Wow!

Attack, man, atTACK!

Everyone sees Marcy’s post on this, right?

Excellent piece Spencer!

Pre-AGAG, makes sense since he was a tool.

Thanks..good NPR report on this. A concluding snark/condemnation in the report that if Gonzales was giving legal advice here the whole agency/govt. apparatus was broken. Conclusion on last 8 years, yes? Thank you for your work.

According to Angler, when the DOJ wouldn’t sign off on warrantless wiretaps in March 2004, Addington replaced the line on the authorization form reserved for a DOJ signature with a line for Gonzales to sign.

Sounds like that March 11, 2004 signature might not have been the first time Gonzales signed off on things for which he had no authority.

No, but I’m on it now. You two ought to be in pictures! *g*

real nicccce.

Yep. Just came over here from there.

Bob in HI

..good NPR report on this.

Ari Shapiro is one of NPR’s best young reporters. He gives me hope that the whole shop won’t just turn into Jim Lehrer. Besides, now perhaps NPR feels like it has a little more elbow room.

Bob in HI

That’s a great catch, Peterr. I wonder if this incident was the prologue to subbing AG for Comey on the surveillance programs.

Speaking of Did you read this post or that post, I’ve been wondering lately if there is generally fewer commenters here lately. I know there are some threads that get a lot of comments, but it seems to me that there are times when it gets quiet. I’m just wondering what other long time pups think.
Bush gone? Focus on certain issues too much? I don’t know, which is why I’m asking you, all.

Could the torture communications maybe corroborate the allegation that there were live streaming video hook-ups for the torture sessions in the White House and the Vice President’s office?

Averbeck is also considered a technical expert on Internet live stream technology. WMR previously reported that Connell had contracts for web site development for the CIA and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We have now learned that Connell and Averbeck may have been behind the installation of live streaming black boxes in the White House and the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building used to stream live video of torture sessions in Guantanamo, Cuba and Abu Ghraib to the Old Executive Office Building office of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief Counsel David Addington and into the White House, itself.

Media reports of torture sessions being taped may have been planted by the White House to deter investigators away from looking at live streaming capabilities in the offices of Cheney and President Bush.

The fire that broke out in an “electrical closet” in the Old Executive Office Building on December 19, 2007, near Cheney’s ceremonial office likely contained the live streaming boxes used to stream torture sessions from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, according to our sources who added that SmartTech and Airnet have been in the live streaming video business since 2002.

Time to cook dinner!

From pages 111-112 of the DOJ OIG’s report on “A Review of the FBI’s Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq” dated May 2008:

…Within a few days, CIA personnel assumed control over the interviews, although they asked Gibson and Thomas to observe and assist. Gibson told the OIG that the CIA interrogators said Zubaydah was only providing “throw-away information” and that they needed to diminish his capacity to resist.

Thomas described for the OIG the techniques that he saw the CIA interrogrators use on Zubaydah after they took control of the interrogation. [Several sentences redacted] Thomas said he raised objections to these techniques to the CIA and told the CIA it was “borderline torture.”42 He stated that Zubaydah was responding to the FBI’s rapport-based approach before the CIA assumed control over the interrogation, but became uncooperative after being subjected to the CIA’s techniques.

During his interview with the OIG, Gibson did not express as much concern about the techniques used by the CIA as Thomas did. Gibson stated, however, that during the period he was working with the CIA, [the rest of the paragraph - multiple sentences redacted].

Footnote 42 [redacted in its entirety]

[redaction continued] Gibson said that the CIA personnel assured him that the procedures being used on Zubayda had been approved “at the highest levels” and that Gibson would not get in any trouble. [the rest of the paragraph - multiple sentences redacted].

Thomas communicated his concerns about the CIA’s methods to the FBI Counterterrorism Assistant Director Pasquale D’Amuro by telephone. D’Amuro and Thomas told the OIG that D’Amuro ultimately gave the instruction that Thomas and Gibson should come home and not participate in the CIA interrogation. However, Gibson and Thomas provided the OIG differing accounts of the circumstances of their departure from the CIA facility where Zubaydah was being interrogated. Thomas stated that D’Amuro instructed the agents to leave the facility immediately and that he complied.

However, Gibson said he was not immediately ordered to leave the facility. Gibson said that he remained at the CIA facility until some time in early June 2002, several weeks after Thomas left, and that he continued to work with the CIA and participate in interviewing Zubaydah. Gibson stated that he kept Frahm informed of his activities with the CIA by means of several telephone calls, which Frahm confirmed. Gibson stated the final decision regarding whether the FBI would continue to participate in the Zubaydah interrogations was not made until after Gibson returned to the United States for a meeting about Zubaydah.

