White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques Thursday and considered it "a weighty decision."
"He thought very long and hard about it, consulted widely, because there were two principles at stake," Axelrod said . "One is . the sanctity of covert operations . and keeping faith with the people who do them, and the impact on national security, on the one hand. And the other was the law and his belief in transparency."
The president consulted officials from the Justice Department, the CIA, the director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department, according to his adviser.
"It was a weighty decision," Axelrod said. "As with so many issues, there are competing points of view that flow from very genuine interests and concerns that are to be respected. And then the president has to synthesize all of it and make a decision that's in the broad national interest. He's been thinking about this for four weeks, really."
In releasing the documents, Obama also pledged not to prosecute CIA employees who carried out the aggressive interrogation practices critics decried as torture - but which were approved by top legal officials in the Bush administration.
Obama said that a full public accounting of U.S. actions in the post 9/11 era should take priority over prosecuting or punishing individuals who acted in the name of the government.
However, even as he did so, he indicated he shared grave concerns about some of the interrogation methods - some of which, like the use of a "confinement box," were described in detail for the first time.
"This is a time for reflection not retribution," Obama said. "We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."
While Obama all but condemned the use of the interrogation techniques, a statement from Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair struck a starkly different tone. "It is important to remember the context of these past events. All of us remember the horror of 9/11," Blair wrote, adding that the CIA feared further attacks and sought permission for the aggressive techniques after struggling to get information from terror suspects.
"Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing," Blair wrote. "We will not use those techniques in the future. But we will absolutely defend those relied on these memos."
A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos "unbelievable."
"It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are," the official said. "We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. . Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again - even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."
"I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either one, the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against."
And in fact, the memos also contain a lengthy defense of the techniques, with one 2005 memo noting they are similar to techniques used to train U.S. troops to withstand interrogation and therefore "are not categorically beyond the pale."
Obama also drew fire from liberal critics of Bush. "President Obama's assertion that there should not be prosecutions of government officials who may have committed crimes before a thorough investigation has been carried out is simply untenable," said Anthony Romero, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit that led to the memos release.
Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) said the release of the documents would lend momentum to his proposal for a blue-ribbon commission to examine war-on-terror excesses - an idea Obama hasn't embraced. "We need to understand how these policies were formed if we are to ensure that this can never happen again," Leahy said.
The memos' sterile but unusually graphic descriptions of specific interrogation techniques approved for use against top al-Qaida detainees seem certain to trigger another wave of global condemnation of the United States. "The CIA used the waterboard extensively in the interrogations" of two al-Qaida principals, Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, said one 2005 memo, referring to a technique that simulates drowning.
An August 2002 memo gave legal blessing not only to waterboarding Zubaydah, but to nine other techniques, some of which have not been widely discussed in the long-running debate over alleged torture. The practices included confining him in small spaces, including one where he could not stand up; placing him in a "cramped confinement box" with an insect he might consider dangerous; and dramatically throwing him against a "flexible false wall."
A Justice Department statement said Attorney General Eric Holder had concluded that "intelligence community officials who acted reasonably and relied in good faith on authoritative legal advice from the Justice Department that their conduct was lawful, and conformed their conduct to that advice, would not face federal prosecutions for that conduct."
The new pledges do not foreclose entirely the possibility of prosecutions of CIA or military intelligence officials for aggressive interrogations. If interrogators went further than authorized by the Justice Department, their actions could still lead to prosecution. In addition, the pledges from Holder and Obama did not cover Justice Department officials who issued the legal memoranda.
Furthermore, the promises did not go far beyond observations many legal experts have offered about the difficulties in prosecuting interrogators who had unequivocal advice that their actions were legal. In discussions with lawmakers during his confirmation process earlier this year, Holder said he shared that view; Thursday's pledge was clearly intended to assuage the concerns of CIA officials who had opposed released of the memos in part out of fears it would trigger calls for prosecution.
"The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world," Obama said. "We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs."
