CIA Headquarters Micromanaged Torture

[kpete]

CIA Headquarters Micromanaged Torture

Monday 11 May 2009

CIA interrogators provided top agency officials in Langley with daily "torture" updates of Abu Zubaydah, the alleged "high-level" terrorist detainee, who was held at a secret "black site" prison and waterboarded 83 times in August 2002, according to newly released court documents obtained by this reporter.

The extensive back-and-forth between CIA field operatives and agency officials in Langley likely included updates provided to senior Bush administration officials.

The government documents filed May 1 with US District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein included two sets of indexes totaling 52 pages and contained general descriptions of cables sent back to CIA headquarters describing the August 2002 videotaped interrogation sessions of Zubaydah. Those cable transmissions included a description of the techniques interrogators had used and the intelligence, if any, culled from those sessions.

An August 1, 2002, Justice Department legal opinion released last month signed by Jay Bybee, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel, described a "ticking time-bomb" scenario and "chatter" about a looming terrorist attack in justifying a list of ten different brutal interrogation techniques the CIA requested to use against Zubaydah. Those interrogation methods included waterboarding, slamming his head repeatedly against a wall and forcing him to remain awake for as long as 11 consecutive days.

more:
http://www.truthout.org/051109J

[bullimiami]

1. torture was micromanaged from the masochists in the white house.

every day those reports and probably pictures and videos were sent to bush, cheney and their select group who sent their instructions back and every day they went out in front of the country and lied about it.

[TheMadMonk]

5. The word you're looking for is "sadists".

Masochists are the ones who like to be on the receiving end of the pain.

[dgibby]

7. If all the sadists in the world were on the receiving end of pain,

there'd be a lot less pain.

[MarjorieG]

2. With single-minded focus to get Iraq link, knowing it'd be suspect or false..

We keep saying how could they and not know confessions unreliable. They knew and didn't care, or knew they had to get false link-but get it.

[kentuck]

3. And Dick Cheney micromanaged the CIA...

So there you have it.

[annabanana]

10. I remember the reports of him

sending who (Bolton?) back and forth..

[bobthedrummer]

14. CHENEY personally was at the Agency many times, it was remarked on as unusual...

[OregonBlue]

4. Those tapes were destroyed but not until Bush and his buddies got to watch them over and over.

Sick f__ks.

[malaise]

6. Don't forget that Cheney said he had his own file

named Detainees.

[Senator]

8. Only Purge And Prosecute Can Save The CIA

Otherwise everyone in the agency is painted as a torturing war criminal.

The only way to "look forward" to an honorable, professional intelligence community is to confront reality now. And do what needs to be done.

--

[bobthedrummer]

9. "Torture: An Author and a Resister" by Ann Wright (5-1-09 Truthout)

"As a Bush administration political appointee Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice Jay Bybee, a Mormon, wrote one of four torture memos released last month."
http://www.truthout.org/050109A

[bobthedrummer]

11. The National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 122

PRISONER ABUSE: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm

[BuyingThyme]

12. There's sure a lot of information out there.

kcik

[gratuitous]

13. Oh, but should we really be wallowing in the past?

I mean, it's just prurient interest to go into all this. It's in the past. We have bigger problems to deal with right now. Let's not turn this into a partisan political fight. The American people don't care about this.

Did I miss any of the asinine excuses? I'll check around on some of the threads here. I've seen all of these proffered just today.