Gibson stated that after he returned to the United States he told D’Amuro that he did not have a “moral objection” to be present for the CIA techniques because the CIA was acting professionally and Gibson himself had undergone comparable harsh interrogation techniques as part of U.S. Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training. Gibson said that after a meeting with the CIA, D’Amuro told him that he would not be returning to the Zubaydah interview…

(My Bold)

This would appear to be the corroboration for your first bolded section. The DOJIG report doesn’t give the clearest narrative and timeline — you’re reading about Abu Z in chapter four and then again in chapter 11, for instance — but what else could count as “the highest levels”?

Devil’s advocate options: (1) CIA misunderstood or misrepresented its authorization; (2) CIA never recognized the controlling legal authority of the White House counsel’s office, since… it doesn’t, like, have any.

Good q demi, I’ve looked at that also but not thought about it.,

For me, lots of issues and things in the planet to watch, wander, wonder and worry about.

So I tend to latch to that which GETS to me, and to do that, I wander.

There’s such a wealth and dearth of things to worry about, from banking/financial, to big agra, to war machine, to paid and bought pols, big biz, pentagon, and our own government run amuk, that it’s hard to keep up with it all from any one site . . . . or 20 sites. *G*

So, MY response to your posit, is I wander, a lot, in search of info . . .

And FDL is one of the sites i wander to, often . . . more often, lately, I have less to comment on, than I have need to read, and absorb other comments in posts I read . . .

And I always get a mind full in here . . . be it Spencer’s, Tbogg’s, or EW’s, or any other FDL hatchling.

But for some things, I go elsewhere . . . I think, keeping up on all I want to know, I tend to comment less.

Make any sense to ya? Thanks for asking . . . .

Thank you for your honesty.
Sometimes no response says a lot. Meaning, everyone else besides dear cooking Raven. Still.
Oh well.

You’re welcome. But, during those times when there were a lot of comments, weren’t there also lots of things to check out? Lots of issues on the plate now, as well as then, so I’m still wondering.

No one here has been an intelligence officer.

No one here has accepted what it is to lie as a matter of course.

Everyone here expects truth, as a matter of course.

If you are an army intelligence officer, you lie. You lie as to your identity, as to the work you do, as to everything, except what you report to the person higher up the food chain.

Heck, we shoveled a truck load of dirt over to the community garden after work and NOW flippin the flapjacks. It’s

summertime
summertime
sum sum summertime!

all this depressing shit will be here when we gat back!

Say what? There is an intelligence section, S-2, in every Army Unit. It’s not some big secret.

You are assuming a lot.
You could be right, you could be mistaken.
Whatever.

Great post Spencer. This bit from the end of Ari Shapiro’s interview appears to be key:

“I can’t believe the CIA would have settled for a piece of paper from the counsel to the president,” says one former government official familiar with those discussions.

“If that were true,” says the former official, “then the whole legal and policy review process from April through August would have been a complete charade.”

A charade indeed. The torture regime was up and going, all the legal niceties were entirely beside the point. Torture was a foregone conclusion, so yes, the legal and policy review process was a charade. Had those within the administration given a damn about what was legal and what was not, torture could not have been approved. For anyone who participated in the process to think otherwise requires some pretty serious self-delusion.

I’m cooking pork chops.
PS I’m never sure how much sarcasm or reality are in your comments.

There were, are, certain issues that capture large audiences.

There are, certain times when the FDL pups seem to come out and romp.

And, the world is more complex, even from a year ago.

And, there are more sources for the world’s issues than a year ago.

The blogosphere, and the world, is growing as it all shrinks . . . *G*

And people have personal issues and priorities, that change, also . . .

Mz Hamsher, and her coherts, have done much to capture our attention.

And I want to extend my laurel and hardy appreciation to those who comment. I’ve learned so much, and found so many links, from comment efforts, that are just off the hook good as the source threads are. Truly, a HUGE and great and knowledgeable community in here that shares what they know.

You folks, you make the rest of us, better than we are on our own, and I thank you all for it. I’d list people, but it’s endless . . . and ’sides, if ya commented here, yer on the list . . *G*

I think they still get it . . . . cuz after some tweaks and changes, from two to three years ago, FDL has emerged to be a leader of information gathering and sharing . . . . and I’ve realized that’s what I want from a blog.

I want info. I want knowledge I can’t get elsewhere.

But, to fill my belly full of want of knowledge, I still have to roam and wander.

Koz is Koz, and others are others.

FDL has it’s place, and it’s a prominent one, methinks. Mz Hamsher has worked hard to define this here niche.

I wasn’t always for it, but I am now . . . . *G* .

