Yoo was a minion. What villain higher up the chain of command was at the center of this?
The article "Is CIA Suppressing "Holy Grail" Torture Report That Would Undercut Cheney?" at
details that Cheney is the source as it states "On Friday, there may be a major development in the torture wars: The CIA is set to release portions of a 2004 report that reportedly found no proof that torture foiled any terror plots, which would dramatically undercut Dick Cheney's claims that torture worked.
But a news story this morning raises the question: Is the CIA trying to keep chunks that would undermine Cheney under wraps?"
Why are we concerned that Cheney might wriggle out of this? The Justice Department is dragging its feet.
The article "Justice Dept. Wants Delay in Releasing CIA Report on Detainee Treatment" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/19/AR2009061903335_pf.html
Let's be hopeful as the article states "Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer, said the group is disappointed by the delay. "We can only hope that this delay is a sign that the forces of transparency within the Obama administration are winning over the forces of secrecy and that the report will ultimately be released with minimal redactions," she said. "The CIA should not be permitted to use national security as a pretext for suppressing evidence of its own unlawful conduct."
Maybe the US MSM should be covering this rather than obsessing on Michael Jackson and Sanford. If, when, the "Holy Grail" Torture Report" materializes it will match another recent defeat for Cheney. Each loss stokes the flames for bringing him to justice. The article "Judge to review Cheney interview in CIA leak case" at
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CHENEY_CIA_LEAK?SITE=MAFIT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
states "A federal judge said Thursday that he wants to look at notes from the FBI's interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative."
Just as with torturing detainees Cheney blabbed about his role in this matter to prove what tough guys the GOP members are as the article states "Cheney agreed to talk to FBI agents in June 2004 as they were investigating the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters the year before. Her name was revealed after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on
Cheney's former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, reprised the role of the Iran-Contra scandal's Ollie North, and who was Libby protecting? The article continues "Libby told the FBI in 2003 that it was possible that Cheney ordered him to reveal Plame's identity to reporters. The prosecutor in that case, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, said in his closing remarks at Libby's trial that there was a "cloud" over Cheney's role in the case. Fitzgerald told members of Congress who also sought the information that Cheney set no conditions about the use of his interview with investigators."
The CIA in the W administration wouldn't go after Cheney either for his crimes or for his role in exposing a covert spy's identity-which is a felony. Forgotten in this is that all of Plame's networks were compromised also. The CIA in the Obama administration, as with Obama, would rather look forward not backward, but current CIA Director Leon Panetta has said "I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue," he told me. "It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."
The Obama administration is gradually accumulating so much information against Cheney that the option of ignoring his crimes will inevitably change into prosecution of Cheney.
