The "Torture 13"

marcy wheeler (emptywheel at firedoglake) writing in salon via alternet, does her usual thorough job laying out the case against the usual suspects...

1. Dick Cheney, vice president (2001-2009)
2. David Addington, counsel to the vice president (2001-2005), chief of staff to the vice president (2005-2009)
3. Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel (2001-2005), and attorney general (2005-2008)
4. James Mitchell, consultant
5. George Tenet, director of Central Intelligence (1997-2004)
6. Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor (2001-2005), secretary of state (2005-2008)
7. John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel (2001-2003)
8. Jay Bybee, assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel (2001-2003)
9. William "Jim" Haynes, Defense Department general counsel (2001-2008)
10. Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense (2001-2006)
11. John Rizzo, CIA deputy general counsel (2002-2004), acting general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency (2001-2002, 2004-present)
12. Steven Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general, OLC (2004), acting assistant attorney general, OLC (2005-2009)
13. George W. Bush, president (2001-2009)

memorize these names... i want to be around to post on them again when they start doing time...

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed got waterboarded ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-THREE TIMES IN ONE MONTH...?!?!? [UPDATE: Doing the math]

call me naive, but when i've considered the use of waterboarding and the horrific sense of imminent death by drowning it produces in the victim, i thought that applying that particular torture technique to someone a very few times would be the maximum terror "our guys" would permit any one individual to be exposed to, but

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-THREE...!!!

i knew we had crossed the line from interrogators to torturers... i didn't know we had further crossed the line into being monsters...

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month By: emptywheel Saturday April 18, 2009 11:57 am

I've put this detail in a series of posts, but it really deserves a full post. According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

On page 37 of the OLC memo, in a passage discussing the differences between SERE techniques and the torture used with detainees, the memo explains:

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

Note, the information comes from the CIA IG report which, in the case of Abu Zubaydah, is based on having viewed the torture tapes as well as other materials. So this is presumably a number that was once backed up by video evidence.

The same OLC memo passage explains how the CIA might manage to waterboard these men so many times in one month each (though even with these chilling numbers, the CIA's math doesn't add up).

...where authorized, it may be used for two "sessions" per day of up to two hours. During a session, water may be applied up to six times for ten seconds or longer (but never more than 40 seconds). In a 24-hour period, a detainee may be subjected to up to twelve minutes of water appliaction. See id. at 42. Additionally, the waterboard may be used on as many as five days during a 30-day approval period.

So: two two-hour sessions a day, with six applications of the waterboard each = 12 applications in a day. Though to get up to the permitted 12 minutes of waterboarding in a day (with each use of the waterboard limited to 40 seconds), you'd need 18 applications in a day. Assuming you use the larger 18 applications in one 24-hour period, and do 18 applications on five days within a month, you've waterboarded 90 times--still just half of what they did to KSM.

oh, my dear lord, have mercy on my country and my fellow countrymen... we've fallen into the blackest of holes and may never find our way back...

[UPDATE]

i just did the math... 183 times over the space of a 30-day month equates to over SIX TIMES A DAY...! i'm simply stunned... words cannot express the depth of my revulsion...

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More from the Constitution Subcommittee hearings on domestic spying

from think progress and the nyt...

Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC):
I’m not asking you to make anything public. I’m asking you, does that mean that the former attorney general had some reservations about — legal reservations about some aspects of the program, Mr. Bradbury?

Principal deputy assistant attorney general and the head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury:
Well, all I’ll say is what the attorney general has said, which is that disagreements arose, disagreements were addressed and resolved; however, those disagreements did not — were not about the particular activities that the president has publicly described, that we have termed the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Bradbury’s testimony contradicts what Alberto Gonzales said just last week. Gonzales claimed that former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony about Ashcroft’s reservations related to the “program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago.”

