Rachel Maddow Show: Tracing Torture's Trail
By Heather Saturday May 16, 2009 8:00am
From The Rachel Maddow Show May 14, 2009. Rachel lays out the time line for how torture was used in the run up to the invasion of Iraq and to justify the invasion after the U.S. had already gone in.
MADDOW: But we begin with a major development in what we know about former Vice President Dick Cheney and his role in authorizing torture. Over the past three months, there has been a steady stream of new information released about the Bush administration‘s torture program. Today, the dots started to connect—all the way up to the office of the former vice president of the United States.
Within three months after the attacks on 9/11, the Bush administration began making the case for invading Iraq, because Iraq, they said, was connected to al Qaeda. Vice President Cheney went on “Meet the Press” and said that Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, met with Iraqi officials before the attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD CHENEY, FMR. U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Well, what we now have that‘s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that—which has been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: It‘s been pretty well confirmed, said the vice president. In fact, that report turned out to be false.
But we now know that something else was going on in secret—inside government—while Dick Cheney was making those public pronouncements, like that one that you just saw from December 2001. According to the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Carl Levin, as far as back as December 2001, the Pentagon was seeking information from the agency that runs the SERE program. The SERE program trains U.S. troops to resist the kinds of torture that were used by communist forces to get false confessions from American troops for use in propaganda.
By July, the people who ran the SERE program had written to the Defense Department, warning the Pentagon explicitly that it would be a mistake to base an interrogation program on SERE techniques—since they were not known to produce reliable or accurate information. Despite that warning, the Bush Justice Department signed off on the techniques the very next month. At that time, U.S. officials are questioning their first known high-value detainee, Abu Zubaydah.
Through normal FBI interrogation techniques, Zubaydah is spilling all sorts of information. He identifies Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of 9/11. He tells of a supposed dirty bomb plot leading to the arrest of Jose Padilla. He‘s singing, but what he‘s not providing is that link between Iraq and al Qaeda.
An order then comes from somewhere that Abu Zubaydah should be interrogated by other means. And in August 2002, Abu Zubaydah is waterboarded 83 times in one month—despite the warning from the people who train American soldiers to survive waterboarding that that technique was developed to produce false confessions.
Now, around the same time, October 2002, out in public, the Bush administration is stepping up the case to the American people that the link exists between Iraq and al Qaeda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy—the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high level contacts that go back a decade. We‘ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: The following month, in November of 2002, President Bush continued to hammer away at this Saddam-al Qaeda link.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, NOVEMBER 7, 2002)
BUSH: He‘s a threat not only with what he has. He‘s a threat with what he‘s done. He‘s a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Still unable to prove this link that they are now repeating over and over and over again, the Bush administration gets what they think could be a gold mine. On March 1st, 2003, they capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. By this point, the administration‘s march toward invading Iraq is unstoppable.
And in that month, the same month of the invasion, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is waterboarded 183 times—six times a day. And while he admits to everything from kidnapping the Lindbergh baby to shooting JFK on the grassy knoll, KSM fails to provide one thing the Bush administration desperately needs at that moment.
The White House is launching its invasion of Iraq without any clear evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. On March 20th, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. They‘re still waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at that time. Shock and awe—the war begins.
The Bush White House has two huge problems on its hands. One, it still hasn‘t proven a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. And two, it needs to find the weapons of mass destruction that they said were in Iraq. Enter Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector who is sent to Iraq after the invasion to help locate those weapons.
In April of 2003, the month after the invasion, Duelfer is involved in the questioning of a high-ranking Iraqi, who was an intelligence officer for Saddam Hussein. Duelfer and the rest of the team are getting information from that officer. He is, as they say, being cooperative.
But at some point during the process, a message comes from Washington. Quote, “Some in Washington at very senior levels, not in the CIA, were concerned that the debriefing was too gentle. They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding should be used.”
Duelfer says he considered the request to be reprehensible. He believed the rationale for the order was political. The request it seemed was to use waterboarding to find the Iraq-al Qaeda link, a link the White House had failed to prove for more than two years despite even using methods known to provide false information.
