K. Bigelow Gets a New Dance Partner

La Marr's Dance Band - Albury, NSW - 1926

Yesterday I watched Kathryn Bigelow on CBS This Morning. Once again she was defending her film Zero Dark Thirty by pretending that the only objection to her film was that she depicted torture. There have been numerous articles written that have called her out on her use of this strawman argument but she still continues to use it and the corporate media doesn't challenge her on it.

What I found really interesting about her appearance yesterday was that she received assistance in framing her defense from a CBS employee. John Miller, CBS Senior correspondent, is former DNI and former FBI  Needless to say he has very strong ties to the intelligence community. That's right, she had a former intelligence officer (some might say current intelligence officer on assignment) sitting next to her being interviewed by his own colleagues as if Ms. Bigelow and he were making a joint guest appearance.  It was very strange.

It's been widely reported that there are no plans to call Ms Bigelow and Zero Dark Thirty's screenwriter, Mr Boal,  to testify in front of Congress to answer questions about their movie. However, I did find one source who suggests that they might be given a subpoena and Mr. Miller also implied yesterday that they will be called. If they are called to testify, Mr. Miller evidently wanted to prepare them. He suggested they could avoid answering questions about their sources. That's right, Mr. Miller suggested that Ms. Bigelow and Mr. Boals were journalists and as journalists they had to protect their sources (unless of course it's a source the intelligence community doesn't like). He appeared very eager to get that claim on the record. Is he worried they will be called and reveal who told them the falsehood that torture was needed to capture Bin Laden?

Another interesting thing I noticed in the CBS video was when Gayle King said, "John you had said the portrayal was extraordinarily accurate in a way that movies are accurate, what do you mean by this?"  Mr. Miller then goes on to explain what he meant. I found this interesting because I also watched a video of The Colbert Report yesterday where Ms. Bigelow made a very similar comment. She told Colbert "it's accurate in a way a movie can be accurate".  Hmmmm, they both used an almost identical and what I'd describe as a very unusual way to describe the film. It made me wonder if we have some coordination going on with Ms. Bigelow and Mr. Miller and possibly others. Does Ms Bigelow have a handler in the intelligence community that is walking her through her interviews ? It sure looks that way.

Now I'm just a regular citizen. I don't have access to any more information than what appears in public. Maybe I'm wrong about what I see in these two videos but then again maybe I'm right. Maybe these people are so arrogant that they don't even care that regular people like me can see through their machinations. Maybe they're so confident that nothing will be done that they don't care if people see them manipulating what the public sees. After all they were brazen enough to insure that torture propaganda was added to this movie in the first place so they most certainly have a vested interest in making sure that the real story doesn't come out.

Ms. Bigelow claimed in the Colbert Report interview that her movie was a 1st draft of history. Let's hope that there are some principled people still left in Washington who won't allow this false first draft to be written into our history books. Let's hope that they work towards revealing the real story behind the Bush/Cheney torture program. Let's hope that we finally look backwards at torture so that we can finally have a  future based on truth, not twisted fiction. Let's hope that when someone watches this movie in the future that they know without a doubt that it's factually false because the people affiliated with the torture program and those that protected it are held accountable. And finally, let's hope our corporate media stops using intelligence officials as Senior correspondents unless these former officials have written a real tell all book about their former profession.

Here is the video from the Colbert show that aired before the CBS video

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive - Kathryn Bigelow Extended Interview
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Here is the CBS video where Bigelow and Miller do the two step:

More Secrecy from the "Most Open and Transparent WH in history"

Corona of the Sun During a Solar Eclipse 1900

On the White House website the Obama administration makes the following claim:

Transparency -- President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise. The President's executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning of our efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government.

But transparency is not what we are getting from the Obama administration. In fact, we are getting just the opposite. Just this week alone we found out that the administration argued that the WH visitors logs should be kept secret just like the Bush administration argued. We also found out that the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security is using the old standby excuse of national security to prevent government officials from telling the public the location of coal ash dumps.

There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn't allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected.

"There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff," she said."Homeland Security and the Army Corps [of Engineers] have decided in the interests of national security they can't make these sites known," she said.

and then yesterday they did this:

A federal judge yesterday sharply questioned an assertion by the Obama administration that former Vice President Richard B. Cheney's statements to a special prosecutor about the Valerie Plame case must be kept secret, partly so they do not become fodder for Cheney's political enemies or late-night commentary on "The Daily Show."

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed surprise during a hearing here that the Justice Department, in asserting that Cheney's voluntary statements to U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald were exempt from disclosure, relied on legal claims put forward last October by a Bush administration political appointee, Stephen Bradbury. The department asserted then that the disclosure would make presidents and vice presidents reluctant to cooperate voluntarily with future criminal investigations.

