Barton Gellman and Jo Becker continue their excellent series on Dick Cheney in the Washington Post. How’s this for an opener?
Shortly after the first accused terrorists reached the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2002, a delegation from CIA headquarters arrived in the Situation Room. The agency presented a delicate problem to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, a man with next to no experience on the subject. Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, who had a great deal of experience, sat nearby. The meeting marked “the first time that the issue of interrogations comes up” among top-ranking White House officials, recalled John C. Yoo, who represented the Justice Department. “The CIA guys said, ‘We’re going to have some real difficulties getting actionable intelligence from detainees'” if interrogators confined themselves to humane techniques allowed by the Geneva Conventions.
From that moment, well before previous accounts have suggested, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive’s will to resist. The vice president’s office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials.
In other words, the administration has been lying about Cheney’s early role as the vice-president for torture. These articles should lead directly to impeachment proceedings, but torture is apparently not as controversial as fellatio. I grew up in this country, but I can’t pretend to understand the attitudes of most of its citizens.
I think I’m picking up the scent of a Pulitzer Prize for Gellman and Becker.
I hope this article is followed by a book and reveals more of what the reporters learned from the 200 people they interviewed.
Moreover, I wish congress would impeach Cheney but I have my doubts – Cheney just “circles the wagons” and rides out the storm it seems. His vaults contain too many secrets, I guess.
I bet they will do a book. The Democrats feel that impeachment will reinvigorate the president and have the opposite effect they want for pulling his party away from them and towards ending the debacle in Iraq.
I think we are getting into dangerous ground here by letting this stuff pass and stick around as precedent.
“The Democrats feel that impeachment will reinvigorate the president and have the opposite effect they want for pulling his party away from them and towards ending the debacle in Iraq.”
And you call ME a cynic?
If what you say is true, I think I have good reason for cynicism.
Very dangerous ground indeed.
You mean…they have CIA backing?
Not.
This story is headed under the bus.
Where ALL good stories end up that are not good for business.
YOU knows…the “business” that owns the media?
Please.
Everybody and his brother knows about Cheney by now.
AND Butch. And the rest of the gang.
Please.
If they were going to be impeached, it would already have happened.
PLEASE!!!
AG
It’s a great mystery to me as well, but I suspect it has something to do with a relative handful of nutjobs who just happen to have all those big fucking megaphones.
torture is apparently not as controversial as fellatio
Moral opprobrium is reserved for victimless crimes that feel good. Didn’t you know that, Booman? 😉
Oral sex, masturbation, premarital sex, rock and roll, smoking a joint — all these are bad, bad things because they feel good, and people who feel good tend not to have a compulsive need for religious and political authoritarianism. Torture, invasions, occupations, and bombing campaigns, on the other hand, feel bad and reinforce obedience to the primate pack hierarchy and the delusions — religion and nationalism — that secure it against radical ideas like treating people decently.