19 Responses to Did Rice Finger Bush For Torture Authorization?

1. wigwam May 3rd, 2009 at 10:40 pm «

   The big point here is that, so far, I believe no one else has ever put GWB “in the room” when redefining torture was discussed. Rice seems to be making it clear that GWB was indeed the Decider, she just “conveyed the authorization”.

   There is also the memo that Jason Leopold wrote about in which FBI personnel mention a Bush authorization: http://emptywheel.firedoglake……n-torture/

   There is also this LA Times story, where White House spokesman Tony Fratto “indicated that Bush might consider reauthorizing waterboarding or other harsh techniques in extreme cases, such as when there is “belief that an attack might be imminent.”
2. HanTran May 3rd, 2009 at 10:59 pm «

   Thanks WigWam, lets say this is potentially the highest level confirmation.
• wigwam May 3rd, 2009 at 11:03 pm «

  I agree. I just like to have as much evidence as possible known as widely as possible.
3. bluebutterfly May 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 pm «

   A four grader questions Condi. He did good. His mom said that originally he wanted to use the word torture in his question, but his teachers said “no”.
   *****************
   She cannot say the Geneva Conventions because Bush declared that enemy combatants did not have its protections. As far as we know, he did not dare to say the Convention Against Torture was null and void. He might have done as he did with Geneva ie if you aren’t wearing a uniform you have no protection. The fighters from Aghanistan were not under Geneva because the US declared that Afghanistan was a failed state. We do know he was inordinately fond of Signing Statements, maybe there is one saying the Convention does not apply.

   There is a lot of x Bathist military members in Iraqi prisons that are under US control. They did have Geneva protection; they wore a uniform. This may be a clue as to the apparent plan to resume Military Hearings that are a farce. It might be an attempt to jail forever members who did have protection and could cause big problems if they were released and told their stories.
   ******************
   ” Then Misha Lerner, a student from Bethesda, asked: What did Rice think about the things President Obama’s administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?

   “Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country. After September 11, we wanted to protect the country,” she said. “But he was also very clear that we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally. So the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country.”

   The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture,” Rice said at Stanford, before adding: “And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.” “

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..s_politics
• HanTran May 4th, 2009 at 12:38 am «

  “The fighters from Aghanistan were not under Geneva because the US declared that Afghanistan was a failed state.”

  Its not at all clear that declaration eliminates some portions of the Geneva Convention.

  As to the military hearings lets see if they still have the same dreadful rules on “secret” evidence etc, that were proposed during the Bush Administration.
• bluebutterfly May 4th, 2009 at 2:32 am «

  Bush declared that none of Geneva applied to any detainee. Rumsfeld has a memo in one of the Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedures manuals where he cautions that some countries think that Geneva 3 does apply to the detainees. The US is a signatory of Geneva. There is no way that Bush could legally pick and choose what parts he wanted to follow. Not for any reason. I cannot access the Rumsfeld memo right now because wikileaks has been down for a few days.

  I doubt that the Military Commission hearings will be any different from what they were. It is clear that the majority of confessions were given under torture. That alone precludes any possibility of honest hearings.
• cinnamonape May 4th, 2009 at 8:51 am «

  If Afghanistan was a failed state then how could Bush be negotiating with it in regards to the reduction of opium poppy production?

  Afghanistan was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. There was never a renunciation of those Codiciles by the Taliban government. In international law it is assumed that replacement regimes are held to the Treaties that previous governments sign, unless they renounce them. That, of course, may result in sanctions.

  But Afghanistan never renounced the Treaty. They were still signatories. And when a signatory invades another, even though the latter collapses, the occupied territories, and areas under combat, are still covered by the Treaties. Also covered in the treaties are “mercenaries”…and those “hors de combat” (without weapons or incapable of fighting due to wounds). Once under detention combatants fall under the convention. Civilians who “take up arms” to fight an invading force are covered under the convention.
4. CompLitter May 4th, 2009 at 2:08 am «

