Surprise! You Still Don’t Know Dick!

A crucial CIA memo that has been cited by former Vice President Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials as justifying the effectiveness of waterboarding contained “plainly inaccurate information” that undermined its conclusions,  according to Justice Department investigators.

Cheney has publicly called for the release of the CIA’s still classified memo and another document… will bolster his claim that the rough interrogation tactics he vigorously pushed for…

…One key claim in the agency memo was that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogations of Zubaydah led to the capture of suspected “dirty bomb’ plotter Jose Padilla.   “Abu Zubaydah provided significant information on two operatives, Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohammed, who planned to build and detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ in the Washington DC area,” the CIA memo stated, according to the OPR report. “Zubaydah’s reporting led to the arrest of Padilla on his arrival in Chicago in May 2003 [sic].”

But as the Justice report points out, this was wrong.   “In fact, Padilla was arrested in May 2002, not 2003 … The information ‘[leading] to the arrest of Padilla’ could not have been obtained through the authorized use of EITs.” (The use of enhanced interrogations was not authorized until Aug. 1, 2002 and Zubaydah was not waterboarded until later that month.) “ Yet Bradbury relied upon this plainly inaccurate information” in two OLC memos that contained direct citations from the CIA Effectiveness Memo about the interrogations of Zubaydah, the Justice report states.

much more from Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff here.

“

… I don’t know where the claim comes that we are less safe. …

In eight years the military commissions have put three people on trial. Two of them served relatively short sentences and are free. One guy is in jail. Meanwhile the federal courts, our Article 3 regular legal court system has put dozens of terrorists in jail. They’re fully capable of doing it. So the suggestion that somehow a military commission is the way to go isn’t borne out by the history of the military commission.

…to suggest that somehow we have become much less safer because of the actions of the administration, I don’t think that’s borne out by the facts.

”

Colin Powell dismissed former Vice President Cheney’s claim that President Obama has made the nation less safe.

video and read more here

“

Well, I think he had his eight years and he’s caused a lot of trouble for our country and he perpetuated a war in Iraq that was unnecessary and wrong-headed. So I would say that it would be best he not be so critical right now. But I’m still not only critical of that policy — I think the policy remains the same and we’ve hear it on the show tonight already. They — they are going to attack us and they’ve declared war against us. And it’s always they and them. But — but who are they?

You know, after 9/11, 14 or 15 of the terrorists came from Saudi Arabia. I mean we didn’t attack Saudi Arabia, we attacked Iraq. So it — it doesn’t make sense.

”

Ron Paul sharply criticized former Vice President Cheney.

video here

“Politico is a news conduit for Dick Cheney” - Chris Matthews asked Politico’s Jonathan Martin today on Hardball.

thinkprogress

Good stuff here. Chris Matthews and CNN’s Rick Sanchez are the most confounding talking heads on cable news. Sometimes I love’em and other times I am blown away by their stupidity.

Rachel Maddow holds Dick Cheney and Republican opportunists to account for their shameless hypocrisy, distortions and outright lies in criticizing President Obama’s response to the attempted bombing of Flight 253 in the face of their abject, egregious failures to deal with terrorists threats to the United States when they were in power.

“He seems to think if he (Pres. Obama) closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war?”

Dick Cheney

I fuckin hate this man.

“I don’t know. You know, on the Internet there’s an acronym that’s used to apply to situations like this. It’s called “STFU.” I don’t think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means.”

Rep. Alan Grayson Telling former Vice President Dick Cheney to “STFU,”

Matthews: Well, give me the first part.

Grayson: “Shut.”

Matthews: Oh! I got you. Stop talking, in crude language. Well, I don’t think you’re gonna get him to do that.

tpm

“

You have to wonder if his (Dick Cheney) beef is with Barack Obama or with the American public? The quote that leapt out at me in the Politico interview was; ‘Here’s a guy (Obama) without much experience who campaigned about much of what we put in place and now travels around the world apologizing. I think our adversaries see that as a sign of weakness,’


Well, right, Mr. Former Vice President! He campaigned against what you did and he won the election! The American public decided that is what they wanted! They rejected your policies and voted in favor of his. So, is his beef with Barack Obama, or is it with the American public that chose the path Barack Obama laid out?

”

Michael Isikoff on Dick Cheney’s Politico interview .

via msnbc’s hardball earlier today.