I congratulate you on an excellent and important book.

The Bush Administration has always seemed to me a toxic combination of great arrogance and massive incompetence. To be honest, I think after 9/11 they quite simply panicked. They were afraid of another attack and afraid that they would be blamed for it, and 9/11 as well. One response was to forestall blame. Even before Condoleezza Rice immortalized it, the White House had already successively sold the line that “No one could have predicted . . .” to the media, the Beltway, and a traumatized American populace. What I find amazing though is that Bush, Cheney, Addington, and others did not stop there but went on to use the tragic events of 9/11 to mount what was effectively a Presidential coup against the government. These men were the perfect wedding of paranoia and ambition, of idiocy and ideology. Your book does a wonderful job of unwinding for us how they were able to trash the Constitution, the sacred treaty obligations of the Geneva Conventions, criminal statutes, and core American values using nothing more than bureaucratic bullying and a mediocre propaganda machine. And, this is the important point, doing it all despite being wrong on virtually everything.

Jane, Welcome to the Lake.

Steve, Thank you for Hosting this Book Salon today.

Greetings all — I am Steve Clemons, hosting today’s salon. I just signed in. Do we have Jane Mayer with us?

Hi Jane. Congratulations on the positive reception for the book. I’m a little over halfway through it now and it’s incredibly compelling. In addition to the new reporting it’s very helpful to see it all put together as part of a narrative – picking it up as individual news accounts over months and years can make it somewhat disjointed. It’s a tremendous reference work too. I’ve seen it cited by a lot of sources already (and I’ve done so on my own site as well).

On Wednesday there was a spirited debate here at FDL over the nature of the Clinton’s rendition program. In the main post it quoted your book:

What began as a program aimed at a discrete set of suspects—people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants—came to include the wide and ill-defined population that the [Bush] administration termed “illegal enemy combatants.
-snip-
Before September 11, the program was aimed at rendering criminal suspects to justice, but afterward it was used to render suspects outside the reach of the law. Instead of holding suspects accountable for previously committed crimes, it was used to gather evidence of crimes not yet committed—for which there was not sufficient evidence to prove guilt under ordinary rule of law

One commenter referenced your previous reporting:

What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian, Scheuer said. “It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.” Technically, U.S. law requires the C.I.A. to seek “assurances” from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was “not sure” if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed.

And then wrote:

there is no such thing as a legal fig leaf for torture – not when bush does it, and not if clinton did it. that is what i’m trying to clarify. if there was no torture during the clinton administration, even in the absence of a decent legal process that would still be a big deal. doesn’t make it ok, but i’d really like it if there wasn’t any torture used and that’s just not what mayer’s previous reporting says.

Do you think your characterization in The Dark Side may have given that “legal fig leaf for torture”? Or in other words, does the reporting there give a too-generous description of what was going on in the pre-Bush era?

Congratulations again on an extremely important book.

Hi, Jane :)
I’m just going to sit over here and learn stuff…
Steve, Thanks for bringing Jane :)

While we are waiting for Jane, I thought I would add a bit more to the above intro I wrote about Jane Mayer’s important book.

It is really, really important for people to know that Jane Mayer has done us a huge service in bringing David Addington — a guy who hates the media — out into the public.

My pleasure folks. And thanks to Beverly Wright and the rest at FDL for hosting today.

Jane — are you here?

Welcome Jane & Steve, and thank you Jane for your work on this difficult topic.

I’ve made it only to p. 230, but I have lots of Qs.

First: How does this work affect you emotionally? I have to put the book down frequently until I calm down. You must have a fortitude of a lion to be able to deal with torture and trashing the Constitution on a daily basis.

So on to questions.

I’m curious about the role of Ashcroft. You portray him as being sidelined in a lot of the decision making process, but he seems to have signed off on pretty much everything that came his way. And despite his supposed dislike for Yoo, he praised him when he testified before Congress a month or two back.

I’m also interested in why it took so long to identify Addington as a major player in all this. For a long time, the MSM seemed to portray him as just another midlevel advisor. I wish too I knew more about the dynamic between Addington and Libby.

Bush comes across as a stooge, at least for me, and I wonder if that is what you thought or intended.

Finally, is there any path back from the dark side without holding to account those who took us there?

In this regard, I am reminded of a question from Bill Moyer’s interview with Andrew Bacevich:

BILL MOYERS: Do you expect either John McCain or Barack Obama to rein in the “imperial presidency?”

ANDREW BACEVICH: No. I mean, people run for the presidency in order to become imperial presidents. The people who are advising these candidates, the people who aspire to be the next national security advisor, the next secretary of defense, these are people who yearn to exercise those kind of great powers.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour…..ript1.html

So what do you think the future holds with regard to torture and extra-Constitutional government in general?

Welcome Steve (and congratulations on your wedding!) And welcome Jane. So good to have you both.

Jane the book is truly riveting. Can’t put it down.

Thanks so much for your dedication to the truth. I too am honored by your presense and will sit back and enjoy the seminar.

Folks, hang here for a sec — I think Jane is having technical difficulty. Will be focused on getting her online.

You asked several of my Qs. And this one in particular you crafted much more cleverly than I did.

Bush comes across as a stooge, at least for me, and I wonder if that is what you thought or intended.

Welcome

I read your book and was angry as hell from cover to cover. I can’t think about it without getting pissed…unbelievable. Thanks for writing it.

danps – thanks for asking the question, it’s one of great interest to me (not surprising, since i’m the commenter you quoted.)

Jane is here answering your questions – bev

Thanks for this incredibly important book, Ms Mayer. Do you think the Bush Administration will attempt to install Addington in some judicial or other long-term role before their term ends? I find him to be extraordinarily frightening and, in combination with Cheney, dangerous to the Republic.

Sorry all- I answered a few questions but somehow must have blown the technical aspects…I’ll try again now!

great, i did not realize that Jane was here. So, welcome Jane.

Jane, could you start out telling us why you wrote The Dark Side — share where the title actually came from — and what Cheney Chief of Staff David Addington’s role in America’s torture policies was…

Jane,

I have an hypothesis about the torture and false confessions. I think they figured this out early on (as apparently they knew nothing about torture at the beginning), and after that deliberately used torture for the purpose of extracting false confessions. After all, they got what they wanted from al-Libi. And if Gitmo detainees falsely confess they’re the worst of the worst, W can brag about it to the world. I think the scardycatness about the next attack that you keep stressing was just a cover story, especially after the first anniversary of 9/11. They wanted to look successful and knew that torture was likely to get the prisoners to say what the torturer wanted to hear.

glad you are here!

First ….why the name “The Dark Side”

Thank you so much for writing this book. I thought I was sorta aware of the stuff that was going on but … wow. Thank you.

Detainee 063 – when you describe Rumsfield as being “personally involved” in Qahtani’s interrogation – well, it made me sick. How dare they do this in my name.

Thank you for showing the light of truth onto the dark side.

Hi- I’ll try to answer this quickly again. I had very few nightmares, really, which may be a bad sign about my character, but in truth having spent a lifetime covering the government, trying to inform the public about how power is being used behind closed doors, this story was so clearly important and worth spending time on, for me it was a big like being a fireman with a big blaze – I knew what to do, and how much it mattered – so it was what reporters train for…

I am waiting for someone to write a definitive book on George Bush’s role in the implosion of the George Bush administration…Was he an important player or just a cheerleader on the sideline?

It appears to me that his total lack of executive skills explain most of what has gone wrong.

Successful executives personally select great people- he let Cheney do it.

