The Wikileaks whistleblower group recently released a massive data dump of embassy cables from the U.S. Embassy in Manama, Bahrain.

One of the cables, dated October 23, 2005, details how the U.S. Embassy managed its response to several stories that popped up in the Bahraini press of Bahraini citizens being abused or tortured in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

The cable, titled “ARTICLES ALLEGE SEXUAL HUMILIATION, HUNGER STRIKE, OF BAHRAINI GTMO DETAINEES,” cited itself as a “an action request” being made to U.S. government officials.

First, the cable cites the press reports of a detainee, Juma Al Dossary, who claimed to have been sexually abused by interrogators in the prison camp:

According to the October 20 article, Al Dossary claimed that in September 2002 he was chained to the floor in an interrogation room and had his clothing removed by four military police officers. A female interrogator allegedly stripped naked while standing over the detainee and “smeared her menstrual blood over various parts of his body.” In another incident in mid-2003, Al Dossary claimed he was taken into an interrogation room from which he could see a naked man and woman having sex on a table in an adjoining room. When finished, the man and woman entered the interrogation room and asked Al Dossary to reveal the identities of Arab men in photographs, promising him he could have sex with the woman if he cooperated.

The cable then went on to make an “action request” for “talking points” to relay to the Bahraini public and Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Action request: Embassy has talking points on the hunger strikes, but requests talking points to respond publicly to questions about the treatment of Al Dossary, as well as any points that could be conveyed privately to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to the diplomatic note.

In November 2005, shortly after this action request was made, the embassy put out a statement denying that Al Dossary was abused, saying it found “no evidence that substantiates” his claims. In 2007, Dossary was released from Guantanamo Bay with no charges filed against him to resettle in Saudi Arabia (he was featured in a 2006 episode of This American Life than went on to win a Peabody Award). He soon married and received assistance, including a job, car, and cash payments, from the Saudi government.

He later went on to write an op-ed in the Washington Post describing the abuse he alleges occurred while he was at the prison camp. He recalled the film United 93 and a soldier who had been merciful to him while he was at Guantanamo, “I was watching ‘United 93,’ I thought of the soldier who had offered me compassion in Guantanamo. Her words reminded me that we all share common values, and only by holding on to them can we ensure that there is mercy and brotherhood in the world. After more than five years in Guantanamo, I can think of nothing more important.”

Unfortunately, it seems that the U.S. government’s first response was to deny that Dossary was mistreated at all rather than properly investigate the alleged abuses. These cables document how the embassy in Manama coordinated these efforts.

ThinkProgress filed this report from Jerusalem.

Now that Muammar Qaddafi’s regime is near its end, Republicans are still looking for some hook to attack President Obama. GOP presidential candidates have said the president doesn’t deserve any credit for what looks like the Libyan leader’s fall. However, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) admitted that Obama actually “deserves some credit.” Rep. Allen West (R-FL), who is always looking to criticize the President, is firmly in the former camp.

ThinkProgress caught up with West in Jerusalem yesterday and asked him if he thinks President Obama should be credited for his strategy on Libya. “No, I don’t this so,” West said, adding that he’s been against the intervention “because once again it was a violation of the War Powers Act of 1973.” But West later said that he thinks Qaddafi no longer leading Libya is a good thing:

WEST: No I don’t because once again it was a violation of the War Powers Act of 1973 and who knows what’s going to happen you know — who will fulfill that void?

TP: So you think the intervention was wrong to begin with?

WEST: Well yeah, the intervention was wrong to begin with. You read the war powers act it says in case of national emergency and attacks on our territories, lands, possessions or our armed forces so I think that that was a stretch to commit us there. [...]

TP: Do you think it would be good for Qaddafi to leave, that he’s gone?

WEST: Oh there’s no doubt about Qaddafi being gone is good but who’s going to replace him?

Watch the interview:

West’s main case is that he’s upset that Obama apparently didn’t follow proper protocol when asking Congress to approve support for the NATO mission in Libya. But beyond that, West thought the whole enterprise would fail anyway. “I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t win a war from 30,000 feet,” he said last March. And here’s what Obama really should have done:

“I don’t know why we’re shooting $567,000-a-piece Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libya. You know, back two and three weeks ago we could have taken care of this situation. If we had done the exact same thing that Ronald Reagan did back in the early ’80s to Muammar Qaddafi, when he dropped a bomb in his back yard, Moammar Gadhafi didn’t say a word for the next 30 years. That’s the only way! That’s the only way to get Muammar Qaddafi’s attention.”

So apparently dropping a bomb on Qaddafi’s back yard would’ve done the trick, never mind getting congressional approval for that one.

As far as giving Obama and his administration credit if and when Qaddafi eventually falls, it’s worth noting that it was the U.S. diplomatic team led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice that got the Russians and Chinese to tacitly allow a U.N. resolution authorizing force against Qaddafi’s regime in the first place. And despite the wise cracks and mockery from the right on Obama’s leadership strategy on Libya, it appears to have produced a solid result.

For all the braying by the Senate’s top three hawks about how the U.S. wasn’t doing enough to oust Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Qaddafi from power, one might be surprised to learn that exactly two years ago, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) were in Tripoli meeting with the erratic leader and giving him assurances that relations between the nations were on the mend.

According to a leaked August 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks recounting the Senators’ junket, the neoconservative Connecticut Senator captured the dynamic of aligning with a brutal dictator:

Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.

