Tales of the Torture Administration (Continued): Cheney Personally Oversaw At Least 4 Briefings on "Harsh Interrogation" (Torture)

by Damozel |  According to The Washington Post, Cheney met at least 4 times in 2005 with senior members of Congress to "maintain support" for torture, part of a "secretive and forceful" defense of the program.

Cheney's role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush administration -- particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists -- has been well documented. But his hands-on role in defending the interrogation program to lawmakers has not been previously publicized.

Until now, anyway:

The Cheney-led briefings came at some of the most critical moments for the program, as congressional oversight committees were threatening to investigate or even terminate the techniques, according to lawmakers, congressional officials, and current and former intelligence officials. (WaPo)

It's still not clear whether the "top Dems" -- e.g., Nancy Pelosi -- were aware that waterboarding was included among the other forms of torture the administration was using. 

The CIA declined to comment on why Cheney's presence in some meetings was left out of the records. One senior intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the identities of individual briefers are intentionally concealed in all cases -- their names do not appear in any of the CIA documents that describe congressional briefings. In at least some cases, he added, the identity of the briefer was never recorded in the agency's internal records.

For all but seven of the 40 meetings listed, however, the documents outlined which agency led the briefing and which provided support. And on at least five occasions, they spelled out that then-CIA Director Michael V. Hayden led the classified meetings. (WaPo)

Marcy Wheeler -- who speculated last month concerning Cheney's lobbying for torture -- asks:

WTF did the CIA hide Cheney's role in these briefings (not to mention the date of their briefing with McCain)? It reveals not only a desire to hide the degree to which these "briefings" under Porter Goss became active lobbying in support of torture, but also the degree to which the CIA is working actively, with a former Administration official (Cheney) to hide their collaboration....If anyone needed yet more proof that torture was Cheney's baby, his active lobbying of Congress--hidden as "CIA briefings"--out to do the trick.

The Washington Post says that there's "no doubt" that Cheney "was leading the charge" on the issue, even though the members of Congress who participated decline to comment.  But in the course of his proselytizing, he definitely seems to have butted heads with none other than John McCain.(WaPo) 

One of the most critical Cheney-led briefings came in late October 2005, when the vice president and Porter J. Goss, then director of the CIA, read  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) into the program on the interrogation methods, according to congressional and intelligence sources.

One knowledgeable official described the meeting as contentious. Cheney and Goss, with other CIA officials present, tried to persuade the former Vietnam POW to back off an anti-torture amendment that had already won the support of 90 senators.

The McCain amendment would have ended practices such as waterboarding by forbidding "cruel, degrading and inhumane" treatment of detainees. The CIA had not used waterboarding since 2003, but the White House sought to maintain the ability to employ it.(WaPo) 

Apparently some of the other lawmakers challenged the legality of the program, but their efforts were speedily repressed by others who supported it.  They were told by the CIA "that half of the agency's knowledge about al-Qaeda's plans and structure had been obtained through the interrogations."  (WaPo) Which begs the question whether the same information would have been obtainable -- as officials who actually participated claim -- through conventional means.  

As The Raw Story emphasizes, one of Pelosi's "most vocal critics," Hoekstra, had a private meeting with Cheney.  Not only that, but a crew of five Republicans went on a junket with Addington to Gitmo. It's quite the little anecdote.

Cheney's efforts to sway Congress toward supporting waterboarding went beyond secret meetings in Washington. In July 2005, he sent David S. Addington, his chief counsel at the time, to travel with five senators -- four of them opponents of the CIA interrogation methods -- to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On the trip, Sen. Graham urged Addington to put the interrogations at secret prisons and the use of military tribunals into a stronger constitutional position by pushing legislation through Congress, rather than relying on executive orders and secret rulings from Justice Department lawyers.

Subsequent court rulings would challenge the legality of the system, and Justice Department lawyers were privately drafting new rules on interrogations. Addington dismissed the views of Graham, who had been a military lawyer.

"I've got all the authority I need right here," Addington said, pulling from his coat a pocket-size copy of the Constitution, according to the senator, suggesting there was no doubt about the system's legal footing.(WaPo)

Who really cares what Addington thinks, though?  Whatever Dick Cheney, CIA or David Addington say or believe, whether or not key Dems did or did not sign off on it, and regardless of whether or not it leads to useful information,  torture is illegal and wrong, and endangers the lives of American military personnel everywhere. 

But just in case you've been under a rock, here's what he's been saying now that he's suddenly everywhere, all the damn time:

"We all approved it. I'm a strong believer in it. I think it was the right thing to do," said Cheney, who is now pushing for the declassification of the information gained from the detainees who were subjected to the most brutal techniques. (WaPo)

More at Memeorandum.

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