   This is exactly what I heard too when I first saw the clip (I posted a brief comment 2 days ago to a relevant article on dKos), and I was similarly dismayed that the “nixonian” aspect seemed to be drowning out what seemed to me to be the larger point. But checking out emptywheel’s very high-quality, well-referenced posts lately, it seems that it’s not news that Dubya authorized this — she (Marcy) speaks of the summer ‘03 memo the CIA “forced” Bush to write after his UN Int’l Victims of Torture Day speech as if it’s common knowledge. Whether it is or not, I don’t know that Condi said Bush was “in the room” (or that that would really matter). She did say, though, very clearly, that he authorized it. The second half of the statement (”therefore it’s legal”) is best forgotten, or laughed off like Gonzo’s “compromise” black site detainee solution (cf. NYT article ew discusses at length). I agree, Han. Let’s keep pushing this side of it, esp. now that she’s repeated it to a room of 4th graders.
5. bluebutterfly May 4th, 2009 at 6:18 am «

   ” “President Obama’s initial decision to close Guantánamo will be betrayed if we simply replace it with another detention center on U.S. soil that disregards the law. In George Bush’s America, we held individuals without charge or trial, and if President Obama follows suit it will be a fatal flaw that would surely mar his presidency. The only way to uphold the Constitution and due process is to either criminally charge Guantánamo detainees and prosecute them in federal courts or, where no legitimate evidence exists against them, let them go. America’s federal courts are well-equipped to accommodate the government’s national security interests without compromising the fundamental rights of criminal defendants.

   “The Obama administration must reject the myth that there exists a class of people who cannot be prosecuted but are too dangerous to release. The federal government has an imposing arsenal of prosecutorial weapons at its disposal including broad material support and conspiracy laws. If prosecutors cannot meet the minimal burdens of proof under such statutes, there is no justification for holding a suspect indefinitely. One would hope that if the government is convinced of a prisoner’s guilt or potential danger, the government would have gathered sufficient admissible evidence by now to prove its case from untainted sources. “

   http://www.aclu.org/safefree/d…..90501.html
6. Leen May 4th, 2009 at 7:10 am «

   I actually think she protected Bush and hung out Cheney
7. bluebutterfly May 4th, 2009 at 8:09 am «

   How the US went to war against Iraq.
   ****************
   ” On October 23, 2002, Assistant Attorney General Bybee signed a 48-page memo to the “counsel to the president” (Alberto Gonzales) titled “Authority of the President Under Domestic and International Law to Use Military Force Against Iraq.” This was another secret law, but instead of authorizing particular uses of torture (which in reality were far exceeded, engaged in prior to the memos, etc.), this one authorized any president to single-handedly commit what Nuremberg called “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

   Bybee claims not only that a president can simply launch any war he wants, and that the “authorization to use force” somehow adds to that complete and total power, but also that — in terms of international law — attacking Iraq would be justified both as authorized by the UN Security Council and as an act of self-defense. The war would not be so much a new war, Bybee claims, as the suspension of a cease-fire that Iraq suspended first. And the Security Council would have authorized a war even though the Security Council itself might claim otherwise. Bybee redefines self-defense as “anticipatory self-defense” and argues that the authors of the UN Charter could never possibly have meant otherwise. And he adds that, in an age of nuclear weapons, anticipatory self-defense can justify launching a war against any nation that might conceivably acquire nukes, even if there was no reason to think that nation would use them to attack yours:

   “We observe, therefore, that even if the probability that Iraq itself would attack the United States with WMD, or would transfer such a weapon to terrorists for their use against the United States, were relatively low, the exceptionally high degree of harm that would result, combined with a limited window of opportunity and the likelihood that if we do not use force, the threat will increase, could lead the President to conclude that military action is necessary to defend the United States.” “

   http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42275
8. wigwam May 4th, 2009 at 10:00 am «

   Rumsfeld has a memo in one of the Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedures manuals where he cautions that some countries think that Geneva 3 does apply to the detainees.

   An opinion shared by SCOTUS in their Hamdan decision.
• bluebutterfly May 4th, 2009 at 8:16 pm «

  Wiki is up, again, so here is the actual memo.
  ****************
  ” Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his April 16, 2003 memo. However, that memo gives a sense that isolation is a severe, possibly illegal, technique:

  “Caution: the use of isolation as an interrogation technique requires
  detailed implementation instructions, including specific guidelines
  regarding the length of isolation, medical and psychological review, and
  approvals for extension of the length of by the appropriate level in the
  chain of command. This technique is not know to have been generally used
  for interrogation purposes for longer than 30 days. Those nations that
  believe that detainees are subject to POW protections may view use of this
  technique as inconsistent with the requirements of Geneva III, Article 13
  which provides that POWs must be protected against acts of intimidation;
  Article 14 which provides that POWs are entitled to respect for their
  person; Article 34 which prohibits coercion and Article 126 which ensures
  access and basic standards of treatment. Although the provisions of Geneva
  are not applicable to the interrogation of unlawful combatants,
  consideration should be given to these views prior to application of this
  technique.”

