure many already know,that allows the government to listen in on conversations simply from your cell-phone being turned on. There are two channels on a cell-phone. This is as anti-American as it gets.

I think the country is waking up from a nightmare. Somehow, the people can intuit the truth about 9/11 and the perpetrators, and they are beginning to put the pieces together, including this new revelation about using torture in order to try and pin the blame on Saddam and Iraq.

Everyone that has been paying attention knows, deep down they know, that the whole official story is fabricated. An alternate reality born by torturing people to confess to imaginary events in order to obscure the obviousness of what really happened.

about torture?

He was the US Attorney when the CIA was torturing people (before the Bybee/Yoo memos).

Just.As.Guilty.

Myers
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/30/richard_myers/

Feith
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x49554

Cambone
http://www.democrats.com/Rumsfelds-Fellow-Torture-Monger-Stephen-Cambone-Quits

Powell - sat on the Principals Committee (see link below)

Ashcroft sat on the Principals Committee...he knew...he approved....he was AG/ DOJ when torture memos were being written...and Ashcroft and Chertoff were both responsible for the rounding up of Arab & Muslim men after 911 for no other reason than being young Arab or Muslim men - and some of those men were tortured in detention centers in America

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4583256
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2454271

where a panel of Pentagon brass lie their @sses off about what happened there.

Warner frames the whole thing as "not being tied to interrogations" in his opening statement.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=183428-1&showVid=true

Now I want to find the earlier hearing where Cambone, Feith, Meyers and Taguba sit there and lie and frown at each other because they all know they are being taped. That wasn't before Congress. I think it was a Pentagon event.

with Cambone & Taguba..and other military brass

Myers/Rumsfeld were on the 7th of May 2004...

I've been looking for the video..


In case you don't have the audio
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1893094

I think CSPIN got the date wrong. At least they finally fixed the link.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=181801-1

I'm still looking for the prior hearing because THAT'S the one where all the brass sat there and looked like they were trying to avoid going to jail.

.

Are you looking for the one from May 7th 2004? There were 2 within days of each other....one on the 11th and one on the 7th (with Myers, Rumsfeld and other military people)

It was in some subfloor meeting room and it could have been run by the Pentagram.

But, in my searching, found some 60 titles with "Taguba" at the CSPIN archives. Maybe someone will mention it there. Or, maybe Andy Worthington knows, I'll check with him.

They will skate. The country will pay for it down the road.

If FDR has hanged Prescott Bush and his co-conspirators in 1934, as he should have, we would not have the corporatist state we have today.

cpmplex that we know today and generations of Bush Crime Family destruction.

This was FDR's biggest failure!

It proves that not everyone bought the convoluted logic. The FBI walked away and simply said, 'we will not torture'.

once they were bounced out of interrogating detainees (because even though they were getting good information, it wasn't what cheney and addington wanted to hear and what they did want to hear wasn't coming fast enough, so they turned to the CIA). Since the FBI is the law enforcement arm, they could not be a party to illegal activity--torture--so they withdrew from the whole detainee/interrogation exercise, leaving the CIA pretty much off their leash.

from the article:

6. Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor (2001-2005), secretary of state (2005-2008)


As national security advisor to President Bush, Rice coordinated much of the administration's internal debate over interrogation policies. She approved (she now says she "conveyed the authorization") for the first known officially sanctioned use of torture -- the CIA's interrogation of Abu Zubaydah -- on July 17, 2002. This approval was given after the torture of Zubaydah had begun, and before receiving a legal OK from the OLC. The approval from the OLC was given orally in late July and in written form on Aug. 1, 2002. Rice's approval or "convey of authorization" led directly to the intensified torture of Zubaydah.

7. John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel (2001-2003)

As deputy assistant attorney general of OLC focusing on national security for the first year and a half after 9/11, Yoo drafted many of the memos that would establish the torture regime, starting with the opinion claiming virtually unlimited power for the president in times of war. In the early months of 2002, he started working with Addington and others to draft two key memos authorizing torture: Bybee One (providing legal cover for torture) and Bybee Two (describing the techniques that could be used), both dated Aug. 1, 2002. He also helped draft a similar memo approving harsh techniques for the military completed on March 14, 2003, and even a memo eviscerating Fourth Amendment protections in the United States. The Bybee One and DOD memos argue that "necessity" or "self-defense" might be used as defenses against prosecution, even though the United Nations Convention Against Torture explicitly states that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war … may be invoked as a justification of torture." Bybee Two, listing the techniques the CIA could use in interrogation, was premised on hotly debated assumptions. For example, the memo presumed that Abu Zubaydah was uncooperative, and had actionable intelligence that could only be gotten through harsh techniques. Yet Zubaydah had already cooperated with the FBI. The memo claimed Zubaydah was mentally and physically fit to be waterboarded, even though Zubaydah had had head and recent gunshot injuries. As Jack Goldsmith described Yoo's opinions, they "could be interpreted as if they were designed to confer immunity for bad acts." In all of his torture memos, Yoo ignored key precedents relating both specifically to waterboarding and to separation of powers.


SHE MUST BE SO PROUD BEING THE SOLE WOMAN ON THE LIST :sarcasm:

Thanks for the thread, devilgrrl.:thumbsup:

How many did they do at Nuremberg?

what a BS excuse to do nothing.

K & R

Not sure she is to blame, but she could have stopped it.

eom

The public would have called for change.

.