Tag: Dick Cheney (page 2)

Banned Techniques Yielded `High Value Information,' Memo Says

Torture works! Who knew?

The source of this garbage is Admiral Dennis Blair, who is deeply committed to giving everybody who tortured detainees a free pass.

"I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past," he wrote, "but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given."

So it isn't exactly big news that this guy would claim his top-secret records prove that torture really works, and we're all so much safer because a few raggedy Arabs were (half) drowned, frozen, humiliated, beaten, kicked, suffocated, sleep-deprived, isolated, chained up like pretzels for days at a time and forced to poop and pee all over themselves, while their families were arrested, threatened, tortured, deported, and dispossessed.

The New York Daily News reports that aides to Dick Cheney are saying he's really angry that Bush wouldn't give Scooter Libby a full pardon and kept the pressure on Bush until the last minute.

After repeatedly telling Cheney his mind was made up, Bush became so exasperated with Cheney's persistence he told aides he didn't want to discuss the matter any further. The unsuccessful full-court press left Cheney bitter. "He's furious with Bush," a Cheney source told The News. "He's really angry about it and decided he's going to say what he believes."

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Dick Cheney is back and Politico has him.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.

In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Cheney tells Politico that President Obama will do one of two things: Backtrack on his positions or put the country at risk. Politico describes Cheney's mood as "self-vindicating."

Maybe Cheney watched Monday's "24" episode? [More...]

Vice President Dick Cheney has told the Associated Press there is no need for President Bush to issue preventive pardons for abusive interrogation techniques. Why?

He also said he doesn't think anyone at the CIA did anything illegal during interrogations. He says they followed the administration's legal opinions.

What about waterboarding? Cheney believes the information gleaned from suspects after the simulated drowning is reliable. And,

The vice president said waterboarding has been used with "great discrimination by people who know what they're doing" and produced much valuable information.

He's learned nothing since 2006 when he publicly first endorsed waterboarding. Is he living in an alternative universe or what? 12 days and counting.

Vice President Dick Cheney defended himself and the Bush Administration today on Fox News Sunday.

Cheney expressed no regrets in today's interview, vigorously defending the Bush administration's war and counterterrorism policies and saying he was untroubled by opinion polls showing that he and Bush are among the most unpopular White House occupants in modern times. "Eventually you wear out your welcome in this business, but I'm very comfortable with where we are and what we've achieved substantively," he said.

In discussing his views of broad executive power on national security issues, Cheney said Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt "went far beyond anything we've done in a global war on terror," and said that all U.S. presidents since 1973 have viewed the War Powers Act -- which gave Congress the role of declaring war -- as unconstitutional.

He also mocked Joe Biden. The transcript is here.

You knew it had to be too good to be true. It was.

The Texas indictments against Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales have been dismissed.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released its report (pdf) on PlameGate today. The last two paragraphs tell the story:

The investigation sought to answer basic questions about this incident, including (1) how the Valerie Plame Wilson leak occurred, including whether there was a concerted effort to knowingly disclose classified information; (2) whether senior White House officials complied with requirements governing the handling of classified information; (3) whether the White House took appropriate steps to address an improper leak and sanction any individuals involved; and (4) what legislative or other actions are needed to ensure appropriate identification and handling of classified information by White House officials so that such leaks do not occur in the future.

The Committee has been unable to completely investigate these matters, in part, because of the President’s assertion of executive privilege over the report of the FBI interview of Vice President Cheney. This invocation of executive privilege was legally unprecedented and an inappropriate use of executive privilege. It prevented the Committee from learning the extent of the Vice President’s role in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity.

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Remember in 2003 when Vice President Dick Cheney began asserting that the Vice President is not part of the executive branch? He's been using that ever since as an excuse to be relieved from preserving documents under the Presidential Records Act.

Today, a federal judge told Cheney to preserve his records.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is a setback for the Bush administration in its effort to promote a narrow definition of materials that must be safeguarded under by the Presidential Records Act.

The Bush administration's legal position "heightens the court's concern" that some records may not be preserved, said the judge.

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It's official. President Bush invoked a claim of executive privilege to prevent Congress from obtaining Justice Department interviews with Dick Cheney and others over the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson. A subpoena for the information was issued in June.

The Wilsons respond (no link, received by e-mail):

“Today the president took the unprecedented step of asserting executive privilege to thwart congressional efforts to review Vice President Cheney’s interview with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald concerning the betrayal of Valerie Wilson’s covert CIA identity. We agree with Congressman Waxman that the position taken by the president is ludicrous.

The American people have a right to know what role the vice president played in the leak of Ms. Wilson’s covert identity for political purposes. The fact that the Attorney General is recommending the assertion of executive privilege reveals that this Department of Justice is as beholden to the White House as that run by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

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Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20th about the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.

He will be asked about Dick Cheney's role.

President Bush's former spokesman, Scott McClellan, will testify before a House committee next week about whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered him to make misleading public statements about the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

In his new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan said he was misled by others, possibly including Cheney, about the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the leak. McClellan has said publicly that Bush and Cheney "directed me to go out there and exonerate Scooter Libby."

McClellan is represented by Michael Tigar and his wife, Jane Tigar. Doesn't get much better than that. (Update: Jason Leopold has more on McClellan at the Public Record.)

Jason Leopold has more on the affidavit filed by the White House in a federal court case this week in which the White House claims it had the hard drives of computer workstations destroyed when it replaced them and that it would be too expensive to search those that remain for e-mails. The period at issue is 2003 - 2005.

The White House also claims:

...there is simply no evidence to back up allegations made in a lawsuit filed by two government watchdog groups that claim the White House has lost as many as 10 million emails—some of which are said to coincide with dates involving the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson as well as the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. [White House Chief Information Officer Theresa]Payton said that since the watchdog groups’ claims are unsupported the White House should not be forced to undertake a “draconian” process of having to search for emails.

In other words, it's just a coincidence that, as Jason writes,

Denver civil rights lawyer David Lane intends to subpoena Dick Cheney in the civil rights lawsuit he brought against Cheney's secret service detail. Details of the incident and lawsuit are here.

Steven Howards and his son were walking by a Dick Cheney event this summer in Beaver Creek, on their way to a piano lesson. Howards told Cheney he didn’t approve of his war policy. When Howards walked back from the lesson, passing the site again, he was arrested. Charges later were dropped.

The New York Times had a feature article on the case yesterday. What's become the big story in the case is that the Secret Service agents are accusing each other of making stuff up. [More...]