Successful executives develop a game plan that the team contributes to and buys off on- Bush’s team apparently waits for marching orders from Cheney

Successful executives hold their people accountable for results- Bush holds them only responsible for loyalts

Successful executives are able to bring a group of best minds together to look at problems and come up with solutions as a group- Bush ignores problems because he doesn’t want to admit they are there- and he shows no ability to lead effective group work…

He appears to be an utter failure as an executive- setting no clear expectations, solving no problems, and failing to insist on progress or even good basic management.

How do you see Bush’s executive ability?

Well, thank you for every single word.

Hi, Jane (and Jane)–
about halfway through the book – I, too, have to put it down to calm myself– and just want to say thank you.
I think you must be one of a handful of remaining true reporters, and your hard work is appreciated.

Having crossed the line into torture is it possible for us to go back? Or having been intoxicated by torture’s power is it impossible for us to get rid of it.

great question rwcole….Jane, when I have heard you speak in the past about Bush….you said the more you got into this, and the more you chased Bush’s role, the more he sort of slid out of the screen… could you elaborate?

And disagreements.

You end the book mentioning how Goldsmith faced protesters at Harvard but Goldsmith is by no means an unalloyed hero in this. He backed much of the expanded view of the Presidency that made torture possible.

The last word in the book is left to Philip Zelikow. Clearly you respect him. Yet this is the same Zelikow who was a partisan zealot installed on the 9/11 Commission to do the White House’s bidding and to limit as far as possible anything embarrassing to the White House and in particular Condoleezza Rice.

I could name others such as Wilkerson who to say the least have mixed records on all this. They may have sort of, kind of drawn the line at torture but there is a lot else that this Administration did badly or even criminally that they had no problem with at all.

I was most struck by your description of the Justice Department attorneys who feared for their physical safety.

Have you had any repercussions since the book was published? Are sources less able to speak with you? Do you find doors closed that were not beforehand? And do you think the chilling effect of warrantless wiretapping has changed journalism in Washington?

By the end of the book, every time I read “Addington” it was as if Black Bart was walking onto the stage of a good old fashioned melodrama and unbelievable evil was about to be committed…

What a flaming asshole!

How much PERMANENT damage has been done to the nation by the Bush presidency? Could one good president wipe it clean, or are we stuck with an ugly oily residue for years?

All great questions. I think it’s a sign of how extreme the Bush Administration got that people clung to Ashcroft as the moderate. He absolutely signed off on all of the torture policies until Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel raised questions in 2004. Same with the NSA program – he signed off until others raised issues. It suggests he was completely over his head when it came to forming independent judgments himself on these matters. All you can say is that he backed his staff up.

I’m not sure if Jane is having difficulty responding to the commentary or note — but to address rwcole again, David Addington — as Jane Mayer documents — is a brilliant, tenacious lawyer who really laid the groundwork for the resurrection and expansion beyond anything Nixon had in mind of an unchecked imperial presidency.

Jane is having a connection problem – she will be right back.

No doubt, but it appears that it wasn’t the power of his legal reasoning that enabled him to fuck up our country- it was the support of Cheney and the willingness to be a total asshole.

Hi all,
for some reason my replies aren’t showing up, so I’ll try again.

Fourth Branch and the NSA must not like it that Jane is here talking to us today. :})

Look beyond Addington. Perry is who first prepared Ashcroft’s terrorism response and he had trouble with it to the extent Addington and Gonzales tried to run over him.

Perry is Cheney’s son in law as well. He was counsel to Homeland Security too. Look before that, detailing state, while his wife was doing Near East Affairs as a deputy at state.

Near East was created by the Bush White House in 2001, before 9-11. It was the vehicle to try and forward the Niger forgery. It’s in the VP’s own bloodline, not just his office.

Torture was used to shape the narrative.

Perry is no stranger to the lobby circuit with work for Latham and Watkins, another item he shares with Alberto. Push Perry. Addington is just the consigliere.

It’s sad that before long, we may have to worry about such filters on our communications….so the joke about the NSA may seem prescient a decade from now. That’s why reading Jane Mayer’s book is so important…

Mr. Clemons, Ms. Mayer, a great honor to have you at FDL. Hugh’s praise carries a lot of weight with a lot of us.

Interesting comment on Perry, Mr. Murder — and nice to see you here.

Jane, you cite in your book and at least one of your TV interviews I’ve seen, John McCain’s statement nominally opposing the torture policy, “It’s not about them, it’s about us.”

But you also note that McCain has now “feinted to the right” in what you call “a nod to the conservative base of his party” in opposing the legislation that would have prevented the CIA from torturing prisoners.

You also describe the manner in which President Bush treated McCain’s highly-publicized Detainee Treatment Act when he signed it in late 2005. Bush made one of his infamous signing statements that he would enforce the law “in a manner consistent with” his own view of his Constitutional prerogatives as Commander-in-Chief. You also describe how Steven Bradbury of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion specifically on the CIA’s treatment of prisoners that validated the techniques they were using, including the drowning torture, aka, “waterboarding”.

I didn’t object to Congress passing the Detainee Treatment Act. But I always regarded it as basically kabuki theater. They were re-outlawing torture that was already outlawed under both American and international law. Everyone by then knew that Bush was claiming the power under the Cheney-Addington-Yoo theory of the Unitary Executive to torture people in disregard of the law. What was the point of simply passing a new law when the problem was clearly known to be Bush’s disregard of the anti-torture laws already in force?

It was also well known at that time that the “signing statements” were used as an element of Bush’s claiming that alleged Constitutional exemption from obeying the law. Yet even after he issued the signing statement essentially announcing he didn’t intend to obey that law any more than any of the others, McCain said that he was fine with Bush’s signing statement.

My question is, do we have any actual reason to believe that McCain opposes the Bush-Cheney torture policy? Or that he will put an end to it if he’s elected President? Why do you assume that McCain’s opposition to the later anti-torture legislation aimed at the CIA is just a “a nod to the conservative base” rather than an expression of his actual position?

It seems to me at least as consistent with his performance to assume that he knew very well that the 2005 statements he made in opposition to torture would actually do nothing at all to stop the administration’s policy and practice of torture. He said he was perfectly fine with Bush signing statement that everyone knew meant that Bush claimed the right to not obey that law. McCain explicitly opposed the later bill targeting CIA torture. Why should we believe that he’s really anti-torture? It looks far more likely that his 2005 nominally anti-torture position was a feint to the press corps that are so inclined to adore him anyway to polish his phony “maverick” image. Do you actually believe McCain would obey the anti-torture laws as President?

If you quick copy your answers to say a Word document, even if the originals disappear in transit, you’ll still have a copy to resend.

I have heard from many of the book’s sources and am incredibly glad to say that they have been really grateful for the book – there was a huge sense that this was a story that many people wanted told. I am also struck by the silence from the CIA and White House- there has not been a single criticism – and I hear actually that inside the CIA a number of people agree with the book.

You report on page 290 that “President Bush himself had called her [Ashcroft’s wife] at the hospital to say that Gonzales and WH CoS Andrew Card were coming over.”

This was new to me. Had we previously known that Bush himself made that call?

One of the really interesting things I have been writing about for some time was the deep divide that existed among attorneys inside George W. Bush’s national security bureaucracy over our post-9/11 decisions.

This is going to be material for doctoral dissertations, books, and movies for decades to come — and Jane Mayer’s book will be a vital portal to much of this.

Jane — have you had any blowback from neoconservatives outside government to the book? Has AEI invited you over for a book discussion?