The Justice Department also made a series of other promises intended to calm the waters at CIA. Employees there were explicitly assured they would be represented by government lawyers at no charge in any cases brought over war-on-terror conduct approved of by official legal opinions. In addition, Holder appeared to rule out cooperation and to prescribe a policy of confrontation in dealing with foreign legal proceedings against American officials, such as the continuing effort in Spain to prosecute alleged war crimes at Guantanamo Bay. Justice also said the government would pay any damage award that might be rendered in a lawsuit over authorized interrogations.
While Obama said three times in his statement that the law left him no choice but to release the memos, the administration likely could have fought disclosure of the records for years, if not indefinitely. Most courts are extremely deferential to executive branch claims of national security and almost never overturn intelligence officials' claims that documents need to remain classified.
Even as he asserted that his hands were effectively tied, Obama also bent over backwards to indicate that disclosure of this kind of intelligence-related material was a rare, and perhaps unique, exception. "It is my strong belief that the United States has a solemn duty to vigorously maintain the classified nature of certain activities and information related to national security," he said. "The exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities."
Some sections of the memos offer fodder for those, like former vice president Dick Cheney, who have defended use of the aggressive questioning techniques. The 2005 memo says the CIA claimed that use of waterboarding and other "enhanced" practices on KSM exposed a plot "'to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into' a building in Los Angeles." Information from KSM also led to the arrest of al-Qaeda's top operative in southeast Asia, Hambali.
The same memo says that after Zubaydah was exposed to the aggressive techniques he "provided significant information on two operatives," including Jose Padilla, who was publicly accused of, but never legally charged with plotting to set off a radiation-laced bomb in the U.S. Almost a full page of information about other intelligence gleaned from such interrogations was blacked out. Some intelligence officials have disputed the value of the information from the interrogations, and critics have noted that there is no way to be sure whether the same information could have been obtained through the use of less physical or confrontational techniques.
The statements from Obama and Holder also were worded with extraordinary care. For instance, Holder said, "The President has halted the use of the interrogation techniques described in these opinions, and this administration has made clear from day one that it will not condone torture." At first glance, Holder seemed to be conceding that the techniques were torture; and in fact, he has said that waterboarding is torture. However, his statement Thursday never conceded that any past interrogation practice amounted to torture, which violates federal criminal law and international treaties.
The memos were sought by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit it filed for documents pertaining to abuse of war-on-terror prisoners held in U.S. custody. The Justice Department faced a legal deadline Thursday to turn over the documents or justify withholding them.
This putz thinks he's making friends while all he's doing is making the country look weak.
Only in right-wing bizzarro-world is abandoning principle out of fear a sign of strength. And only in right-wing bizzarro-world are open, honest appraisal of our past and effort to better adhere to our principles in the future a sign of weakness.
the question quite a bit.....and they considered the potential security impacts.
But, the ability to use this to pander to the voters, in combination with all the liberl myths, lies, distortions, and propganda and then in consideration of all potential benefit to the Democrats won over and so now they are all for it.....
The hamsters are happy to have someone that will feed them...as for keeping them safe, they're safe right now...personally I fear what he's doing and what he will..or rather won't do when push comes to shove...talking isn't going to get it with people that cut off heads and send their own children out strapped with bombs to kill! Maybe the hamsters and their god Obama will volunteer to be the first in the head chopping line....but of course they don't volunteer for anything except whining...bitching and complaining and blaming do they!
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
Only in right-wing bizzarro-world is abandoning principle out of fear a sign of strength. And only in right-wing bizzarro-world are open, honest appraisal of our past and effort to better adhere to our principles in the future a sign of weakness.
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also in international relations where we stand opposite ...Iran,China and Russia....it is they who see us as weak when we refuse to stand on the first principle of international relations by acting in our own interest in a hostile world to show (display to hostile entities that we will not tolerate attacks on our interests)...they will view us as weak when we are subservient to the whims of foreign leaders and not steadfast defenders of our own international standing as a world leader in commerce and industry and protector of our own shipping and the interests of our allies.
Basically when you employ the same methods that the bad guys do you have let them win.
What goes on the the field is one thing. That is in the heat of battle. After seeing friends killed or maimed it individuals are likely to resort to actions they wouldn't normally find acceptable.
