Addington, Gonzales Witnessed Gitmo Interrogations In 2002; Approved Of ‘Whatever Needs To Be Done’
Addington, Gonzales Witnessed Gitmo Interrogations In 2002; Approved Of ‘Whatever Needs To Be Done’
Last month, ABC News revealed that President Bush’s most senior advisers approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics. Days later, Bush confirmed to ABC he “approved” of the tactics.
In a forthcoming book, British international law professor Philippe Sands further documents how the most extreme interrogation techniques — including stress, hooding, noise, nudity, and “dogs” — came directly from the White House and Pentagon.
Sands reveals that Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s lawyer Jim Haynes traveled to Guantanamo in 2002, witnessed an interrogation, and sent approval back to Washington. The “driving individual was Mr. Addington, who was obviously the man in control,” Sands said:
There was an extraordinary meeting held in September 2002, just before the techniques were to go up the chain of command, so to speak. [Gonzales, Addington, and Haynes] descended on Guantanamo, met with the combatant commander there Mike Dunlavey, watched some interrogations, and as I was told by Dunlavey and by his lawyer Diane Beaver, basically sent out the signal ‘do whatever needs to be done.’
Listen to the interview:
Sands also explained how Gen. Richard Myers, then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, was cut out of the loop by Rumsfeld. Myers did not know the administration ditched the Geneva Conventions and made use of techniques prohibited by the Army Field Manual.
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, explained the implications of these revelations:
Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and — at the apex — Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court.
Sands also notes that the interrogation records of al Qaeda suspect Mohammed al-Qahtani — the subject of the 2002 meeting at Guantanamo with Gonzales, Addington, and Haynes — were “mysteriously lost.” Cameras that “run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents, the US military admitted in court papers.”
Beaver added that the TV show 24, specifically Jack Bauer “gave people lots of ideas.” “We saw [24] on cable. … It was hugely popular.” “She believed the series contributed to an environment in which those at Guantánamo were encouraged to see themselves as being on the frontline - and to go further than they otherwise might,” Sands writes.
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Nice to see that respect and dignity were restored to the Whitehouse.
-GSD
April 21st, 2008 at 4:47 pmAnt our congress, apparently, says “So.”
April 21st, 2008 at 4:48 pmThere is no legal cover.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:48 pmIn the second season of “24,” Jack Bauer cut a guy’s head off with a hacksaw. That’s where the Guantanamo torturers got their ideas?
April 21st, 2008 at 4:53 pmShayne it’s going to take a major shift in America’s attitudes towards Muslims before our congress enforces laws protecting basic civil rights. I’m not even sure having a super majority control in both houses will ensure legal action against Bush’s war crimes and it’s very sad.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pmMethinks these clowns need to be arrested, their passports confiscated, their assets frozen, their every move recorded, just like they’ve done to many thousands; then perhaps a new administration will have the guts to investigate and prosecute. Maybe, then, we’ll restore some credibility to America.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pmWhat a bunch of sick, sadistic bastards.
-AF
April 21st, 2008 at 5:00 pmAndrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
yeah, but impeachment investigations are time consuming and the public would hate us if we were distracted from such burning legislation as . . . as . . . oh, right, it’s an election year, no legislation will be passed. Keep up the good works Dems, I suppose it’s ok if our children’s children learn the turth about what W and his band of merry men did to bring disgrace upon the the United States of America.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:00 pmDavid Addington and Alberto Gonzales will someday do jail time for witnessing and approving this violation of Common Article 3, Geneva Conventions on torture. They, along with our illustrious Chimp In Chief will be brought to the justice they deserve.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:21 pmThese BASTARDS will burn in hell!!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:22 pmDavid Addington is perhaps the highest criminal on the totem pole of corruption. He was THE legal mastermind behind every law which has been broken, every violation of the constitution, and every criminal action by this administration.