Qaddafi’s history as a top enemy of the U.S. stretched back decades, but his change of heart came quickly after the U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretense of Saddam Hussein’s development of weapons of mass destruction. Hawks seized on Libya’s détente with the West as a sign that Bush’s tough actions in Iraq were having a ripple effect, though patently not, as Iraq War boosters had predicted, with regard to democratic reforms. “We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qaddafi,” said Lieberman, according to the leaked cable.

The three Senate hawks discussed in detail the Qaddafi regime’s security needs with Libyas National Security Adviser, Qaddafi’s son Muatassim. According to the cable:

5.(C) Senator McCain assured Muatassim that the United States wanted to provide Libya with the equipment it needs for its [a Libyan security program]. He stated that he understood Libya’s requests regarding the rehabilitation of its eight C130s [a transport plane] and pledged to see what he could do to move things forward in Congress. He encouraged Muatassim to keep in mind the long-term perspective of bilateral security engagement and to remember that small obstacles will emerge from time to time that can be overcome.

At another point, McCain and Graham reiterated pledges to push to fulfill the Qaddafi regime requests at the Pentagon and on the Hill:

Senators McCain and Graham conveyed the U.S. interest in continuing the progress of the bilateral relationship and pledged to try to resolve the C130 issue with Congress and Defense Secretary Gates.

But 18 months later, Qaddafi reacted to mass protests by mobilizing his military, bringing down international condemnation and, in just a few short weeks, a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force. The U.S. and it’s allies in NATO and elsewhere rained down bombs to hold Qaddafi’s forces at bay as rebels organized a coherent opposition council. As the rebels went on the offensive, Western and allied bombers lent them air support with surveillance and tactical bombings.

When suddenly — as if Qaddafi’s repression had emerged from out of the blue — McCain and his clique returned to their perches as the staunchest advocates of U.S. military action in Liyba, taking to the airwaves to lament the U.S.’s mere three-week delay to build international consensus and calling for arming the Libyan rebels.

Just as the political winds around Qaddafi seemed to determine the senators’ stand — for him when it was convenient as a win for the Bush administration, and against him when the uprising began and in the month it took to rally the Security Council — McCain and Graham took a curious political shot at Obama just as Qaddafi’s regime crumbled. In a statement, they thanked everyone but the U.S. Starting with the Libyans themselves, they went on to

also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.

One wonders if August 2009 was too soon to press Qaddafi on the well-being of his people: there’s no hint of democratic reforms, or indeed the Libyan people, in the WikiLeaks cable.

The Jerusalem Post notes that right-wing media personality Glenn Beck is moving up the start time of his rally in Jerusalem to accommodate Ramadan. The “rally was scheduled for 5 p.m. and will have to end shortly after 6:30 p.m. before thousands of Muslims make their way to the Temple Mount for the 7:16 p.m. Maghrib prayer.” “We have been asked to move our event to not night, because it’s Ramadan,” Beck said Monday. ThinkProgress reporter Ben Armbruster is on the ground in Jerusalem and snapped this picture of Beck’s rally as it is about to begin. As you can see, there are plenty of empty seats:

It’s ironic that Beck is now accommodating Muslims given his long history of spouting fiery Islamophobic rhetoric. Previously, Beck even has suggested that Obama may be Muslim because he hosted Iftar dinners or spoke kind words about Muslim Americans.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is spending his time back home with constituents to argue for an increased military budget — and exaggerating the threat from Iran’s nuclear program to do it.

To be sure, Iran’s program is a concern for Western governments. But Inhofe, speaking to constituents in Oklahoma City takes his bona fides as a member of the Armed Services Committee and gives a misleading account of current U.S. estimates about Iran’s potential capabilities. Inhofe said:

We know – and it is not even classified for me to tell you today – that Iran will have the capability of delivering a weapon of mass destruction to western Europe and the eastern United States by 2015. I see that as the most imminent threat to this country right now. So that is a problem we are going to have deal with.

This represents neither the official declassified opinion of the U.S. government nor that of a non-proliferation expert contacted by ThinkProgress.

Contrary to Inhofe’s statement, Michael Elleman, a missile defense expert at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), explained the U.S. Defense Department’s position in a blog post earlier this year:

The April 2010 Department of Defense report to Congress said, “With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015.” The key words are “develop and test.” The report does not say Iran will have an operational ICBM by 2015. Iran could conduct a preliminary, proof-of-concept test of a missile capable of reaching the United States in 2015.

At the time of the report, Jeffery Lewis at the Arms Control Wonk blog also took note of the specific language — omitted by Inhofe — that “sufficient foreign assistance” would be needed for Iran to make anything near these moves by 2015.

Indeed, Iran isn’t even working yet on such a weapon: “There is no evidence to suggest that Iran is actively developing an ocean-spanning, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching America’s east coast,” wrote ISIS’s Elleman. Even if they did, “Iran is unlikely to field an operational ICBM before 2020.”

This assessment was corroborated by Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association who served as director of the State Department’s Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office. Theilmann told ThinkProgress, Iran “has never tested a medium-range weapon that can hit Western Europe let alone hit the United States.” He said ICBM development is a separate issue from development of a working nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile: “There are serious doubts about 2015 for a nuclear warhead as well.” He went on:

It’s putting those things together that makes me confident that Iran can’t pose a threat to the United States by 2015. I think that’s using things loosely and not qualifying them properly for the Senator to say we know that or we can be sure of that.

Theilmann said he’d prefer that when politicians quote dates produced by policy professionals, they use the same qualifiers and caveats the experts use. “In order to use that 2015 date, one has to start using all the qualifiers that all the professionals use.” But that’s not always compatible with politics: “Their job is to raise alarms and scare people about it, I’m afraid.”