Cheney's Nat Security Speech / Lies vs Facts

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By Allen L Roland (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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Lies, omissions and deceit were the trademarks of the Cheney/Bush administration and they were on full display yesterday during Dick Cheney's self-serving address at the American Enterprise Institute ~ but here, at long last, are the facts: Allen L Roland

Dick Cheney's defense of his approval of interrogation policies which included waterboarding - simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture - forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were that they were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."

One important point must be made clear here ~ Dick Cheney could have been obsessed in finding a scapegoat for 9/11 since his office may very well have been involved in the expediting, if not cover up, of that very same event ~ but that's a chapter we have yet to open.

However, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers, wrote a brilliant piece on Cheney's speech yesterday ~ concentrating on the omissions and misstatements and there were many.http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/v-fullstory/story/1059900.html

Excerpts:

( CHENEY LIE ) Cheney quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al-Qaida organization that was attacking this country."

( FACT ) In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

( FACT ) A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

( FACT) FBI Director Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think the techniques disrupted any attacks.

( CHENEY LIE ) Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al-Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.

( FACT) However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."

( CHENEY LIE ) Cheney said that the Bush administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks."

( FACT ) The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri, remain at large nearly eight years after Sept. 11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

( CHENEY LIE ) Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards ... in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."

( FACT ) However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees."

( CHENEY LIE ) Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

( FACT ) A 2008 McClatchy Newspapers investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

( FACT ) In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 5, 2005, that the Bush administration had admitted to her that it had mistakenly abducted a German citizen, Khaled Masri, from Macedonia in January 2004.

( FACT ) Masri reportedly was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he allegedly was abused while being interrogated. He was released in May 2004 and dumped on a remote road in Albania." http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/v-fullstory/story/1059900.html

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Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website more...)

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