This man needs to spend the remainder of his natural days in a high security prison for “aiding and abetting” the destruction of this democracy. He’s a “traitor” to the constitution and should be treated as such.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm“Horton writes that Yoo “may therefore have provided after-the-fact legal cover.”
Why would I ever believe the the WH would try to provide retroactive immunity ?
April 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pmSo, Our entire torture regime was put in place to mirror a
April 21st, 2008 at 5:24 pmfu(king TV show? A TV SHOW! Just when you thought we could go no lower. A TV SHOW, folks…
One has to wonder just how many years these neothugs have been working on their devious crimes against this country? PNAC, no doubt, had it’s roots in Pappy Chimp’s administration; ergo the “sloppy leftovers” from his days of glory (Darth, Rummy, Mukasey, etc.). There is little doubt for a now growing majority of americans that the “false flag attack” was the pivotal “key” in masterminding this coup on our democracy. Without 911, there would never be a Patriot Act - it simply wouldn’t fly. Connect the evil dots…
April 21st, 2008 at 5:25 pmYes, Addington and Yoo need to be marched in lockstep right into prison - now!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:26 pmScott Horton writes in the LA Times that Bush’s torture program may have preceded John Yoo’s 2002 and 2003 legal memos authorizing harsh interrogations. Horton writes that Yoo “may therefore have provided after-the-fact legal cover.”
Just because a lawyer tells you it’s legal, that does not mean you are forever exempt from prosecution of your crimes. Just because John Yoo came to a far-fetched, unsubstantiated, ill-conceived legal justification for torture (which was wrong), that does not mean that any of these guys are off the hook. They conspired to commit an international crime. They should all be punished with imprisonment. Period.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:27 pmI glad to see people waking up (finally!) to the actions and words of the EVIL and STUPID and CRIMINAL David Addington. I’ve been railing against this enemy of the people for 2 years here at TP. It’s about time people know about this FASICST enemy of the state!!!!
He has wiped his a$$ with our Constitution!!!!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:30 pmIt will be pathetic if we have to wait for these guys to die and hope that there is a hell for them to burn in. I would think that it would be more hellish, even it they aren’t convicted, for them to have to suffer long drawn out trials for the criminal acts they’ve committed.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:41 pmIt’s dripping into the MSM and slowly people are starting to pay attention. I long for the day when we see this gang of thugs in the dock at The Hague.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:46 pmYoo’s legal opinions are just that: opinions, and not good ones. The only “legal cover” they give is to people who pretend that they give valid legal cover, i.e. Bushco, the MSM, and the loyal opposition, the Dems, who will keep their eyes and ears closed for as long as it takes for this criminal conspiracy to go away. It’s up to us to see that these people are brought to justice, because our current government of elites and aristocrats will never do so.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:54 pmThe F-ing POS stand by silent first while torture is ordered and carried out, then stay silent while underlings are punished. Firing squad is too good for them.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:57 pmMy fervent hope: Multiple nations indict these bastards and kidnap them for extradition to the Hague.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:01 pmThey got Eichmann, remember…
Justice ain’t gonna happen folks. Bush and Cheney and the whole cabal will leave office on January 20th and will never be touched. They will go their graves maintaining that Bush’s evil and illegal war, the torture, the Abu Ghraib prison, Guantanamo, the renditions, the murder of Tillman…… were all the right thing to do.
And that’s the worst part. Unless there is some accountability for the treason there will be nothing to stop the next despicable petty fratboy from repeating history.
Look at Ollie North. He is a criminal, but he is a hero to the right wing scum.
Bush and the Boyz should all be thrown in jail until the last one dies. And they should be forced to live with the rotting corpses of the first ones to die as a reminder of the death and filth they were responsible for.
But it ain’t gonna happen.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:03 pmGod, another pathetic protest and shouting over the criminal acts of this administration. Do you fools believe that any of this matters? Do you believe anyone really cares?
