David Pleasant

I understood outing a CIA agent as being tantamount to treason. At minimum, it is a felony. But the New York Times doesn’t see it that way. It’s merely a “distraction.”

The Wilson leak was an embarrassing distraction for President Bush and Mr. Cheney, whose role in the episode has remained a mystery that critics hoped would be clarified with the release of F.B.I. interview materials.

It sounds like the piece was authored by Alberto “Quaint” Gonzlaes.

Zachary Roth at TPM and Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent take Dick Cheney to task over the lies he propagated yesterday.

It’s hardly news that Dick Cheney is a liar. But yesterday offered yet another exhibit in the case.

During the debate over torture this spring, Cheney claimed that CIA memos, which he had asked to be declassified, would prove that torture proved effective in obtaining actionable intelligence.

Well, yesterday, those memos were released, along with the CIA inspector general’s report. And, surprise surprise, they don’t begin to show what Cheney said they did.

The memos, from 2004 and 2005, do say that some detainees, particularly Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, gave up useful information during debriefing sessions. But nowhere do they suggest that that information was gleaned through torture.

Indeed, as Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent shows, most of the evidence suggests they came through traditional interrogation techniques. As Spencer puts it: “Cheney’s public account of these documents have conflated the difference between information acquired from detainees, which the documents present, and information acquired from detainees through the enhanced interrogation program, which they don’t.”

It’s no wonder that in his response to the memos’ release, Cheney is reduced to playing silly semantic games that a reasonably intelligent junior high-schooler could see through. “The documents released Monday,” said Cheney in a statement, “clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda.” That’s true, but it’s totally different from Cheney’s earlier claim — that the documents would show it was the EITs themselves that elicited the information.

Dick Cheney released his fear-mongering, lying statement on the CIA Inspector General’s 2004 report and Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to prosecute the criminals in the CIA.

The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda. This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of al Qaeda members and associates since 2002. The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States. The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions. President Obama’s decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority for interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security.

The Washington Post details today the Bush administration’s various roles in torturing detainees. As Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) explains this is “basically a summary of information already out there, supplemented by one ‘former US official’ involved in the torture discussions.” The salient point being that going after the little guy yields testimony against those further up the food chain. In this case, the anonymous source points to authorization from the top of the White House.