CIA Will Not Release Rest of Memos Per Cheney’s Request; UPDATE: Cheney Will Appeal Initial Memo Decision
The Obama administration has turned down former Vice President Dick Cheney’s request for the declassification of two CIA reports on the effectiveness of the Agency’s detainee program, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned. A letter dated May 7, 2009, from the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, Delores M. Nelson, rejected Cheney’s request because the documents he has requested are involved in a Freedom of Information Act court battle.
“In researching the information in question, we have discovered that it is currently the subject of pending FOIA litigation (Bloche v. Department of Defense, Amnesty International v. Central Intelligence Agency). Therefore, the document is excluded from Mandatory Declassification Review,” Nelson wrote in the letter to the National Archives, the agency responsible for handling Cheney’s request.
This is bad news, but also good – it means that these memos do in fact exist, they are just unfortunately caught up in bureaucratic red tape. This will most likely lead Dick Cheney to continue his offensive against the “truth commission,” the reference of “torture,” and the release of the CIA memos in the first place.
UPDATE:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney will appeal a CIA decision denying his request for the release of memos he’s contended are crucial to proving the success of “enhanced interrogation techniques” of detainees.
Cheney’s office released a two-sentence statement reacting to the denial, “The Obama Administration has denied Vice President Cheney’s request for the declassification of two documents that provide information about the effectiveness of the detainee program. Vice President Cheney is preparing his appeal to this denial.”
San Fran Nan Continues to Spin
Nancy Pelosi continues to dig herself a deeper hole. She says one thing then another, but then she says something else entirely a week later. It’s quite obvious that this woman is a lying weasel. She should be interrogated intensely or at least strapped to a lie detector test. I’m so tired of this woman and uber liberals who spin information for a political agenda without any regard for national security.
Nancy Pelosi stated that she received inaccurate and misleading information. She continued to say that the CIA misled the Congress, even though other members who attended the briefings state otherwise and have a different recollection of the information provided. The CIA is not an entity I would want to mess with or malign for self-centered political gain.
Republicans and Democrats are requesting that the CIA release and declassify the notes from the briefings. What political motives does the CIA have to “mislead” the public? They don’t get voted in or need to worry about what they say or do to make a constituency happy…
It should be appalling to everyone that Piglosi actually stated that she was more concerned with politics than the security of Americans when she admitted that she was not aware of the policies, although ranking members are usually kept completely abreast of any and all information in Congress, but rather, the next elections to gain a Democrat majority.
At what point can you impeach or fire a member of Congress for lying or perjury?
Here is a video clip of Piglosi lying out of her teeth:
For Republican reaction go here…
President Bush, Integrity; Barack Obama, Floppy Fish
If there was one thing you could always say about President Bush, it is that he always stood on his principles and values. He had an enormous amount of integrity and did not compromise any of those things for political expediency. He firmly believed every move and decision he made was based on what was best for the American people. He did not rely on polling data or popularity statistics. President Bush’s firmly held beliefs in a post 9/11 world are what guided him.
Now President Obama, on the other hand, stands on his teleprompter. As he has “navigated” his way through the first 100 days in the Oval Office, we have yet to really see the characteristics of integrity or doing what is right by the American People. At least two of his cabinet members should have been tossed; Turbo Tax Tim Geithner and Secretary Napolitano, both of whom have embarrassed the Oval Office and outraged the American people. If he really stood on principle and integrity they would have been gone.
President Obama showed signs of this early in the election cycle when he said he would accept public financing of the campaign, but when the primary season was over and he was the nominee, he opted out of the system and continued to collect just shy of 3/4 of a billion dollars, most of which is untraceable. That in itself goes against the Open Government Act by fully disclosing all donors.
President Bush walked his talk after the campaign. He worked with the Democratic leadership, showing bipartisanship on the budget, FISA, immigration and other issues. The only thing he would not compromise on (thank goodness) was a troop withdrawal time table. Democrats tried in vain to force his hand as the Obama backing MSM flooded the evening news night after night with each road side bomb image they could find. Very little attention was paid to the success we were having, only the carnage. This unwavering stance against a timed withdrawal was significant because he did not want give the emboldened insurgency a window in which to “wait it out”, and to prevent these politicians from micromanaging commanders in the field. True, there was pressures to change strategies in order to combat this issue, and the administration did just that; they initiated the “surge”. And guess what, it worked! Now Mr. Obama on the other hand has shown about as much bipartisanship as Iran has shown cooperation with the UN….Uh that would be none! The GOP has been completely shut out of the administration, being told to basically shut up and sit down because “we” (the Dems) won. So much for a new era of cooperation and open government.
