As you know the evidence of a Saddam, al Qaeda relationship was extremely complicated and contradictory. Detainees usually said the two loathed each other but there were also too many detainees who said there was a relationship that included at least safehaven and funding and I’ve been writing about some of this at http://www.regimeofterror.com.

Of course none of this means you invade and occupy a country but the Saddam, al Qaeda argument is not as simple as “nothing to see here.”

I don’t think we can take what Wilkerson says without a heavy dose of salt. He is evidently the spokesperson for one governmental clique against another. Not that he doesn’t have some interesting things to say. But, how about this manifest piece of lying from the same Washington Note article by Wilkerson:

My investigations have revealed to me–vividly and clearly–that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering “the Cheney methods of interrogation”, simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009.

We should not be cherry-picking Wilkerson’s statements. There are plenty who would like to pin this all on Cheney. And why not, he’s guilty as hell. But the stink spreads much farther, into the rarified realms of the Pentagon, as well, also the FBI, and on into civil society (APA, universities, etc.). No one will come out of this clean, as the Democrats are going to have to deal with the Pelosi factor (I believe she is basically telling the truth, but that truth is damning enough, in that she followed the rules at a time when basic morality called for breaking the rules, a la Nuremberg.)

Look back pre-Team B era, to the world of MKULTRA, ONI research into sensory deprivation, KUBARK, School of the Americas, etc.

Wilkerson wants to expose and bring down the “secret cabal” (his words, not mine) of Cheney/Rumsfeld, operating outside regular government channels, and then manipulating same. BUT, he also wants to preserve the status quo and “normal” government/military functioning. He’s a reformer, of sorts, but doesn’t realize how much these “cabals” are incubated in the attitudes and crimes of the regular government/military functioning. For him, “torture” was the “cabal’s” EIT. All the other stuff, the current Army Field Manual, etc., is NOT torture, etc.

Invading Afghanistan, the first Iraq War, etc. This is the kind of world he wants to save from the maniacs (as he sees it). Most of all, he wants to keep us from realizing that the government is quite vulnerable to the action of cliques, acting in profound ways inside the government, and that the consequences of these actions are devastating, kills hundreds of thousands, if not millions, leads to torture, etc. Then we would see the system is not what it pretends to be, is quite unstable.

It might be a good idea to separate what al-Libi is reported to have said, when, and when this was told to Powell, versus when he was waterboarded and whether he revealed the recanted al Qaeda-Iraq connection under waterboarding or prior to that. I know the point of the torture was to produce such a connection, but it might not have been necessary to waterboard al-Libi to get him to say ’yes’ to the suggestion of the ’connection’. The assumption that al-Libi only provided the ’smoking gun’ connection after being waterboarded may be misleading.

I write this because others who were not waterboarded were tortured into agreeing to whatever was suggested, such as Binyam Mohammed confessing to being in cahoots with José Padilla and the ’dirty bomb’ plot, which even Paul Wolfowitz later admitted never existed.

So I’m just suggesting to make a time line (if possible) which separates out the waterboarding of al-Libi from whenever the products of his torture (in general) may have been revealed to Powell or anyone else.

there is cheney’s team b, this team was put together by cheney/rumsfeld during nixon to unvent data intended to undermine nixon’s detante

google that, you will be amazed

then there are the professionals that actually analize real data, the two are not the same though they work in the same agency

here’s a primer on team b and be amazed that article was written BEFORE we went into Iraq on the falsified cheney data

I was wondering if they cannot admit certain things but want them discovered and they want the connections to people who originated the illegal nasties to be exposed, as you say.

So, iow, we have issued a report that we do not stand by, we might be right, we might be wrong, it’s up to you guys to figure it out, we’re professional misinformation artists and you have to figure out if we’re lying now or not, and we stand by this statement that you need to verify our report.

That’s pushback against Pelosi, to be sure. But that’s not all it is. The agency also restated the agency’s earlier unwillingness to vouch for the overall reliability of what the docs say about what happened. He’s saying, in effect, that only Congress can determine the truth about what members of Congress were told.

That’s not a call for a Congressional probe. But it does seem like a suggestion that such a probe is the only way the truth can be established. If nothing else, the CIA is redoubling its efforts to distance itself from the political charges some are making — on the basis of CIA info — about who knew what and when about torture.

I say it is a call for an investigation and I believe the professionals in the organization want the entire affair exposed

this might be code for;

“please help us out here”

I sure hope congress recognizes that or takes it as a plea for help even if it’s not

team b is in the cia but they’re morons running around mucking up the works

the real inteligence is with the professionals and this might be them asking for some congressional help exposing team b

Panetta issued a statement to his troops about an hour ago

Greg Sargent