Top Powell Aide Wilkerson: Torture Helped Build Iraq War Case

CNN :

Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday.
Dick Cheney's office ordered use of "alternative" techniques against CIA's recommendations, aide says.

The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it, Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and then-Vice President Cheney's office kept close tabs on the questioning.

Read the whole story: CNN

Comments

[PhilipTaylor]

Chainy (sic) will not let this go away - EVER!
Release all the files including his favorites!
Only FULL Investigation will make Chainy happy!

He needs his day in court so he can prove his case under oath! OR NOT!

[jrmac]

You folks are a bunch of whining cowards who just can't get over Bush. GET OVER IT. Start a clean slate. You've owned both houses of congress for over 2 years with zero results...ahhh...must be Bush again, hmmmm? You win the White and and have a veto proof margin in congress and you still spend most of your time whining about Bush. What have you done? Put the country in the deepest debt since the great depression. Wanting to print money to make everyone the same. That isn't the what America is about. It is about giving everyone the chance to be successful not making everyone the same.

GET OVER IT and start making a difference in the US. We are a great nation multi-cultural based. the ability to be successful is why the world likes to immigrate here. How many want to go live in Afghanastan or Libyia or Iran or North Korea. Whether you like it or not, Iraq is now one of the most stable countries in the middle east (except for Israel). Does it have problems...of course. Just like EVERY other country in the world.

Get over Bush, he's gone. And start being productive citizens instead of whiners. Support being an American which includes fighting for freedom.

Okay...off my soap box now and ready for the onslaught!

[TheLearnedEnglishDog]

s0ckpuppets are p u s s i es grow_a_pair, teabagger

[TheLearnedEnglishDog]

ps Iraq is a frigging disaster area, but Cheney make a lot of money, and we got a lot of new control over oil rights, so I'm sure that is the "success" which you are alluding to. So tell us about your experiences in Iraq

[Loompa]

Well jrmac, you are asking leftie wingnuts to become productive citizens - what would make them start now? Once a whiner, always a whiner!

[samlu1]

There were no commercial planes on 911. Get over it!!!!

[mb32]

Okay Progressives,
We must have justice. What's our action plan? I've signed petitions, emailed the White House and called my representatives on numerous issues including torture. But I feel like there needs to be a sustained on-the-street movement that the MSM, Congress and the White House can't ignore. Frankly, IMO, the White House is waiting on such a groundswell. Is there a march on Washington planned? A march on the Justice Dept? I've been looking for emails from organizations about action but have received nothing more than emails to sign online petitions. There is a lot of frustration online but I don't see it on the streets. Electing Barack was the easy part. Now the work begins for real. I know a lot of us are disappointed but I refuse to let hope die by sitting on the sidelines. And I refuse to give up after 4 months. It is far from over no matter what it looks like now. If anyone knows of a grassroots movement (besides the tea parties) please let us know. Maybe I'm naive but isn't there some way we can have universal health care, a new and fair economy, rational foreign policy initiatives and restore JUSTICE at the same time?

[tippydog11]

I believe Pelosi was a set after the fact, tortured first then briefed you think?

[Toker]

Why is my reply explaining and apologizing for a previous comment being blocked

[arethusa]

Unfortunately, the question of torture is so serious that I'm finding it difficult to laugh. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld have made all Americans complicit in something so horrible that it should make everyone sick. Torture is clearly delineated in national and international laws. It is morally abhorrent and contrary to all ethical strictures, whether rational or religious. We know it is wrong. We feel it is wrong. It is wrong. The Golden rule, which is an ethical guideline in many cultures tells us to "do unto others". Kant's great categorical imperative provides an even strong understanding of why torture is wrong.

[scjk67]

i knew it!!! the terrorist were being torture to get them to yes that al-Qaida is in Iraq, and yes that Iraq has WMD's. we went to war on false informations, the yellow cake uranium was a lie. its time to let the war crimes trials on Bush and his cabals!!

[Marcospinelli]

Now would be a good time to see the notes and minutes from Cheney's secret energy task force meetings.

[gconners]

We DO know that part of it was a map of Iraq's oil fields. That was out and online a few years ago. Don't know if it still is.

[hollybork]

If this allegation is true, then Vice Pres. Cheney must be prosecuted and sent to prison.

How can Eric Holder avoid investigating this? We must know whether torture was justified by sophistry, and callously used to extract bogus information for the reason that the Administration desired to build a case for a bogus war. That war ended killing 5,000 american soldiers and over 300,000 Iraqi's, so we are talking about what end justifying what means, exactly? Torture is justified so you can go on a fools errand into a foreign country that has a natural resource you want to secure for western oil companies.

No wonder Dick Cheney is acting so crazy lately. He must be very afraid.

[Emerald1943]

For all you defenders of torture, for all you Cheney-supporters, for all you rushbots who think that they "kept us safe", I dare you to read the following link.

http://thesidetrack.blogspot.com/2009/05/seymour-hersh-children-sodomized-at-abu.html

Then, I want you all to come back here and tell me how these kinds of actions endeared the Iraqis to our unjust cause. Tell me how the rape and torture of children in front of their mothers did not ultimately put our troops into more danger than they already faced. Tell me how this would surely not be the very best recruiting tool for AQ to use. Tell me how you would feel if one of those kids were your child!! I dare you!