What people fail to realize in Iraq, is that not only did we rid the world of a very evil dictator, who’s atrocities are well documented (so in fact there is you weapon of mass destruction), shut down Dr. Germ Rihab Taha (who was identified by UN weapon inspectors specifically), the mission also brought stability to the region as a whole.
If you look back, Moamar Kadafi quickly and quietly ended their rebellious ways and cracked down on terrorists in Libya. Syria also became much more user friendly, and cooperative. So there were broader positive effects.
Mr. Obama who was not a Senator when the Congress initially authorized action in Iraq, on the campaign trail he waved the “No More War” flag like the checker flag at the end of a car race. The election was soundly anti-Bush, and all the rhetoric that goes with that. ‘When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that’.
Well as you all know, the mission (and I am not complaining about this) remains on target and is, in fact, in a winding down phase. We have consolidated much of our operations to specific areas in Iraq, handed over control and security operations to the Iraqi Army and Police force in many areas, continue to train and equip those forces so when we do leave, there will be stability and peace inside the borders. Mr. Obama’s rhetoric got him into the White House, but the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq dictated his actions. And if the people who were so hell bent on completely ditching the quote “Bush Doctrine” (as Charlie Gibson tried to nail Sarah Palin with) they would have realized that this notion of up and run out of Iraq was not plausible in the least.
President Bush was thrust into a situation that day in September, unbeknown to America or our intelligence agencies. We went from a 20 plus year time of relative peace and suddenly thrust into war, against an enemy that does not belong to a nation or state, but operates in the shadows among innocent people whom they will sacrifice without any hesitation. Yes, mistakes were made. But this nation was kept safe, and still is, by those policies President Bush put into place.
Now we have a floppy fish in the White House. Yes he was thrust into an economic situation that has not been pretty. However, Mr. Teleprompter as not shown us anything except he is bent on a socialistic agenda and that he changes his word like we change underwear.
Now Mr. Obama wants to openly (yes there is that word open again) and without preconditions, have talks with these nations that simply hate the United States. Iran, who is pursuing nuclear weapons and calling for the destruction of Israel, North Korea, who has nuclear material but can not build a delivery vehicle, Venezuela, who just yesterday seized American Owned and Operated energy sites and equipment, and Cuba, where money can now flow freely without using a 3rd and 4th party intermediary. Oh yes lets not forget Mexico. Yet, another apology from Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton for causing the drug war along the boarder.
Mr. Obama and his economic team have showered the coffers with billions and billions of dollars in order to prop up the economy. Thus far, nothing. New jobless filings hover around 600K and overall, 6.5 million people are out of work, and counting. Now that Chrysler and GM are making significant cuts, that is going to go up more this year. Not only does that effect line workers in the auto plants, but spills out to the suppliers and peripheral businesses that support them.
Mr. Obama, first week in office broke the most basic of his campaign pledges, saying that the practice of earmarks and pork spending would immediately come to and end. Say what? The first two things he signs into law are pork laden wasteful bills that did nothing. The Stimulus package, which failed to stimulate the American people, was shoved through the congress by the new Dem Majority in the middle of the night in which no one was even able to read. And what was in there (Mr. Dodd)? Bonuses for the executives at AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac!!! Next he signed an Omnibus bill that contained over 9000 earmarks, again pushed through on a Dem freight train in the middle of the night.
Now the administration continues to politicize national security doctrine as the administration stammers on what our evil interrogators did to terror suspects. This emboldens the enemy, teaches them our techniques so now they can prepare for what little we actually do. The September 10th mentality of the administration puts us in jeopardy. Many of the policies that Mr. Obama so vehemently touted against remain in effect. The naval prison at Guantanamo Bay was ordered closed yet remains open as Obama plans where to send its inmates; the president has yet to establish a coherent policy on Iran — following in the Bush administration’s footsteps and while American troops are being removed from Iraq, most will stay in place until 2010.
