Threat Levels Politicized

Yeah, nobody predicted that this was the case:

Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security, asserts in a new book that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national threat level just before the 2004 election in what he suspected was an effort to influence the vote.

After Osama bin Laden released a threatening videotape four days before the election, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed Mr. Ridge to elevate the public threat posture but he refused, according to the book. Mr. Ridge calls it a “dramatic and inconceivable” event that “proved most troublesome” and reinforced his decision to resign.

Honestly, wouldn't it have been more of a surprise if Ridge had produced definitive evidence that this has never happened?

And speaking of Bush-era mendacity, the NY Times appears to have uncovered the reason that the CIA and Bush administration was so secretive about that Al Qaeda assassination program; they were paying Blackwater security contractors to help them with it:

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

Uh, yeah. Because as opaque as the CIA's activities in Iraq are, Blackwater is even worse. Though I'm pretty sure that such was also considered a plus of the program by the CIA and Bush officials.

About That

Anybody know our former President Bush's e-mail address? I have an article I'd like to send him:

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region."

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but the invasion of Iraq was completely unjustified.

Still on track...

The beginning of the end:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Monday that the country's "dark days" of violence have passed, and that improved security will allow U.S. combat troops to withdraw from cities as promised by the end of this month.

Gen. Ray Odierno had said as recently as March that U.S. troops might stay in restive areas such as the northern city of Mosul if the Iraqi government requested their help. Odierno said Monday that he feels "much more comfortable with the situation in Mosul now."

"The improvements in security have allowed for this moment," he said. "The dark days of the previous years are behind us."

Under the Iraqi-U.S. security pact that went into effect at the beginning of the year, U.S. combat troops are required to be out of the cities by June 30. The agreement does provide some flexibility, allowing for the Iraqi government to request that U.S. combat forces remain in cities beyond the deadline.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other officials have insisted the June 30 deadline must be respected. Some U.S. servicemembers will stay in cities as advisers, though Odierno declined to say exactly how many.

Almost all U.S. marines in Iraq will be out by spring of next year as well (though many are being sent to Afghanistan). Then, per President Obama's order, the rest of combat troops will be out of Iraq by August 31st, 2010. The status of forces agreement worked out with the Bush administration requires all troops to be out by December 31st, 2011, but that could potentially be moved up considerably:

As the U.S. military continues its slow withdrawal from Iraq, the Iraqi people face a decision that might force those efforts into overdrive.

A referendum scheduled for July 30 would give Iraqis the chance to vote for or against the Iraqi-U.S. security agreement that calls for all American troops to leave Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

If the referendum goes ahead as scheduled and Iraqi voters reject the agreement — a likely outcome, observers say — the United States would be obliged to pull out troops one year after the vote, or nearly 1½ years before the deadline set by the pact.

This is pretty big news (but I haven't seen much commentary on it outside this blog), since it would mean that all U.S. forces would have to be out one month ahead of the time when President Obama had given to withdraw just our combat troops. The cabinet is calling for the vote to be delayed until next January, but that has yet to be approved by the Iraqi parliament which approved a $99 million appropriation to stage the vote.

As Xanthippas noted earlier, few Iraqi politicians want to go against this even if they think it would be better for U.S. troops to remain longer and give more time for their security forces to take over (especially with the recent flare-ups in violence). I'm not sure if the timing is right or not, but honestly, I don't think I'll find myself complaining too much if the Iraqis want to kick us out sooner...

Wednesday Morning Round-Up

1. Iraq is moving ahead with a referendum on the Iraq-US security agreement. Such is the perils of democracy. Though Iraqi leaders would almost certainly prefer American troops stay in the country, they can't afford to oppose the referendum in an election year.

2. The Obama administration signals that they may move away from a policy of isolation with the regime in Burma. Since that hasn't worked to date, I think it's worth trying something new.

3. The Senate is moving ahead with a bill that would give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products.

4. A profile of the guard killed in yesterday's shooting at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. It would be interesting to ask the murderer what he thought he might accomplish with his act, though fanatics always seem to have a grander view of their place in the world than most of the rest of us do. I visited the museum when I was at law school in D.C., and was surprised at the heavy security required to enter the museum. Now I understand.