U.S. officials were being asked to waterboard not to prevent some imminent attack, but to justify an attack that had already been launched by us—against Iraq.
Today, the bombshell news from former NBC News investigative producer, Bob Windrem, that the suggestion to torture this Iraqi source, to use torture not to prevent an attack but to find that link, that suggestion came directly from the office of Vice President Cheney.
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You allow cowards and madmen to get control of the most powerfull army in the world!
You get a mess that may never get fixed.
Millions of lives ruined trillions of dollars wasted.
God how could we have been so stupid to let this gang of criminals get hold of our country.
I feel so much shame and sorrow and nothing we can do will ever make it right for the killed and injured.
We must prosecute these war criminals if we are to regain our standing in the world!
Look what we have coming along for the future.
Training the kids of today to be tomorrows upright little fascists in the regime.
America's new 'Napolitano Youth' formerly known as 'Chertoff Youth'
http://bucf.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/jihad...
Theres no hope for humanities future. The bad people get at the children before they learn to be civilized.
have the benefit of teachers who--like me--encourage them not to let ageism deter them...teachers who--like me--encourage them to remember the courage of their parents and grandparents during the civil rights movement, during the Vietnam war protests, during each and every courageous act of protest of oppression by our government.
These children have the potential to stand up for the rights of us all. Please, please, use your energy and wisdom to encourage them.
One would think a patriotic public figure like Mr. Rumsfeld would sue for being called a "war criminal" in public, were it not for the little problem of actually being a war criminal. It's pretty sad when anyone could go on tv now and call Dick Cheney and dozens of others "war criminals" and none of them would sue.
They have to much money to bother suing plus the Federal Treasury is still their personal shared piggy bank.
Imagine what would be revealed and entered into the public records.
And it would give the MSM the chance to unleash the floodgate of stories they hold. Don't think that a lot of the media don't want to not publish, they do and will given the right opportunity.
In the UK its becoming open season on UK politicians and their sleaze.
here is one..
"revolt of the Generals"
on that guy....
but there is soo much more..
like links to drug companys...
etc..
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9...
It makes me want to scream! But I want to scream even louder at the red state morons who still support these lying criminal psychopaths.
Theres a lot of guilty people who desperately want all this torture and war crimes thing to disappear.
'We need a new Warren or 9/11 commission...' /sarcasm
Or alternatively something along the lines of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976–1979, into the JFK assassination, which concluded four shots fired at Dealey Plaza.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Select_Com...
what we'll likely get instead is just another 9/11. Just to take our minds off of our current problems....
Lee Hamilton run this white-wash of a hearing?
how about a special prosecutor.
"How could we have been so stupid?"
I vehemently campaigned against Bush / Cheney both times!! The second time around was even more difficult because of the lap dog attitude of the media and many in the country after the WTC attacks.
"Cowards and madmen" . . . absolutely . . . as in my last reference.
I think most people sensed that bush was a hoax, a fraud from the beginning, but that was before people started taking elections seriously, before first hand knowledge that elections have consequences, and before a criminal became the president.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting results.
After the Bush administration was warned. Anything?
cheney stopped norad and the us air forces from patrolling the eastern airspace that day, does that answer your question?
our President read "My Pet Goat" - I think there's something Freudian about that choice of books - as it is clear that Dubya was just Cheney's (and GHWB's) 'pet goat.'
Besides just saying something, have you any evidence to prove that? Is there any place to check on that? I believe it's true, but I want proof, not just your say so ...
ran war games
on that day,
took control of norad..
a website on
cheney's
little secrets...
http://cheney.tvnewslies.org
check that one out....click on it, and have a little patience..
I always click on the wrong Reply button. So ...Besides just saying something, have you any evidence to prove that? Is there any place to check on that? I believe it's true, but I want proof, not just your say so ...
even though extensive evidence is being produced daily proving that bush, cheney, rumsfield et al, were responsible for torturing people, still nothing happens...cheney is still out running around showing his face on all the networks and laughing in our faces...so does anyone here believe he, bush and all the torture cronies will ever be brought to justice? im not holding my breath...how is it these ppl became above the law...
weakens our standing among nations and our national security.