It is important to note that all the enhanced interrogation tactics that we used actually yielded crucially important intelligence that helped keep this country safe,” with the eight years of safety on the home front since Sept. 11, 2001. Even though congressional leaders claimed to be left out of the loop on these techniques, it was revealed that the same Dem leaders, who bewitched President Bush, were duly informed of those methods. But as Dems, true to color, they pretended to take the moral high road, and were thus outed as hypocrites using this issue for political expediency.
Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, wrote an internal memo last week citing the “high value” information about Al Qaeda’s operations yielded by tactics such as water boarding, but its morality has been called into question by human rights monitors and many others both in and out of the Obama administration.
So therein lays the conflict with this administration. Integrity, direction, political expediency, governing by polling data, and letting Nancy Pelosi write its budget a mere 3 Trillion and some change.
So we as Americans have to wonder, where the transparency, openness, and new era of cooperation is. Yeah, that is right, so sorry, we lost.
San Fran Nan Piglosi ~ Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
We all knew that Ms. Piglosi was lying from the get go when new information came to light regarding who was privy to the CIA briefing about interrogation methods, namely waterboarding. She came up with a Bill ‘Clintonesque’ to attempt to confuse anybody who can’t read or surf the net.
She admitted the CIA briefed her and others on interrogation methods, including waterboarding, on suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay prison. BUT her excuse was she didn’t know that they would ACTUALLY use those methods on the terrorists. She then asked what the definition of IS, is.
Most of us were not born yesterday, so it was obvious she was grasping at straws during her press conference. However, there was no proof, only “he said, she said,” of the briefing; that is until the CIA released their briefing report yesterday.
Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered “EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah.” EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.
*EITs = Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
Human Events obtained the list of those who were briefed and privy to the interrogation techniques in 2002 – and not surprisingly, Democrat after Democrat is listed on this document:
- Nancy Pelosi
- John Rockefeller
- Harry Reid
- Dianne Feinstein
- Jane Harman
- Babs Mikulski
- John Murtha
- Adam Schiff
- Carl Levin
- Russ Feingold
- Evan Bayh
- Bob Graham
They are going to need another made up CRISIS to get out of this one!
NYT: Un-American Liars
The New York Times just like their uber-left counterparts care more about islamofascist terrorists than their own country and its citizens.
NYT also lied in an article last weekwhen describing the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The NYT claimed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, which will become a typical liberal talking point when arguing about Gitmo detainees and interrogation methods. Khalid was only waterboarded a total of 5 times. Let me repeat that again, 5 times! Each of those times is timed specifically which was defined by law in order to meet specific conditions that would not be considered torture. There is also a physician on site when waterboarding is used.
The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The “183 times” was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world.
It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves.
A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed’s face — not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of “five sessions of ill-treatment.”
Our own soldiers have been trained and waterboarded more times than all the detainees combined. Only 3 of the detainees were ever waterboarded and 2 of those were major leaders in the radical Islam movement who had valuable information. That information was disclosed to us through waterboarding. If these detainees were only waterboarded 5-10 times total imagine how easy it would be for them to train for that now.
“The water was poured 183 times — there were 183 pours,” the official explained, adding that “each pour was a matter of seconds.”
The Times and dozens of other outlets wrote that the CIA also waterboarded senior Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah 83 times, but Zubayda himself, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, told the Red Cross he was waterboarded no more than 10 times.
And again that would be 83 pours of water… entirely different than being waterboarded 83 times. Each sessions consists of short and long pours of water and the specific time allotted per session was all laid out.
The Justice Department memos described the maximum allowed use of the waterboard on any detainee, based on tactical training given to U.S. troops to resist interrogations:
– Five days of use in one month, with no more than two “sessions” in a day;
– Up to six applications (something like a dunk) lasting more than 10 seconds but less than 40 seconds per session;
– 12 minutes of total “water application” in a 24-hour period
These lying Democrats have now put our country at incredible risk and have given our enemies plenty of ammo and ability to train and be more difficult to glean information from. As an FYI to the peaceniks – people are evil, they are not all good in this world and there is nothing you can do to change that or control that even if you can’t understand that. Sharing tea and crumpets with them will not resolve anything, nor will it keep your country safe.
Real American…./Sarc! Hey NYT – did your article happen to mention that Khalid is the one who chopped off Daniel Pearl’s head? I guess that’s acceptible to the likes of NYT… and the hypocrites on the far left.