But career civil division lawyer Jeffrey M. Smith, responding to Sullivan's questions, said Bradbury's arguments against the disclosure were supported by the department's current leadership. He told the judge that if Cheney's remarks were published, then a future vice president asked to provide candid information during a criminal probe might refuse to do so out of concern "that it's going to get on 'The Daily Show' " or somehow be used as a political weapon

Sadly, the Obama administration has consistently been more secretive than transparent. Glenn Greenwald did an excellent blog post the other day, Here is secrecy creep in action, where he documented the long string of Obama administration decisions where they chose secrecy over transparency. It's a MUST READ.

Today the Obama administration is scheduled to release the 2004 CIA Inspector General Report about interrogation techniques (torture). However, it was reported in the Washington Post on Wednesday that some in the CIA were pressing the administration to keep most of this report classified. Once again President Obama has an opportunity to prove to the American people that his administration is truly interested in government transparency. Will the report be heavily redacted as the CIA wants or will the Obama administration let sunlight help disinfect this sorry chapter in our history? Stay tuned.

Upate: Greg Sargent writes that the 2004 CIA Inspector General Report will not be released today. Looks like we will have to wait until next Friday for release of this report - maybe.

Washington Post Withholds Critical Info from their Pelosi/CIA Reporting

Over the weekend the Washington Post went on a full scale attack against Nancy Pelosi.  Almost all of their Pelosi news stories, analysis pieces or opinion columns were highly critical of Pelosi and some of the pieces all but called her a liar. 

What you didn't see mentioned in any of the Washington Post pieces from Friday to Monday, however, was that Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA lied to Congress was supported by former CIA Deputy Inspector General, Mary McCarthy, who made the same claim to the Washington Post back in 2006. McCarthy was a key source for the Post's Pulitizer Prize winning series by Dana Priest on the CIA Black sites.

Fired Officer Believed CIA Lied to Congress
Friends Say McCarthy Learned of Denials About Detainees' Treatment

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, May 14, 2006; A01

snip

That CIA officer was Mary O. McCarthy, 61, who was fired on April 20 for allegedly sharing classified information with journalists, including Washington Post journalist Dana Priest. A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading.

snip

Whether McCarthy's conviction that the CIA was hiding unpleasant truths provoked her to leak sensitive information is known only to her and the journalists she is alleged to have spoken with last year. But the picture of her that emerges from interviews with more than a dozen former colleagues is of an independent-minded analyst who became convinced that on multiple occasions the agency had not given accurate or complete information to its congressional overseers.

snip

In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA's detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat.

McCarthy also told others she was offended that the CIA's general counsel had worked to secure a secret Justice Department opinion in 2004 authorizing the agency's creation of "ghost detainees" -- prisoners removed from Iraq for secret interrogations without notice to the International Committee of the Red Cross -- because the Geneva Conventions prohibit such practices.

While the 2006 article doesn't specifically mention the 2002 briefings, the fact that you have a former CIA Deputy Inspector General who is accusing the CIA of lying to Congress in briefings should certainly make what Nancy Pelosi said about the CIA misleading Congress much more credible. 

Ms. McCarthy was a source for the Post's Pulitizer Prize winning series on the CIA Black sites and yet no one at the Post who wrote a story or column this weekend bothered to report on this earlier story that confirmed what Pelosi was saying? Why not?

Instead of telling readers that both Pelosi and this former CIA official claimed that the CIA lied to Congress the Post instead wrote pieces this weekend that tried to paint Pelosi as a liar and the CIA as the truth tellers. Why?

We had a story by Paul Kane where he made this statement:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yesterday charged the CIA with knowingly misleading members of Congress about the interrogation practices, even as she acknowledged for the first time that she learned six years ago that waterboarding was being used on detainees.

While Kane's piece is the most balanced of all the Post's reporting this weekend, this statement is misleading at best. In an AP story appearing in the Post the same day, Julie Hirschfeld Davis documents that Pelosi told reporters back in 2007 that she found out in 2003 that Jane Harman had been briefed that the enhanced interrogation techniques were being used. Kane is either playing word games to claim that Pelosi only said this for the first time in 2009 because Pelosi didn't specifically say "waterboarding" in 2007 and only said "enhanced interrogation techniques" or he just got it wrong. By the way because Bush didn't admit to using waterboarding until 2008 Pelosi would not have been able to divulge the name of the specific technique of waterboarding back in 2007. She would have had to use the words enhanced interrogation techniques to describe it. Evidently Mr. Kane never read Ms. Davis' piece in the Post because he never corrected his own piece.