5. Some local news: Dallas County meals on wheels needs help. They don't need your money, so much as they need volunteers to deliver meals so they won't have to pay drivers to do so. If you'd like to help, more information is here. Also, local residents know about the odd series of minor earthquakes the area has experienced in recent months. Scientists at SMU hope to get to the bottom of the mystery.

6. Two mentally disabled men in Texas have (separately) been given ridiculously long sentences for molesting young children. Even the jury in Hart's case was shocked by the 100-year sentence the man, reported to have an IQ of roughly 47, received. The question I would like to ask the prosecutors in this case is, if both men are reported to have IQs themselves that are roughly equivalent to those of young children, why are they sentenced as if they were fully functioning adults? And, the Hart story points out, repeat sex offenders routinely receive shorter sentences than these men did, which raises the question of whether there is some discrimination against the mentally disabled going on here, at least in my mind.

7. Perhaps you heard about the collapse of the Cowboy's practice facility in Valley Ranch, Irving, last month that paralyzed a Cowboys scouting assistant? It appears the Cowboys knew of a similar incident involving a canopy built by the contractor they hired. While this isn't exactly proof of negligence on the Cowboys part, it sure does make it easier to add the Cowboys to the lawsuit that I'm sure is being contemplated against the contractor.

"The War Between the Sunnis and Shiites is Now Over"

A lot of us are fretting the rise in bombings in Iraq as of late portends a resumption of the bitter civil war between Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis. Nir Rosen says in an article from a few weeks back that however it's the exact opposite; that in fact the war is over, and Sunni militants stand no chance against the powerful Iraqi central government:

The prevailing order in Iraq today is a Shiite-dominated one, but the balance of power is not divided along exclusively sectarian lines: it is between those close to the state and those without its backing – as some wags put it, between the “powers that be” and the “powers that aren’t”. Maliki has pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy among Sunnis, rewarding some local leaders with prestige and privileges while arresting or crushing others. Many Sunnis are more than willing to accept an authoritarian prime minister in exchange for a reduction in violence.

What has not followed the drop in violence is a political settlement: for the past year analysts have worried that the failure to disarm or integrate the Sunni Awakening groups into the state risked sowing the seeds of a new insurgency. But the tepid response to the arrest of Mashhadani and other Awakening men suggests that a political reconciliation may not have been necessary. The burgeoning Iraqi state, embodied by Maliki himself, can simply continue to expand its power and crush any rivals. One US Army Iraq expert, who worked closely with General David Petraeus to plan and implement the surge, told me in 2008 that the civil war would end when the Shiites realised they had won and the Sunnis realised they had lost. Based on the conversations I had during a trip through Iraq last month, both sides seem to accept that this is the case.

[...]

In September 2008 Maliki – in a concession to the Americans – issued an order calling for the integration of 20 per cent of the eligible Awakening men into the ministries of defence and interior. The following month the government of Iraq began to assume responsibility (financial and otherwise) over the Awakening groups. But as of today less than five per cent have joined the Iraqi Security Forces. At the same time, senior Awakening leaders and many of their men have been arrested, while others have been relieved of their duties (and their pay) and told to go home. It is a quiet and slow process, but one that continues to emasculate one of the last groups that rivalled the authority of the Iraqi state.

There is nothing the Awakening groups can do. As guerrillas and insurgents they were only effective when they operated covertly, underground, blending in among a Sunni population that has now mostly been dispersed. Now the former resistance fighters-turned-paid guards are publicly known, and their names, addresses and biometric data are in the hands of American and Iraqi forces. They cannot return to an underground that has been cleared, and they still face the wrath of radical Sunnis who view them as traitors. They have failed to unite and as their stories demonstrate, they are on the run.

[...]

A spate of bombings followed the clashes in Fadhil, giving rise to more concern about a return to sectarian conflict. Shiite neighbourhoods in Baghdad were struck by coordinated car bombs, and attacks against American soldiers, Iraqi Security Forces and Awakening members also increased.