... a long time ago. Does the name "Valerie Plame" ring any bells?
Instead, the sycophantic lapdog media yap and sputter and nip at the heels of Nancy Pelosi. Cheney lies and steals and tortures. He destroys thousands of lives. Pelosi waffles and stammers and blinks through those saucer-shaped eyes of hers. Yet she's the one who gets targeted. She's the one who's on the defensive, as if she's the one who brazenly broke the law and defied the civilized world.
We are a very screwed-up country.
are a very screwed up species, Dave.
At times, I consider us a vile infestation of this planet, viral and on the verge of extinction. I have to pull myself back from that vision by looking at our creativity, our inventiveness, our once indomitable spirit...
It's getting harder to have an optimistic perspective of humans. I read Rachel Carson while I was a mere sprat, and knew at such a tender age that we humans are mired in a spiral of self-immolation. Now--forty years later--I see the stress, the panic, the fear, the anxiety, the utter despair of this inchoate reality in the eyes of many. Like rats in an ever shrinking habitat, we march inexorably toward our doom, braced in our oblivion by denial and all the other strategies we've developed to avoid personal responsibility.
I used to long for oblivion, but I am past that now. I am an Observer, and I know that I will witness what is to be. I can only hope that my advocacy with our children will prepare some of them for After.
Maddow does an excellent job of talking slowly and offering up a perfect time-line so even the dumbest among us (like me perhaps) can understand what Bush and Cheney did. So why do we need to talk more? Why is the media parsing every statement and talking along tangents? The evidence is clear: Bush and Cheney are traitors and war criminals. They need to be arrested now. If Obama's administration lets this go, we are doomed... making one more small step to our demise as a nation.
Obama should't delay sending them to prisson!
They are Criminals (In particular Cheney and) and what do criminals are capable of Doing when ther are cought?
9-11 part II?
That one would also have Mossad's bootprints all over it, just like the Twin Towers.
Big Dick didn't need no stinkin' evidence before ordering the invasion of a sovereign nation and the murder of hundreds of thousands
of innocent people, just so's he and his KBR/Halliburton/Oil co buds could steal the stuff out from under Iraq??
I'll not be holding my breath to see Cheney or Rummy et al in the docket for any 'war crime'. They and the Bush Crime Family are still the ones pulling the strings - and they never lose.
Don't forget that Cheney had his secretive New Energy Plan meetings BEFORE 9/11. And what has managed to come out of those meetings that we know of? Oh, yeah, a map of Iraq's oil fields carved up ready to be served to a salivating American Oil Industry. Wow, then we have 9/11 and a march to invade Iraq. 9/11 did come along at a very convienient time, didn't it? All I can say for now is that is one very, very, very big coincidence.
As I know we've been in 9/11 discussions before, here's a site I stumbled upon in a comment on Common Dreams. It's about 60 pages,
but if you read through the first ten or so, I'm sure you'll want to read the rest.
http://www.israelshamir/Contributors/Collater...
Bring it on! Start the "inquiry".....and start the prosecution. If this info is correct, we have enough RELIABLE information to prosecute and hang this son-of-a-bitch!
I wouldn't be surprised if the monkey didn't know shit about it...he's such a f*cking dumb shit. But this evil, sinister spawn of Satan knew it all and directed it all.
Time to bring on the trials. All that new need to fall as well. This goes from rumsfeld, rice, gonzalez, the lawyers, the other administration officials...AND any of Congress as well.
Could someone please point out where in the United States Constitution it gives the Vice President of the United States such authority?
it doesn't forbid it either
the authority to commit crimes is expressly forbid by the Constitution.
It's happening
It's crept so far over the last 4 decades, we're all covered in slime.
This was an excellent job last night, but most everyone should have figured out the reason for torture long time ago. Things do seem to be moving along though. We have moved from if there was torture to yes there was torture. Now we have to get from "we tortured to save American lives" to we tortured to justify the Iraq War.
Anyway go Rachel and also Go Rachael Alexandra today.
