Cheney hints waterboarding prevented terrorist attack on Los Angeles. Should he be prosecuted?

Now that President Obama has given his reluctant blessings to a bipartisan commission to study CIA torture tactics in the Bush administration, the right-wing blogosphere is defending the techniques with chatter about what former Vice President Cheney called the "enormously valuable" information derived from waterboarding.

According to a new Senate Intelligence Committee report released last night, President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, with its minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to Al Qaeda or Taliban detainees, clearing the way for a new interrogation program based on “Chinese communist” tactics first used against Americans during the Korean War.

Now, with pressure growing to investigate Cheney and others in the Bush administration for their roles in approving the controversial techniques, conservatives are turning up the heat.

Exhibit A in the case for torture: Defenders of the practice say the waterboarding of Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced information that allowed the U.S government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles in 2002.

According to a previously classified May 30, 2005, Justice Department memo that the Obama administration released last week, before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”

After the "enhanced techniques," which the agency used on him 183 times, KSM -- the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks -- told investigators about a "second wave" of terrorists from East Asia who planned to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles.

After he was subjected to the waterboarding technique, wrote Conservative News Service's Terence P. Jeffrey,"KSM became cooperative, providing intelligence that led to the capture of key Al Qaeda allies and, eventually, the closing down of an East Asian terrorist cell that had been tasked with carrying out the 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles."

The Justice Department memo concluded:

In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including KSM and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques. ... [They] had expressed their belief that the general U.S. population was "weak," lacked resilience, and would be unable to "do what was necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals." 

Thanks to a lawsuit by the ACLU, the memos are now out. You can read the full transcript here.

And let us know what you think: Should Cheney be prosecuted for authorizing torture?

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[Pom Pom Girl]

Interrogation & U.S. Interests
How does the releasing of secret governmental documents or discussion documents on US interrogation procedures or processes serve Americas interests during a time of war.
Obama was not in power at the time and does not necessarily understand the situation, as well as the wealth or lack of info available, at the time these decisions were made. Hindsight is wonderful and he can commit publicly policy against harsh interrogation to the soldiers of nations subject to the Geneva Convention as well as to terrorists who serve no nation and are not subject to that convention since they never signed it. However, to open up the documents merely serves to smear the names of officials in the prior administration (I thought Obama won and the campaign was over) despite handing our enemies a nice unearned propaganda victory.
I can see how it serves the interest of Obama’s self esteem and fits within his Blame Others agenda but how does it serve my interests or the U.S. interests. I suppose it may even get Obama a Nobel Prize nod from the U.S. hating nations out there but is that really what he is in office for? He needs to do a reality check and remember he is the Commander In Chief, has US troops in combat situations and that he serves our interests first and not his own or the worlds.
Way to go Cheney. Call Obama out for the softie he is. If it was in fact a damned near thing and hard interrogations saved our butts then we should at least be made to understand that. Its a scary thing and Obama has triggered what will be a morale crisis by doing what he did, not just to the CIA but to the public who have been protected from how scary it has been.

[steve rodriguez]

Obama's new euphemism for terrorist: " Friends that we haven't met yet!"

[samarkand]

One slight problem with this story:

The waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed could not have "produced information that allowed the U.S government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles in 2002" because he was not captured until 2003.

[steve rodriguez]

The Obama Administration is making America into a "banana republic!"

[Alan B]

Can someone please explain how the torture of a guy captured in 2003 prevented a planned 2002 terrorist attack?

[The Gentle Art]

Our reputation has been set back a generation because of this scandal. There needs to be an investigation to, at the very least, save face.

Check out this short article that does a great job of debunking the arguments being used by those who oppose prosecution.

Very short, but pretty powerful.

www.progressnotcongress.org

[N]

Pom Pom Girl: How does the releasing of secret governmental documents or discussion documents on US interrogation procedures or processes serve Americas interests during a time of war.

How does torturing fourteen year olds increase America's interests?

[Bob]

Pom pom - time of war? That's the problem, we're only at war in the minds of conservative republicans. In reality, some Saudi Arabian criminals planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks and the survivors havn't been caught yet. And what exactly did they find out at water boarding 183 that they didn't know at #182 anyway. Apologists for criminal actions by elected officials, can't just make up propaganda anymore and expect Americans to follow along. My tax dollars aren't going to be used for wanna be Rambos to pursue sick fantasies any longer.

[steve rodriguez]

Mr. President America's enemies must love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Libraryguy]

"Should Cheney be prosecuted for authorizing torture?"

The question answers itself.

Try substituting "rape," or "murder," or "bestiality" for torture in that sentence, and there's no confusion; why is there any over torture?

Do we, as Americans, really want to sink to the level of our worst enemies?

[elmir]

the whole bush administration should be waterboarded and their kids should be waterboarded as well see how it feels to them...ehhh just waterboard cheneys mom while your at it too.

[Kent Bonde]

The ACLU should be rebranded as the American Criminal Liberties Union and should be put out of business. instead of defending the civil rights of law-abiding citizens, it has clearly mutated into an organization bent on giving criminals more rights than their victims and now, with the release of these memos, a champion to terrorists and other enemies of our country as well. What this will do is literally open the floodgates for all scumbag civil rights attorneys to begin filing their lawsuits against the Federal Government and further detract this nation's attention from dealing with some very insidious and very real threats that are facing this country, that many americans are too stupid to realize exist. Sadly, it is our very own Commander in Chjef that has perpetuated this disaster in the making, despite opposition from some of his top advisors and 4 ex-CIA directors.

[N]

Kent Bonde: What this will do is literally open the floodgates for all scumbag civil rights attorneys to begin filing their lawsuits against the Federal Government and further detract this nation's attention from dealing with some very insidious and very real threats that are facing this country, that many americans are too stupid to realize exist.

So, let me get this straight. What is at stake here is the nation's attention? Please. Believe or not, most intelligent Americans are capable eating preztels and watching television at the same time.

[Peach]

In THIS country we do not base our actions on "serving "our interests. Read the Declaration of Independence & Constitution CONs, or in the case of "pom pom", have someone read it to you. The Bush kids ALMOST turned us into a 3rd world country, Obama is bringing us back.

[Peach]

It was not in this country's best interests to put al Qaeda on the back burner to go after The Man Who Threatened Poppy. Bush barely responded to the Saudi manned, Saudi financed attack before he kow towed to his King , Abdullah. It was BUSH that sent Americans better than he to die so he could play dress up & PRETEND to be a soldier. Now we must make up for the years wasted & address terror.

Cheney's claim two tiny bits of information were obtained by torture is loathsome; he lobbied for Bush's War to make $$$$$$ & probably profited from the anti American methods he champions. We now know NOTHING is beneath NeoCONs.

[john]

Was Cheney really the one who was most responsible for these torture techniques? His recent comments might suggest so. The Military Tribunal for the Far East hung seven Japanese generals in 1946 for tolerating waterboarding in their commands? Ranks below were sentences to fifteen years hard labor for the same. The Japanese were torturing captured American airmen in the name of Japan's homeland security and the US justice system considered it a serious crime, punished by death. Did Cheney break laws? Does a Vice President not need to face the same justice system that all Americans must abide by or is he above the law?