Bush Administration's Torture Memos Debate Continues (HQ)

[im4wur]

Former National Security Advisor Richard Clarke before the Massachusetts Bar Assoc.: "You took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Not the president, the party or the flag. You took an oath that you would protect the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic thats your job". (cont.)

[im4wur]

MBA President David W. White Jr. set the stage for Clarkes speech in his introduction: "Richard Clarke is here tonight because he recognizes, and I am quoting from his book, That we must defend the Constitution against those who would use the terrorist threat to assault the liberties the Constitution enshrines".

[im4wur]

Clarke again: "How did we get here? Because after 9-11, we abandoned our values".

"For years, we've gotten the information we needed without torturing people. Its not necessary; its not necessary to engage in torture; not necessary to engage in warrantless wiretapping, Clarke said. We have to defeat their ideology, and to do that, we have to stand for something. America used to stand for something".

[im4wur]

Exceprts from Retired Vice Admiral Lee Gunn's testimomy before Congress in early March:

"An independent commission could undertake the task of examining the facts and, in so doing, weigh the true effectiveness of the Bush administration's torture tactics. Did torture actually uncover actionable intelligence? Did it interrupt plans? And did it actually save lives? If so, what were the countervailing costs to our national security?" - (cont.)

[im4wur]

(cont.) "Did the use of torture spark terrorist recruitment, increase danger to our troops, and damage U.S. leadership and prestige? And did these costs outweigh the benefits? Might actionable intelligence have also been obtained by the non-coercive methods experienced intelligence interrogators experts recommend and employ? What strategic security gains could be reaped from shifting to a policy of complete, consistent and transparent compliance with human rights norms?" (cont.)

[im4wur]

(cont.) "The Bush Administration's misguided embrace of torture, secret prisons and renditions to torture came at an enormous cost to our American values, our laws, and our counterterrorism efforts. Repairing our reputation as a nation committed to human rights and building a more sustainable framework for national security policy going forward requires a comprehensive examination of the policies and practices that sanctioned torture and abuse." (cont.)

[im4wur]

(cont.) "This Congress and the new Administration have a window of opportunity to conduct an examination that signals to the American people and to the world that the policies of the last seven years were an aberration and that the United States is invested in creating an effective, long-term strategy for counterterrorism and intelligence gathering which adheres to American principles and values and to United States and international law." (cont.)

[im4wur]

(cont.) "The stakes are incredibly high. In the balance hangs the ability of the United States to maintain the integrity of our counterterrorism policy; improve intelligence cooperation with allies; support the human intelligence community in employing proven, effective methods for gathering actionable information; and re-establish the moral authority necessary to restore the United States as a world leader in upholding human rights."

[im4wur]

source for above:

TESTIMONY OF LEE F. GUNN

VICE ADMIRAL, USN (RET.)

HEARING ON "GETTING TO THE TRUTH THROUGH A NONPARTISAN COMMISSION OF INQUIRY"

BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

MARCH 4, 2009

[im4wur]

"Bush's Torture Rationale Debunked"

(The whole article can be found by googling the title)

"Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration's argument for torture. That's why Sunday's front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists." (cont.)

[im4wur]

(cont.) "Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms." (cont.)

[im4wur]

(cont.) "Zubaida was the first detainee to be tortured at the direct instruction of the White House. Then he was President George W. Bush's Exhibit A in defense of the "enhanced interrogation" procedures that constituted torture. And he continues to be held up as a justification for torture by its most ardent defenders." (cont.)

[im4wur]

(cont.) "But as author Ron Suskind reported almost three years ago -- and as The Post now confirms -- almost all the key assertions the Bush administration made about Zubaida were wrong."