Ummm, pork chops!! *G*

You cooking inside, or outside?

Man there’s a million ways to do them . . . .

What’s yer way? *G

That would really surprise me. Wouldn’t Bush and Cheney have preferred plausible deniability?

Then again, I haven’t seen that account before. Where’s it from?

Dipped in egg and flour and then pan fried.
That’s tonight. Next time could be barbequed.

…Devil’s advocate options: (1) CIA misunderstood or misrepresented its authorization; (2) CIA never recognized the controlling legal authority of the White House counsel’s office, since… it doesn’t, like, have any.

Or

(3) Alberto “Fredo” Gonzales misrepresented his own authority as White House Counsel.

(4) Alberto “Fredo” Gonzales did not misrepresent his approvals back to the CIA folks because his boss, Dubya was told and gave the go-ahead.

(5) (4) Alberto “Fredo” Gonzales did misrepresent the approvals because Dick Cheney and David Addington gave him the go-ahead, and they had no such authority.

With those, I think we’ve about got it all covered. *g*

Yep. That’s been my experience too. How ’bout that?

Seasonings, beside salt and pepper?

*G*

I’m outta here, time to tend to home stuff . . .

Pleasure chattin with ya, and reading all the others on this thread.

Man, we gotta keep the pressure on the PTB, or we won’t get any change at all . . . .

Rawhk On Pups . . *G*

Yeah, that about runs the gamut.

I know you’re gone, but just lemon pepper.
It’s always nice when we can chat. Too. And, also. *g*

Spencer, I want to compliment both you and EW for jumping on this latest find!

Now having said that, I found this ABC News report, dated May 12, 2009 that had already identified Fredo as the source of the “approvals” for Abu Zubaydah’s intial torture regime:

As President Bush’s top lawyer, Alberto Gonzales pressed counterterror officials to use brutal interrogation techniques on terror suspect Abu Zubaydah in 2002, even when those techniques hindered Zubaydah’s cooperation, a former FBI agent who was present is expected to testify Wednesday before Congress…

…”We’re the United States, we don’t do this,” Soufan is said to have told the CIA officers. According to the former operative, the CIA officer told Soufan, “It’s coming from Alberto Gonzales.” Gonzales was then White House counsel to President George W. Bush. Later, he would become Attorney General…

None hatsoever!

Page 3 of the SSCI torture narrative. In April 2002 “attorneys from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel began discussions with the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council and OLC concerning the CIA’s proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah and legal restrictions on that interrogation. CIA records indicate that the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council briefed the National Security Adviser, Deputy National Security Adviser, and Counsel to the President, as well as the Attorney General and the head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.”

It is from a 12/23/08 post by Wayne Madsen on http://www.waynemadsenreport.com, entitled, “Connell’s high-tech network active against Gore in 2000″.

If you cannot access on the site, you could email wmreditor@waynemadsenreport.com. I have brought this up before on FDL, but no one seems to believe it. There’s so much incredible stuff these “evil-doers” have dredged up…one has to just not be afraid of the facts.

A most excellent set of fingerprints you have there Spencer! *g*

So, if folks like the Attorney General were in the loop, just WTF was Fredo doing authorizing this CIA torture as White House Counsel?

Or was AG Ashcroft deliberately bailing, knowing full well that someday the chickens would come home to roost?

Shorter AG Ashcroft: “Not my fookin’ fingerprints! No fookin’ way!”

Steve Kleinman, an Air Force Reserve colonel and a trained interrogator affiliated with the military office that oversees the SERE program, told me last week that the real linchpins here aren’t Mitchell and his SERE colleague, Bruce Jessen, but the senior CIA officials who gave them contracts in late 2001 and “brought [them] in with eyes wide open, to run an interrogation program.” These logs give Kleinman more support for that proposition.

spence, you MUST look into “team b”, a faction of the CIA brought in by Rumsfeld/Cheney (Cheney was the underling) way back when Nixon left office in shame

both were members of Nixon’s staff however when ford took over they set in motion a series of events to undermine Nixon’s treaty of détente

check out important points from tom hartmann

this team created false information, information the actual analysts from the CIA called ridiculous

I believe they are the “Cheney leave behinds” that are responsible for the current “CIA issues”, in my mind almost certainly created by “team b” and not the professionals

….just WTF was Fredo doing authorizing this CIA torture as White House Counsel?

The simple answer is that AlbearTOE was grooming himself to become Atty General by doing Bush’s dirty work (as he had done for years back in Texas). Jackass Pious Republican as he was, Eagle Sore Ashcroft was still not willing to play 24/7 Bushball. As we know, AlbearTOE was.