Text 11325, 191 rader
Skriven 2009-05-21 22:10:03 av Ross Sauer (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: The big Dick's cheerleaders
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Why am I not surprised?

Buchanan, Peters call Cheney speech "candid," "accurate" despite
discredited claims

May 21, 2009 6:25 pm ET

SUMMARY: Despite discredited claims made by Dick Cheney during his May
21 speech, Pat Buchanan referred to Cheney's remarks as "candid," while
Ralph Peters said that "every single point [Cheney] raised was
accurate."

Despite several discredited claims made by former Vice President Dick
Cheney during his May 21 speech to the American Enterprise Institute,
MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan subsequently referred to Cheney's remarks
as "candid." Similarly, Fox News contributor Ralph Peters said of the
speech, "every single point he raised was accurate. I am 100 percent
behind him on this, because he's right." During his remarks, Cheney
offered discredited assertions with respect to the relationship between
interrogation techniques used at the detention facility at Guant namo
Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib prison; whether detainees provided information
without the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques"; and whether
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair supports the use of those
techniques.

For instance, Cheney claimed that "there has been a strange and
sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison
with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations." He continued:
"At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation
of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm
they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and
received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to
equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and
entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few
malevolent men."

However, as Media Matters for America documented, contrary to Cheney's
claim that Abu Ghraib and Guant namo were unfairly compared, a 2008
Senate Armed Services Committee report released jointly by chairman Carl
Levin (D-MI) and ranking member Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) concluded that
"Special Mission Unit (SMU) Task Force (TF) interrogation policies were
influenced by the Secretary of Defense's December 2, 2002 approval of
aggressive interrogation techniques for use at GTMO [Guant namo]. SMU TF
interrogation policies in Iraq included the use of aggressive
interrogation techniques such as military working dogs and stress
positions. SMU TF policies were a direct cause of detainee abuse and
influenced interrogation policies at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq."

The report also stated that "[i]nterrogation techniques such as
stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions,
and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only
after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO."

Moreover, Cheney suggested that detainees did not provide information
before "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used, claiming that
those techniques "were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts
failed." He later added that "with many thousands of innocent lives
potentially in the balance, we didn't think it made sense to let the
terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered
them at all."

However, as Media Matters noted, former FBI agent Ali Soufan -- who
interrogated Abu Zubaydah -- testified before a Senate Judiciary
subcommittee on May 13 about the success of non-harsh interrogation
methods, which he contrasted with the "ineffective" harsh techniques.
Soufan stated in his written testimony that "the Informed Interrogation
Approach outlined in the Army Field Manual is the most effective,
reliable, and speedy approach we have for interrogating terrorists. It
is legal and has worked time and again." He continued: "It was a mistake
to abandon it in favor of harsh interrogation methods that are harmful,
shameful, slower, unreliable, ineffective, and play directly into the
enemy's handbook."

Soufan pointed to "[t]he case of the terrorist Abu Zubaydah" as "a good
example of where the success of the Informed Interrogation Approach can
be contrasted with the failure of the harsh technique approach." Soufan
then presented a "timeline" of the Zubaydah interrogation, which he said
showed that "many of the claims made in the memos about the success of
the enhanced techniques are inaccurate." He added: "For example, it is
untrue to claim Abu Zubaydah wasn't cooperating before August 1, 2002.
The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first
hour of interrogating him."

Soufan also testified about other uses and successes of the informed
interrogation approach. He stated that his interrogation of Osama bin
Laden's former chief bodyguard, Nasser Ahmad Nasser al-Bahri, also known
as Abu Jandal, was "done completely by the book (including advising him
of his rights)," and that, from it, "we obtained a treasure trove of
highly significant actionable intelligence."

From the 11 a.m. hour of the May 21 edition of MSNBC Live:

MATTHEWS: Pat Buchanan, it's so ironic, having lived in this city during
those years, and certainly --

BUCHANAN: Right.

MATTHEWS: -- those ones after we went into Iraq -- and to have watched
this fearsome warfare between the vice president's office, led by Dick
Cheney there, and the CIA, to see him embrace the operatives of the CIA,
and claim that he is their supporter. It's strange --

BUCHANAN: Well, he not only --

MATTHEWS: -- strange move.

BUCHANAN: Well, he not only embraced them, he's emerged and cast himself
as their defender --

MATTHEWS: Right.

BUCHANAN: -- against these attacks. He just -- Chris, I'll tell you --

MATTHEWS: But the attacks aren't on the CIA. The attacks are on Dick
Cheney.

BUCHANAN: Well, look, what he's doing, though -- his attacks are on The
New York Times --

MATTHEWS: Right.

BUCHANAN: -- and the media and the Obama administration as dishonest,
deceitful, moralizing, not telling the whole truth. This was as rough,
as candid, as anecdotal, and even though it is not as elegant a speech
as Obama's, it is far more interesting.

We -- all of us were far more riveted, I think, here by what --

MATTHEWS: Right.

BUCHANAN: -- he was saying than what Obama was saying. And I tell you,
Cheney has emerged -- I don't know what the breakdown of the country is
-- he has emerged here as the leader of the tough line, we only 
waterboarded three of them. And I think -- I think the gauntlet was
really thrown down --

MATTHEWS: Right.

BUCHANAN: -- it has never yet been by Vice President Cheney.

From the May 21 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk:

TRACE GALLAGHER (co-host): And, of course, every point deserves a
counterpoint. No sooner did the president finish his speech, the former
vice president began his. Same subject: national security. And Dick
Cheney did not pull any punches, going after this administration while
strongly defending decisions made during the Bush administration.

CHENEY [video clip]: In top-secret meetings about enhanced
interrogations, I made my own beliefs clear. I was and remain a strong
proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were
used on hardened terrorists after other efforts had failed. They were
legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.

GALLAGHER: You heard it there, right: Cheney standing very firm, saying
flat out that these interrogation techniques kept millions of Americans
safe. Listen.

CHENEY [video clip]: And to call this a program of torture is to libel
the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives and to cast
terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What's more, to completely
rule out enhanced interrogation in the future is unwise in the extreme.
It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American
people less safe.

GALLAGHER: Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters is a Fox News strategic
analyst. And, Ralph, you heard the vice president, and I think he pretty
much laid it out clearly. He says, either you believe that the post-9-11
strategy of the Bush administration worked and kept us safe, or that 9-
11 was a fluke and these policies are no longer needed.

PETERS: Well, in the past, I have not been Vice President Cheney's
biggest fan. I have often criticized him. But in his speech today, every
single point he raised was accurate. I am 100 percent behind him on
this, because he's right. And President Obama, he didn't sound like our
president this morning. He sounded like a lawyer in a courtroom doing a
summation. He's not at the Harvard Law Review anymore. He's our
president. The election's over.

And President Obama needs to worry less about the rights of terrorists
and more about the right of the American people to live in security. And
this is getting utterly out of hand. It's -- it's crazy. Terrorists
don't have rights. Terrorists are outside the human community. They're
not prisoners of war. Obama's got it wrong. Cheney's got it right.

&mdash T.A.

Copyright (c) 2009 Media Matters for America

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