Category Archives: CIA interrogation program
Republicans Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann said during a Republican debate on Saturday that they would reinstate the technique that former President George W. Bush authorized and Obama banned.
President Obama has responded to this. Here’s why waterboarding won’t be reinstated even if President Bush himself came into a third term…
He acts like he is America. But America didn’t like Dick Cheney. - Maureen Dowd
“I didn’t change. The world changed”
- Henninger interview of Dick Cheney
Ready to promote the release of his new autobiography, former Vice President Darth Cheney is deeply unapologetic over his time spent in serving in the Bush White House and can still give a rat’s ass about popularity over making the hard, adult decisions and doing the right thing:
“It’s important to have people at the helm who are prepared to be unpopular.”
Holder’s special prosecutor, John Durham, an assistant United States attorney from Connecticut, arrives at the same conclusion as previous career prosecutors (none of whom were Bush appointees) arrived at in their investigations: Exoneration for those involved in the CIA Enhanced Interrogation Program.
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The Obama administration is finally putting together a show trial of a terrorist in civilian court. In a move intended to set precedent before legislation approved by the House is enacted, The Regime has flown a Somali terrorist to New York after months of interrogation aboard a naval ship, one of Obama’s secret prisons. Continue reading
The role of the CIA is different from that of the military. It is different from that of the FBI. It only stands to reason that interrogation practices should be shaped to serve their respective needs.
During Senate confirmation hearings for Petraeus, Mark Udall, Democratic Senator for Colorado, broached the subject of interrogations:
In the vast majority of cases, Petraeus said, the “humane” questioning standards mandated by the U.S. Army Field Manual are sufficient to persuade detainees to talk. But though he did not use the word torture, Petraeus said “there should be discussion … by policymakers and by Congress” about something “more than the normal techniques.”
Could this be a resuscitation of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” and will it happen under Obama’s watch?
The idea that waterboarding and other abuses may have been effective in getting information from detainees is repellant to many, including me. It’s contrary to the meme many have embraced: that torture doesn’t work because people being abused to the breaking point will say anything to get the brutality to stop — anything they think their accusers want to hear. But this position is at odds with some behavioral science, I’ve learned. The architects of enhanced interrogation are doctors who built on a still-classified, research-based model that suggests how abuse can indeed work.
I’ve examined the science, studied the available paper trail and interviewed key actors, including several who helped develop the enhanced interrogation program and who haven’t spoken publicly before. This inquiry has made it possible to piece together the model that undergirds enhanced interrogation.
Vietnam era POWs who were horribly tortured even moreso than John McCain also speak about torture…and deny that waterboarding fits their definition of it. Continue reading
This video has been up on the featured video section for a bit but thought it good enough to give it some added publicity. Bill destroys so many of the myths the left have propagated over the years about George … Continue reading
Agents searching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s compound discovered what one official later called a “mother lode” of valuable intelligence. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was obviously planning more attacks. It didn’t sound like he was willing to give us any information about them. “I’ll talk to you,” he said, “after I get to New York and see my lawyer.”
George Tenet asked if he had permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I thought about my meeting with Danny Pearl’s widow, who was pregnant with his son when he was murdered. I thought about the 2,973 people stolen from their families by al Qaeda on 9/11. And I thought about my duty to protect the country from another act of terror.
“Damn right,” I said.
- Decision Points, pg 170, by George W. Bush
“The history of the United States military is clear: Torture doesn’t work”- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
“We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in.”- Vice President Dick Cheney
“This country doesn’t torture, we’re not going to torture.”-President Bush