Thank you BooRadley

Funniest thing yet. ;-)

Hi Jane – thank you for the book, I have it and it is superb, and for appearing here. My question involves the general backdrop for Dark Side, namely the false premise for the Iraq war. You undoubtedly know, probably have read, Ron Suskind’s new work. Yesterday, that CIA and Bush Administration stepped up their defense and flat out called Suskind a fabricator. What do you know of and think about the alleged forged papers and ginned up basis for the war?

Were the “tapes” of the CIA interrogations really destroyed? In this electronic day & age, calling the video records “tapes” is anachronistic and smells of red herrings. They were probably stored on computers with back ups, etc. Do you agree, or do sources confirm that there was only one copy/session, it was actually on tape, that tape was never reproduced nor backed up on a computer, and that those singular tapes were really destroyed? Seems far fetched to me.

Why would AEI invite Jane? Isn’t AEI part of the problem?

bmaz: I have not had time given the sizzle and drama over Obama’s VP selection to focus on much else.

Do you have links to the CIA and Bush administration responses to Suskind?

Jane:

Were you aware that Cheney actually referred to rendered detainees as “Prisoners Of War” – LIVE, on Larry King? This was an astounding statement, and leads me to believe that he knew they were entitled to the protections of Geneva.

The quote is about a quarter of the way down the transcript.

CNN LARRY KING LIVE

Interview With Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney

Aired May 30, 2005 – 21:00 ET

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRA…..kl.01.html

KING: They specifically said, though, it was Guantanamo. They compared it to a gulag.

D. CHENEY: Not true. Guantanamo’s been operated, I think, in a very sane and sound fashion by the U.S. military. Remember who’s down there. These are people that were picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan and other places in the global war on terror. These are individuals who have been actively involved as the enemy, if you will, trying to kill Americans. That we need to have a place where we can keep them. In a sense, when you’re at war, you keep prisoners of war until the war is over with.”

end

As you know, their “War On Terror” is never ending, and their “battlefield” is everywhere. Wouldn’t you say that Cheney’s admission that we are indeed “At War,” and that these are in fact “Prisoners Of War” – to be held apparently forever, shoots a pretty big hole in their case?

Nelson — When you are a person of Jane Mayer’s stature with a book that was top five in sales in the country and dealing with American government complicity in human rights abuses, then I think AEI, which often purports to be quite concerned about human rights should invite her.

My question was partially tongue in cheek. Maybe humor doesn’t translate here. I wanted to find out how the Neocons have responded to Jane since the book.

Heh, believe it or not, I do; just had to email them to Marcy a few minutes ago.

http://www.editorandpublisher……1003841861

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..02681.html

http://www.motherjones.com/moj….._susk.html

Steve:
Thanks. Yes, in the context you state, it would be interesting to see their collective heads explode.

bmaz…great, this is really helpful to sort out what the lines of attack are between Suskind and the White House. It is interesting to note in contrast that Jane Mayer’s book has not been challenged in the same way.

Part of the reason I wrote “The Dark Side” was that I felt that no one was connecting the dots well enough between the policy-makers in Washington, and the impact of their policies around the world. So you could have Donald Rumsfeld saying that what we saw at Abu Ghraib was the isolated misdeeds of a few rotten apples, and the public couldn’t really piece the whole story together. In truth, the abuse we were seeing unfolding around the world was the predictable result of the decisions made at the very top of the administration. You could read the legal memos, but they were so abstruse, I wanted to tell the full story…

I would. Maybe Cheney and Bush think McCain was a POW after all. We still don’t know if they think McCain was tortured.

In the prosecution’s notification to Judge Brinkema, it acknowedged that there were at least a couple short video recordings of some sessions that some of the contractors involved in the interrogation of Zubaydah IIRC had kept so there might be other copies somewhere.

I got it ;-) but that doesn’t make me any more perceptive than anyone else

And you’re right Steve, subtleties don’t translate well on the internets

Jane, thank you for being here, and more importantly, thank you for the book!

With the passage of both the DTA and MCA providing retroactive immunity for the torture policies and practices by the last dregs of a Republican majority in 2006, the Administration was obviously aware that they faced serious personal legal jeopardy.

Do you know whether or not the insistence on the retroactive immunity provisions were explicitly done under the pressure of the primary leaders of the torture policies like Addington, Cheney, and even Bush, or were they the result of the fear by the lesser servile toadies like Gonzales, Rice and Hadley?

Jane is here and will answer all your comments

Jane, just popped in to say I saw you on television (Letterman + Colbert) and was thoroughly impressed with your representation and defense of your book’s subject matter. You were engaging and thought-provoking and I think the interviewers realized this from the get go. Thank you for putting this important content into the public realm with such expertise.

Thank you for the book, and for the many articles preceding the book. One of the few, minimally reassuring things through all of this has been finding out about roles played by those like Coleman, Cloonan, Mora, Brandt etc. that came out in your articles.

I have the book, have not finished it yet (I keep skipping around out of order) and I had forgotten, if I ever knew, about Wecht’s involvement with the examination of the ”iceman” from Abu Ghraib. Any thoughts on whether or not the prosecution he has been facing (over things like sending a personal fax on a gov fax machine ?!?) has any ties to his forensic opinion re: that death?

Also, Dana Priest had an article about another CIA directed death, involving a ”young” detainee who was subjected to such severe hypothermia and stress position combination that they died. Did you run into this story as well and is it covered and if not, had you heard anything about the story?

Finally, any thoughts on what happened to KSM’s children?

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Best I can figure, Jane’s work really is kind or a coherent whole, with the damaging information integrated too deep in the narrative as a whole; while Suskind’s book, although having a lot of the same character, also presented the one stand alone huge zinger, so it is maybe more amenable to attack on that one point.

My question was partially tongue in cheek. Maybe humor doesn’t translate here.

steve, if you close your statement with a snark tag “/s” we will understand.

I try very hard to stick to the facts, rather than hypotheticals, because I want this history to be unassailably true. So, I have not come across any evidence that they WANTED false confessions. Rather though, I think they DID produce intelligence that supported their theses, by getting these false confessions, but my sense is that they bought into it. Not that they were pulling it over on people – they really believed a lot of the junk they were putting out.
There are a few contradictions of importance though that seem worth looking at more closely – in particular – the DIA put out a warning saying that al-Libby seemed to be fabricating info. This was not shared with Colin Powell before he relied on al-Liby’s confessions to bolster his UN speech. This seems an act of trickery…but again I’d be surprised if the White House and CIA didn’t simply believe what they wanted to hear, which was what Al Libi made up.

I believe that was snark. :)

The implications of the “from the top” animation of America’s torture policies and practices must be enormous.

Do the folks involved face criminal challenges down the road – particularly if traveling abroad?

Ms. Mayer, I am part way into your book. (I bought it, btw! :-)

They must have had a heckuva time figuring out how/where to shelve it. Horror stories. Mysteries. 100 fun ways to mess with the U.S. Constitution. Dick and George’s excellent adventure. Etc.

It’s a stunningly important book. Like someone earlier in this thread, I can only read a little at a time because it makes me so furious. How could this happen in the U.S. of A.? (rhetorical)

Thank you so much for shining light into the creepiest recesses of this altogether corrupt and unprincipled administration.

State was being set up before 9-11 to do the Iraq war. Near East detailed anything from Niger. Near East affairs was established officially in the State Department when Bush took office. Elizabeth Cheney had a lot of pull and influence there, it was no coincidence that name got elevated in the staff.

Look for anything Bolton might have communicated with Near East.
The Intelligence Community overhaul before 9-11 was being done to undertake the invasion. The people who already determined the narrative were at play.