This country is a farce. Nothing short of violently seizing power and dragging the bastards out to face a summary court and execution will ever really work. That will not and should not happen. However, the Democrats are comprised of little girly men who will not do what is necessary because they fear creating a constitutional crisis. Hear their pathetic crying: WE CANNOT IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT OR HIS OFFICERS. IT MAY CAUSE A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS Meanwhile the Republicans shit on our constitution and commit international war crimes. Do you really think that it will change? We gave the Republican criminal Nixon a pass. Look what happened with Iran Contra and now this. Liddy, Ollie North and the other scum make a nice living instead of rotting in jail or dangling from the end of a noose. Violence, capital punishment is the only thing that will put an end to these scum. Unfortunately, none will take the appropriate legal actions. The next descent will be into full fascism.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:15 pmThose vicious barbarian thugs belong in prison for the rest of their unnatural lives.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:16 pmInteresting how Israel is thought to be a place that would willingly harbor war criminals.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:32 pmKids from rural West Virginia punished for following orders while the promotors and legal excusers are still walking around making big bucks shooting off their malignant voices.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:43 pmSands also notes that the interrogation records of al Qaeda suspect Mohammed al-Qahtani — the subject of the 2002 meeting at Guantanamo with Gonzales, Addington, and Haynes — were “mysteriously lost.” Cameras that “run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents, the US military admitted in court papers.”
As if the mountains of disgraceful acts by this horseshit administration isn’t enough , you can now add definite evidence tampering to it …………..
April 21st, 2008 at 8:09 pmAnd, perhaps, the biggest outrage is that there are still chichenshitchickenhawks who continue to defend this madness. They are either ignorant of history or arrogant enough to think the rules don’t apply to them. They have pissed away our country’s former position of honor among nations.
Eight long years ago a citizen of any nation on this planet could make an appeal, to the reputation of the United States on human rights issues, and could expect a fair hearing on cases of merit. The United States could raise human rights issues before the U.N. and expect quick action if not results. Other nations turned to us as mediators of dispute.
Eight short years ago the good people of Planet Earth didn’t live in fear that the United States might drop a bomb on their apartment in a mad quest to kill suspected terrorists.
Now? We hold foreign nationals, incommunicado and without charge, in facilities far from the eyes of independent regulators. We occupy a sovereign nation with a force of exhausted U.S. military personal and a shadowy mix of mercenaries. We torture prisoners and we drop bombs on apartments in a mad quest to kill suspected terrorists.
Even if the guilty are punished the innocents will pay for the crimes of Bushco. That fills me with great sadness and shame. And it was all for nothing but greed, revenge and Islamophobia. The Bush administration, from top to bottom, will exist as a blight on our nation’s conscience long after the babes of Today are grandparents.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:15 pmDo they still hang WAR CRIMINALS?
Please hop a plane overseas you sickos, hope you get what you deserve.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:41 pmRound ‘em up for the war crimes tribunals! Book ‘em, Dan-o!
April 21st, 2008 at 8:42 pmWhatever happened to the rule of law.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:44 pmHow is it possible that a bunch of incompetent idiots were allowed to operate on the level of a third world dictatorship?
> Yoo needs to be marched
> in lockstep right into prison
I’m ethically struggling with this…I think its really, really important that lawyers of all political persuasions be able to give honest legal opinions, even if that advice doesnt necessarily cohere with mainstream legal discourse..however, i do question whether legal advice can be so delusional and detached from reality that it can become intentionally maliscous advice on how to commit a crime…Yoo’s philosophy can be summed up in a nutshell as “the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, as long as he asserts ‘we are at war’”..basically, yoo sees the president at deciding the limits of his own power, which cannot, by any reasonable person, be construed to be anything but the exact equivalent of absolute tyranny..