So, if Gonzales is telling the truth, Bradbury misled Congress under oath. If Bradbury is telling the truth, it means that Gonzales has again lied about the controversy surrounding the administration’s spying efforts. Moreover, if Bradbury is correct that Ashcroft’s disagreements were not about the NSA warrantless wiretapping program, that must mean other spying programs exist.

any way you slice it, it's lies, lies, and more lies... speaking for myself, i have no doubt whatsoever that intensive, in-depth domestic surveillance is being conducted and has been for some time, extending back prior to the clinton administration...

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More subpoenas - Leahy's got Nadler's back

all i have to say is this...

NO MORE SUBPOENAS WITHOUT ENFORCEMENT...!

"The warrantless wiretapping program has operated for over five years outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and without the approval of the FISA Court. The Committee has continued to ask for the legal justification for this sweeping and secret program, and has continually been rebuffed by inadequate and at times, misleading, responses from this Justice Department," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement sent to RAW STORY. "The information we have requested has been specific to the legal justification for this program and is firmly within the Committee’s oversight jurisdiction."

[...]

In a hearing Thursday afternoon at the House Judiciary Committee, a Justice Department official refused to turn over President Bush's legal justification for the warrantless spying program.

"Those [Office of Legal Counsel opinions] reflect the internal confidential legal advice of the executive branch," said Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. "We are citing the confidentiality interests that the executive branch has in internal confidential deliberative advice of the executive branch."

The program is operated by the National Security Agency and legally certified by the Justice Department.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who chairs the subcommittee on constitutional issues and is investigating the program, slammed the Bush White House's actions in warrantless eavesdropping.

"We rejected monarchy in this country more than 200 years ago...This President appears to have forgotten that fact," he said in his opening statement. "Not only has he asserted the right to go around the FISA Court and the Wiretap Act, but he has actually done so."

Nadler went further in an earlier interview with Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall.

"This entire warrantless wiretapping is illegal and the President and Attorney General are engaged in a criminal conspiracy. I mean, to me this is worse than Watergate," he said in the video interview.

(click here to watch...)

< sigh > let's get this constitutional crisis party started, fercryinoutloud...

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Yet another stage from which to ignite the constitutional crisis

i posted yesterday on jerry nadler's subcommittee hearing on the issue of warrantless domestic spying... i neglected to mention that it could provide yet another launchpad for the constitutional crisis - IF nadler doesn't wuss out like his colleagues seem to be doing...

Senior House Democrats threatened Thursday to issue subpoenas to obtain secret legal opinions and other documents from the Justice Department related to the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program.

If the Democrats take that step, it would mark the most aggressive action yet by Congress in its oversight of the wiretapping program and could set the stage for a constitutional showdown over the separation of powers.

let's get on with it, ferchrissake...

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The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution swings into action

NOW, we're talkin'... here nadler questions steven bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general office of legal counsel about warrantless domestic wiretapping and starts to zero in on big-time...

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today held a hearing titled, "Oversight Hearing on the Constitutional Limitations on Domestic Surveillance," to examine the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program and the Administration’s proposals for expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The hearing, the first examination of the issue by the House this Congress, is part of a broader series of hearings called, "The Constitution in Crisis: The State of Civil Liberties in America."

"The time has come to void the blank check the White House has enjoyed for the last six years," said Rep. Nadler. "Today’s hearing will examine the legal reasoning behind the Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program that operated without judicial check for years and the recent decision to place it under the ‘approval’ of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Let me be clear: We are not seeking the blueprints to this program – no one wants to expose sources and methods in a public forum. But I do expect honest and forthright answers concerning the legal justifications for the Administration’s actions."

Nadler questions Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Office of Legal Counsel U. S. Department of Justice.

nadler isn't cutting bradbury any slack... he's going right after the aumf and the lack of legal constitutional basis for the program... give it a look...

thanks to empty wheel at the next hurrah, who offers this concluding comment...

But at least, from the looks of things, we now have someone focusing on where the real abuse of power all starts, with Vice President Cheney.

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