Hoekstra: Capitol Hill a glass house on interrogations

If crimes were committed, then members of Congress, the White House, CIA leadership and the interrogators are the ones who have to answer for them, and we can only know that when all of the data is revealed. If Obama’s not willing to do that, then he never should have opened that can of worms in the first place.

Nuff said.

milwife88 on April 23, 2009 at 8:55 AM

This is spot on.
Not one liberal has addressed the fact that Obama is purposely withholding information.
The Obama administration is doing exactly what liberals accuse everybody else of doing,hiding the truth.
RELEASE ALL THE MEMOS LIBERALS.
Is it too much to ask that Obama at least try to keep one of his campaign promises,like maybe transparency and accountability.

Here are some of the democrats that approved of these methods:

What Congress Knew About ‘Torture’

Beginning in 2002, Nancy Pelosi and other key Democrats (as well as Republicans) on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were thoroughly, and repeatedly, briefed on the CIA’s covert antiterror interrogation programs. They did nothing to stop such activities, when they weren’t fully sanctioning them. If they now decide the tactics they heard about then amount to abuse, then by their own logic they themselves are complicit. Let’s review the history the political class would prefer to forget.

Along with:
(D) Sen. John D. Rockefeller
(D) Bob Graham
(D) Jane Harmen
(D) Nancey Pelosi

In the spirit of honest discloser,democrats should release all transcripts of these meetings where elected members supported 100% these interrogation procedures.

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels’ Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664_pf.html

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

While democrats are working out yet another “war on Bush” distraction from the circus that has become of the Obama administration,maybe they could explain the support of these policies from these entities:

The Obama administration’s top intelligence official privately told employees last week that “high value information” was obtained in interrogations that included harsh techniques approved by former President George W. Bush.

“A deeper understanding of the al-Qaida network” resulted, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said in the memo, in which he added, “I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past.” The Associated Press obtained a copy.

Hayden: Chain of Interrogations Yielded Bulk of Intelligence Knowledge

The former head of the CIA told FOX News last year that five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, 60 percent of the knowledge of the U.S. intelligence community about Al Qaeda came from enhanced interrogation techniques.

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) — including the use of waterboarding — caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

Audio: Clinton endorses “torture” in special cases;
posted at 12:30 am on October 19, 2006 by Allahpundit
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/10/19/audio-clinton-endorses-torture-in-special-cases/

Bill Clinton’s party screamed loud and long about how the [detainee] bill enabled torture and departed from the Geneva Conventions. Russ Feingold described this legislation as “a stain” on our history, one we would regret, and soon. Yet none of these Democrats had anything to say when their last occupant of the White House not only endorsed torture but also a protocol for covering one’s butt after the fact.

The best part is at the very end, where Billy Jeff chuckles at the notion that anyone would oppose torture in a true ticking bomb situation.

Here are procedures approved by Bill Clinton:

Officials call operation one of the agency’s great successes

By Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg80840.html

Interrogation of terrorist suspect Shawki Salama Attiya

Several days later, he was taken, handcuffed and blindfolded, to the
abandoned air base, north of Tirana. “There, a private plane was waiting
for me,” he said in his confession. Once in Cairo, he was blindfolded again
and driven to Egypt’s state security offices on July 2, 1998.

“Since then,
the interrogations have not stopped,” he said.
Attiya later told his lawyer, Hafez Abu-Saada, that while being questioned,
he was subjected to electrical shocks to his genitals, suspended by his
limbs, dragged on his face, and made to stand for hours in a cell, with
filthy water up to his knees. Abu-Saada, who represented all five members
of the Tirana cell, subsequently recorded their complaints in a published
report.

Justice Dept.

Consider the Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005. It notes that “the CIA believes ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.’ . . . In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques.” The memo continues: “Before the CIA used enhanced techniques

. . .

KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon you will find out.’ ” Once the techniques were applied, “interrogations have led to specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general increase in the amount of intelligence regarding al Qaeda and its affiliates.”

Hillary Clinton leaves open the use for these measures

On an earlier occasion, she had held that there were “very rare” instances in which severe interrogation methods might be necessary and that the United States needs “lawful authority” to engage in them in cases involving an “imminent threat to millions of Americans.”

Obama leaves open the use for these measures

Barack Obama responded by declaring that we cannot “have the president of the United States state as a matter of policy that there is a loophole or an exception where we would sanction torture.” He then shifted, in the very same breath, to state that “there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals, an emergency situation, and I will make that judgment at that time.” In other words, he wants to preserve the very same loophole for which he lambastes President Bush.

Panetta: Rendition Will Continue, Would Ask Obama to Authorize Harsher Interrogation Methods “If Necessary”

Panetta also says that rendition will continue under the Obama administration

Panetta said he would if necessary ask Obama to allow harsher interrogations than those covered by the Army Field Manual, which the president last month set as the government standard. The manual bans techniques such as waterboarding.

“I would not hesitate,” to seek broader interrogation authority, Panetta said, adding “I think that this president would do nothing that would violate the laws that are in place.”

Yes, let’s have a “we support torture” party.
It will practically look like the DNC Convention with so many liberals attending that use and support these methods.

Baxter Greene on April 23, 2009 at 11:41 AM