Dec. 9, 2007: Pelosi, now the House's speaker, first publicly acknowledges having been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques in 2002 and learning in 2003 of their use. Responding to a news report that said Pelosi was among top lawmakers who had been briefed in 2002 about waterboarding, she issues a statement saying she had been briefed once in 2002 "on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future," and told that Bush's team "had concluded that the techniques were legal." She also acknowledges learning in 2003 that Harman had been briefed that "the techniques had in fact been employed." She references Harman's letter of objection and says it was "a protest with which I concurred."

May 14, 2009: Pelosi herself says for the first time that she was specifically told in 2002 that waterboarding had not been used, and accuses the CIA of misleading her and the Congress. She also confirms that she learned of its use in February 2003. CIA Spokesman George Little says the CIA's description of Pelosi's briefing was "true to the language in the agency's records," adding, "It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress."

On the same day as the Kane and Davis pieces appeared in the Post we also had an "analysis" piece by Dan Balz. Mr. Balz starts out his piece by giving only two reasons for Nancy Pelosi holding her press conference and both of the reasons he gave were negative. Mr. Balz evidently never considered the fact that she might want to set the record straight instead of having the media get it wrong, again.

Pelosi's performance in the Capitol was either a calculated escalation of a long-running feud with the Bush administration or a reckless act by a politician whose word had been called into question. Perhaps it was both.

Unfortunately for Ms. Pelosi, despite the press conference she gave the media is still getting it wrong. Mr. Balz joined Mr. Kane in misrepresenting the facts. This is what he says about her statement:

For the first time, Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged that in 2003 she was informed by an aide that the CIA had told others in Congress that officials had used waterboarding during interrogations. 

Now while Mr. Balz is technically correct that this is the first time we knew that it was an "aide" who told Nancy Pelosi in 2003 that the CIA had briefed others that waterboarding had been used, this is not the first time that Pelosi said she knew that harsh interrogation techniques had been used. Mr. Balz, like Mr. Kane, didn't report the 2007 Pelosi statement. Because he didn't report it he gives readers the false impression that Pelosi is somehow changing her story, when she isn't. Indeed, Mr. Balz even accuses her of giving shifting accounts.

The speaker's charges about the CIA's alleged deception and her shifting accounts of what she knew and when she knew it are likely to add to calls for some kind of independent body to investigate this supercharged issue, though Obama and many members of Congress would like to avoid a wholesale unearthing of the past at a time when their plates are full with pressing concerns.

Dan Balz also made this bizarre statement:

But in attempting to defend herself, Pelosi took the remarkable step of trying to shift the focus of blame to the CIA and the Bush administration, claiming that the CIA accounts represented a diversionary tactic in the real debate over the interrogation policies. 

There is nothing remarkable here except for Dan Balz calling it remarkable. What the GOP, CIA and establishment media are doing to Pelosi IS  a diversionary tactic to deflect attention away from the Bush administration and the CIA, who were up to their necks in torture, and try to make the conversation about what  Pelosi may or may not have known. Nancy Pelosi is not the one shifting the blame she is merely trying to return the blame where it rightfully belongs before it was incorrectly shifted to her. While knowing what Congress knew is important, it is not more important than knowing who created, authorized and ran the torture program.

Balz closes out his piece ignoring Pelosi's 2007 statement again.

Pelosi is not out of the woods. She could have saved herself some trouble by admitting earlier that she had been informed that the CIA was using waterboarding. (you mean like she did in 2007?).

There were a number of other pieces in the Post over the weekend that were highly critical of Pelosi. There were two AP analysis pieces that were both skeptical of Pelosi's version of the briefing. You had several commentary pieces that were scathing in their criticism of Pelosi's truthfulness. Here's one comment from a David Ignatius piece

If you read the CIA's careful 10-page summary of the 40 briefings it has given to Congress since 2002 on "enhanced interrogation techniques," it's pretty hard not to conclude that Pelosi is shading the truth to retrospectively cover her backside.  

Whether by design or accident, the Washington Post left out key information (Pelosi's 2007 statement, comments by Senators Graham, Goss & Rockefeller and CIA deputy IG McCarthy's accusations about CIA lying in their briefings to Congress) from their multiple pieces about Pelosi this weekend that the readers deserve to know about. The Post also has a duty to explain to it's readers why this happened and to set the record straight or we might begin to believe that this is a deliberate CIA misinformation campaign, similiar to what happened to Barry Goldwater back in 1984, only this time instead of the New York Times being used to disseminate the disinformation, it's the Washington Post.

Update: Emptywheel also critiques the Washington Post's Pelosi coverage

Update 2:  Battochio has an excellent piece up at Vagabond Scholar: Torture Versus Freedom

Lieberman, Bond & Boehner - Incredibly Gullible or Simply Dishonest?