Some of these attacks may represent a warning by Awakening leaders that they can still obstruct American goals in Iraq; they are more likely an opportunistic attempt by al Qa’eda-like groups to take advantage of Sunni grievances and provoke further violence. But there is little prospect for another outbreak of war: today there is no area controlled by al Qa’eda in Iraq, and it does not appear likely the group can seize any territory.

The remaining Awakening men have burnt their bridges with their more radical former allies and are now hunted by them; the Iraqi Security Forces have improved their intelligence and strike capability and have little problem tracking those men they want to arrest. Sunni civilians have no interest in backing a new insurgency after their own bitter experience – and they no longer feel targeted by Shiite militias.

The occasional al Qa’eda suicide attack can still kill masses of innocent civilians, but it has no strategic impact; in fact it is difficult to understand what motivates such attacks today, since their effect is almost nil. It would be naive to say that Iraq’s future is certain, or even likely, to be a peaceful one, but the war between Sunnis and Shiites is now over.

Perhaps so, but it's true that there are those in Iraq who are not convinced yet that they lost the war, and another bombing in Baghdad today that killed 35 people is evidence of their intransigence. So what's happening? No one knows, but it's clear that more Iraqis will die, either in slightly greater numbers than we've witnessed in the past year and a half, or in much greater numbers. And that even if the latter is the case, there's not a whole hell of a lot we're going to be doing about it. It's amazing to me the way in which Iraq has in a very short period of time-from about last summer until now-assumed second-order importance when compared with Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is partly because the situation has worsened so dramatically in such short time in the two countries (and especially in Pakistan, where the army is presently fighting the Taliban in Swat province) but it's also certainly because of a dramatic turn in the political winds here brought on by the dramatic downturn in violence in Iraq and a political transition here at home. Whatever Iraq's future may be, I think it's safe to say that we are everyday becoming a smaller part of it.

Yes, They Tortured For That Link

Remember the McClatchy article I blogged about a few weeks ago, wherein in a senior U.S. intelligence official claimed that there was pressure from Cheney and Rumsfeld to extract intelligence from detainees "proving" a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda in the run-up to the invasion, and how this echoed a claim made by Army psychologist to the Senate Armed Services Committee? Well, Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff of the Department of State during Powell's term, took to the virtual pages of Steve Clemons' Washington Note on Wednesday to reiterate this claim (and blast Cheney generally in the process):

...what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts.

Emphasis mine. Wilkerson has gotten some pushback on his claim regarding the timing of al-Libi's torture, but in his response to Specner Ackerman regarding that he stands by the substance of his story:

As Joscelyn writes, the DIA indeed filed a February 2002 notice indicating distrust for al-Libi’s claims about Iraq assisting al-Qaeda’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. “It is more likely that this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers,” a DIA report known as DITSUM #044-02 reads. “Ibn al-Shaykh [al-Libi] has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may describing [sic] scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.” Yet al-Libi’s dubious information made its way into the intelligence bloodstream, all the way up to Colin Powell’s since-discredited 2003 speech to the United Nations justifying the invasion — the first draft of which had a big assist from Cheney’s office, including then-chief of staff Scooter Libby. In March 2004, after the invasion, the CIA withdrew its support for al-Libi’s claims.

Joscelyn wrote, “It is doubtful that any part of Wilkerson’s story is true.” I asked Wilkerson if he wished to respond.

If their account is the accurate one, explain to me why Tenet and McLaughlin [then the director and deputy director of the CIA] came to Secretary Powell in February 2003–yes, 2003–with the information about al-Libi as if it were fresh as the morning dew. Powell was ready to throw out almost everything Tenet had given him on the contacts of Baghdad with terrorists, particularly al-Qa’ida. Suddenly, on 1 Feb, there was the shocking revelation of a high-level al-Qa’ida operative who had just revealed significant contacts between al-Qa’ida and Baghdad. Powell changed his mind and that information went into his presentation to the [United Nations Security Council] on 5 Feb 2003. We were never told of the DIA dissent.

So essentially, Wilkerson is claiming that Tenet and McLaughlin either concealed (or less likely, didn't know about) the Defense Intelligence Agency's claims that al-Libi's information couldn't be trusted when they made their presentation to Powell a year after the DIA's report.  Does that sound like an unbelievable proposition to you? Yeah, me neither. 