  The Guantanmo SOP now provides official documentation that, at the time of the Rumsfeld memo and despite its warnings regarding the techniques’ potential illegality and physical and psychological dangers, isolation was routinely used by the Defense Department at Guantanamo on all new detainees. The Rumsfeld memo complements the SOP in that it documents the central role of “medical and psychological review,” and, thus, medical and psychological personnel in the administration of this technique. “

  http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Guan…..al_torture
• wigwam May 4th, 2009 at 10:39 pm «

  Good stuff. Thanks.
• bluebutterfly May 5th, 2009 at 5:32 am «

  You’re welcome. Rumsfeld was worried about his policies being exposed. He ordered that all detainees were to be put in isolation for a minimum of two weeks when they first arrived. This isolation continued under the interrogator decided to stop it; no time limit. A form of torture that was known to lead to some ugly consequences for each man and boy subjected to it. Interrogators were sometimes security company employees. Hence the use of Israelis to subject detainees to such things as being wrapped in an Israeli flag and made to lie on a concrete floor for hours. All in all, I can’t see how one word of any confession after this kind of treatment can be taken as the truth. A sickening fact is that appears to have been the intent all along. Truth was never being sought; just confessions according to the script that came from officials in the DOD and elsewhere.
  ***************
  ” Phase One Behavior Management Plan (First thirty days or as directed
  by JIG [Joint Intelligence Group]). The purpose of the Behavior Management
  Plan is to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt
  by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process. It concentrates
  on isolating the detainee and fostering dependence of the detainee on his
  interrogator. During the first two weeks at Camp Delta, classify the
  detainees as Level 5 and house in a Maximum Security Unit (MSU) Block.

  (5)
  b. Phase Two Behavior Management Plan. The two-week period following Phase
  1 will continue the process of isolating the detainee and fostering
  dependence on the interrogator. Until the JIG Commander changes his
  classification, the detainee will remain a Level 5 with the following:
  (1) Continued MSU

  (4) Interrogator decides when to move the
  detainee to general population.
  ********
  Isolation is as damaging as other, more prominent, abusive interrogation techniques. The recent Physicians for Human Rights-Human Rights First report, Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality, details the negative effects of isolation and sensory deprivation:

  “People who are exposed to isolation for the first time develop a group of symptoms that include `bewilderment, anxiety, frustration, dejection, boredom, obsessive thoughts or ruminations, depression, and, in some cases, hallucination’….

  Prolonged isolation has been demonstrated to result in increased stress, abnormal neuroendocrine function, changes in blood pressure and inflammatory stress responses…. ”

  http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Guan…..al_torture
• bluebutterfly May 5th, 2009 at 5:42 am «

  Hadman’s lawyer was forced to retire after winning his case. An illustration of why whistle blowers will not speak out without protection.
  *************
  ” As Hamdan’s legal counsel, Swift, together with the Seattle law firm of Perkins Coie and Georgetown Law Professor Neal Katyal, appealed Hamdan’s writ of habeas corpus petition to the U. S. Supreme Court. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. , 126 S.Ct. 2749 (2006), the justices ultimately held that the military commission to try Salim Hamdan was illegal and violated the Geneva Conventions as well as the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Ultimately, Swift was passed over (the second time) for promotion because he failed to have the diversity of experience required of Navy judge advocates and had to retire under the military’s “up or out” promotion system which mandates retirement for officers passed over twice. Swift stated he learned of being passed over two weeks after the Supreme Court decided in Hamdan’s favor. “

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Swift
9. JP Sottile May 4th, 2009 at 2:51 pm «

   Dude…the title says it all. ‘Nuff said.
10. montymarket May 4th, 2009 at 3:20 pm «

    Is it a stretch to say that one can see vestiges of the torture mindset when Condi starts browbeating the student in order to deflect: “Did you know that? Did ya? Huh? Do your homework, “dear.”

    Then a female student asks about a career track and Condi gives advice not to look too far ahead but concentrate on the here and now. The lessons she seems to be conveying at this get together are: the end justifies the means; if big daddy says it’s okay to torture, then it’s not torture; and it you can get near to power, then suck up and go along to get ahead–intellectual honesty is overrated.
11. dosido May 4th, 2009 at 3:50 pm «

    Finger???

    Really?