Look at the Intelligence Community website, probably on archives(Lexis). You’re likely to get most of Addington and Perry’s people in State working different tasks, legally and diplomatically, in Africa.

May of 2001. Official announcement on the Intelligence Community overhaul from the DCI. Approved as of May 3, 2001. DoE’s Intelligence Office, NNSA, Changes in Structure and Staffing.

fascinating tidbit about Powell and Al Libi. . .

In your research, did you speak with anyone who was either urging impeachment or, on the contrary, seemed to be fearful of it?

I see Bush as disappearing from the frame of the photo, again and again. It’s amazing how many of the big decisions were made on national security matters by Cheney. This of course was the cliche that the White House press office kept rebutting. But the cliche was true – and everyone knew it- for instance when McCain wanted to do something about the torture policies he was told don’t bother talking with Rumsfeld, or Bush. You have to call the VP.

I’m also curious about the role of Colin Powell. He sat in on the principals’ meetings where Zubaydah’s torture sessions were being micro-managed. Yet this didn’t seem to clue him into what kind of an Administration he was dealing with and didn’t prevent him from dishing out that atrocious schlock at the UN about Iraq’s supposed WMD. That’s what gets me is that a lot of “good guys” like Powell had their faces rubbed in this stuff repeatedly over extended periods of time and their reactions seem to have ranged from “Nope, can’t see anything here” to “Some things make me a little uncomfortable.”

Many, many times while reading your book, I had to sit back and realize, “This happened in America!”

They knew that most of the actual logistical info was not true. Mijbel shot that down when interviewed.

That was ignored, yet excerpts of their conversations were used as basis evidence.

Curveball was a cutout for dated material, consistent of varied sources, not all of them reliable. Looks like most of his talk went over Hussein Khamel’s own suspect credibility.

Among other things involving Addington, thanks for the info on how he got to be the “last portal” before things went to Bush. That was pretty interesting, especially with the revelations now that 2002 Addington was told specifically that many of those at GITMO were “mistakes” but responded with a hissy fit that the President wouldn’t be revisiting his fiat that, once at GITMO, you were one of the worst of the worst. Period – no exceptions for facts to the contrary.

I know you can’t answer all the questions, but I’ll also toss this in as related to 4/15 as well.

I’ve seen that Scheuer went to Mary Jo White (then USAtty for SD NY)when the Clinton portion of the rendition program started up, to get her insight (not main justice DOJ, CIA counsel, OLC, etc.) Is there any record, insight or information on what advice she gave on the rendition front or whether Congress has ever tried to follow up on that?

RevBev — Jane will answer your question on whether there was a fear of impeachment or consequences by some — though I think that both Jack Goldsmith and John Bellinger would not stand by some of the decisions the White House was planning to make, and at least in Bellinger’s case – he threatened to resign on at least more than one occasion. Bellinger was a senior legal counsel on the National Security Staff and he is now Legal Counsel to Secretary of State at the State Department. He’s a quite principled attorney who does believe in international law and treaties — and he was a principal rival to David Addington.

Another person who feared legal consequences, as outlined in Jane Mayer’s book, was CIA official Cofer Black. He now denies he made the statement that Mayer quotes him as saying — but other CIA staff I know and that Jane knows say that he said that he feared indictment abroad.

Jane,
Welcome to the Lake!
Thanks for writing such a superb book of investigative journalism! I have been reading the analyses of your book here at FDL and Emptywheel, and last night, I read your piece in the New York Review of Books about the battle for America’s soul.

After 8 years of Cheney, I fear that his brand of neocon uber-executive has metastasized like a late-stage cancer. How do we get America’s soul back from the fascist neocons who have a death grip on America right now?

Your book is a great asset in this process. Thanks again.

Bob in HI

That’s really interesting – I’d never seen Cheney mention them as POWs- but it shows how they liked to pick and choose among the legal systems – taking the parts that enhanced their power while overlooking the rights afforded the prisoners – so they could say POW’s can be held basically forever (until the end of hostilities) – but enemy combatants have none of the protections of Geneva.

First ….why the name “The Dark Side”

Is it from Cheney?

Thanks—

I’ve seen this tried sometimes in corporations- a figurehead with someone else really running the show. It doesn’t work- in part because the formal reporting lines are still in place- and an informal reporting network is actually supplanting it- so no one REALLY knows how to get anything done- because the organization cannot and WILL not aknowledge the charade- so those who report to Bush on paper cannot and will not go to Cheney for direction- and will get none from Bush. It’s a death spiral..

Powell was in South America on 9-11 visiting OPEC interests of South American countries and the former, deposed, King of Afghanistan.

to John in Sacramento — yes, that is where the title comes from.

This is from the release for Jane’s book — but it is also in her book. . .

The Sunday after September 11, 2001 Vice President Dick Cheney sat down for an interview with Tim Russert on “Meet the Press.” In that much quoted interview, Cheney gave a memorable description of how the administration viewed the continuing threat and how it planned to respond:

“We’ll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies‹if we are going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in. And, uh, so it¹s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal basically, to achieve our objectives.”

I hope my question on whether McCain really opposes the torture policy didn’t some across as just a partisan rant. The torture policy is a critical issue in what has happened with Executive power. I’m really curious if you have the impression that McCain is genuinely opposed to the policy.

Powell is a bit of a mystery still. The dilemma for those who disagreed with Bush and Cheney was whether to stay and play, even though they were largely excluded from the key decisions. It’s interesting how few members of the administration went public with their dissent, given how passionate many felt. I had to drag the details out of some of them. It may reflect the political climate, as well as the lack of respect for dissent inside the administration.
Powell DID however try to scrub some of the bunk from the UN speech. Tenet personally assured him the intelligence was sound. This as I mentioned before, is really a treacherous moment, given that the DIA had put out a warning about some of it, which the CIA didn’t share with Powell…

Jane

In your opinion, did Cheney act MORE boldly because of his puppetmaster role in the administration than he would have had he actually been president and therefore personally accountable for his decisions?

Psychologically, it seems likely to me that this would happen.

That sense of shock about this being American policy – not just an accident but actually approved at the highest levels- is one of the things I felt most strongly too. I still want to know who the specific people are who have been under those black ski masks. I especially would like to know who the doctors and psychologists are. And who directed them…

I wanted you to have that little Cheney gem re: POW status, and would encourage you to mention it during interviews if you feel it warrants further exposure and discussion by others. I was stunned by his certain slip of the tongue, but more stunned that no one else has mentioned it. Their redefinition of “torture” and “prisoner” doesn’t stand up when Cheney himself refers to them as “POWs.”

One quote I love and have to share is Rumsfeld’s calling Douglas Feith, i.e. the stupidest fucking guy on the planet, an “intellectual engine.” p. 122. It says a lot about Rumsfeld that he not only surrounded himself with idiots but extolled their virtues.

56 – I think they should invite her too but a caveat on :

AEI, which often purports to be quite concerned about human rights

is that AEI seems to define human rights with the same kind of logic that Bybee signed off on for defining torture.

Jane makes Cofer Black seems like a frightened person who isn’t very bright, but guess he’s making a lot of dough on GWOT, so maybe he got the last laugh.

Jack Goldsmith authored the draft memo dated March 19, 2004 permitting the government to move Iraqi “protected persons” out of the country for interrogation. It isn’t clear whether he knew that the government had done that already over and over in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions.

There is some doubt as to his overall performance.