As I said on my earlier post on this issue, Bush administration officials were complicit in the illegal torture of a detainee because they wanted intelligence that would justify a war of aggression against Iraq. How is this not a war crime?

Friday Morning National Security News

Things you should be reading:

1. Yesterday suicide bombers killed eighty Iraqis in three separate attacks. Today at least sixty more residents of Baghdad have died in two suicide bombings. It's stating the obvious to say that this raises concerns that progress on the security front is being undermined. So far, nobody really seems to understand what's prompted the new attacks.

2. Pakistan's Taliban insurgency is worsening. Fighters from neighboring Swat moved into the Buner district earlier this week, only seventy miles from the capital of Pakistan Islamabad. The Pakistani government responded by sending police forces to the district, who were promptly repelled by the militants, and other reports indicate that Taliban forces have moved into districts even closer to the capitol. Al Jazeera reports that the Taliban are now pulling their fighters out of Buner, but none of this encourages American officials to believe that Pakistan is capable of dealing with their home grown Taliban insurgency...or securing their nuclear weapons against those fighters.

3. The Washington Post reports that the debate within the Obama administration over whether to release four OLC memos was intense. One of the arguments against releasing them was surely the political furor that the move has provoked. The Obama administration says they intend to oppose any investigation in torture by Congress, a move that some Democratic members are pushing for.

4. The Jane Harman story grows even more troubling with the revelation that then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales intervened to prevent then director of the CIA Porter Goss from informing members of Congress that one of their own had been captured on an NSA wiretap speaking with an agent of Israeli government, and that Gonzales also intervened to quash any investigation of the matter by the FBI. All of this was done allegeldy so the administration could continue to count on Harman's help in protecting the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program (and on that score, Harman didn't disappoint.) My only question is...how long do we have to wait to get rid of her?

Obama Administration to Release More Photos of Detainee Abuse

I'm genuinely surprised by this move:

The Obama administration agreed late Thursday to release dozens of photographs depicting alleged abuse by U.S. personnel during the Bush administration of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At least 44 pictures will be released on May 28 -- making public for the first time images of what the military investigated as abuse that took place at facilities other than the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Defense officials would not say exactly what is contained in the photos, but said they are concerned that the release could incite a backlash in the Middle East.

The photos are apparently not as shocking as the photographs from the Abu Ghraib investigation that became a lasting symbol of U.S. mistakes in Iraq. But some show military service members intimidating or threatening detainees by pointing weapons at them. Military officers have been court-martialed for threatening detainees at gunpoint.

Now as near as I can tell from this article, the release of the photos is prompted by an ACLU lawsuit. But of course, the Obama administration could simply do what the Bush administration did and refuse to disclose the photos, or fight a court order for years, or simply lose or destroy the photos. So the question is, why is Obama agreeing to release these photos now? It's not as if the furor over the most recent torture revelations will have died down in a month. Is he doing it because he feels it's necessary to air our dirty laundry so we can move on after having a full public accounting of our practices in the war on terror? Does he want to fan the ardor those calling for the prosecution of Bush administration officials (albeit in a back-handed way)? Or does he sincerely believe that the right thing for the government to do is release even the most politically inconvenient information when it's required by law? I'm genuinely puzzled; eight years of Bush malfeasance and Democratic ineptitude has conditioned me to expect the worse I suppose.

Torture Is Useful

A passage from the Time story that I linked to last night:

The final irony: the torture techniques around which the SERE training was devised were used by Chinese interrogators during the Korean War, not to gather actionable intelligence but to force false confessions from captured U.S. soldiers — confessions that could then be used in anti-American propaganda.

Well, not that ironic:

The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

[...]

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that intelligence agencies and interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubeida at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.

