Cheney admits authorizing torture

by Jay McDonough

From the LA Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely.

Cheney's comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged playing a central role in clearing the CIA's use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared," Cheney said in an interview with ABC News.

Asked whether he still believes it was appropriate to use the waterboarding method on terrorism suspects, Cheney said: "I do."

Here's a portion of the interview:

Now, anyone with even the slightest interest in the topic will find this old news.  Nevertheless, it's a stunning admission.  Here's the vice president of the United States admitting he approved the use of techniques for which the U.S. prosecuted Japanese POW camp guards after World War II.  The same techniques employed by Nazi Gestapo officers.  The same methods the Khmer Rouge routinely used during their reign of terror in Cambodia.

Mr. Cheney is among some despicable company. And, apparently, without a whit of remorse or awareness.

Comments

[courtneyme109]

On the other hand - as Thomas Joscelyn points out - that wicked authorization reaped a bonanza. "

"Cheney claims that half of everything the United States knew about al Qaeda as late as 2004 or 2005 came from one source: KSM. If true, what does this say about America’s intelligence capabilities and the value of human intelligence?

It is, of course, possible that Cheney is exaggerating the amount of intelligence garnered from KSM’s interrogation. However, George Tenet, the former Director of Central Intelligence, has made similar comments. In his book, At the Center of the Storm, Tenet discussed at length the value of the intelligence collected during KSM’s interrogation. According to Tenet, for example, KSM’s interrogation set off a chain of events that led to the capture of an entire cell of al Qaeda terrorists who were involved in plotting the terror network’s second wave of attacks.

Let us assume that Cheney’s claim is true and half of everything the United States knew about al Qaeda as late as 2004 and 2005 came from this single source. KSM is clearly one of the top five al Qaeda operatives ever, having played an instrumental role in the 9/11 attacks and numerous other plots. Even so, Cheney’s claim is remarkable. It means that three to four years after 9/11, everything else the U.S. Government did to learn about al Qaeda equaled, in terms of overall value, the intelligence collected from the interrogations of a single terrorist. This means that all of the other techniques and intelligence programs put in place to understand al Qaeda have been, comparatively speaking, less effective (in terms of a basic cost-benefit analysis). While these other programs certainly led to some successes, they clearly did not produce a relatively large amount of actionable intelligence if KSM’s interrogation alone produced half of what they knew.

What is even more remarkable is that there is a lot more to al Qaeda than KSM. There was at the time of 9/11. There was when he was captured. And there is, of course, today. Al Qaeda is a highly compartmentalized organization. Even a well-placed al Qaeda operative like KSM would not know much about what other al Qaeda operatives were doing at the time he was captured. It makes you wonder what we didn't know three or four years ago and how much we have (or have not) learned in the meantime.

The most significant deficiency in America’s pre-9/11 intelligence collection was the lack of human intelligence--information garnered from people on the inside of the organization. Prior to 9/11, America had little to no human intelligence inside al Qaeda and the effects of this failure are evident. Moreover, even if KSM’s interrogation gave the U.S. Intelligence Community 10 percent, or 25 percent, of everything America knew about al Qaeda in 2004/2005 (as opposed to the 50 percent Cheney claims), the value of human intelligence and interrogations is clear.

The questions going forward are: How will America interrogate terrorists in the future? What techniques will be used? Will those techniques be more or less effective than the controversial ones employed by the Bush administration?"

Good question!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/12/cheney_on_the_value_of_interro.asp