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.