"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

The article also includes this quote from Army psychiatrist Maj. Charles Bunney, taken from the Armed Services Committee report released last night:

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

Throughout history torture has been employed to coerce false confessions. Many times that has been it's exact purpose. The torturers frequently insist that what they have acquired from the torture victim is the truth, even if that truth happens to be what the torturers have wanted to hear all along. This was no different. Senior Bush administration officials wanted a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq because that would help to justify the invasion. They believed that the link existed, and they had detainees in our custody tortured to "prove" it. So, our elected and appointed officials employed torture illegally, to justify a war of aggression that had no basis in legitimate national security concerns. It is not possible to conclude that these are anything other than war crimes, and war crimes of an egregious nature; the sort that would result in a trial at the Hague and lengthy prison sentences were we talking about leaders of a smaller, less powerful nation than ours. Such is unlikely in this case because frankly, only the leaders of two-bit nations end up on trial at the Hague for war crimes. But if we fail to investigate torture fully, and prosecute those who authorized it's use, then a grave injustice will go unpunished and our nation will be the lesser for it.

More Torture Revelations

You may recall that in December, the Senate Armed Services Committee released an executive summary containing the key conclusions of a report the committee authored on the treatment of terrorist suspects in American custody, specifically, the use of torture against those suspect detainees. This evening the Committee has released the full report, which provides more detail than ever about how the methods of torture used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay (and later against detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan) evolved and proliferated. I haven't yet read the full report myself (it totals 232 pages) but already the report is being processed by various media outlets. Time has a relatively short (but informative) summary here, which is as good a place to start as any. But for the best break down of the report I recommend Spencer Ackerman, who explains exactly how officials at the Pentagon "reverse-engineered" techniques first developed to train U.S. military personnel to resist torture, techniques which they then went on to apply detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Throughout it all, it becomes clear that senior Bush administration officials were well aware of what was going on. Says Democrat Carl Levin of the report's conclusions:

“The record established by the Committee’s investigation shows that senior officials sought out information on, were aware of training in, and authorized the use of abusive interrogation techniques,” Levin said. “Those senior officials bear significant responsibility for creating the legal and operational framework for the abuses. As the Committee report concluded, authorizations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody.”

Coincidentally (I presume) the NY Times published an article today which reveals the apparent thoughtlessness with which senior officials of the Bush administration approved these various torture techniques, without-amazingly-ever being quite aware that many of these techniques were descended from methods that the Chinese used to extract false confessions from American prisoners during the Korean War:

Overwhelmed with reports of potential threats and anguished that the agency had failed to stop the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet and his top aides did not probe deeply into the prescription Dr. Mitchell so confidently presented: using the SERE tactics on Qaeda prisoners.

A little research on the origin of those methods would have given reason for doubt. Government studies in the 1950s found that Chinese Communist interrogators had produced false confessions from captured American pilots not with some kind of sinister “brainwashing” but with crude tactics: shackling the Americans to force them to stand for hours, keeping them in cold cells, disrupting their sleep and limiting access to food and hygiene.

“The Communists do not look upon these assaults as ‘torture,’ ” one 1956 study concluded. “But all of them produce great discomfort, and lead to serious disturbances of many bodily processes; there is no reason to differentiate them from any other form of torture.”

Worse, the study found that under such abusive treatment, a prisoner became “malleable and suggestible, and in some instances he may confabulate.”

[...]

One former senior intelligence official who played an important role in approving the interrogation methods said he had no idea of the origins and history of the SERE program when the C.I.A. started it in 2002.

“The agency was counting on the Justice Department to fully explore all the factors contributing to a judgment about legality, including the surrounding history and context,” the official said.

But it was the C.I.A. that was proposing the methods, and John Yoo, the Justice Department official who was the principal author of a secret August 2002 memorandum that authorized the interrogation program, was mostly interested in making a case that the president’s wartime powers allowed for the harsh tactics.

In other words, the OLC gave the CIA exactly what they wanted, which was basically permission to employ whatever techniques they thought they needed to against the detainees. I think it's appropriate to excerpt this snippet from Brian Tamahana's post regarding the circular reasoning of the OLC memos:

Here is the circularity in the analysis: Time and again the OLC memos conclude that the use of these interrogation techniques do not amount to the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental suffering (the torture standard) based upon the CIA’s own finding that these techniques don’t cross that line. But that is precisely the legal question the CIA (purportedly) is posing to the OLC: Do the interrogation techniques violate the anti-torture statute?