April Fools Joke 1932 - Woman milking a cow with an elephant's head

Spencer Ackerman has a post up on his blog about his view of the CIA's veracity in the Nancy Pelosi briefing story that is spot on. 

More evidence needs to be introduced before concluding that the CIA lied to Pelosi. But no additional evidence needs to be introduced to conclude that it wouldn't.

I have to laugh at people like Joe Lieberman and John Boehner who seriously expect us to believe that the CIA would never lie. They are either incredibly gullible or they are simply dishonest. 

"No, on that specific point I totally disagree," Lieberman told MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell. "Over the 20 years I've been here, I've been briefed constantly by the CIA, and I'd say they've told me the truth as they see it."

Boehner defended the agency’s record and said it was “hard” for him to imagine “anyone in our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress.”

Thankfully Lawrence O'Donnell remembered this little tidbit from 1994 where Patrick Moynihan reminded everyone about how the CIA lied to Barry Goldwater in 1984 and then ran a disinformation campaign against him and just like with Pelosi (CIA log released May 8 while Pelosi was in Jordan) they started their disinformation campaign while he was out of the country and unable to immediately defend himself.

Below is part of the 1994 Senate transcript that includes where Moynihan details the CIA's campaign of lies against Barry Goldwater in 1984 and where we also see some interesting comments from Moynihan referencing our current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. 

Note: In the Ackerman post referenced above, one of the people commenting, cbl2, also clues us in to this priceless little tidbit about this same time period:

oh, and just for fun: Addington was an assistant general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1981 to 1984

The Transcript

INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1995 (Senate - August 12, 1994)

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Madam President, it is with no pleasure I rise on this occasion. Rather, I rise with a sense of responsibility to the committee and to the body, to recount experiences of another time in which the intelligence community has been very much less than candid and open with respect to matters that the Intelligence Committee should have been informed about.

There has been some discussion in recent days concerning the failure of the intelligence community to notify the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of the new headquarters of the National Reconnaissance Office. This is not new. This is not the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it be, I fear, the last such incident, while the existing culture--if I could use that large word--of the intelligence community, of the national security state, of the secrecy system, stays in place.

I served for 8 years on the Intelligence Committee. I joined it the first year after it was created. And in those 8 years I was very closely associated with Barry Goldwater, a man revered in this institution not least because he was incapable of lying. For 4 years I was the vice chairman of the committee and he was chairman and we spent a very great deal of time together. At that time there was an understanding, which I am sure exists today, that there are some matters which, if the chairman and vice chairman are notified about, it can be considered that the Senate has been informed. Unfortunately, this is an Agency which has lied to Congress before. Egregiously.

Perhaps the most extraordinary example was the concerted campaign launched in the spring of 1984 when it emerged that the Central Intelligence Agency had mined harbors in Nicaragua--arguably a violation of international law and treaty, but inarguably a significant anticipated action. As I recall the language of the statute, `the committee will be informed of significant anticipated activities.' We were not.

The world knew about the mining of the harbors immediately--it was the intention that the world should know. But that our Government had done this, was not known.

In the spring, the Wall Street Journal reported that this had been an action of the Agency--Mr. David Rogers, specifically. Barry Goldwater was outraged. He had not been told of something as important as the mining of the Nicaraguan harbors, and he so stated. Whereupon the Agency began what Robert R. Simmons, the former staff director of the committee, said `can only be described as a domestic disinformation campaign against the U.S. Congress in which they alleged that the intelligence committees had been fully briefed on the harbor mining program.' The attack on Chairman Goldwater was vicious.

They went to the New York Times--which was concerned about this--and told the Times that, no, Senator Goldwater was informed. It is simply that Senator Goldwater is not as keen as he may once have been; that he does not remember everything that happens; that, in effect, senility had set in. And the Times--given the seriousness of the charge and the manifest sincerity with which they were told by Agency officials, regretfully, reported that the Senator has begun to lose it. Repeatedly the Agency claimed that he was told, he just cannot recall having been told. It was a lie, an audacious lie, about a revered Member of this body. And faced with it, and the proposition that it was not going to be retracted, I--then acting chairman in Senator Goldwater's absence--announced I would resign in protest.

When the announcement appeared--it was Easter time and Senator Goldwater was in the Far East--it caused something of a ruckus. And, in time, the then-director, Mr. William J. Casey, came to the committee, we then met up on the 4th floor of the Capitol here, and apologized. He acknowledged the committee had not been adequately informed.

Part of the disinformation operation involved an address given at the Naval Academy--the Naval Academy, I say to Senator Warner--where we teach standards of truthfulness. Mr. McFarland, then National Security Adviser to the President, went to the Naval Academy and told the cadets that Senator Goldwater and the committee had been informed--lied to the cadets.