[freethinkergirl]

I'm afraid that this is just the tip of the iceberg. It's almost like wer are seeing a "mass hysteria" type of situation in Iraq. When one does it, the others feel obliged or empowered by the group around them to also get involved, either emotionally or physically. We may be finding out so much more of what has really occurred for a long time in the future, as people start spilling their g.uts.

Unfortunately nothing surprises me anymore with regard to past actions by our troops and ally Iraqis. When act of t0rture is allowed and demanded by superiors, there is no longer accounting for, nor stopping any type of abhorrent behavior from the principles of law. Whenever I see D.I.C.K's snarled face I cringe with l0athing for that ev!l man.

This thread has been great, I see my friends responding with intelligent discourse. It seems that all the Tr0lls (and there seems to be a large group that just joined HP in the past 2 months) are slamming Pelosi on other threads with their ditt0head talking points and h@teful contemptuousness.

[DCX2]

_Finding_ a smoking gun? Try _fabricating_ a smoking gun. Using torture to generate the false confessions necessary to invade Iraq is just as bad as the cop planting the gun.

[hollybork]

Worse. It is something out of the torture annals of a sadistic militaristic reign, worthy of Mao, for instance, or Pol Pot.

[sticksnstones]

The stark reality that we, as a nation, are even having a debate with equivocating, torture advocates/apologists is the true legacy of the Bush years. Debate is fine. Debate which defends the indefensible is the legacy and the lunacy of the fringe authoritarian right, which, until recently, steered the Executive branch. Own it, all you thugs out there.

[lornejl]

Only maybe 5 percent of the country is informed, the rest are watching Idol.

[Rog49Thomas]

Check your US history - torture did not start in 2001.

The School of the Americas has been in business since 1947! A whole new twist on the "teach a man to fish" parable.

Google.

MK ULTRA

Vermont State Hospital http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008811300299

McGill University "Psychic driving" Dr. Cameron

[sticksnstones]

" Check your US history - torture did not start in 2001. "

Assumes I haven't checked my US history. I've been railing against the SofA since I first logged on to HuffPost. Check it out.

The sanctioned, advocated, approved, DOJ - memo - equivicated use of torture as an acceptable form of interrogation by the Executive branch is what is new since 2001.

[charon]

I agree and have made the same point in my comments elsewhere. However, there is a difference here that I think is important. The torturing done by graduates of the SOTA was not directly done by Americans (USeans if you prefer). It is possible, even likely, that some CIA sat in on some sessions at times, but not generally. Torture was still, for USeans, off limits and illegal.

The difference I see now is that it is being openly endorsed as a legitimate tactic by this evil sneering piece of work who ran our foreign policy under pretty boy Bush. Before it was hidden because it was universally condemned as wrong.

We must never let it be accepted as legitimate. We must let it be known that if people torture they must do it like the cockroaches they are, hidden in the dark, and if discovered they will be prosecuted and punished.

[AtomicSplash]

OrbitOne

For starters, she could have protested to the CIA, itself. She said she didn't protest NOT because she couldn't but because she said it would not have mattered. You need to learn to think, if possible

Posted 01:05 PM on 05/15/2009

_________________________________________________

I think, that the CIA only answers to the congress and not to single congressmen. Banned from speaking out and having the information that you conservatives were torturing, she could not do the only thing that would have mattered, informing congress. Which would have meant informing all of us.

[lornejl]

The CIA has a secret budget. How cool would that be ?

[jfrye]

Unfortunately, it wasn't conservatives that were torturing. It was Americans. The rest of the world could care less about our political parties.

This was done in all of our names.

[AtomicSplash]

The conservatives may claim to have done it in our names but they did so outside the mechanisms that the people have delegated to their government of the people. Done without our consent, we did not consent and can not be held responsible.

But they sure can be :-)

[rmax53]

More hypocrisy from conservatives....they say Nancy Pelosi is complicit in the knowledge that waterboarding was going on, yet they continue to deny that waterboarding is torture and as such is a crime.

If Pelosi is involved in criminal conspiracy, it's because Bush and Cheney et al. are criminals.

[kdublya]

Republicans are miserable & lonely. Won't you lend them a shoulder to cry on?

[Fightnmad]

You betcha. Pubbies have a way of adding 2 + 2 and getting 2.5 or 3 (depending on who's talking). Point is, they always miss the mark. Every. Single. Time.

[AtomicSplash]

conservative principles are at best, non existent.

[A Meat Beetle]

"More hypocrisy from conservatives...."


You were expecting something else?

[hollybork]

We all know the Pelosi thing is a red herring. She is acting guilty is the problem, stuttering, jittery, forgetting her place. That is what is bringing out the jackals.

[arethusa]

Rep. Pelosi has clearly and strongly voiced her recollections of a meeting that took place long ago. As usual the Republicans are trying to change the topic, first claiming torture is legal and then accusing Pelosi and other democrats as if it is unacceptable. Torture is immoral and illegal. Period. Furthermore, if you read the history of torture, going back to the Middle Ages and the Inquisition, it is clear that it produces only one thing--the story the interrogator wants.

[OneFluOverTheWooWoosNest]

I see Ramirez k icked rock after his little CMoO gaff.

[brynnrose thorn]

That one will haunt him as long as he is on this board. He's M.I.A. now, most likely knitting a new sock.

[greatlardini]

...possibly blowing up his Gret.a doll.

[lornejl]

You don't know Ramirez, he has been here forever. He will come back and spout the sameOldCrap.