Mary Jo White was important for the pre-9/11 rendition program because her office issued an indictment for Bin Laden etc. – which gave some legitimacy to the program as rendering prisoners in a known legal process. I’ve interviewed her, and she is pretty tough in terms of thinking that the criminal paradigm pre-9/11 was inadequate to handle terrorism. Many other prosecutors of course disagree, and think the criminal justice system did a pretty good job – far better than the ad-hoc version created by the Bush White House.

Welcome to the Lake Ms. Mayer.

I too could not read the book at one sitting. I’m about 2/3 through and have to keep putting it down. I keep wondering why this bunch of criminals is not behind bars.

Has anyone in Congress approached you since the book came out expressing any interest in legal accountability for those responsible for the war crimes you exposed in great detail in your book? Is there any hope whatsoever that these people will be held accountable for their actions? Or are we destined to witness more kabuki and excuses for not doing anything about this?

Jane

I’m sure you’re reading and typing as fast as you can, but when you get a chance can you answer Mary’s questions

When I get a chance to pick this your book up it’ll be the kind of book with hilights and underlines all over the place

Thanks

I know that some human rights lawyers – particularly Philippe Sands – believe Goldsmith really went outside the legal bounds in that draft decision. I am not a lawyer. But it was a draft – not a final decision – and I do know that at some point Goldsmith told the CIA it had to bring ghost prisoners back inside Iraq because the Geneve Conventions covered all Iraqi prisoners. But there is no doubt he is a very conservative legal scholar – not to be confused with Human Rights Watch in his points of view!

BTW, I just realized that Biden in his speech today spoke of this being a campaign for “America’s soul”, echoing the theme from the title of your NYRB article.

Bob in HI

I especially would like to know who the doctors and psychologists are.

I would too. Some of the psychologists like Lt. Col. Diane Zierhoffer have been identified recently wrt the Jawad case and you mention Mitchell re Zubaydah but I haven’t heard anything about the torture doctors.

I hope you didn’t miss my question at 46. I’m very intrigued by this.

You report on page 290 that “President Bush himself had called her [Ashcroft’s wife] at the hospital to say that Gonzales and WH CoS Andrew Card were coming over.”

This was new to me. Had we previously known that Bush himself made that call?

It was clear that the Administration never intended to bring terror suspects, prisoners of war or enemy combatants (pick your definition), into the American justice system to face trial. That’s the LAST thing they wanted. You don’t use warrantless wiretapping, illegal renditions and torture if you hope to obtain a conviction in the US legal system.

They NEVER wanted Bin Laden in a US court, that’s for damn sure.

77 “I see Bush as disappearing from the frame of the photo, again and again. ”

Given the internal discussions from very early on (Dec 2001/Jan 2002) regarding the application of the War Crimes Act and other law to what they were conspiring to effect; and actions like Judge Lamberth’s response to being briefed on the NSA program by calling it unconstitutional and establishing immediate firewalls for the FISCt; do you think this was really a lack of involvement by Bush in the policy decisions, or more a conscious policy to keep the man who could pardon as clean on the surface as possible?

There was a terrific essay by Garry Wills suggesting that Cheney’s unaccountable power was exactly the sort of situation the Founding Fathers had tried to prevent – it was he said as if there were two presidents – one with the real power who was ruling in secret. I think that people always behave differently if they think their actions will be visible – every psych experiment shows that.

Re John Yoo.

On page 65 it says that his formative experience was his parents’ surviving the Korean War and becoming staunchly anti-communist. But for John’s sake, I think he would feel more comfortable in the DPRK regime, where executive power is not questioned.

Agree- that would be a terrific theme for another book- combined with the psychological impact of the official govt. vs. the shadow government on the minds of key staff. It’s as if everyone is forced to pretend that a stuffed animal is running the show- creepy.

MY apologies! My internet connection just went down – so I am now way behind. Just got back on line. I am cursing COMCAST! But I will keep answering questions even though our session is supposed to end by 7. Again, so sorry!

Jane — Has there been any blowback towards you from the neocons?

When I hosted Jacob Heilbrunn at a FireDogLake book salon this past year, AEI had somewhat accidentally invited him to speak. It created a real uproar in side the institution — but he did it anyway, and got through it.

Have you been courted or paired with any neoconservatives during your book tour?

I have this from my scandals list:

In a scheme apparently orchestrated by Vice President Cheney, Bush called Mrs. Ashcroft and Cheney “on the President’s behalf” ordered then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card to go to the hospital and get the ailing and doped up Ashcroft to sign off on the surveillance program. Mrs. Ashcroft informed her husband’s Chief of Staff David Ayers about the coming visit and he contacted Comey. Comey in turn contacted FBI Director Robert Mueller to order the FBI agents guarding Ashcroft to remain in his room (as witnesses) and raced to the hospital and Ashcroft’s room in the ICU.

So Bush calling Mrs. Ashcroft is certainly out there since I wrote this entry some time ago.

Law of the Sea, the duty of Congress is to enforce it.

They should be the ones to answer in court for renditions.

The only motivation is self preservation of their political careers.

82 – this would be the Bellinger who refused to say whether or not waterboarding US soldiers would be torture? Who sat in on the meetings of The Principals and knew for years that the American public was being lied to over and over and did nothing? The Bellinger who has argued over and over publically for the legality of the forever detention of kidnap and human trafficking victims and who has, despite his knowledge from all his associations with Rice as sec adv and sec state re: torture policies and posturing has over and over argued that The United States Does Not Torture?

God forbid that the day should come that my profession would point to Goldsmith and Bellinger as the standard for staking a claim to principle.
All they can claim is that they knew better and so were better positioned to make better use of CYA tactics. imo.

Neither Goldsmith nor Bellinger has ever anted up to answer what it is you call what we have done to the people who were “mistakenly” (without battlefield capture, trials or evidence to support the mistakes) subjected to overseas shipment, kidnapping, purchase, sale, stripping, disappearing, beatings, isolation in containers barely the size of coffins, etc. It’s a pretty easy answer actually and they both know it – - – they both knew it when they were in the thick of the conspiracies to authorize the acts and the cover ups. They both knew it when they refused to ever put out any litigation holds on documents and information relating to the torture/human disappearances. Whether you add “war” as an adjective or not, they were crimes. If they were crimes against the untried innocent, they are crimes against the untried guilty as well. The principles demonstrated by active involvement in cover ups of crimes for year after year after year are getting more and more prevalent, but let’s hope they never set the standard.

I really did think McCain was opposed to using torture – because having been tortured he knew that as he has admitted “everyone breaks” so he knew the information would be dubious. People say whatever it takes to stop the pain – and he did that himself. I think the issue is fundamental for him. But he certainly has cut some corners on related issues – allowing the CIA to use interrogation methods beyond those approved for the military. No one every got him to say exactly what methods he meant to approve with this. It’s something reporters really ought to nail him about!

Mr. M – -interesting point about the Law of the Seas convention. McCain used to be for it – but now is opposed after the influence of some, including behind the scenes — DAVID ADDINGTON

97/101 – It may have been a draft, but it says on its face that it was intended as a “follow up” to “interim” advice granted the prior Oct. And he’s been very steadfast in his belief in GITMO, which basically involves the same issue – taking non-battlefield detainees, many kidnapped or sold and generally disappeared in connection with their detention, and shipping them off somewhere out of country to face depravity without any requirement, ever, for the intervention of trials or evidence.

Hi Jane,
I cannot shake the murders/suspicious deaths of four Assistant US Attorneys:
Jonathan Luna, Tom Wales, Thelma Colbert and Shannon Ross. Will you talk about this and the others who were forced out?