Subsequently, Mr. McFarland testified before the Iran-Contra Committees on May 12, 1987--we are now more than 3 years from then.

In many ways, Iran-Contra arose out of the mining of the harbors, money was cut off, and so forth.

Here is an exchange between Senator Sarbanes and Mr. McFarland who, I want to say, has made clear he wished he had never done any of those things.

Reading from transcript:

Mr. Sarbanes. Did you know about the mining of the Nicaraguan harbor?

Mr. McFarland. Yes, sir.

Mr. Sarbanes. Did you think that should have been consulted with the Intelligence Committees?

Mr. McFarland. Yes, sir.

Mr. Sarbanes: It wasn't done.

Mr. McFarland: No, sir.

But the disinformation campaign almost prevailed and never really got resolved.

Following that episode, Director Casey signed the agreements negotiated with the Intelligence Committees which came to be known as the Casey accords. They were specifically designed to see that something like the mining of the harbors never happened again without the committee being informed. Not that the President could not do what he ordered done, but the committee would be informed.

One was signed while Mr. Goldwater and I were chairman and ranking member, and another one was signed a year later. Whereupon the Agency proceeded to lie to the committees again. During all of this period, the Iran-Contra episode took place and the committee was never involved. Indeed, a second agreement was made the following year which confirmed how well it was working, but it was never informed.

Madam President, I discussed this disinformation matter with Mr. Gates when he was under consideration for the post of--Madam President, may I have 2 additional minutes, if I may ask Senator DeConcini?

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Boxer). Does the Senator yield 2 minutes?

[Page: S11385]

Mr. DeCONCINI. I yield up to 5 minutes and I ask the time come off the pending amendment.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Madam President, I will not take that much time.

At the time Mr. Gates was being considered for the Director of the Agency, I raised with him specifically the question of the disinformation campaign directed against Senator Goldwater, and he undertook to look into this and to clear up the record, which now all agree Mr. Casey and Mr. McFarland had lied about Barry Goldwater.

Mr. Gates did not do a thing. He was there, I recall, for 4 years and never lifted a finger to say the Agency had done what it ought never have done and what it ought not do again.

If I can say, Dean Acheson saw all this coming. In his book, `Present at the Creation,' he wrote:

I had the gravest foreboding about this organization and warned the President that * * * neither he, the National Security Council, nor anyone else would be in a position to know what (the CIA) was doing or to control it.

It is a simple thought that secrecy corrupts. It corrupts analysis. Two years before the Berlin Wall came down, the CIA formally estimated the per capita gross domestic product in East Germany to be higher than West Germany. In his memoir, George P. Shultz, Secretary of State, recalls in 1986 when then President Reagan and he were thinking that perhaps they might have some success with Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gates, then the Director of Intelligence, informed him, Mr. Secretary, `the Soviet Union is a despotism that works.'

You can reach out and touch the day that the Soviet Union would collapse but, no, secrecy inhibits the correction of error. The error simply gets compounded and extended, and it leads to events such as misleading the Congress. It has done so in the past and will do so in the future, so long as it continues.

The secrecy system is still in place. You may know that we have an Information Security Oversight Office which counts the annual creation of secrets. Its most recent report shows that last year, 6,408,688 secrets were created. Can you imagine that we know there were 6,408,688 secrets created last year, a 1-percent increase in the first year of the Clinton administration?

This will go on until we do something about it, addressing it directly. We have created a Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, which is even now in the process of being assembled. I understand Mr. Hamilton in the House has agreed to be on the Commission and I have done so on the Senate side. Other Members of Congress and private citizens will be appointed. The mission of the Commission is of singular importance to the Republic. It is no less than examining ways to reclaim the liberties of the people. I welcome the proposal by the Senator from Virginia for a review of current intelligence needs. I ask to be made a cosponsor.

Update: Like Lieberman and Boehner evidently Kit Bond is also a card carrying member of the "gullible/dishonest" club. Here is video from Countdown where Bond also insists that the CIA doesn't lie. I've updated my headlineon this post to reflect the addition of the newest member of this elite club.

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Update 2: James Fallows at the Atlantic says that because  Senator Bob Graham, who has a reputation for honesty,  also says that the CIA never briefed him on waterboarding it shifts the burden of proof to the CIA.

So if he says he never got the briefing, he didn't. And if the CIA or anyone acting on its behalf challenges him, they are stupid and incompetent as well as being untrustworthy. This doesn't prove that the accounts of briefing Pelosi are also inaccurate. But it shifts the burden of proof. 

