A couple weeks back, I engaged in some rank speculation: maybe the use of torture did not come about as a result of a request from CIA officers in the field; maybe it was crammed down on them from above. I wondered if the OLC memos were manufactured to remove the ability of those CIA field people to refuse to torture based on the notion that they did not have to obey an illegal order.
And I wondered if it was for that reason that President Obama was opposed to prosecuting CIA field people.
Well, a recent New York Times Op-Ed from an FBI interrogator suggests that maybe I was on to something:
The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.
Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).
My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)
[emphasis added]
All of which makes what was done from above that much worse. Those memos removed the legal ability of CIA field people to object to torture. Sickening.
Thirty-first in a series on torture and the law.
[Editor's note: The photo by takomabibelot features a banner created and designed by Firedoglake reader BonnieT of Austin, Texas, where she operates OpposeTorture.org.]
Related posts:
- Torture Memos: Are Bradbury’s Two 2006 OLC Opinions Still Active?
- By Yoo’s Own Analysis, Army Field Manual Allows Torture with Drugs
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes David Cole, Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable
- CIA/SERE Experiments Evidence of Attempt to Mislead on OLC Torture Memos
- Addington’s Direct Involvement in the Torture Memos
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Incredible. This totally makes sense, LHP.
Have to agree. It was a coup d’etat, as Richard Clark (I think) said.
Hardly a wonder then that Obama was greeted warmly at Langely.
Imagine being unable to object to human rights violations and war crimes without having your job threatened.
Bad enough the public was clamoring for blood after 9/11.
Who were these “contactors” anyway? They seemed to have an extraordinary influence.
your entire post goes back to my point which is, I want to find out who recruited the agents responsible for those torture programs, I am willing to bet it was cheney’s “team b” and/or cheney himself
in addition, as you wrote, it looks like those “private contractors” were responsible for “requesting more aggresive techniques” which is of course haliburton which is of course as I said, cheney
not buying that as an excuse, that boils down to “orders” and precedence demonostrates “orders” are not a defense and if we don’t prosecute those “carrying out orders” then it is clearly condoning the crime
that just cannot be part of the progressive dialogue
Of course CIA professionals would be opposed to torture. Just like the FBI professionals, they would know what works and what doesn’t work for interrogations. This whole episode is just another example of Cheney gaming the system for his own sick, perverted interests. I’ll bet anything that the “contractors” Soufan references trace directly back to Cheney. I’ve been convinced all along that Cheney did his best to hang torture on the CIA because they wouldn’t go along with his Team B folks on WMD in Iraq.
Thanks, LHP, you connected a lot of dots in ways that make sense.
so the cost of “privitizing” our army, in essence creating the bush/cheney version of hitlers brown shirts was not only the exponential costs in treasure but now we see the destruction of our integrity, our ability be seen as a fair broker of international affairs but most important;
we can never sign another treaty in good faith, nor can we broker a treaty for other nations in good faith
negotiating and enforcing treaties is one of the most important tools in defense of this country, that tool is now lost thanks to cheney’s sociopathy and desire for never ending war
I agree as far as the real cia jim, there is however the fake section that cheney recruited way back during nixon, team b, recruied specifically to undermine nixon’s detante
he created false information back then and polished the method for Iraq, the man is a certifiable sociopath
The contractors, or what they really are, mercenaries, were hired by that dick, Cheney as his own private army from his pals at Blackwater…
Would the Senate Intelligence Committee be the best group to push for inquiries into the contractors involved in interrogation? Would they be able to find out who got the contracts, and, more importantly, who requested that contracts be let?
as I keep saying, find the individuals and point out who hired them, the road will lead to cheney and when this is pointed out all others will point their blame, they will get off the cheney torture tour and save their hides by claiming “cheney made me do it”
Cheney’s earlier “leave behinds” were all in Defense, not CIA, as far as I know. That’s why he has pitted DoD against CIA for a long time. DoD is peppered with his people from all the way back when Rummy had his first stint as SecDef, as your link shows.
I wonder what the Pentagon thinks of Blackwater mercenaries? This is definitely an invasion of their turf and let’s face it, turf is supreme in Washington. Maybe the Justice Dept could get a little cooperation from the Generals?
Jim White, I hope you and other front pagers here keep beating the drum on the disappeared. Is AS (sorry, this is how my brain works, can’t recall the name just her initials) going to be in a court in Manhattan this week? Her infant has disappeared??? Her other two children are split up and located in two different locations after being “bugged” in boxes? She is KSM’s wife? I may not have all these details, but WTF? Women, children and babies?
Heckofa contract, Brownies.
for jimwhite
but there were new recruits and there was the “private contractors” from haliburton
I am willing to bet those are the people responsible here
Cheney was/is known for his disdain of CIA and had wanted DOD in command of intelligence activities for many years. To put “his people” into the agency flies in the face of reality.