Jane

It appears that the press corps doesn’t see much interest in the subjects you explore in your book. Why is that in your opinion? Are editors afraid of the White House? Are reporters unable to penetrate the cloaking mechanisms? Does the media figure that the public just doesn’t give a shit- or what?

Do reporters share our fears that our country has been taken over by a dangerous and unconstitutional force?

Mary — I appreciate your point and I’m not asking you to stand up for anyone. I’m simply making clear that Bellinger, Matthew Waxman and some others were trying to do some good things in the mix of this systemically dark mess. Perhaps there are no good guys in this story – but there are some who are far better than others, and Bellinger was out there in public often getting savaged, while privately he was doing all he could to get America back on a Geneva-like track. All of this was going on while Addington was smiling outside the purview of public attention. That is why Jane Mayer’s article and book on Addington’s deeds helps us to understand the contours of what was happening.

I’m just answering again some questions where my answers didn’t show up: re. people who stood up to torture but were less than heroic on other matters -
this is a conservative Republican administration so I wouldn’t expect liberal bloggers to see many players as total heros, but, what I felt was important was that there was common ground on torture among people of a wide range of political views – showing it is a deep issue that isn’t just about Democrats or Republicans, about who we are as a country on a very fundamental level. It’s really important, I think, to try to reach across partisan lines about this, and the fact that Republican lawyer, conservative military people, and law and order FBI types all felt this so deeply should help strip the Bush White House of a comfort zone – their position was not conservative – it was outside the bounds of American tradition.

Who was used to doing drop bys say to the CIA (re Valerie Plame). Cheney didn’t put much in writing, did he?

Steve- I keep waiting for that AEI invitation! It must have gotten stuck in my mail slot!
I have, however, been invited to speak at West Point!

The American Psychological Association is having a big fight over this right now, with a candidate for AMA president making it (anti-torture complicity) his main platform.

Along with which psychologists were executing the program, who were their mentors to whom they brought difficult questions — a standard practice for psychologists and therapist?

Article One, Sec. 8

Also, any tribunal constituted is “inferior to the Supreme Court” so that clears a window for appeal.

Steve and Jane, thank you for joining us here today, and thanks to Bev for making this possible.

Jane, I am so grateful for the work that brought us “The Dark Side” and for your previous work shining a light on Addertongue.

I found your book a very dificult read — I just had to put down to keep from screaming…and from crying tears of rage about the torture and homicide American officials willfully inflicted under cover of authority. Selfishly, I also wanted to rage and cry about what these human rights/war criminals have done to our Republic and to the rule of law.

I can’t do anything to stop what has happened, but I lok forward to living to see that all the licensed health professionals who abetted the Dark Side – whether they forgot Nuremberg and were “just following orders, whether they were willfully complicit, or whether they just didn’t have enough backbone to refuse to follow illegal orders – I look forward to seeing them all:

1) publicly outed

2) stripped of their professional licenses

3) living the rest of their lives in fear of prosecution for war crimes/human rights…or living a portion of their lives in the Hague – where they will be far better treated than those interrogated/tortured/murdered on their watch.

I especially would like to know who the doctors and psychologists are. And who directed them…

So I share your curiosity.

What avenues (investigative or offical) do you think will be most productive over the next years in outing these “professionals”?

I figure it will take some time to name and apprehend them all — the Simon Wiesnethal Center is still closing in on “Dr. Death” in South America.

But I’d look forward to seeing the global hunt commence.

I have, however, been invited to speak at West Point!

You go girl!

98 – Thank you. My understanding, though, was that Scheuer went to her for advice, not on the commonly accepted (whether internationally “legal” or not, at least widely accepted) approach of snatching someone and rendering them back to the US for trial, but rather for legal advice on the beginnings of the “extraordinary” rendition process of going and snatching people and shipping them to a country where we knew they would be tortured and kept “off the streets” if not killed, all with no real legal process and all without disclosure of the US role. At that time, they did try to at least paper things up with having the country where we shipped those snatched having some kind of warrant or claim outstanding against them.

That, then, under Bush gave way to a process like the Arar process, of just shipping people to country we knew would torture and keep them off the streets, even if that country had no claim, warrant or any proceedings pending against the person shipped to them.

I’ve wondered how MJW dealt with the Torture Conventions if and when she gave the advice that preceded shipping the Algerians to Egypt, since Scheuer seemed pretty frank about going to her for advice.

I especially would like to know who the doctors and psychologists are. And who directed them…

A real ethical breakdown in all professional dimensions….

Mary raises an important point that there were no good guys in this as in other examples of Bush Administration lies and criminality. Torture is not some moral ambiguity or close issue. Everyone who was involved, got near, or knew but did not act on torture is tainted by it.

…

law and order FBI types all felt this so deeply should help strip the Bush White House of a comfort zone – their position was not conservative – it was outside the bounds of American tradition.

I totally agree, and I think many of us do. It’s amazing to me that most “journalists” have looked right past the horror of this fact. They should have been shouting “un-American” over and over from the very first outrageous act.

Art.I Sec. VIII
“To define and punish priacies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations;”

There it goes, we have an obligation, paired with an express standard, to uphold agreed on international laws.

Piracy was the terrorism of its day.
Someone should name Congress, for purpose of liability.

Include world court charges….

Cheney didn’t put much in writing, did he?

Well, he did once

http://agonist.org/20070131/ch…..ame_affair

Jane, thanks for the additional insight into McCain’s position.

And thank you for your careful research and clear writing in this book. The torture policy is a critical issue. And I do wish the press would pursue many of these questions, including McCain’s position, much more aggressively. Evidently they’re too busy obsessing about John Edwards’ love affair and gasping in horror that the Clintons will be appearing at the Democratic Convention. But your book is a real public service.

Jane

To what extent is the administration painted into a corner on releasing the innocent at Gitmo? Would letting the out so that they could speak publicly be too ugly to allow?

Jane – Steve too – I am interested in your perception of the efficacy and honesty of John Durham’s investigation into the destruction of the torture tapes of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri. Do you think the destruction was in direct response to Helgerson’s IG investigation, or were there different and/or additional factors?

Perhaps even more important to me is an answer as to how there could have been all these tapes as to Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri, and yet there has been no mention of the same as to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

There were numerous reports from inside the administration of top officials fearing being criminally prosecuted. I didn’t hear anyone fearful of impeachment. But Gonzales in particular worried out loud about war crimes charges being a potential problem. The CIA was petrified of being prosecuted…

We actually pay them money so they agree to withold statement. Many would be shamed to the point of honor killings were it known some things done them during interrogation, a more of that culture.

One day soon it will be past that point, someone’s words will drive discovery.

Did you cite the Lucifer Effect in your book? I have heard you on many interviews and am so grateful for the perspective and revelations. (Still making my way through Shock Doctrine. Your book is next.)

Prior to this experience- many of us thought that in the event that the executive branch exceeded their constitutional authority and committed crimes against the constitution and humanity, our press and our congress and our courts would rise up and strike it down…we have learned that this is not the case. Can anything be done about it? Let’s start with the PRESS, Why are they not reacting? Afraid to be seen as partisan? And what keeps the now democratic controlled congress from acting? Political fear?

What about Pelosi and Reid knowing about waterboarding but respecting “confidentiality”?