Fixing The Media Misinformation That Claimed that Waterboarding Worked

When will the rest of the establishment media follow the New York Time's lead by admitting that former CIA officer, John Kiriakou's statements about the effectiveness of waterboarding, that they reported, were false? Will the truth about this previous misinformation about waterboarding be reported  far and wide like the lies of Kiriakou were reported? Or will the media turn this misinformation into disinformation by deliberately failing to retract it? And can even this belated admission help put the "misinformation" toothpaste back in the tube? 

The ball is in your court now establishment media. Let's see what you do with it.

How '07 ABC Interview Tilted a Torture Debate

Brian Stelter, NYT

April 27, 2009

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government’s use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

[Snip]

His claims — unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs  and newspapers — have been sharply contradicted by a newly declassified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.”

Some critics say that the now-discredited information shared by Mr. Kiriakou and other sources heightened the public perception of waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique. “I think it was sanitized by the way it was described” in press accounts, said John Sifton, a former lawyer for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.

Update: Glenn Greenwald has more information about the widespread media falsehoods about waterboarding and the role Brian Ross, whose original interview of Kiriakou got the misinformation started, has played in disseminating additional falsehoods about Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Mr. President, Don't Let Former Bush Officials "Take You For a Buggy Ride"

For those readers who are not familiar with the old expression -  "taken for a buggy ride," let me explain. The expression means basically to be fooled or played for a sucker. The first time I heard this expression used was in the wonderful Frank Capra movie "It Happened One Night". In that movie when Clark Gable's character met the father of Claudette Colbert's character, he was under the mistaken belief that Colbert didn't love him and that she had just been playing him for a sucker. The father, unlike Gable's character, knew full well that his daughter really did love Gable.

Here is some of the dialogue from that delightful scene:

Gable: Did anybody ever make a sucker out of you? 

It's a matter of principle. You probably wouldn't understand. 

When anybody takes me for a buggy ride, I don't like paying for the privilege. 

Father: Were you taken for a buggy ride? 

Gable: Yes. With all the trimmings. 

 

Now what  does being taken for a "buggy ride" have to do with President Obama?

In today's Wall Street Journal they're reporting that there are still "top officials" who don't want the public to find out all of the details in the Bush interrogation tactic memos, even though Obama has promised that in his administration we will have transparency in government.

[Snip]

The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public, according to people familiar with the discussions.These people cautioned that President Barack Obama is still reviewing internal arguments over the release of Justice Department memorandums related to CIA interrogations, and how much information will be made public is in flux.

[Snip] 

A decision to keep secret key parts of the three 2005 memos outlining legal guidance on CIA interrogations would anger some Obama supporters who have pushed him to unveil now-abandoned Bush-era tactics. It would also go against the views of Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Counsel Greg Craig, people familiar with the matter said. Top CIA officials have spoken out strongly against a full release, saying it would undermine the agency's credibility with foreign intelligence services and hurt the agency's work force, people involved in the discussions said. However,Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair favors releasing the information, current and former senior administration officials said.

Reading between the lines of the WSJ story it's pretty clear that the "top officials" in question are former Bush officials still at the CIA,  the guilible Mr. Panetta, former Bush officials outside the administration and most likely former Bush CIA official and now Deputy National-Security Adviser, John Brennan. 

So what we have here are Bush holdovers and other Bush officials, who were involved in the Bush torture operation, that are now trying to take Obama for the same good old fashioned buggy ride that the easily fooled Mr. Panetta has obviously already taken because he's now arguing that the CIA should not be held accountable for torture. Yeah, they're trying to play him for a sucker, all right. Look at what the WSJ says about their arguments for why Obama shouldn't release the full memos.

 

[Snip]

Intelligence officials also believe that making the techniques public would give al Qaeda a propaganda tool just as the administration is stepping up its fight against the terrorist group in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some former administration officials have also argued that releasing all the memos could help terrorists train to endure the most extreme interrogation techniques.

[Snip]

People familiar with the matter said some senior intelligence advisers to the president raised fears that releasing the two most sensitive memos could cause the Obama administration to be alienated from the CIA's rank and file, as happened during the Bush administration when Porter Goss, who was unpopular among CIA officers, headed the agency.

For them to say that releasing these memos would provide Al Qaeda with a propaganda tool is simply outrageous. Releasing memos that officially confirm what we already know about interrogation techniques, and that incidently we aren't even supposedly using anymore, won't help Al Qaeda but it sure worries those high officials who are concerned about being prosecuted for their own role in the Bush torture program. And if those specious arguments they made aren't bad enough, they are also cynically using the rank and file CIA as tools to manipulate a new president into buying into their little coverup.