April 21st, 2008 at 9:05 pmChocolate Jesus Says:
> Yoo needs to be marched
> in lockstep right into prison
I’m ethically struggling with this…I think its really, really important that lawyers of all political persuasions be able to give honest legal opinions, even if that advice doesnt necessarily cohere with mainstream legal discourse.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I have no problem whatsoever. When a lawyer is a public servant they have a duty to their country which supersedes the legal tenet of “freedom to advise” an individual client.
And, when that client is the President of the United States, they have a solemn responsibility to advise against policy which violates law. Their primary reason for existence is, in fact, to tell a President the limits of power. So far as I can tell Yoo failed on all counts.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:49 pm> they have a solemn responsibility to advise
> against policy which violates law.
Oh, I agree completely on this point..my only question is, what is really and truly going on in Yoo’s mind. If he really and truly beleives that his advice is in accordance with the law and the constitution..well…I do feel very ambigious about accusing him of being a criminal..delusional, yes, ignorant yes…criminal..im not entirely sure..
but if, in his mind, he’s really just saying “I know this is illegal, how can I make something up to say its legal”..then yes, throw him away, he’s knowingly aiding and abetting criminal activity in that case…
April 21st, 2008 at 11:08 pmI think it is far too early to declare that nothing will ever happen to the bastards that have committed this and many other atrocities. Momentum is building. the landscape is changing. Corporations and bad government and criminals in high places have all been brought down before. It’s possible it will happen again. Or it may not. But why drink out of the half empty glass? Why not drink out of the half full one?
There are reasons to hope (FISA, polls, response to the ABC debate, the internet vs. the MSM, youtube etc…) just as there are reasons to despair (no impeachment yet, stolen elections, torture, halliburton,…… etc……. etc….etc….etc…etc…etc…)
ok there are far more reasons to despair but tides might be turning.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:20 pmHow about this? We get Addington and Bertito and put bags over their heads. Put them in stress positions while we fly them to Uzbekistan on a very slow transport for an up close and personal demonstration of “the US does not torture”. Then we could fly them to The Hague to stand trial for War Crimes.
“…no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.”
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 amMark Twain - The Gilded Age
.
So,
What makes any of this legal and correct?
Why no action from “proper” authorities?
Whatever “proper” means now days…
.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 amIt would be nice if some other country was to extraordinarily extradite the whole crew…
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:04 amExactly what they deserve. And if it’s so legal and safe and “not torture” what possible objection would they have to it happening to themselves?
You might say that I’m a dreamer… but I’m not the only one…
Disbarment and citizenship revocation should be step #1 for Addington. Citizens should “make him available” for international prosecution should our legal process fail the will of the People.
http://www.light-to-dark.com/four_lapel_pins.html
Not prosecuting the Bushists is criminal negligence.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 amBeaver added that the TV show 24, specifically Jack Bauer “gave people lots of ideas.” “We saw [24] on cable. … It was hugely popular.”
Great, so now we get the ideas for governing people from TV dramas and movies. So, the strategy for the Iraq invasion was taken directly from SpongeBob Squarepants, probably.
BTW, in 24 some USA cities end due to an atomic blast. Not a great strategy to follow, either.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 pmWHo brought the popcorn?
At the very least, since the maladministration destroyed the tapes, maybe the folks that were asking for the tapes can subpoena Addington and Gonzales instead….
Cheers,
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:23 pm#20 NoOneYouKnow:
Yoo’s legal opinions are just that: opinions, and not good ones. The only “legal cover” they give is to people who pretend that they give valid legal cover, i.e. Bushco, the MSM, and the loyal opposition, the Dems, who will keep their eyes and ears closed for as long as it takes for this criminal conspiracy to go away. It’s up to us to see that these people are brought to justice, because our current government of elites and aristocrats will never do so.
The (current) maladministration consigliere says that he will not prosecute because these people were acting in “good faith” reliance on an “OLC opinion”.
You’ll have to wait until 2009 when we sweep the psychopaths out of the executive. But Dubya will probably pardon everyone before leaving office….
Cheers,
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm