Townsend Admits CIA Documents Don’t Back Up Cheney’s Claims About Torture
Townsend Admits CIA Documents Don’t Back Up Cheney’s Claims About Torture
On Monday, the CIA released two memos from 2004 and 2005, which Vice President Cheney said would “show specifically what we gained” from the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation program. As people like Spencer Ackerman noted, those documents didn’t end up showing that at all, however:
Strikingly, they provide little evidence for Cheney’s claims that the “enhanced interrogation” program run by the CIA provided valuable information. In fact, throughout both documents, many passages — though several are incomplete and circumstantial, actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.
Despite the fact that they devoted heavy coverage to Cheney’s initial claims, major media outlets have largely buried these new facts. But as Greg Sargent notes, last night on CNN, even former Bush homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend had to admit that Cheney still hasn’t been vindicated:
It’s very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it’s not clear when techniques were applied vs. when that information was received. It’s implicit. It seems, when you read the report, that we got the — the — the most critical information after techniques had been applied. But the report doesn’t say that.
Watch it:
Cheney, of course, refuses to back down from his initial claims. Earlier this week he put out a statement saying that “individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda.” However, there is still no evidence that the torture techniques were responsible and necessary for producing the intelligence.
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Still waiting for the name of one professional interrogator who believes that the ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques (read: Torture) advocated and administered by the Bush administration under Cheney were a good idea.
Let alone a legal or morally defensible one.
One name.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:48 pmCheney + Facts = Mathematical impossibility.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:50 pmIt’s time for all media to stop using the Bush/Cheney “enhanced interrogation techniques” euphemism & start calling it what it is: torture.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:50 pmAre you kidding? The librul MSM wouldn’t dare put a conservative in bad light.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:50 pmCheney has been a craven coward all his life.
He is one of the most notorious war criminals walking around free.
His family benefitted materially from the misery and the horror of the Iraq catastrophe, without one member of his family contributing militarily to the campaign.
Why isn’t that piece of garbage facing criminal prosecution?
August 26th, 2009 at 12:50 pmOn Monday, the CIA released two memos from 2004 and 2005, which Vice President Cheney said would “show specifically what we gained” from the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation program. As people like Spencer Ackerman noted, those documents didn’t end up showing that at all,
Huh. This may cause me to re-think my policy of taking the former Vice-President’s words at face value.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:54 pm***
defrocked of his crown and scepter
cheney has become a tired old man
who rules in a fantasy land where his
words and no other are truth.
:|
August 26th, 2009 at 12:54 pmDr. Hussein Matt says: #4
If it was so easy to get 36 companies (so far) to stop advertising on Glen Beck then how many can we get then to stop advertising on any MSM network? It’s all about money and if we keep it up maybe the snowball will turn into an avalanche.
But reality being what it is, the truth always seems to take a back seat when the MSM offers a forum to a conservative mouthpiece (gasbag).
August 26th, 2009 at 12:58 pmDespite the fact that they devoted heavy coverage to Cheney’s initial claims, major media outlets have largely buried these new facts.
from what i have seen so far from these papers is that Dick better hope that they buried the facts as i do not see nothing that will justify his excuse.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:01 pmWhy would he back down from his claims? He’s a war criminal.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:01 pmIt think that many former Bush enablers have no qualms about throwing Cheney under the bus. After all, he is the most ardant supporter of these torture tecniques. Quite frankly, ALL the members of the Bush Adminstration who were involved in ANY of these methods should be tried and sent to prison.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pmThe phony lying hypocrites on Righty talk radio crow about how these “enhanced techniques” saved lives, and in almost the same breath deny that the stimulus package is saving jobs.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:05 pmShorter Dick: Its my story and Im sticking to it
August 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pmI think only the real question is: are conservatives lying or irrational? These are the same guys who claimed that waterboarding was “no big deal” while at the same time they claimed it was absolitely important that we continue to do it in order to extract “vitally important intelligence.”
Why do these people think the “waterboarding isn’t torture” argument is even remotely logical? Of *course* it’s torture . . . otherwise there’d be no point in doing it. And no point in making desperate, passionate speeches for keeping it around. If waterboarding is no big deal, then how could it possibly be useful to break the resistance of religious fanatics? But if waterboarding IS effective, then how can it be anything other than intensely traumatic?
August 26th, 2009 at 1:15 pmThere needs to be a ban going forward that NOTHING these LIARS say is published – anywhere. All they do is try to weasel their way out of what was, almost, a collapse of our infrastructure as a Nation. These people belong in JAIL not on some ‘me too’ talk show spouting their bile.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:20 pmIt’s reassuring to know that Cheney’s words can no longer be “validated” by his abilty to cover the truth. In the past his words and positions carried the power of the VP, but now that the truth is available through underlings it must be very emasculating for him!
August 26th, 2009 at 1:29 pmA person who would lie to start a war of choice will have no problem lying to protect his @ss.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:32 pmCheney is such a liar and I’m SO ready for this reptile to go to jail. I hope this mountain of shyte rolls all the way to the top and every one of the CIA agents involved testifies against Cheney.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:43 pmAs Cheney hasn’t had anything new to say since he’s been out of office (his message remains consistent) nothing that he says is newsworthy, and the media should stop reporting it.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:47 pmWhether they get charged or convicted or not, cheney will go down in history as a “torturer”
This legacy is tightly tied to the republicans and America’s reputation in the world.
They disparage Ted, a true noble person and glorify a “torturer”. They write their own epitaph.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:50 pmWhat? Unsupported claims from Darth Cheney? Say it ain’t so, Frances.
I think that sometime in the next four to eight years, this pack of witless, unethical, torturing turds and torture apologists we call Republicans will figure out that they screwed the pooch on this one, and pretty damned badly.
I’m not holding my breath on it though. It’s taken until just a few days or a couple of weeks ago for Lt. William Calley to finally, kind of, say sorry for the My Lai atrocity.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:52 pmThis rabbit hole is deep.
We must dig all the way down to capture the truth.
Cheney would be more than happy to sacrifice a few CIA dudes & call it a wrap.
Bybee, Yoo, Addington, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft,Cheney & Bush must pay a steep price for war criminality and tarnishing America.
What price, you say?
I’d be comfortable with history calling them traitorous torturers, Courts issuing stern sentences and public apologies.
I know, I know…not one of the above is Man enough to man up.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:54 pmDick Cheney is a vile, greedy, lying SOB. He tries to appear tough, but in reality he is probably the most fear-filled person on the planet. He and his lying offspring, Lynne, knew America had tortured without legal cause. This is the reason they went on the media blitz earlier this year. Why have they all of a sudden NOT appeared on teevee to dispute the contents of these documants? It is because they are cowards. I detest all of the harm that Bushco inflicted on this country, and just the thought that the teabaggers want more of the same is sheer lunacy. They all need to be committed to the most secure mental health facility that we can find, but even some of them may refuse to admit them for fear that they’d stink up the place.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:05 pmWow, it must be bad if Townsend won’t back them up.
After all, didn’t she resign with the statement:
August 26th, 2009 at 3:26 pm‘There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, til all men walk on higher ground in their lifetime.’ Mr. President, you are such a man.”[
So now Cheney has his CIA torture report and it says nothing in it about the effectiveness of torture. Not that that would have made any difference anyway! This is a cruel man.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pmHey, Dick got FIVE deferments, so he must be telling the truth…uh? wait, that doesn’t make any sense at all…well, Dick ordered the torture so he must be telling the truth…uh? crap, that doesn’t make any sense either….
…Dick is a War Criminal…NOW THAT MAKES SENSE.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:00 pmGeorge says – Hehehe, when we thought of this torture stuff we had a great time thinking of all the stuff we could do. Heck, the little have-nots were too stupid to think that 911 was a planned event, so torturing those other guys was going to be easy as pie. We thought maybe stuff like, just beating the living daylights out of them would be fun, but too fast, we needed really sick stuff, like raping their children right in front of them, you know butt stuff, Jeff likes the butt stuff…maybe I shouldn’t get into that right now. Then Dick thought of waterboarding, that makes for great home movies, and pulling out fingernails, cold cells and cold water sure makes their peepees shrink, hehe, shrinkage…heck, my idea was the nakes body stacking, I always wanted to do that, bunch of naked men in a pile, what was your favorite Dick?
Dick says – I need fresh blood from cute kittens and puppies.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:08 pmJust as Fran’s Lessons Learned report fails to document that President Bush put forth his best effort after Hurricane Katrina. Who omits the hospital with the highest death toll? Townsend did.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:33 pmOne of the people Dick Cheney modeled himself after once stated:
“All advertising, whether it lies in the field of business or politics, will carry success by continuity and regular uniformity of application.”
and Cheney obviously believes he was correct. As a result, Cheney will keep trying to make us believe his version of the truth until they close the casket lid on him. No matter how large the lie it may be. The man is a sociopath.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:09 pmLobo, who said that ?
August 27th, 2009 at 12:04 amI prefer to take my cues from “Burnt Notice” than “24″. The protagonist said that torture was for sadists and fools. Cheney has ZERO credibility.
I am sadly surprised. He was so effective and far-sighted when he was working for Bush Senior…He even predicted exactly what would happen if the US invaded Iraq. He said that the administration would have to be on drugs to do it.
And then he sold his soul to Satan and here we are.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:38 amI think that is Burn Notice GREAT show
August 27th, 2009 at 5:08 amYou can lock an iron mask on a man’s head, for twenty years, and keep him daily, in a sweltering jail!? Then, remove the iron mask and you will find that his hair has lengthened, and his pupils have constricted, but you will also see the living sparkle in his eyes! Torture is mere, cruelty.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:20 am“Despite the fact that they devoted heavy coverage to Cheney’s initial claims, major media outlets have largely buried these new facts” – MSM has gotten to the point that IF it is true, they do NOT report it. They are only worried about ratings and shoving the lies down Americans throats. MSM STOPPED being any kind of reliable new sources and are NOW nothing but a bunch of empty headed wing nuts that get paid to undermine America.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:32 am