Presumably, the OLC cannot answer the legal question by relying upon the CIA’s own determination that these techniques do not violate the torture statute. That is, however, exactly the analysis in the torture memos. This circularity is explicit in the following passage (March 10 memo), opining on the combination of sleep deprivation with other techniques:

This possibility [that sleep deprivation reduces pain tolerance] suggests that use of extended sleep deprivation in combination with other techniques might be more likely than the separate use of the techniques to place the detainee in a state of severe physical distress and, therefore, that the detainee might be more likely to experience severe physical suffering. However, you [CIA] have informed us that the interrogation techniques at issue would not be used during a course of extended sleep deprivation with such frequency and intensity as to induce in the detainee a persistent condition of extreme physical distress such as may constitute ‘severe physical suffering’ within the meaning of sections 2340-2340A.

To summarize the above passage: the OLC concluded—as a legal matter—that the CIA’s combination of techniques does not violate the torture statute based upon the CIA’s assurance that it combines the techniques in a way that does not violate the torture statute. It doesn’t get more circular than that.

Of course, this was all possible because the conclusion was already pre-ordained; the OLC's job was merely to find a way to "legalize" it all. The Bush administration "knew" that torture would work, so there was really no need to debate the issue; especially not with CIA Director George Tenet running around claiming that Al Qaeda was getting ready to deply biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. They just needed the methods, and they needed somebody to say that it was legal to employ them. And they got both, without too much trouble, and without any messy inquiry into whether the approved techniques were actually useful in getting real information out of detainees (as opposed to just convincing them to say whatever the interrogator wanted to hear)or whether there was actually any legal precedent that argued against the use of torture.

I think it's also interesting to note from both Spencer Ackerman and the NY Times' stories how eager some SERE interrogators and psychologists were to get in on the action, only to balk at the various methods being employed in the coming months and years. But the genie was already out of the bottle at that point, and the methods they had helped to devise were already being employed in places as far away as Abu Ghraib and Bagram and, presumably, the CIA's secret detention facilities the world over.

If this can be easily summarized in anyway, it would be to say that Pentagon staffers, members of the military, and agents and contractors for the CIA and the DOD, put much thought, time and consideration into the exact methods of torture they would employ against recalcitrant detainees. Senior members of the Bush administration on the other hand, did not. And thus were terrorists suspects being detained indefinitely in various facilities and black sites around the world tortured in the name of national security. 

Thursday Morning Links

There's a lot of interesting stuff to read this morning.

1. More troubling violence in Iraq, as sixteen Iraqi soldiers die in a suicide attack in Anbar province.

2. This is very interesting; George Mitchell, U.S. Middle East envoy, is in Israel today. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Obama administration will communicate to Israel that they intend to link the issue of Iran's nuclear program to illegal Israeli settlements. As in, if Israel wants help with Iran, they're going to have to make concessions on settlement activity. That message probably won't go over very well.

3. More on the "truce" with the Taliban in Swat: unsurprisingly, militants who pledged to surrender their arms...aren't.

4. Science news: researchers report setbacks in their explorations of the genetic underpinnings of many inherited diseases. Apparently, it's impossible to link some common conditions (like Schizophrenia) to one or two genetic markers. Scientists suspect that interactions between a countless number of genes can produce or make people vulnerable to disease, making it considerably more difficult to predict the possibility of disease in certain individuals, as well as fashion targeted treatments. Also, Nicholas Kristof (who's had some great columns recently) writes about recent research showing that the IQ's of poor children living in chaotic households suffers, and has suggestions for what we can do about that. And lastly, the "last voyage" of an astronaut whose job has been to tend the Hubble Space telescope, a scientific achievement that has made incalculable contributions to our understanding of the universe.

5. Jonathan Capehart dismisses the tired arguments for intolerance that underpin opposition to allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

6. Legislation that would create a new University of North Texas law school in Dallas passes the Texas Senate, but could face stiff opposition in the House. Despite the downturn in the legal market, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. North Texas could use a less expensive public law school, and unless we really are in the Great Depression II, the economy should improve in time for the first graduates of the school. Still, it seems like a difficult time to ask for money to produce lawyers who right now couldn't find jobs.