You'll notice that each of these "reasons" they offer share one thing in common - each of them represent the same "playing the fear card" routine that former V.P. Cheney is so fond of using whenever he doesn't have a good argument to make. It's so obvious what they're doing that it's amazing that Obama would even listen to one word of it much less think that it's a valid argument worthy of being "reviewed."

I sure hope the rabid Obama supporters who cheer his every move, no matter what he does, are right and that he will actually see through this transparent attempt by former Bush officials to cover their own behinds. But I'm afraid that Obama is so enamored of the idea of bi-partisanship that instead of standing up for principle and doing what is right, that he is willing to entertain this disingenous subterfuge as a legitmate concern. My guess is that those former Bush officials probably think that too, which is why they haven't given up on trying to take him for that "buggy ride".

Update: Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic also thinks Obama is too focused on bi-partisanship.

Politically, this might be one of those situations where Obama is trying to please all his allies, when he can't possibly. So he's trying to compromise with people he wants to maintain good relations with where no compromise is possible. 

I predict that if Obama doesn't release all the memos, the left will start to really hammer him on torture proceedings, state secrets privilege and his quiet evolution on the Patriot Act. Most have held back on this front, but this will make them feel abandoned and thus less restrained.

Washington Post Loses Focus

Monday night I read a story in the Washington Post called :

Medical Officers Violated Ethics While Overseeing Interrogations, Red Cross Says

Once I clicked on that title it took me to the actual story that curiously had a different headline with a different focus: 

Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment 'Inhuman'

Yesterday morning when I got up I  decided to check the story again to see if more comments had been added by the readers. But when I looked for the story called Medical Officers Violated Ethics While Overseeing Interrogations, Red Cross says, I couldn't find it.  I saw the link to the story called Report Calls CIA Treatment 'Inhuman' that I'd seen the night before but there was no longer a storywith the Red Cross headline. I finally discovered that the reason I couldn't find this headline was because it had been replaced in the wee hours of the morning with this bland sounding headline that had nothing to do with the critical role medical professionals played in Bush era interrogations.

CIA Detainee Treatment Assailed 

(the link to the CIA Detainee Treatment Assailed story takes you to the story called Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment 'Inhuman')

Leaving aside the confusing use of multiple headlines for one story I decided to read the article again so I could see if they eliminated the information about the ethically challenged medical people when they eliminated the earlier headline. What I discovered was that the information about the medical people was still in the story but that extra paragraphs had been added to the piece overnight that caused the focus of the story to shift.  It was no longer a story focused on Medical officers violating medical ethics by participating in interrogations, as it originally was, but the story now focused more on the CIA. 

The new paragraphs that were added were not essential to the original story but were essential in allowing the CIA the opportunity to deflect attention away from the ICRC report itself.  For instance, there was a sentence added to the original piece that now quoted an ICRCspokesperson saying:

An ICRC spokesman confirmed the authenticity of the document and said the organization"deplores that what was to be a confidential report has been made public."

The insertion of this new statement by the ICRC, while fine in and of itself really appeared to be inserted in the story specifically to provide backup for the absurd new CIA statement that had also been added to the story: 

The CIA declined yesterday to comment on the report, citing the Red Cross's own policy of maintaining the confidentiality of its reports. But spokesman Mark Mansfield noted that the agency had long since ended the controversial interrogation program.

Prior to the ICRC statement being added to the story there was an old quote from an anonymous U.S. official that was used instead of the “new” quote by Mark Mansfield above. 

The CIA had no immediate comment on the report. Previously, top Bush administration officials defended the interrogation methods, saying they were legal and necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. A U.S. official, commenting on a leak of portions of the report in March, said: "It is important to bear in mind that the report lays out claims made by the terrorists themselves

Another added paragraph gave Mr. Mansfield more opportunity to use the “looking forward, not backward” Obama administration mantra to spin the story without him having to comment on the actual charges in the report.  

"Director [Leon] Panetta has taken decisive steps to ensure that the CIA abides by the president's executive orders. That means CIA will not use interrogation techniques outside the Army Field Manual," he said. He noted that Panetta also has stated repeatedly that "no one who took actions based on legal guidance from the Department of Justice at the time should be investigated, let alone punished."

After the statement by Mr. Mansfield that “no one who took actions based on legal guidance from the Department of Justice at the time should be investigated, let alone punished” this sentence from the original story was inserted:

Previously, top Bush administration officials defended the interrogation methods, saying they were legal and necessary to prevent terrorist attacks.

And finally, after the Obama administration and Bush administration defense statements were inserted into the story we see this new paragraph almost at the end of the story:

*The report's release puts added pressure on the Obama administration, which has banned the use of waterboarding and similar techniques but has resisted calls *to conduct legal inquiries to determine whether Bush administration officials broke laws.