Neo-liberal rationalizers who wish to avert their gaze from the brutal war crimes of US imperialists are just as despicable as the neo-fascist thugs who ordered and perpetrated the torture regime. Like Obama, Reid, Harmon, and Pelosi, they are all shameless, cowardly enablers of the treasonous parasites who have left the nation bankrupt in moral, political, military, and economic squalor.
the sideshow mudwrestling match between Pelosi and the CIA will only be resolved when Cheney and his henchmen are dragged in under oath to answer for their crimes. All Obama has to do to redeem himself in my eyes is appoint a Special Prosecutor, turn over all evidence to the Justice Department, and let the shit fly for real.
is to resume the life of comfort-and-convenience that seemed so nirvana-like 8 years ago.
if Obama fails to pursue consequences for these despicable war criminals, I cannot help but conclude that he is dancing to the tune of the same pipers--the Corporate Megalomaniacs who remain the wealthiest of the wealthy, and the Controllers of our collective destinies.
I wonder how many Americans are going to be less comfortable with the idea that we didn't torture because of some dramatic 24-type scenario with Keifer Sutherland pistol-whipping a swarthy engineer as a truck packed with explosives lurches toward a day-care center.
are the last angonizing screams of the insurgency in its last throes.
Cheney and his co-conspirators ARE going to jail. The noise machine against Pelosi is a contrived deflection. Cheney will be indicted, convicted, and imprisoned...unless he pulls the batteries on his pace maker.
Does anyone know where I can get the parts for a massive microwave beam generator? Caution: People with pacemakers should refrain from being exposed.....
That's what the former Vice President of the United States of America, Richard Cheney, did.
The world will long remember what we do, or fail to do, to put Dick Cheney and his henchmen behind bars.
Without a foundation of moral integrity, what is America? A collection of cynical grifters? Greater Somalia?
Eric Holder, do your fucking job.
Be in no doubt, America.
The eyes of the World are watching how you handle these war criminals. Justice must be served.
If you fail to bring them to justice, you will forever forfeit all claim to being a nation of high moral standing.
If you fail to bring them to justice, you lose. Everything.
It's not releasing photos of crimes that all the world and most certainly the Arab world know happened that might expose our troops or civilians around the world to threats. It's NOT prosecuting the perputrators of those crimes that IS exposing them to the threat of attack!
i concur.
this torture and the war(s) for that seem much bigger and behind the scenes than obama. i don't consider myself a conspiracy type but it just seems like cheney is acting a big corporation that breaks the law and does NOT care because they already know the consequences. BUSH knew about bin laden his father was warned about bin laden. the current president of pakistan made that statement on last sundau morning show. the neoCON think tanks and the global financial elites wanted the iraq occupation. many of us figured iraq/saddam had NO nukes/wmd. if he did surely israel would have
dealt with it earlier. there was a lot of international pressure to reduce sanctions on iraq as this was potential commerce/market. BUSH wanted to get the attacks underway before other countries established relationships in iraq. of course seems to be part of the equation as saddam pissed people off back in the 70's when he nationalized oil. he was moving toward trading oil with other currencies. there are many other angles/players russia/iran. i think iraq was used as mouse trap for al queda/other factions to rationalize being their. they used torture as a strategy. they knew it would stir-up the opposition as well as war/BUSH supporters. they called it "war" not a crime so they could call the shots with little to no legislative intervention. they had their own way of interpreting the constitution under "war" conditions/along with plenty of deception. i think this is much bigger than obama. this is big money/power. no matter what happens all the players will never be known in my opinion.
I don't think I've ever heard the Torture Timeline laid out so well before.
I can't fathom how, after listening to that, anyone in Washington could not see the need for a Special Prosecutor and/or investigation.
Well, Democratic politicians? You tried to ride this issue out, let the criminals off the hook, "move forward", do business as usual, and "not look back".
Now the choice is between being tarred with this atrocity yourselves (ie Pelosi), and pursuing the actual criminals.
I wonder if they'll finally develop the will to do their jobs, now that it's a matter of saving their own asses?
These war criminals must go to jail
When is MSNBC going to get rid of Joe Scarborough? Do we have to start a campaign to get rid of him? We need MSNBC to be MSNBC all day and have a progressive voice driving the discussion.
didn't work
... reporting the story of the Bush administration's torture crimes, rather than the latest Republican red herring.