7. John Madden to retire after thirty years in the booth. Madden's an easy target for ridicule, but I've always liked his earnestness and his understanding of the game. Clearly the guy loves football, and has always done a good job of explaining the game to football amateurs like myself. He'll be missed.

8. Bonus music review: the new Metric album "Fantasies" came out on Tuesday. It's good. The hooks are catchier, the themes are gloomier, and song structure is tighter. I especially like the darker and fuzzier synth sounds, which give the album a somewhat more ambient feel. On other Metric albums I've found there's usually 2-3 good songs and a lot of filler. Not so here; all the songs are keepers. Anyway buy it, or listen to it here.

Obama Visiting Troops In Iraq

We don't really have a "pic of the day" segment around here, but this picture of Obama visiting the troops in Iraq is too good not to highlight.

Afternoon Links

Things worth reading:

1. An earthquake in Italy is estimated to have killed a hundred people so far, and left tens of thousands more homeless.

2. Florida: bringing back debtor's prison (sort of.)

3. Turkey: President Obama visits Turkey, calls Turkey an important ally, speaks of resolving the conflict over the Armenian genocide. Turkish PM Erdogan tells us to accept the reality of Hamas.

4. Thirty-three Iraqis die in coordinated car bombings in and around Baghdad.

5. The brain: Researchers are working on ways of "editing" memory. Scientists have also concluded that the stress of being poor alters the brains of children.

6. Secretary of Defense Gates proposes to make cuts to several big-ticket defense items. To which I say, we'll see about that.

7. President Obama aims for a world free of nuclear weapons.

8. Millions of shelter animals die, while morons buy designer "hybrid" breeds raised in appalling conditions.

9. Sports: Can Brazil's talented soccer player Marta revive women's soccer in the U.S.? Speaking of soccer, FC Dallas has stunk it up in the first three games of the season, losing all three while giving up seven goals and scoring only two. The Dallas Mavericks, as is typical in this up and down season,lost to a woeful Memphis team with less than half their win total on Friday night and then blew out similarly struggling Phoenix on Sunday. They are now one win or one Phoenix loss away from wrapping up the eight seed in the playoffs, and still-amazingly-in the hunt for the seventh seed, which they can get with some help from Utah. And the Texas Rangers open their season today with a game at home against Cleveland.

Morning Links

Stuff you should be reading this morning:

1. Iraq: another article on the gradual upswing in attacks, and the largely unabated violence in one of the last bastion's of the insurgency, Diyala Province.

2. Congressional watchdogs lament the lack of transparency and oversight regarding the handout of TARP funds. Economist Joseph Stiglitz condemn's the Obama administration's approach to the crisis on Wall Street, characterizing it as "ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses." Paul Krugman's saying the same, of course.

3. In a surprise move, AG Holder dismiss the Stevens indictment and says there will be no new trial. The Stevens conviction has fallen apart in the face of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

4. The World Health Organization warns of an impending "explosion" in cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

5. Michael Gerson at the Washington Post says Obama is losing Catholics over the issue of abortion, but unsurprisingly fails to note that American Catholics are as divided on the issue of abortion as non-catholics. As is typical among media pundits (especially those of the conservative ilk) an entire group is said to be represented by it's conservative members.

6. ADP, a payroll processor, reports that 724,000 jobs were lost in March.

7. The Economist opens it's new theme park, Econoland (h/t Josh Berthume.) All the horror of the modern world, only funnier.

8. In honor of the day, the top 10 greatest April Fools pranks in modern history.

9. The tabletop wargame Battletech celebrates it's 25th anniversary. Not that that's anything special to us, ahem.

Morning Links

1. Apparently all it takes to get published is 1) a title that makes an over-the-top claim 2) a thesis based on the most conventional of wisdom and the most superficial analysis of modern affairs and 3) a track record of publishing similar books.