In the cold light of day without emotional provacation to determine that actions that go against what our country stands for is acceptable is another matter.
It isn't about feeling safer or not it is about deciding whether the ends justifies the means. And just because we do it doesn't change that.
There is one concept that cannot be ignored or politically coated...we cannot defeat the Islamic Terrorist with western values and politics. They are totally living in another world and our senses of right and wrong will be fine to ease the leftist and their always "fight last if ever" mentality...but it will not defeat the Islamic Terrorist zealots...and they will not stop their quest to rule and cannot win without the use of terror! Thus we see a small number of zealots bring this nation to it's knees by the use of FOUR aircraft! We see them dancing in the streets as they drag the dead mutilated bodies of their captives through the streets...as the United States has politicians whining over water boarding or putting a harmless bug in a box or underwear over a prisoner's head! You just don't get it do you...we can never defeat these terrorist their backers using our rules...they will not be defeated by our standards they have to be defeated by their standards! The Islamic Terrorist see the United States as weak when we do not use the full power at our disposal to destroy them...or when the president of this country bows to an Islamic King and they use the propaganda to even make us appear weaker than that president's words and actions HAVE made us!
One only has to look back at the bombing of Japan to end WWII...if we had not used the nuclear bombs there would have been millions killed on both sides and many would have been Americans and allies! Japan knew that if they did not surrender that they would be totally eradicated as a people...thus they surrendered! When Iran or North Korea sells a nuclear weapon the world is going to change forever...if a nuke is used by the Islamic terrorist or their backing country on Israel the world is going to change forever...and this isn't the Change the leftist savior Obama promised! This is for real and it's happening...wake-up to at least understand what electing this crowd has planned for this country and then watch how their politics effects the entire world security...do you really feel safer or are you deluding yourself drunk with political spin and ignorance and propaganda based hate?
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
"Well that's where we have a fundamental disagreement."
Then please tell me what you believe the answer is....seems from the time of the Carter fuck up with Iran until Iraq invaded Kuwait...talking did nothing but give the Islamic radicals incentives to attack a weaker west!
Iran seeing that Reagan was coming into power gave up the hostages...Iraq being a bit dumber than the average sadistic murdering dictator led regime stayed in Kuwait and got their asses kicked for doing so...then we had the Clinton years of attacks by Islamic terrorist and nothing was done or even much said...politically constructed legal walls built by out own country to disallow the sharing of information between agencies etc....Blackhawk down and nothing was done the USS Cole and nothing was done etc....then we had the 911 attacks and Iraq attempting to procure nuclear weapons which bought them some more worthless UN resolutions...17 to be exact that of course nothing was done about...and Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded and thus started The War On Terror...and since there's not been another successful attack on US soil...yet! Now the words' Islamic Terrorist has been stricken from use...so has the War On Terror..."talking" with these animals will not work...how many have to die before you realize this! Talking to them shows our weakness and all along they plot to murder masses! Maybe if you look at what your talking has brought forth in North Korea...forget it, you're wayyy too deep in your partisan politics to even look or consider anything but your political spin and line! We'll just wait and see won't we....and if and when there are thousands more of Americans dead in the street from the result of this talking who's going to take the blame for that...you and those like you? ....Oh sure you will!LOL!
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
Wow, skippy ... you have an amazingly selective recollection of history.
Did you forget that Carter did try a military solution to the Iran hostage crisis?
Did you forget that Reagan traded arms to Iran for hostages (and he may even have had representatives deal with Iran before he took office)? And did you forget that Reagan sold weapons (including chemical weapons precursors) to Saddam's Iraq?
Did you forget that Bush the elder engaged in very extensive coalition building before responding militarily to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait?
Did you forget that after the first WTC bombing, there was no other Islamic terrorist attack on US soil for eight years?
Sheesh ... I could go on and on with the ahistorical aspects of that rant of yours. And you have the nerve to accuse me of being "wayyy too deep in [my] partisan politics?" I've regularly been critical of Democrats (including Obama) when I think they're wrong. Your accusation fits you far better than it does me.
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God bless barbarism. God bless torture. God bless those who support terrorism barbarism and torture. 
Amen