Thanks again re. the book. I am really a very old-style reporter meaning that I think the best thing I can do is get the facts – particularly the facts no one wants you to know – and then leave it up to the political activists to figure out how to move forward. I really want more access to key documents – there are legal memos written by the Justice Department that no one has seen outside of the same handful of people who hatched these policies. There have been referrals to the Justice Department of prosecute homicides resulting from this program – yet not one indictment of a top administration figure has been filed. What happened to those referrals? There is a whole lot still to learn – as a reporter that’s where my efforts are right now…

“What’s wrong with Kansas?” was a very good book. Time for another “What the Fuck’s Wrong with the United States of America?”

Thanks, John. He also wrote “fair game” about Valerie Plame next to her husband’s oped piece, wasn’t it? Those margin notes.

Freezers full of cash keep them from acting.

Jane, What did you think of the judgment against Hussein’s driver? What do you think will happen re his sentence?

there was common ground on torture among people of a wide range of political views – showing it is a deep issue that isn’t just about Democrats or Republicans, about who we are as a country on a very fundamental level. It’s really important, I think, to try to reach across partisan lines about this,

agree completely – that is one reason i am so interested in knowing what was done during the clinton administration and how it may have contributed to what came after. i am a democrat and to me that means i have to hold my own accountable if i want republicans to do the same.

I have heard from several members of congress with an interest in doing more. There also were some hearings this summer, finally, which shows some progress. As the election approaches, I don’t expect a lot of profiles in courage, though, unless the public really expresses more outrage.

I’m interested in this too

I think they fear it wouldn’t stand up in court, even the current Robert’s Court

Maybe that’s the next book

Any chance that this could be taken into the next administration? I don’t think anyone here is interested in a O/B administration saying “bygones” but how can we push them into doing something?

120 – I understand your approach, but I think it is very disingenuous for Bellinger to claim he was trying hard to get America on a Geneva like track while he has contemporaneously and for YEARS been publically advocating against a Geneva like track. It’s like being a public advocate of lynching while saying that “in secret” you were working against it. With things like torture, that’s just not credible. You can not and never will defeat torture as a state policy while you publically add your voice to advocating for it.

He may very well be more willing to talk to people like you and Jane, and try to spin off things or have surrogates spin off some personal press for him that does, indeed, make him look better than an Addington, but he is and always will be personally responsible for every public position he advocated, and for advocating them with his personal knowledge of what was truly happening. At some point it’s like discussing qualitative differences between Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson. The horrible thing that Comey and Bellinger and others of their ilk did was to bring this likable persona to the discussions, to lend themselves to the propaganda that would have been so much less persuasive coming from a Gonzales or a Cheney. They opted to be spokesmodels to prettify the depravity and that is, while a very different choice than the choice to be depraved, still a choice with ramifications that are almost more widespread when it comes to setting the national debate. You could literally see the wheels turning, in the press in particular, “after all, if Bellinger [or Comey, or someone else they trot out with more charm and creds than Cheney] says we don’t torture, then it must be true, right?”

He’s not Cheney. He’s the guy who sold what people might not have been willing to buy off of Cheney.

We can help with the outrage.

What about the veil of inflated language in administration-speak. “extraordinary rendition” for example. Sadistic, ethics-exploding horrors hiding behind numbing-hyperbolic language?

I have to say that I think much of the reason GTMO still exists is because of political embarrassment. As the book details, by late summer of 2002 it was clear the place was somewhere between one third and one half full of mistaken prisoners, at a minimum. Addington and Gonzales knew this, which means Cheney and probably Bush did too. Why lock up mistakes? Maybe so that no one knows? That’s certainly been the theory of some of the defense lawyers, such as Joe Margulies.

Folks — This has been an outstanding and penetrating discussion with Jane Mayer. Apologies all around for some of the technical difficulties early on.

Jane’s work is important and vital to understand so that Americans demand a new and different course from their next President.

I have to logoff just a wee bit early as I have to run to CNN — but I wanted to share a YouTube video of a discussion I had with Jane Mayer when her book was released:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..nnote.com/

I think you will find it a nice addition to today’s discussion.

Buy the book — and thanks to Beverly, Jane Hamsher, Christy, and all at FDL for hosting this — and thanks to Jane for her time and perseverance.

See you all in Denver,

Steve Clemons
http://www.TheWashingtonNote.com

Since we have the amazing Steve Clemmons still here, and he knows Bellinger well, I am going to be a rat and let him answer this one!

Jane, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us, and discussing your important book.

Steve, Thank you very much for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

Everyone – this is a must buy book, and important book that will be discussed for a long time. If you haven’t bought one, there is a link above.

Thanks all.

There’s nowhere else for GITMO people to go.

State AG will not welcome the burden of liability. Nor the corporate jails that they employ.

They are ‘ghost detainees’ for a reason. Now they’re ‘ghost ghosts’ with no place to go.

At that time, they did try to at least paper things up with having the country where we shipped those snatched having some kind of warrant or claim outstanding against them.

excellent question re mary jo white, but it wasn’t just a warrant. for example, on page 114 there are cases described where the suspects are “sentenced to death in absentia” and then captured, taken to egypt and executed. i am not a lawyer, but to me that’s not a legal process, that’s the paperwork of a bureaucratic process.

Uh oh – it appears that Steve is no longer with us.
The role of insiders who dissented, but stayed, is obviously controversial. I have tried to portray how much harder it was to be brave and do the right thing in this administration, than it should have been. People felt enormously intimidated. That’s not an excuse. But it is a really interesting aspect of this awful history.
That said, many people in many ways stood up against torture and for the rule of law in small and big moments, and I do hope readers take that from the book. It’s so important as a lesson because it’s not an easy thing to do, but people did do it.

Alan Brinkley in NYT:

New heads of the Defense and Justice Departments have resisted addressing the torture issue, aware that dozens of their colleagues would face legal jeopardy should they do so. And the presidential candidates of both parties have so far shown little interest in confronting the use of torture or recommitting the country to the Geneva Conventions and to America’s own laws and traditions.

…

[talk about the ultimate in cowardism:]

Even releasing detainees whom they knew to be entirely innocent was dangerous, since once released they could talk. “People will ask where they’ve been and ‘What have you been doing with them?’” Cheney said in a White House meeting. “They’ll all get lawyers.”

…

But Jane Mayer’s extraordinary and invaluable book suggests that it would be difficult to find any precedent in American history for the scale, brutality and illegality of the torture and degradation inflicted on detainees over the last six years; and that it would be even harder to imagine a set of policies more likely to increase the dangers facing the United States and the world.

from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08…..&_r=1

142 – While I have strong opinions, I appreciate the fact that you do stick to the facts. And I also (hard to believe from my comments I’m sure) very much appreciate that you do bring a flavor of what your sources, or the people they respected in the process and are willing talk about, thought of what they saw as the positive actions taken. I may not agree, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to get info on the other pov. I have been known to be wrong (after all, I’ve voted Republican more than once).

Right now, I have this very depressed feeling, though, that contra to your point about torture not being a partisan issue bc Republican lawyers were resisting in some fashion; the primary reason it could be argues that it is not a partisan issue is bc so many Democrats have been in favor of it, have run from the issue and are completely willing to leave whistleblowers hanging out to dry and sweep the issues under a rug.

Wonderful book – wonderful articles – I can’t imagine liking them so much if they only had what I already knew or already believed in them.

Thank you Jane and Steve for an important session. We need to get this information out, and we will do our best to help.

The video link in Steve’s comment is compelling — highly recommend that folks see the interview.

It is discussions like this that keep bringing me back to a post Scott Horton wrote almost 2 years ago, When Lawyers are War Criminals. I was one of those “wake up calls” for me in realizing quite fully how the system had been legitimizing the worst acts of humanity and how it would take nothing less than war crimes trials to bring these people to justice.

