The Case Against Liz Cheney’s “Case”
A few months ago, Liz Cheney was making the media rounds trying to defend papa Cheney from accusations that he was ultimately responsible for authorizing the torture of detainees.
After taking a bit of a hiatus, she has reappeared to continue her “tour of lies.”
In the past, Liz Cheney has made some pretty outrageous statements in defense of her father, but now that the 2004 CIA report has been released, although heavily redacted, chances are she is going to make plenty more.
In this clip, not only does she say that waterboarding is not torture, but she essentially says it is legal to threaten someone by telling them that you are going to rape a female member of their family. Waterboarding is, of course torture, and threatening to rape a member of someone’s family is illegal.
After her appearance on ABC’s This Week, Liz Cheney and the other guests from the panel continued their discussion in the Green Room where Cheney proceeded to say:
You can look at all the documents that were released and you can see that people like Khalid Shiekh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, who went through the enhanced interrogation program provided us with information about attacks that we were able to stop that saved lives. That is indisputable at this point.
Liz Cheney is being deliberately dishonest when she claims that Mohammed and Zubaydah went through the enhanced interrogation program and provided vital information.
Take for example, Abu Zubaydah. According to NPR’s counterterrorism correspondent, Dina Temple-Raston, the chronology of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation does not bode well for the claims made by Dick and Liz Cheney.
Abu Zubaydah was the first high value target captured by the U.S. after 9/11, and was badly injured when he was taken into custody. FBI interrogators were the first ones to interrogate Zubaydah, and used what is referred to as rapport based techniques. This is where they actually try and form some sort of a relationship with the detainee by doing such things as treating him with respect, feeding him, taking care of his medical needs, etc.
After Zubaydah was nursed back to health, they began to show him pictures. It was through this act that the FBI was able to identify Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
A week or so after Zubaydah identified Mohammed, he tipped off the FBI to a young American who was in touch with Mohammed, and that this “Hispanic” kid was planning on coming to the U.S. for a mission. Through the information gleaned from Abu Zubaydah, using rapport based techniques, the FBI was able to identify and apprehend the so called “Dirty Bomber,” Jose Padilla. So it is clear that Mohammed and Padilla were both identified without the use of torture.
According to Temple-Raston, shortly after Padilla was identified, the CIA contractors took over the duties of interrogating Zubaydah. They proceeded to waterboard him 83 times. The torture techniques were so ineffective, that the CIA contractors actually called the FBI back in the hopes that they could reestablish the rapport they had previously built with Zubaydah.
Liz Cheney knows the following two facts to be true:
- Abu Zubaydah was tortured using the enhanced interrogation techniques.
- Abu Zubaydah was responsible for giving interrogators crucial pieces of information.
The problem that she runs into, and deliberately side steps, is what was the sequence in which these two events took place?
Clearly the information was attained before the torture was implemented, but as long as Cheney does not clarify the sequence of events, she can get away with saying that “the detainees that were tortured gave us the most information.”
Why is the Abu Zubaydah anecdote so crucial to the understanding the efficacy of torture? Abu Zubaydah, according to Temple-Raston, is the only detainee where there is a concrete time line established as to when torture techniques were implemented, and when information was gathered. No examples, as far as the documents that have been released thus far, show torture being a successful tactic in the gathering of information, and the 2004 CIA report that was just released, validates this fact.
Not only does the CIA report validate that torture is not an effective way to garner information, it also reinforces that the United States is morally opposed to the tactics used, regardless of what they are called. Here are some excerpts from the Inspector General’s report on CIA inerrogation tactics:
Measuring the effectiveness of EITs is a subjective process and not without concern. p.85
This review did not uncover any evidence that these plots were imminent. [This is in reference to attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan, attacking the tallest building in California, blowing up U.S. gas stations, and other attacks that were deemed "imminent" by the previous administration]. p.88
The EITs used by the Agency under the CTC [Counterterrorist Center] Program are inconsistent with the public policy positions that the United States has taken regarding human rights. p.91
As for Liz Cheney’s assertion that the techniques were not considered torture, even agents that were responsible for administering torture tactics knew that what they were doing was either illegal or immoral.
One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some “wanted list” to appear before the World Court for war crimes from activities [redacted]. p.94
Another [officer] said “Ten years from now we’re going to be sorry we’re doing this.” p.94
As the slow drip of information regarding the CIA interrogation tactics turns into a steady stream, it is becoming more apparent that this country has an obligation to not only investigate the CTC Program, but also prosecute. It is also imperative that they do not just prosecute the “low hanging fruit.” Attorney General Holder must follow this illicit behavior all the way up the chain of command, regardless of who that may include.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I don’t even know why the Cheney’s are even making a big deal about this. There is no way Holder would ever prosecute Cheney. He is going to go after the “low hanging fruit” as Che said. We can forget about the day when we see Darth Vader behind bars.
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August 31st, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Poops,
Can’t you just let us dream?
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August 31st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
We WILL see Cheney hang, either from our investigations or those of the ICC after we finish finding his cupability, but are too worried of the political ramifications.
Darth CHENEY will die at a human’s hand.
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August 31st, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Well written dissection and refutation of Dick the Pimp and Liz the Prostitute’s case for Torture. But, “simply stated, there is no doubt” the Pimp and Prostitute will continue to pump the media to defend the Cheney War Crimes.
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August 31st, 2009 at 3:37 pm
It is true that torture has not been proven effective, is illegal both under U.S. and international law, destroys our credibility and probably only serves to help Cheney and his GOP brethren feel like real men (since most avoided real combat when they had the chance.)
What most don’t seem to see is the slippery slope ‘enhanced interrogation’ policy puts us on. For instance, if someone accused Cheney of knowing that some right wing group was preparing to assassinate President Obama (like that wing nut pastor in AZ), should Dick be waterboarded, beaten and perhaps threatened with Liz’s rape in front of him to get him to spill the beans, that he may or may not possess. If he or Liz were to answer yes to that hypothetical, as the French would say, J’accuse!
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August 31st, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Cheney is a criminal. Enough said. After listening to the NPR interview that this post links to, I am 100% certain of this.
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September 1st, 2009 at 3:33 am
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September 1st, 2009 at 3:57 pm
McCain spoke truth, like no one else. Forget partisanship, and the ” Us VS Them” mentality… John McCain spoke honorably and truthfully as to what “certain criminals” in our highest elected officials allowed and condoned… and, after allowing our country to be attacked on 9/11 by dereliction of duty to our Nation. Yes Dick Cheney should be afraid. Afraid of his complicity in damaging our Nations standing and how we hold our commitments to the law of the Geneva convention…and the repercussions of those decisions under the Geneva convention. Richard Cheney is frightened he might well land his sorry ass before a Geneva tribunal…along with many others of the past 8 years.
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