* Note: even though the piece stated that the release of the ICRC report puts added pressure on the Obama administration, it never mentions the fact that the ICRC actually called for investigations and punishment in their report.

The story ends with a new paragraph that actually should have appeared in the original version that focused on medical people; however, the placement of this paragraph in the revised story is very odd. Why would they include this relevant paragraph but do it in a way where it seems quite out of place in the revised story? It looks like it was inserted almost as an afterthought?  

The presence of medical personnel at CIA interrogation sites has been reported previously, but ICRC investigators found that their participation in some of the more harsh episodes to be a severe breach of medical ethics. The report said the officials were enlisted to ensure that the detainees did not die or suffer irreparable damage.

Now after seeing the headlines and content change in the story what is a Washington Post reader to make of all of this? If you’re a reader like me, who has previously documented where the Washington Post downplayed serious charges about torture, like my General Taguba  piece on this blog, then you are very suspicious about how a story about the unethical medical conduct documented by the ICRC somehow morphed into a story that was more scattershot in its focus. 

My first thought was that the Post was trying to downplay the complicity of medical personnel in the Bush interrogation program. And then it dawned on me after reading the following  comments in a piece by  Daniel Froomkin   that appeared in his excellent blog  at the Washington Post:  

News stories this morning dwell on the report's finding that medical personnel at the prisons took part in the torture of detainees, in gross violation of both their own professional ethics and international law (except for the Post).

But the report, which was based on interviews with the 14 "high value" detainees transferred from the secret prisons to Guantanamo in September 2006, also raises and expresses "grave concerns" about a very significant unanswered question: What happened to all the other detainees who passed through the secret CIA prisons who we still don't know about?

Froomkin also cited other news that came out of the ICRC report:

Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald calls attention to the report's demand "that the US authorities investigate all allegations of ill-treatment and take steps to punish the perpetrators, where appropriate." Writes Greenwald: "Yet Obama's handpicked CIA Director, Leon Panetta, continues to demand that there be no investigations of any kind, let alone prosecutions."

Scott Horton blogs for Harper's: "The Red Cross does not reach quickly to an 'investigate and punish' recommendation. That happens only where the evidence of criminal conduct is manifest. And it was in this case. They use the word 'torture' repeatedly, without equivocation or qualification....

"The question...is for the Obama Administration: why has Eric Holder blocked the criminal investigation that a proper understanding of his duties would lead him to initiate?"

So based upon the information presented by Froomkin I no longer believe that the Post was just trying to downplay the ICRC's documentation of  medical ethics violations when they added the CIA "CYA" paragraphs. I now believe that The Post was actually trying to downplay the entire ICRC report.

Instead of covering the multiple lines of inquiry that were contained in the report, which would require several stories, the Post was attempting to write one story to cover the entire report. And because of this they ended up having a very schizophrenic story that didn’t know if it was about medical ethics violations, a story about the overall CIA “interrogation” program or a story that was about the ICRC calling for investigations into the Bush interrogation program. 

But perhaps I'm being too hard on the Post. Perhaps I'm allowing my memory of how they treated the Taguba accusations of torture  to color my perception of the Warrick/Tate story. Perhaps this was not a deliberate attempt to downplay the ICRC report, as I suspect, but was nothing more than someone being asleep at the wheel when they allowed this mishmash of a story to be published in the first place. 

In fact, I actually hope I’m wrong  because I think Washington Post readers, like me, are desperate to see the Post do a more in-depth story about the medical personnel angle than was touched on in the schizophrenic Joby Warrick and Julie Tate piece and in this short AP story that the Post also published. We want to see more of the fantastic investigative pieces like Dana Priest did on the CIA Black Sites but we also want to see good everday reporting that doesn't just rely on the comments from the usual suspects. For instance where was the comment from the AMA or other medical organizations in the Warrick/Tate story? Why only comments from the CIA?

What people like me want to see from the Post  is evidence of the “major focus”  on the torture issue that Scott Wilson said the Post supported when he held his Post chat today. 

 

New York, NY: Now that the Red Cross torture report is out, it's clear that the U.S. tortured multiple prisoners with multiple banned techniques. And it's been going on for years. By refusing to investigate the parties involved in instituting this program, and even actively invoking claims like the "state secrets privilege" to shield any possibility of a reckoning, isn't the Obama Administration also implicating themselves? Why else would they use the same extreme claims of executive power, in some cases more so, to facilitate this ongoing cover-up? Also: Are any intrepid WaPo reporters digging into this topic, or is it editorially verboten?

Scott Wilson: We've been writing about it extensively for years - we're the paper that brought you the CIA black sites - and are doing so now. It's a major focus for us.