YEH! the morons on the right are at it again, everytime I see the Spineless, Gutless American Traitor cheney and is ass kissing mental midget zipper salivating followers with there usual lies misdirection and absurdities.
I just wish cave-in Pelosi and backup Reid, need to realize I as a voter am sick and tired of the comprimises of his party Te Anti American Racist Nazis Party had 30 years and failed These Bumbling Fumbling mental rejects can't even stay a talking point, they eat their own. Notice how the BIG distraction is NO JAIL TIME for these TREASONOUS Bastards. Death by hanging for the TRAITOR cheney.
All roads lead to Dick Cheney's office. I knew it back in 2003 and I'm glad that this is being confirmed finally. One only needed to look at that sadistic bastard's face to know it.
... make it to the main-stream news? I love Rachel and her show, but she's not a big enough player to get many people to listen.
It won't be big-time news until that useless tool Katie Couric is chirping about it on news-lite. How to bridge the gulf? I wish I knew.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have become more and more popular as MSM dives further to the right. Rachel and Keith and Ed only have to keep clarifying . . . blogs like this need to keep commenting . . . sooner or later only the truly stupid will be able to continue their head in the sand denial as the GOP becomes smaller and more ignorant.
Pelosi a "LIAR" about what she knew about what Bush wasn't doing? Oh what a tangled web we weave...
That question is: why aren't cheney, rove and bush incarcerated or at least up for trial. it's way past time, let's have a show of hands.
Civil war.
Jesus Mary and Joseph, what is it going to take?? (A question I've been asking myself since frickin March 2003...)
.
Stop fighting it. You need it. It's here. Accept it. Just wait yor turn. Everyone will be tortured, eventually. God Bless America. God Bless America. God Bless America.
Pictures of Midnight at the Ohta Wafer Factory: "As long as it isn't me in there screaming in the middle of the night, I'm OK. Why make trouble? They would get to me soon enough. And no one would care. In the meantime, I can breathe the air freely, safe in the knowledge that, for the moment at least, someone else was suffering. Tonight I heard a young woman screaming as I passed the 'Wafer Factory.' "
.
Gee let's see. Obama refuses to prosecute criminals of the last administration, reverses his promise to release photos of the U.S. torture of prisoners, and, contrary to another promise, now decides to continue the Military Tribunals of Cuba. Although I voted for him and had great hopes that things were going to change, turns out he is cut from the same cloth as the Bast Urds of the past administration.
To force Obama's hand on this stuff.
Obama has succeeded in changing the dialogue from partisan pettiness to actual substantive policy issues by staying focused on the issues.
Why? Because generally, Americans are in agreement on a lot of issues. And when the focus changes from positive changes (like stem cell research and health care) and getting the economy back on track to prosecuting the former administration, he's just playing right into their hands.
All that does is prove to all those disenfranchised voters that every politician is the same.
shouldn't have to "force" Obama's hand on this. And, he doesn't have to take the "lead" to get things moving.
However, when you consider who's really running things, you can see that he is powerless to effect any real change. Just watch and see whether we get universal health care, or any other social program that truly benefits the larger populace.
We'll get a bone...some pathetic, inconsequential distraction about which we can commiserate: "oh, look, at least we can afford to get an annual check-up..."
he's doing exactly what the American people want.
It's sick that merely presenting facts has become synonymous with being "liberal bias" and slamming facts has become synonymous with "fair and balanced."
Rachel presented the facts. From there, you can argue whether she omitted some facts or not to make her case, but she presented facts.
The rest of the media simply creates a massive smokescreen by either ignoring the facts completely or having people spout their opinions, as if they are equal to the facts.
At least, Rachel has managed to present a pretty convincing case here without digging too hard. But where are the rest of the media? Where are the Woodwards and Bernsteins? The real diggers of dirt? Sadly, the insiders have been replaced by the know-nothings, the Hannitys and the O'Reillys. Loaded with opinions, light on facts.
See the following links for more on the SASC report and its methodology:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/...
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