2. Iran offers to help in Afghanistan, pledging reconstruction aid and assistance in stopping the drug trade.

3. Our ridiculous policies towards Cuba are finally being questioned on the Hill.

4. Samueal Johnson says that America cannot recover until the oligarchy that controls the financial sector is broken.

5. Are Taliban militants in Pakistan extending their reach beyond the tribal areas?

6. Iraq: another suicide bombing in Mosul. Iraqis fear that the present "peace" is merely the eye of the storm, and some are not prepared to lay their weapons down.

7. Israel closes its investigation into claims of atrocities in Gaza.

Afternoon Reading

Things to note in the world today:

1. Iraq: Sunni militia members in Baghdad revolted Saturday, prompted by the arrest of an Awakenings movement leader by Iraqi forces. The crisis was resolved, but it raises fears that the relationship between the government and Sunni militias-many of which are not being paid as promised-could be strained to the breaking point.

2. A profile of anti-tax nuts, many of whom never met a crazy legal argument they didn't like.

3. The Federal government says GM and Chrysler are not viable, and refuse to offer more aid. Bankruptcy looms for both companies.

4. Mexico faces extreme difficulty putting down the drug cartels, and critics are beginning to call for a change in approach.

5. The women's professional soccer league, version 2.0.

Early Afternoon Links

For your reading pleasure:

1. Obama's plan for Afghanistan: once again, the key appears to be figuring out what an administration means by "benchmarks."

2. Pakistan: suicide bomber kills upwards of fifty people in a mosque in Peshawar. Part of Baitullah Mehsud's campaign against the Pakistani government?

3. Iraq: U.S. forces are largely withdrawing from the cities as agreed upon, but may remain behind in areas where sectarian violence is still widespread, like Mosul.

4. Building nanobots...with DNA. Incredible.

5. How health care reform benefits small businesses.

6. Lawyer's should not be judged for who they represent...except when they worked for the tobacco companies, and were balls-deep in the tobacco companies' wrong-doing.

The "Dover Effect"

Fred Clark, on how it is that the concept of just war intersects neatly with whether or not a war can be won. As Clark explains, the precepts of just war handily keep us from fighting stupid wars as well.

Morning Links

For your reading pleasure:

1. The Treasury Dept. is set to announce new regulatory controls over previously unregulated financial transactions.

2. The Pentagon says in a new report that China is seeking to boost it's military's power and effectiveness. China says we need to chill out. In the meantime, China prepares to force Tibetans to celebrate "Serf Liberation Day", the 60th anniversary of the Chinese invasion of Tibet.

3. 16 die in a Baghdad bombing.

4. American cities are dealing with an increase in "shantytowns" as the number of homeless rise. Hollywood producers Peter Samuelson wants to give them something better than cardboard boxes to live in.

5. Secretary Clinton bluntly admits that the failed U.S. war on drugs has contributed to rising violence in Mexico.

6. American taxpayers are paying for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, if in a backhanded way.

7. New study says that most wrongful convictions in Texas stem from witness misidentification.

8. Lisa Falkenberg on Gov. Perry's stimulus fund logic (or lack thereof.)

9. The next American soccer star?

10. A question about student loan forgiveness tops the list at the new "ask the President" website.

Recommended Reading

Things for you to ponder:

1. States are cutting back on the number of non-violent offenders and parole violaters they lock up, not out of a sense of fairness and justice, but in an effort to save money. The juvenile justice system however, is a completely different story.

2. Texas, already a leader in wind power, aims to dominate the solar energy market as well. Two things we have in abundance are sun and open spaces, so this makes perfect sense.

3. The presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Sharon Keller, says it ain't her fault that the clerk's office closed before attorneys for Michael Richard could file a last-minute plea hoping to delay the convicted murderer's execution. Clearly, somebody isn't being exactly honest.

4. Obama and the "state secrets" privilege: the song has changed, but the lyrics remain the same. Though as far as I'm concerned blaming the White House for asserting "state secrets" to hide wrongdoing is like blaming a dog for chasing a car. The real culprit is the Supreme Court and host of federal court decisions wherein the judiciary has repeatedly abdicated it's role of oversight.

5. Iraq: In Baghdad, ethnic cleansing brought peace. In northern Iraq, Sunni Arabs and the Kurds may be gearing up for some ethnic cleansing of their own.