Actually I think it worked both ways. The Bush Administration wanted to torture and the CIA wanted legal cover.
You have to remember that Cheney distrusted the CIA because he saw it as an insufficient mirror of his own paranoia. So it is quite easy to see him pushing the agency to adopt more extreme positions, including torture.
So a bunch of private contractors were/are telling the C.I.A. what to do?
Are those private hires going to be prosecuted by Obama?
This is bad on so many levels.
Another shooting at a college overnight. Hampton Univ (VA) men’s dorm. Hall monitor and pizza delivery guy shot. No deaths reported. Shooter, a former student, in custody. NPR says 3 hospitalized so reports are sketchy.
“If the Pizza Guy would have been allowed to carry a weapon this tragedy would have been avoided” Official NRA news release…
I think the contractors come in two flavors. There were the Americans like James Mitchell but there was also likely a foreign contigent, probably Israeli with a smattering of other nationalities.
And … thanks to Obama’s refusal to honor those treaties and investigate war crimes.
Now you’ve put your foot in it, Hugh. By the way, to me contractors are guys you hire to screw up your house, Mercenaries are the guys you hire to screw up a military operation.
Call me naive but I like to believe that Obama is playing reluctant just to let this Cheney mess emerge on its own, cause a public outcry and demand for justice. Obama’s hands are clean and the repukes can’t scream partisanship.
JayBur, I also support this eventuality. Look at how many people are coming forward in the OpEd of NYT. (Perhaps giving new meaning to the Op in teh Ed.)
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
I was an Obama supporter until his FISA vote, and I voted for him because McCain/Palin was unthinkable. But he is proving to be a corrupt political hack that wants this to go away for political reasons. Just in the past few days he clearly stated his opposition to a commission (not that I think THAT is the answer, but it might be a start) and immediately Reid agreed — only Pelosi is still talking about it.
Appointing a small number of completely nonpartisan individuals (retired Federal judges is one suggestion I’ve seen) to investigate would be a good first step. The fact that he seems to want to sweep it all under the rug doesn’t speak well of him, IMHO, Cheney or no.
bb, thanks. Yes, she is the one. And a US citizen, this is why she is going to court in Manhattan, am I correct? Rendered from somewhere outside the US. If all of this is correct, that I think her children/baby are also US citizens. So we have killed her baby and tortured her/their other children with bugs?
sadly, true
I’m not a real front pager, I just put up a lot of Oxdowns…
bluebutterfly gives you the name you couldn’t recall. She isn’t married to KSM (although I’ve seen discussions where there may be a family link and that the perceived link may be based on the government mis-identifying someone) and I think it is his children where there are suggestions that insects were used. And yes, it does appear Siddiqui will be in court this week. Rumors in Pakistan suggest that the youngest of Siddiqui’s children is dead.
Thanks, JW. I have been reading your comments in threads as well as the Oxdowns. My memory is better when I have page orientation to remember where I read something, so teh internets give me a handicap in that area.
However, this issue of the disappeared and dead, and when they are also US citizens, maybe the public wakes up.
What is the reason (do we have any idea) why most of the disappeared have been picked up in Pakistan? Sorry, I guess this is OT.
Two thoughts: one, yes, mostly, the memos and other pressure was meant to enforce the torture from the top down.
But, two, it misses the fact that there were those in the CIA and the Pentagon that supported the use of torture, and did what they could to promote it, sending biased info about its effects and effectiveness to the higher-ups.
There was a synergy between top and lower (but still high) levels that created the torture program.
What I would like to know is a simple fact:
What would the consequences be for any CIA agent, or official, should they have refused, even despite the OLC memo, to proceed with the torture? Is it really the case that they might have simply been drummed out of the CIA? Would the consequences have been, instead, only some derailing of their career?
Given the fact of the moral obscenity they were engaging in, it would be useful to know how much, or how little, was really at stake in any refusal they may have made. Certainly they would have been aware of the refusal of the FBI to engage in such acts, despite the memo. This makes their own falling in with the policy stand out as even less excusable.
new poster uptop, come on up
Jeff Kaye
Washington Post Helps JPRA Cover Up Complicity in Torture Program
“Those memos removed the legal ability of CIA field people to object to torture.”
Please correct my limited knowledge, but CIA employees/contractors are not military personel.
Refusing to cooperate, though possibly insubordinate, is not a federal/militarily punishable offense and though it may be considered grounds for dismissal in the business sense, it is a tenet of law that an illegal act can not be enforced.
Ahhh… so this is the point. Instead of the age old canard of attempting to legislate morality they attempted to legislate immorality. Up is down. Black is white.