Not that I have any hopes that it will ever happen . . . .

One of the things the book does so well is flesh out the roles of the individuals involved. I think the descriptions of Tenet are especially revealing. There is a schmo who would be mensch if ever there was one.

Even releasing detainees whom they knew to be entirely innocent was dangerous, since once released they could talk. “People will ask where they’ve been and ‘What have you been doing with them?’” Cheney said in a White House meeting. “They’ll all get lawyers.”

from Edmund Burke:

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’

Dear MadDog-
Yes – I am told by a source involved in the immunity legislation that while Cheney’s people kept arguing that the immunity was to protect the hard-working guys who had put their lives on the line at the CIA, in fact, the VP’s office argued strenuously that the immunity should cover the VP. My source says it was obvious to him that this was a big concern.

That said, many people in many ways stood up against torture and for the rule of law in small and big moments, and I do hope readers take that from the book. It’s so important as a lesson because it’s not an easy thing to do, but people did do it.

I meant to quote the above for the Edmund Burke quote:

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’

Thanks, Jane. Keep on writing. Your invaluable gift to the nation and its citizenry!

I agree- it was a sham process pre-9/11, but it became not even that, afterwards.

Thank you everyone for your wonderful, thoughtful comments and questions. I am so sorry my home computer is so rickety – it’s really interfered a bit with the flow. But I hope to answer some of the remaining questions later, and, will watch for more during the next 24 hours. My best wishes, happy Saturday night!

but to me that’s not a legal process, that’s the paperwork of a bureaucratic process.

SOCIOPATHIC bureaucratic process. shades of the holocaust!

Just one of the many horrifying scenes from the last seven years was the “few bad apples” statement about Abu Ghraib….

Those who said it knew it to be false.

Those who said it knew that they themselves were to blame

Those who said it let enlisted personnel be tried without sharing the truth.

Those who said it still walk the halls of american government uncharged with any crime.

Those who said it are still described as heroes by our press…

Makes ya wanna PUKE

Thank YOU!!!!

It could well be that your intertubes are being interfered with by nefarious agents. They are all watching us now.

Thank you Jane. I enjoyed the book very much as well as the opportunity to visit with you

thank you for your book and your time here (steve too). i appreciate your efforts to thoughtfully answer so many questions today especially with the technical difficulties you’ve had cope with.

I wanted to thank you for coming. You did really great work on an important issue. I wish your writing was the rule not the exception in journalism.

Jane,
I didn’t get to read your book, but I will. I hope you can come back. You know, we love you here, we love people who stand up for truth and justice, for our Constitution, for what this country was founded on. Our ideals that bind us. We really appreciate you for writing this book.

my apologies for the vaugueness of this—
this is all sketchy from memory–can’t find my links.i’ll keep looking..(can’t remember the gov official cuz an ‘evil twin’ nickname for one of my friends’ kids is ‘weinerbottom’..so can’t remember the gov official’s real name)

right after dana priest outed the secret prisons, the next week, a high up guy named weiner-something was on the diane rehm show….in trying to convince diane that ‘we don’t torture’ and that medical personnel are in the room the whole time, and to prove it, he slipped up and said that ’surveys’had been sent to ALL medical personnel that deal with ‘detainees’ with questions about their ‘work’……….including overseas.. he slipped up and said how many ‘facilities’ they worked in…was a different number than dana had said. she had quoted secret and known facilities, his number was higher. i tried to find his name for a long time….didn’t have access to internet then.

finally found his full name and now can’t find it again. he left his office a while back.

he slipped big time, and i started to contact her about it.

still sticks in my brain after all of this time.

these ’surveys’, inquiries, where are they?

crap, i wasted time looking for links….damn damn damn. this has bugged me for two years.

Jane,
Did Bush41 ever try to rein in Cheney and save his son?

In a related veins, folks who return to look at this, Maj. David Frakt is seeking letters of support to send to the Convening Authority on behalf of his client, child soldier Mohammed Jawad in Guantanamo Bay. The CA has been ordered to review her decision to refer charges of war crimes of Jawad. If you click on my name, you’ll go to my blog that has a post about this. A link there will get you to further info on the case, suggestions about a letter, and Frakt’s address. Thanks everyone.

(Jawad was tortured at GB and at Bagram Air Base. Last week, a military psychologist claimed the right not to incriminate herself, when called by defense attorneys to testify about his treatment at G.Bay.)

Thanks Jane, this info is incredibly important and I hope at least some of it gets to the people who don’t have access to the internet and your magazine articles.

I’ve really learned a lot today and you’ve helped me remember things I’ve forgotten. What makes this so egregious is that they have torn down all that made us different from them – the fact that we stood up for what was right; that we didn’t torture (cruel and inhumane treatment); that we didn’t have secret prisons (Gulags); that we tried and convicted people according to law, with due process, and if they were found guilty we held them securely behind bars.

I hope we can find ourselves again

I’m buying the book

Thanks Jane

This was a great book salon – I’m really glad I had time to follow along from work.

To whoever asked why the other “journalists” don’t seem very interested in these issues — well, my theory is that real reporting, digging for facts and going wherever they led, began to go out the window when reporters started calling themselves journalists.
I notice Jane calls herself and “old-school reporter.”
We need more like her.
I’m beginning to think that having a J-school degree should DIS-qualify people for reporter jobs. They expect to make big money, and think it’s natural to hob-nob with the people they cover.
Wanna bet Jane doesn’t go to events like McCain’s bbq’s for “journalists?”

She’s the real thing.

Hope you do come back later, what do you think about this Jane?

PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings

Washington D.C., August 22, 2008 – The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq, according to a documents posting on the Web today by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados.

The documents suggest that the public relations push for war came before the intelligence analysis, which then conformed to public positions taken by Pentagon and White House officials. For example, a July 2002 draft of the “White Paper” ultimately issued by the CIA in October 2002 actually pre-dated the National Intelligence Estimate that the paper purportedly summarized, but which Congress did not insist on until September 2002.

A similar comparison between a declassified draft and the final version of the British government’s “White Paper” on Iraq weapons of mass destruction adds to evidence that the two nations colluded in the effort to build public support for the invasion of Iraq. Dr. Prados concludes that the new evidence tends to support charges raised by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its long-delayed June 2008 “Phase II” report on politicization of intelligence.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/N…../index.htm

here’s the link to laura’s post..am posting it for future records when time goes by and the post is lost from the front page.
http://justpeacenow.blogspot.c…..jawad.html

my 185 was to laura doty’s 181 message.

Julia is upstairs

“I didn’t hear anyone fearful of impeachment. “

This is so sad, because it shows the depth to which the Republicans had Pelosi neutered and horse-collared. It is almost as if Pelosi was in on the conspiracy.

Bob in HI

What a great guest and informative post. Thanks to Steve and Jane for such clear and courteous answers. A great exchange. Many thanks.

I don’t know if it’s possible to characterise the reality of the depth of the collusion involved in these policy decisions on every level including the Clinton admin. any more clearly than you have @ 114 and 151.
Very well put and long overdue

Thank you so much, Jane Mayer. You are an American patriot.

I sure wish Marcy could have been here

A point that was not discussed here that should not be overlooked.

Throughout this episode, the US State Dept, its ambassadors, and US Embassies have assured foreign governments that rendition or special rendition was in fact not occurring through that country’s sovereign territory. A bald faced lie told through diplomatic channels. This vastly increases the number of accomplices involved in intentional deceptions to the public and to the world at large.